Poland have had their highs and lows in Eurovision, with the best result of 2nd place from their debut year of 1994. If they don’t reach the final, they’re usually not that far off, and since their return to the contest in 2014, they’ve managed to reach the final each year. This year, a national final was used to select their act, and the winner of the final was Kasia Moś with the song Flashlight, but will it shine amongst the other Eurovision acts?
Since their return, the only polish song I’ve thought was truly worthy of a spot in the final was the 2014 entry, and this year, unfortunately the Polish song is going in my forgettable basket. There’s something really distancing about this song that isn’t allowing me to actually connect, and I think that’s due to the fact that there isn’t really a strong chorus. Each element of the song blends into each other, and not in a good way, as it makes it feel like 3 minutes of the same thing. Kasia is a very capable singer, and her live performance in terms of vocals is great, but the song just leaves you cold. It doesn’t really feel like a song that was written naturally, but instead feels forced, and as an audience member you almost feel forced to like it, but I just can’t enjoy this. It’s fine, but it really isn’t anything spectacular, and I think that shows in the fact that immediately after listening to this song, I forget what it sounds like, and that’s not really a good thing in Eurovision where each song is competing against the others for votes.
Although this song does nothing for me, I can see it qualifying to the final. Poland will stage this in a beautiful way, and I’ll be surprised if they don’t do something fairly spectacular with it. A mixture of great staging and her vocals might actually distract viewers from the fact that this song has nothing memorable about it. Add in a whole bunch of diaspora votes, particularly with the UK voting in that semi, and I think Poland is a fairly confident qualifier, although I don’t believe it really deserves the spot with a whole bunch of great songs in the semi-final.
Overall, it comes as no surprise that this isn’t going to get a lot of love from me. There are some killer power ballad style songs in the first semi-final, ranging from Georgia, Albania, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and all of these songs are more charming and offer something unique or more impressive than this song can offer. Sometimes great vocals aren’t enough to love a song, and Flashlight is a great example of that for me. Overall, I’m giving this a 2/10.
