Eurovision Throwback: Safura – Drip Drop

Azerbaijan made their Eurovision debut in 2008, and very quickly found the Eurovision formula which brings them success each and every year. Today we’re looking back at their 2010 entry, and by that point, the nation had already achieved two top 10 results, with their 2009 entry finishing in 3^rd place. They were off to a good start, and it was up to the young Safura to continue these good results with the song Drip Drop.

The song, which was written by a primarily Swedish team is, well, very Swedish. It’s a fairly generic sounding ballad with no real cultural identity, and no overwhelmingly special moments. The melody is nice, and works well with the emotionally fuelled lyrics of the song. The live performance has its moments, and for the most part I think Safura’s vocals are good, however something just doesn’t sit right with the backing singers. At times they sound completely off, and the backing track sounds so low in volume that you can’t not hear the off notes.

That brings me to the next point, which is that the backing music of the song feels very two dimensional. For me, it feels as if something is missing from the music, and in turn it makes the performance as a whole feel incomplete. Fast forward to 2012, where Sabina Babayeva performed When The Music Dies – a song similar in terms of it being written by the same team as Drip Drop, but yet featured traditional Azerbaijani instrumentation which gave the song an incredible sound that felt distinctly Azerbaijani. If Drip Drop had included some of these elements, I think the song would have reached higher than 5^th.

At the time, it was a song that I really did enjoy. The lyrics resonated, and although I wasn’t really captivated by the choreography, I wasn’t one to complain when they received 5^th place. Looking back now, I do feel like it wasn’t as good as I had remembered it to be, and I think that’s mainly due to the fact that it does feel quite two dimensional.

I’m going to give the song 7/10, I think it was above average, but there were better on the night.