National Final Throwback – Ryk – You And I

Today’s National Final Throwback doesn’t take us back too far, but since this song was specially requested, I’ll be taking a closer look and sharing my thoughts! We’re looking closer at the German National Final of 2018, which as we know was won by Michael Schulte, but we are looking at one of his competitors, Ryk to be exact with the song You and I.

Admittedly, I hadn’t heard this track before. I’ll blame it on the fact that there are countless national final songs to listen to, and it’s hard to keep up with everything that’s happening! In a sense, that makes this review a true first impressions!

And my first impression is….

Well, actually, I have mixed feelings about this entry. I think the song opens incredibly well. The performance is minimal and attention grabbing even from the first few seconds. If you were a fan of Norma John at Eurovision, this feels like it’s in a similar stream, but pushed even more in the indie direction.

The first verse is impeccable, reaching the chorus, it’s growing and shows big potential for the remainder of the song, but I find that the song does flat-line to some degree. Using the Norma John comparison again, I found Blackbird to do the same thing, so for some viewers, they can appreciate the minimalist nature of the song, but for others, it would be easy to drift away.

The song does grow slightly, mostly due to the increased instrumentation and the bigger notes scattered throughout, but I think for Eurovision, the lack of an easy melody to follow may have impacted their results had this gone to Eurovision. That’s not to say it’s a bad song, as it certainly isn’t a bad song, and the performance was vocally very good and I can appreciate that it’s something different for Germany, but this wasn’t the right fit for Germany at the time.

If we consider the quality of previous national finals, this entry from Ryk is well beyond that. This is a very authentic song performed very well, but I do think the style of the song is divisive. For me, it’s a 7/10.