Australia have had a short history at Junior Eurovision with this being their fourth appearance at the contest and in that time the nation has had mixed results with their best being 3rd place with last year’s representative Isabella Clarke. This year the responsibility goes to Jael who will be performing her uplifting pop ballad titled Champion but will she be the champion of this year’s Junior Eurovision?
Being from my home country, I always listen to our competing entries hopeful but yet still with a critical ear. Naturally there’s a bit of Australian bias, but at the end of the day, whether I enjoy a song or not isn’t changed by which nation they are representing. This is a nice song, but it certainly isn’t ground-breaking.
Australia is continuing to use the same formula year after year, both in Eurovision and Junior Eurovision, and at some point we will need to take a risk at the contest because I don’t believe that it’s an accurate representation of the diversity within the music scene, specifically referring to the songs themselves.
Speaking of Champion specifically, the melodies are really great, both in the verses and choruses, although my preference is to the verses. Lyrically though, this song uses every cliché in the book but because of that, the song is universal. I think the stand out of this will be the live performance. Having heard snippets of Jael perform other tracks, I think we are set for a big vocal performance on the night which will be the deciding factor whether Australia is high on the results table or not.
I do think Australia will be somewhere in the top half of the results table, but it’s hard to say whether this will be a Top 5 finisher. Judging by the comments on the official music video, Australia will be up there near the top, but in terms of song alone, this is somewhere among places 6-10 for me. I wish we had sent something a bit edgier, but at the end of the day, if this is well performed on the night, this will receive votes.
This is a nice song with good live potential. This is an 8/10 for me!
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