Who would have thought we would see the day that Kazakhstan would join the Eurovision family. What is exciting is that not only are they participating in this year’s Junior Eurovision, but they are also openly stating that they are in it to win it – will Daneliya Tuleshova be able to pull it off for debut nation Kazakhstan?
Having watched the Kazakh Junior Eurovision national final, this was definitely the stand out of the competition despite a bit of a shaky performance, and not to mention the awful sound quality of the entire show. I could see the potential at the time, and then having watched other live performances from Daneliya in the Voice Kids Ukraine, this went from potentially middle table to potential winner.
Looking at the studio version, this is definitely one of the best songs of this year’s competition, and although it’s definitely hyped to win, I think there’s a very good reason for that. Hyped songs usually don’t end up winning, but I think if she can vocally pull this off, the nation is definitely in with a chance to take the trophy home, or at least place in the Top 5 if not the Top 3.
The song at times has a haunting melody and a drama packed backing track and this is matched by Daneliya’s many vocal runs and huge notes. That’s the major positive of this song in its studio version, but it’s also the key factor for her live performance. I think there will need to be a flawless combination of vocal performance and visual performance to secure Kazakhstan the win on debut.
It’s a sign of a good song if you consecutively keep pressing the repeat button, and this song certainly has this effect on me. Even though it’s not an upbeat pop number, the melody is still very addictive, plus it’s lovely to hear a new language at Junior Eurovision. The addition of English towards the end is probably a good move just for the sake of sharing the overall message of the song, but it’s not jarring to the song which is a definite positive. In fact, the transition between languages is almost too inconspicuous and upon the first few listens of the song, it has taken a few moments to actually realise the language has switched.
Overall, this is one to watch out for, especially if the visuals match the epic nature of the song and the vocals are strong. I also think this has a lot of fan support which will push this into a fairly high position, and if nothing else, I know that I will be voting for this one!
This is a 10/10.
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