It is an exciting year for Serbia at Junior Eurovision, as this will be their 10th appearance at the contest. They have had their highs and lows at the contest, but over the years they have shown that they can deliver good ballads, but also catchy upbeat numbers. This year it will be a ballad performed by Bojana Radovanović titled Svet, but will their 10th anniversary performance be one to remember?
If we think back, Serbia have had some incredible ballads over the years, two of which finished in 3rd place at the contest, and one of my personal favourites, Lenina Pesma from Junior Eurovision 2015. In comparison to their previous efforts, Svet just doesn’t stand out.
The signature Balkan Ballad style instrumentals are once again a joy to hear, but unfortunately it’s topped with a two dimensional melody that really doesn’t do justice to Bojana’s mature tone of voice. Beyond that, I find this song to be quite outdated, and once again to compare their 2015 entry, Lenina Pesma was still a Balkan ballad but contemporary for the contest at the time, and still doesn’t feel dated.
Saying that, there will be an audience for this. Those who like fairly stock standard uplifting ballads will enjoy this, and there is a certain cheesy element which will most certainly be appealing for some. Perhaps this song will come alive when Bojana performs it live, and I think there’s a big possibility for that to happen but ultimately I don’t think the song is strong enough to make a huge impact on the results table.
It will be interesting to see how they stage this, as the Serbian ballads presented at Junior Eurovision have often featured the lead singer focused on the vocal performance with either backing dancers to add movement, or just simply featuring the singer alone. It could go either way with this one, but it’s not exactly the most danceable of songs.
Unfortunately this is another entry that is just not for me. That is not to question the talent of this young star, but I think that her vocals could have been given a better chance to shine. I suspect this will be finishing in the lower 10 of the results table. For me, it’s 5/10.
Make sure to vote for your favourite acts in our Junior Eurovision 2018 poll!