Hello welcome to my series of quick takes designed to get you ready for Eurovision 2019. Just some quick thoughts / my take on each of the 41 songs this year. The countries are in alphabetical order so without further ado: Belgium.

Country: Belgium
Singer: Eliot
Song: Wake Up
Personal Score: 33 out of 41
My Prediction: NQ

This song is actually kind of interesting musically because it reminds me of a handful of mid-1980’s song and his voice is distinctly reminiscent of Sting in the opening section but honestly once it switches to the “chorus” its just kind of a boring song. The problem is that the plodding beat in the background never really resolves into anything. This is a song that you might listen to on the radio because it’s too much effort to change but even though you’ve heard it 20 times you don’t any of the words or the name of the artist. I’m also a little puzzled by the music video because they choose to keep the focus on other people and then ALSO, to add insult to injury, ended with a close up on someone else.

While I agree music has tended in this direction (on the radio at least) for the last few years the problems is that its completely forgettable. If they showed up in an insurance commercial I wouldn’t even blink. Despite the video seeming to be about…women I guess? The lyrics don’t really key me into any big themes either. I get a whole lot of nothing out of this song and since it’s not vocally challenging and has basically no hook, I think this is a hard sell at Eurovision especially if it ends up next to anything with a good beat.