I feel (and fear!) this may be the most controversial placing of my entire preview countdown… This is the first of the Big 5 in my countdown, and Spain is a country who have had many entries I love. Their choice this year though is not one of those I am afraid to say – though I realise many Spanish eurofans absolutely love this…
Just to show I am generally a fan of Spain at Eurovision – do check out my Top 10 songs from Spain
Amaia and Alfred were both contestants on Operación Triunfo, a Spanish reality television music competition consisting of training 16 contestants in a boarding academy in order to find new singing talent. The top six classified contestants of Operación Triunfo were allocated nine songs for the Eurovision selection show. Alfred and Amaia also had solo entries in that Eurovision selection as well as their duet. The two actually fell in love during Operación Triunfo – if you are wondering why they look at each other so lovingly during the song’s performance!
It’s obviously a good backstory in the context of a long-running reality show; I’m less convinced that the televoters and national juries of Europe will care or even know about the background. They may still like the song, but for me it’s so sickly sweet it’s almost diabetes-inducing. There is also a notable imbalance in the strength of the two singers I think – Amaia is much stronger than Alfred (and check out his facial expressions…!). Incidentally, Amaia is the youngest singer in this year’s contest.
I’m not sure how this will actually perform in the final. Spain finished last in Kyiv and got nul points from the national juries. They could finish last again, or equally, they may finish much higher. I’m just not sure how much appeal this has outside of Spain – it wasn’t popular at the recent Eurofest event I was at, finishing way down the list in the voting we had at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. That said, Portugal finished low in the voting at that same event last year and went on to win, so the love affair may yet have a happy ending…!
Official music video:
Live performance at Spanish national final:
Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest:
First entered: 1961
Appearances (excluding this year): 57
Best result: Winner 1968, 1969
Last year’s result: 26th (last place)