Belgium 2024: Mustii with ‘Before The Party’s Over’
Belgian radio was a little too keen in releasing this one giving us all a good listen before their music video drop this morning:
Whether my reviews have a positive or negative vibe are generally based on my expectations, but also my expectations in relation to the current odds. This is a strong entry, but at fourth favourite of odds around 18s at the time of writing I can't help but focus on that context and make more of a case against.
That case is where does this fit in the televote? There are fans of this but so far, it’s no surprise to see this ranked lower than Ukraine, Italy, Lithuania and Norway by the fandom who are becoming an increasingly more accurate barometer. Perhaps with more time it shall climb the pile but the ‘Arcade’ this has been generously compared to maybe more due to being Belgium's neighbour was an instant hit and this is before we throw even more entries into the mix and account for diasporas etc. Perhaps the most appropriate entry to compare with is ‘Not Alone’ (Armenia 2014) in terms of slow build into an explosive climax and attempted atmosphere though this is more one paced. I would also throw in ‘Not The Same’ (Australia 2022) as a highly fancied ballad in studio form and have similar concerns over Mustii’s voteability. This shouldn’t take quite the same path but is it unreasonable to estimate it somewhere between the 2 at around 100pts with the public as a starting midpoint?
There’s much to appreciate on the jury side with strong production and room for exceptional vocals if Mustii is up to the job. There is some very clever songwriting in here with three separate strong hooks across the pre-chorus, main refrain and backing choir. Triple the chance of this getting stuck in your head. I find the first minute keeps me in with my key issue being that second verse which regresses to more formulaic territory and on a first listening could make many think “Ok, got the gist, next'“. The rest of this pushes forward relentlessly which I always find an effective route to holding attention. We do get a bit repetitive by the end but I don’t hold that too much against it.
Performance pending, this should be somewhere around the jury top 5 but I hesitate to take that as a guarantee or proclaim it the clear leader there yet either. Just this past week we saw an international jury turn away from what was expected to be slam dunk jury winner Ryk in Das Deutsche Finale another not too dissimilar entry. Has the market just jumped on ‘Before The Party’s Over’ to replace ‘Oh Boy’ like for like in the odds without taking any caution from that? There are question marks over how well any all important authenticity comes through and that has started to take on more of a role on that side as well as the televote.
I know we are in 100% televote semis, but it would take a combination of a disastrous performance and big over-performance on expectations from remaining countries in semi 2 for this to miss out. We are already 100% ahead of 4 entries (Denmark, Malta, Czechia, Latvia) and at this moment in time there’s only Norway from the selected who I would say hold the upper hand. As it stands, this is in a good place to score well here. In the final I don’t want to commit to anything more than left hand side for now until we get to the pre-parties and Eurojury which will be very telling. At the moment I don’t believe this has the gas on the televote in the final to win however with a 4th-5th looking the ceiling and a jury win being necessary for that.
Personal Rating: 9/10
Competetive Rating: 7/10
Early Prediction: Semi 2 3rd-6th, 8th-12th in the final.