Serbia 2024: Teya Dora with ‘Ramonda’

Teya Dora's jury win and second spot in the televote saw her win through in Serbia on Saturday night with ‘Ramonda’ :

As a big fan of Balkan ballads but a big sceptic of your Victorias, Amanda Tenfjords and of course Elsie Bays ‘Ramonda’ puts me in an awkward position. There are moments of superb subtle instrumentation and this comes close to triggering some emotion in my cold, cold heart but it also verges on the pedestrian and boring. We were blessed with the presence of the legendary Zeljko Joksimovic himself at pze but he did little favours to this too. It’s harsh to compare Teya to him but the difference in the performance levels and ability to sell this sort of thing is vast. Perhaps a more fitting comparison would be to Maro (Portugal 2022) as a similar, subtle entry that was hard to predict. For me, Teya is overpowered by her staging and styling and comes across as a passenger, rather than the driving force. There are some good ideas with the staging and in particular the flower motifs but the rest of this needs stripping back into something less “melodifestivalenised”.

I was keeping an eye on ‘Ramonda’ as Serbia sat up to 300s in the run up to the national final as a bit of a dark horse at Eurovision and this still has more of a actual chance than a great deal of other entries much shorter in the odds (ie Finland, Ireland etc) but that potential being realised looks a very remote possibilty. There is something with this that despite liking it personally and seeing the potential, I can also see it greatly underperforming, not too dissimilar to Armenia last year: this is something the juries should like as having ‘quality’ but will they? Will anyone other than the diaspora and region come for this? I have big doubts. It’s a case where backing the 100+ outright now isn't the worst bet in the world, but also one I’d be laying for top 15 if it rocked up the exact same way in Malmo if that makes sense and there’s a very wide range here.

Clearing the semi final should not be taken for granted with this in the hard first half and you do fear if this is placed 2nd in the running order. Croatia and Slovenia are essential support here and together with the diaspora and some really poor recent entries in the second half might be enough to get this through. In the final I’m currently placing this at the low end of the range and Serbia could once again struggle. There's a world in which this comes top 5, but the rest of the time this probably gets completely overlooked.

Personal Rating: 9/10

Competitve Rating: 6/10

Early Prediction: Semi 1 8th-11th, 17th-21st if in the final.