Spain 2023: Blanca Paloma with ‘EaEa’
Spain made us 2/2 last night for convincing wins by entrants who started as outsiders with Blanca Paloma heading to Eurovision:
I don't know, Blanca had a better song last year for me but after seeing that fly under the radar in Spain she has cranked the volume up to 11. ‘EaEa’ doesn't leave much on the table and my issues come with the chorus’ which are pretty much a shout fest. I'm usually alright with this kind of thing personally but I'm left cold by this.
Whilst the staging is arresting and Blanca reliable I don't really get much of a narrative sense of what's going on. In current form and delivery this is dangerously close to just some angry woman cursing about some sort of misfortune in life- the kind of thing Albania is slammed for constantly sending. ‘1944’ might be the example to follow but Spain or Blanca don't have that same narrative.
It's fitting that Albanian and Ukrainian entries feature in some of the common comparisons given. ‘Suus’, ‘Shum’ and Serbia’s ‘In Copore Sano’ are also in the vague and loose ethnic curio category and are interesting in that none of those were highly fancied at the time. The other two entries that have popped up are ‘Telemovies’ and ‘Fullenn’ both of which disappointed based on the initial consensus and which are closer to Spain's current odds. It seems like with this style of song what we like flops and what we don't surprises.
There's still improvements to be made with staging but given the effort thrown at this by RTVE the maximum potential out of a pretty terrible studio song may already have been squeezed. I have my niggles as mentioned but I doubt this will look significantly better in Liverpool.
Appreciated at Benidorm Fest, in a better field and with a full 1-26 ranking system it might be challenging for a devisive entry (artistic expression of emotion vs just noise) to threaten a top 5 in the jury vote or anything like that and I can see it closer to 10th or something. If the televote gave this 20 points I'd understand but will also go with a midtable with them too- there is an audience out there for this style.
Overall, Spain is a hard one to predict this year. I think there's an equally convincing argument for 7th as there is for 17th and the odds generally have that same opinion with them 12th in the current ranking. I’d go along with that and expect a left hand side finish currently.
Personal Rating: 4/10 Competitive Rating: 7/10 Early Prediction: 9th-14th