Slovenia

Vrag Naj Vzame Rebeka Dremelj

There is little doubt that the most contentious aspect of Eurovision in recent years has been the rise of 'friendly voting' and its effect on the outcome and reputation of the contest. There is nothing about the phenomenon per se that makes it surprising: apart from the songs they actually like, people will vote for what they are familiar with, be it musical styles or artists popular in their cultural corner of the continent or expats favouring their fatherland. While it can reasonably be claimed that such voting tends not to play the deciding role in who wins the whole thing, it does skew the results and certainly puts some countries at a disadvantage. Those most vocal about the issue would say "yes, the west!", but this is not strictly the case.

Slovenia is a perfect example of a country that should benefit from this kind of voting but rarely does. As part of the 'Balkan bloc' you might expect it to qualify from every semi-final courtesy of its fellow former Yugoslav republics alone, and yet it has not; last year's Cvet z Juga became the first Slovenian entry to make the final since 2003, and even then without the overwhelming support of their neighbours. But whatever the reason for the country being largely overlooked by others in the region, it has still enjoyed greatest success in recent years (relative though it may be) when performing in Slovene - Alenka Gotar achieving a mid-table finish in Helsinki and Omar Naber coming close to qualifying in Kyiv. So with the contest being held in Serbia this year, it is no surprise to see the country choosing once again to perform in its national language.

Up until the last chorus at least, which is apparently going to be in English in a "we want as many people as possible to understand the message of our song" nod to the point of the contest being to find a song that all of Europe gets, not just a scattering in the south-east. The thing is, when the first three quarters of your song is in a language most people don't speak they'll either have gotten it by that point or given up trying. Don't get me wrong, I'm as partial to a bilingual performance as the next Eurovision devotee, but in most cases I fail to see the point of them. Ruslana got it right by starting in English and only then introducing Ukrainian with Wild Dances; the 50/50 split worked a treat for Shiri Maimon in 2005; but most of the time such transitions feel clumsy and tacked on. By their very nature they are afterthoughts.

It doesn't help that the English version of the Slovenian entry is so clunky, although this is admittedly in keeping with the overall feel of the song. It is also in keeping with the original lyrics: Vrag Naj Vzame presents Slovene at its least attractive, at least with Rebeka Dremelj singing in it. She simply does not have the vocal depth to render her performance anything other than hostile, and while in theory this suits the feel of the song, in practice it makes it hard to listen to with any conviction that she will be able to carry it convincingly. You need look no further than the less than impressive rendition she gave of discotastic fan favourite Pojdi z Menoj at the 2005 Slovenian national final to realise that she is a triumph of style over substance.

But then Vrag Naj Vzame is not a song with any pretentions to greatness. At its best it is three minutes of paint-by-numbers pop which does what it says on the box. It has a chorus you can hum along to and a suitably bombastic bridge followed by a bit without drums. As with so many songs like it, its predictability is its greatest strength - but also its greatest weakness. I wouldn't fancy anyone's chances of making much of an impression coming on straight after Azerbaijan, especially if they also have to counter the effects of an ad break, and the likelihood of something this prosaic doing so is, in my view, very low. Slovenia may be relieved to see that Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro (the two neighbours who showed them the most support in last year's final) will be with them in Belgrade on 20 May, but I suspect that even this headstart will be insufficient to see them through to Saturday night. If so, let's hope Ms Dremelj is as resilient in taking it on the chin as she appears to be.