Hungary

Candlelight Csézy

In its current incarnation, Eurovision is not something everyone has fully come to grips with. Some newcomers, like Andorra, have struggled to find their feet; some old-timers, like Monaco, have returned and found they couldn't keep pace; while others, like Slovakia, haven't even bothered to give it another try. Until the announcement of their return to the contest in 2005, it seemed that Hungary's contribution to Eurovision would also be restricted to its handful of entries from the 1990s: a modest collection of songs which, apart from their debut, Kinek Mondjam El Vétkeimet, would come away with equally modest results. The country's comeback in Kyiv marked a new beginning for the nation and proved its vote-pulling capacity, as did its 2007 follow-up, but it has yet to earn points in the contest for anything cutting edge or even vaguely contemporary. And that's not about to change in 2008 with the unflinchingly old-fashioned Candelight.

Though the less than linear approach Hungary has taken to Eurovision is reflected in the timelessness of the majority of its entries, this year sees them producing their first that is tangibly outdated. There is a certain irony to the fact that composer Viktor Rakonczai was a member of the boyband who represented Hungary in 1997 with pretty much the only song the country has ever submitted to the contest that sounded like something you might have heard in the charts at the time, because Candlelight sounds like something you would only ever have heard while watching Eurovision ten to fiteen years ago. Even the dance remix of the original Hungarian version - which peaked the interest of [clearly nostalgic] fans prior to the national final and led to some confusion as to which version would be used - comes across like it was produced in about 1993.

Everything conspires to make Candlelight feel out of time, both literally and metaphorically. The original version of the song fitted very neatly within the bounds of the traditional ballad, but the new arrangement is almost too balanced, with a bridge stuck right in the middle and intros and outros tacked on, while still failing to resolve the awkwardness of the transition into the first verse and the chorus after the middle eight. Delivering all of this is Csézy, competent and attractive in an off-puttingly prim kind of way, who sounds like she thinks she has entered the Eurovision Diction Contest, with a speech therapist wanging up her mouth as she sings. When she does, the lyrics tell an enduring tale we've all heard before. The few lines of Hungarian here work a lot better than the one in Catalan in the Andorra entry Casanova: they make more sense in context, even if they serve much the same purpose, and seem slightly less like pointless pandering. But only just.

Still, each to his own. I'm sure there will be a slice of the audience watching the second semi-final from Belgrade who is taken with Candlelight's slightly fusty if not exactly superannuated charms. Not enough to see it qualify, mind you, and I don't subscribe to the view that because it sounds old-fashioned it will get the nod from the juries. Its draw is not as favourable as it first appears: sandwiched between the Georgian anthem and the alcohol-fuelled Maltese entry, it may easily be forgotten - and if it is, I hope Hungary is inspired to try something a little more of its time for their next entry.