Armenia

Nor Par (Jan Jan) Inga & Anush

"What can I say if ya gonna tell me nothin'?"

Reality is not something Eurovision has a lot to do with. At best what it gives us is a compromise between what is desirable and what is achievable, in television terms and where the performances are concerned. The same applies to the songs themselves, which must condense their message into a handful of minutes, like taking shortcuts to squeeze a text message into 160 characters. The songs and performances have to employ a kind of shorthand to do whatever it is the team behind them is aiming for. And our ideas of what that might be, influenced by national final renditions and promo videos, is frequently wide of the mark. All of this is true of the Armenian entry for Moscow, Nor Par (Jan Jan).

Caught somewhere between the realities of the messy live version that won the song its ticket to Eurovision in the first place and the lavish and professional treatment (and PR) it has since received, Nor Par is a bit of an enigma, and one of the hardest songs to pick this year in terms of how it will actually turn out on stage. Its ethnopop heart is worn very much on the sleeves of sisters Inga and Anush, but the static performance Armenia's 2008 entry Qele Qele was given makes you wonder whether Nor Par will get the visual fanfare a song with its drive both deserves and requires. (The vocals are another matter entirely.) Reminiscent of the nation's debut entry and its immediate predecessor in its instrumentation and arrangement, it is a more worthy and effective piece of music than it at first appears to be. We will have to wait and see whether this is reflected in an endorsement from the juries in the final, for it will almost certainly make it that far.

The reality is sure to be somewhere between two extremes - of televoting bias and jury disdain; of unpromising beginnings and developments that promise more than they are likely to deliver; of ethnic flavour and pop sensibilities. On balance the song is probably the best of the three upbeat entries Armenia has given us in the sense of what it is trying to achieve (assuming we're right in thinking we know what that is), but the country finds itself in the undesirable position whereby Nor Par will be something of a yardstick for the success of the new format. Like FYR Macedonia last year, it will only be the song's failure to make much of an impact on the [final] scoreboard that will see the naysayers agreeing the 50/50 jury/televote split is a success. But given the easy appeal of the song, will that really be the case?