FYR Macedonia

Nešto Što Kje Ostane Next Time

"Da ne si ti, bi nemal so što pred lugjeto da se pofalam..."

Yeah yeah! There's not much point to a rock song at Eurovision if it hasn't got a decent hook, is there. If you're lucky, like Turkey, you can do something perplexing and wonderful like Deli and rely on the diaspora to give it the result it deserves; if you're unlucky, like Iceland, you can come up with something as powerful and poetic as Valentine Lost and watch it sink like a stone. Alternatively, you can do a Belarus and give the world, unblinking and unfazed, something as unfashionable as Eyes That Never Lie. But in musical terms, what Macedonia are doing in Moscow is essentially a Norway 2005: Next Time's Nešto Što Kje Ostane is the solid slice of rock from another era with a decent hook that should, by rights, see the audience cheering them on for all they're worth.

Unfortunately, brothers Martin and Stefan Filipovski take it, and themselves, seriously. Where Wig Wam revelled in the camp entertainment value of In My Dreams, the Macedonian lads - and that's precisely what they are: they must have a combined age of about 12 - are like a tribute band to everything that was wrong about 1980s rock music, right down to the big hair and flannelette styling. I can't help but think that if only they were prepared to send themselves up rather than play it straight, your average Eurovision viewer might just be inclined to go along with it.

Which is not to say that they won't anyway, to some extent at least - even if Next Time do deliver Nešto Što Kje Ostane with the kind of professional earnestness usually reserved for bands twice their age desperate to cling onto their youth - because the song itself is as solid as any FYRoM has given us at ESC. In fact it is a bit of a departure for them: to date they have cornered the well-produced R'n'B and well-produced ethno ballad markets, and now they can add well-produced (if slightly slavish) retro rock to the list. They don't put a foot wrong where the music is concerned: the song provides everything you would expect one of its ilk to. That, though, only makes you wish they wouldn't treat it all so soberly.

Indeed, the approach the former Yugoslav republic is taking with this entry is a bit hard to make out. Seemingly determined to make it as authentic as possible and thereby running the risk of alienating the part of the audience who'd rather they weren't taking it that seriously, they then choose to present Nešto Što Kje Ostane in its original Macedonian, further sealing themselves off in their own little world. Now I'm not one to advocate the use of English for its own sake, but here it might help. As borderline qualifiers in even the worst case scenario you have to wonder at their tactics.

All of that aside, I really like the song. It has a great hook and a neat arrangement, and as disconcerting as it occasionally is, a genuineness you've got to admire. Can't see it qualifying though.