Iceland

Is It True? Yohanna

"There's no use in trying, no need to pretend..."

There are few riskier moves in your approach to Eurovision than to be content to be unassuming, if it can be called a move at all. The history of the contest is a musical battleground littered with the bodies not only of the kinds of songs and performances that make you wonder what they were thinking in the first place, but like as not a lot of solid and well-staged entries, secure in their MOR charm and unruffled by their inability to impress. Regardless of how good a song is, juries and especially televoters will tend to overlook it if the only reaction it inspires is "that was nice". Some manage to get beyond that and actually say something to the viewers, and that is what Iceland will be hoping to do in Moscow with Is It True?, the first real ballad of 2009.

The good news for Iceland is that Is It True? is not merely a good song: it is a textbook ballad with perfect vocals from performer Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, who radiates artless beauty. More than that, it has next to no rivals in the 1st semi, with its biggest competition coming in the forms of of the Israeli and Maltese anthems - with which it could sweep the floor if Yohanna manages to connect with the audience and lift the song in the same way Shiri Maimon did with Hasheket Shenish'ar in 2005. Given the quality of the vocalists she is being supported by, there is little doubt the song will sound as good as it needs to; the test is in bridging the emotional gap some people have identified in her delivery and resonating with viewers who might otherwise approve of the song without actually endorsing it.

If Is It true? makes it to the final it should bode well for Iceland, with the potential for it to go on and give the country its best result in a decade. It's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that the juries will go for a ballad, but then there's no reason to assume otherwise either when the ballad in question is as seamless and multi-layered as this. Its message is also more universal than other Icelandic entries have been, meaning it may penetrate further into Eastern Europe - a no man's land of Eurovision points for the country - and receive a unanimously warm welcome. If it speaks to the audience but they choose not to respond, it will be a true loss to this year's contest. I can only hope that if left out in the cold once again the Icelandic team will be content to have given it their best shot.