Stockholm 2016

Xtra Review: Iveta Mukuchyan – LoveWave (Armenia)

After months of teaser videos about the singer and countdown social media posts and then more teaser videos about the song, Armenia has finally revealed its hand for Eurovision 2016. As we already know, Iveta Mukuchyan is representing the country in its tenth appearance at the contest, and today she unveiled the video for ‘LoveWave’.
The song was highly anticipated, but did it live up to the hype? We’ve plugged in our earphones and given our thoughts as to whether Armenia might be in line for their first Eurovision victory…
Simon: Love the moody, tempestuous first minute, but then the rest – although decent – is rather an anticlimax. No doubt this could suit some impressive and elaborate staging though.
Nick: I just don’t know with this song. The first minute is rather bizarre with the spoken word intro and after that it doesn’t really lift off either. It’s an alternative attempt and I’m fairly sure the Armenians had a little look at Loïc and Aminata last year to come up with this. She has a strong vocal here and there’s some ethnic elements left and right too. This might be the entry that doesn’t convince in studio, but will make its impression once Iveta does this including staging in May.
Liam: I love the ridiculous spoken word introduction, but the whole thing feels like it would benefit a 4 minute song rather than the 3 minutes allowed. It’s good, but it never really gets off the ground in quite the way I wanted it to.
Peter: The beginning of this song, whilst slightly bizarre, was very promising for what might come next, but alas, nothing did. Armenia are definitely wanting a slice of the “cool Eurovision” cake this year, but they’ve completely missed the mark. Too much happens, but also somehow nothing happens either. It’s all style and no substance, a little bit like (in my opinion) their entry from a couple of years ago, ‘Not Alone’. That probably means it will do better than it has any right to.
Matteo: It doesn’t go anywhere you’d imagine it would go. Clearly it’s a way of showing off her vocals, but this could have been done in many different ways. It wouldn’t be an absurd idea starting off with a bit of spoken words – but 45 seconds it’s a bit too much.
Katarina: I don’t get this song. It was obviously inspired by Aminata’s success last year, but while ‘Love Injected’ was a structured song, this is just one huge mess. It might grow on me until May, but since Iveta will only have those three minutes on stage to convince people to vote for her, I can’t see this coming anywhere near the top.
Nathan: Well, that is atrocious. Three minutes of just noise. I cannot wait to see how appalling this looks like and hope for the best: repeating their non-qualification from 2011.
Wivian: And, surprise (not!); I think perhaps I love this. The spoken intro is kind of haunting, and it immediately pulls me in. And her voice, when she starts singing, is strong and fragile at the same time. They have mixed the contemporary and ethnic elements perfectly. I love the drums, and if she can do these vocals live I might have my favorite.
Do you agree with our team? Let us know what you think via our Twitter, @escXtra.

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