The Xtra Files: We Review Armenia’s ‘Fly With Me’ by Artsvik!

Welcome to The Xtra Files, our new series which will give you an insight into what the team at escXtra think of your favourite entries into this year’s contest! Today, we review Armenia.

Now that all the songs have been released, we are able to review each and every one of them. Our honest and brutal reviews will keep you entertained until the rehearsals start in May! We will also each give a score out of 10 for every entry, and create an escXtra leaderboard of the entries! You can see our preview reviews here.
Today, it is the turn of the Armenian entry, ‘Fly With Me’ by Artsvik, to be reviewed by Dimitris, Katarina, Nathan, Nick, Sagheer, and Wivian. Let’s get started!

The Reviews

Dimitris

Armenia keeps doing this thing when they send a song I don’t really like at first listen and then it just grows on me a lot. This year is not different, just like the past two years. Fly With Me doesn’t get really powerful until the last part of the song but once I listened to it several times I started liking the song as a whole. It’s something different, just like LoveWave last year.

Katarina

I love the fact that the lyrics actually tell a story here, but sadly they aren’t accompanied by good music. There is no clear structure and at first listen the song was more confusing than the infamous Icebreaker from 2016. I do, however, believe that Armenia will stage this well and that Artsvik will achieve a decent result.

Nathan

Three minutes of fluff which goes absolutely nowhere over an ethnically Armenian instrumentation and some heavy bass drums.

Nick

I applaud this for being truly Armenian. It’s certainly a stand-out this year. We had to wait for a long time, but it turns out to be quite worth it. Artsvik isn’t that experienced, so I hope she can deliver this on stage. The song is clearly the result of a session of Armenian songwriters thinking ‘How can we Armenify last year’s winner?’. And voila, the result is a decent Armenian entry.

Sagheer

Armenia has always been the country that I most look forward to. From Iveta’s Amazing ‘LoveWave’ last year I really wanted something spectacular and innovative. Unfortunately although Artsvik is a great live vocalist I just can’t get into the song. It’s just not my cup of tea.

Wivian

I had high expectations when I heard the Not Alone/LoveWave team was back, as those were my faves in 14/16. Unfortunately, Fly With Me isn’t nearly as good, even though I like it. It lacks a hook, something that’ll grab your soul and refuse to let go. It is still a pretty strong entry; I love the beats and the very Armenian sound. And Artsvik is obviously a very good singer. Sure qualifier and left side of the scoreboard, methinks

Scores

When we remove the top score of 9.5 and the lowest score of 1, the average score for Armenia is 6.80.
(Removing the top score and the lowest score helps to make the average score more reliable and less affected by outliers.)

Leaderboard

Armenia reaches 6th place in our leaderboard with a score of 6.80.

1. Belarus – 7.75
2. Australia – 7.25
3. Serbia – 7.08
4. Switzerland – 6.96
5. Denmark – 6.83
6. Armenia – 6.80
7. Hungary – 6.79
8. Moldova – 6.58
9. Norway – 6.33
10. Latvia – 6.25
11. United Kingdom – 6.00
12. The Netherlands – 5.33
13. Albania – 5.21
14. San Marino – 3.92

Tomorrow, we will review Austria.
Do you agree with our reviews of Armenia? What are your thoughts on Artsvik’s ‘Fly With Me’? Let us know in the comments!