The Xtra Files: We Review Israel’s ‘I Feel Alive’ by Imri!

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 Israel.

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 Israeli entry, ‘I Feel Alive’ by Imri, to be reviewed by Hlynur, Luke, Nathan, Rodrigo, Sagheer, and Sophie. Let’s get started!

The Reviews

Hlynur

If I break the song down: A. Sounds like an average pop song, B. Will it be good live?, C. It sounds a few years old, D. It’s just an ok song that you can dance to.

Luke

YEEEEEEES ISRAEL! Absolutely fantastic. My favourite from this year by a million miles. It’s in a whole other class compared to the other songs of this year, and that instrumental break is to DIE for. After all the ballads this year, THIS is exactly what Europe needs to feel alive again!

Nathan

“Golden Boy” this is not. The chorus sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom. Cheap production, cheaper lyrics.

Rodrigo

Get up and dance! I love the rhythm of ‘I Feel Alive’, and I love that it manages to keep a bit of an ethnic flavour that you can easily identify with Israel. The instrumental break is fabulous. I am not sure about Imri’s vocals and whether he’ll be able to pull it off on the night. But with good staging and a competent performance it should qualify. Will surely stand out as one of the better uptempo songs of the year.

Sagheer

A pop song that you can dance to, but it’s certainly no ‘Golden Boy’. The song itself demands good vocals on the night and I’m not convinced that Imri will be able to deliver it on the big night. Will a ‘Nice’ song be enough to qualify….not sure.

Sophie

Imri is definitely convincing me with his looks, but not so much with the song, unfortunately. It’s good enough to sing and dance along, but not exactly anything special – a little too plain all in all.

Scores

When we remove the top score of 10 and the lowest score of 3, the average score for Israel is 7.21.
(Removing the top score and the lowest score helps to make the average score more reliable and less affected by outliers.)

Leaderboard

Israel reaches 5th place in our leaderboard with a score of 7.21.

1. France – 9.04
2. Sweden – 7.77
3. Belarus – 7.75
4. Australia – 7.25
5. Israel – 7.21
6. Serbia – 7.08
7. Estonia – 7.07
8. Switzerland – 6.96
9. Denmark – 6.83
10. Armenia – 6.80
11. Hungary – 6.79
12. Germany – 6.59
13. Austria – 6.58
14. Moldova – 6.58
15. Greece – 6.54
16. Norway – 6.33
17. Latvia – 6.25
18. United Kingdom – 6.00
19. The Netherlands – 5.33
20. Albania – 5.21
21. Ukraine – 5.13
22. San Marino – 3.92

Tomorrow, we will review Portugal.
Do you agree with our reviews of Israel? What are your thoughts on Imri’s ‘I Feel Alive’? Let us know in the comments!