Editorials & OpinionFeatures🇲🇰 North Macedonia

🇲🇰 Slideback Sunday: We Went too far.. No there’s no way back…

Looking back at North Macedonia's last NQ

It’s Sunday once again, and this means its time for another Slideback Sunday. In honour of North Macedonia releasing their 2020 Eurovision entry today, we will be looking back at one of my favourite entries from North Macedonia. Lost and Found by Eye Cue.

When I started to delve into Eurovision more, one of the more countries I was interested in was North Macedonia (formerly known as FYR Macedonia). I was heartbroken in 2016 when ‘Dona’ NQ’ed, I was really sad when ‘Dance Alone’ NQ’ed.

Once Eye Cue was announced, I had an optimistic feeling towards North Maceonia’s participation in 2018. When ‘Lost and Found’ was released, I instantly fell in love with the track, and it instantly shot up my ranking.

After I saw the initial reaction of their performance, I knew there and then that they will probably not qualify again. Despite this, I’ve followed Eye Cue after their Eurovision participation, I even saw them a few times at Eurovision events. I still love them and I love their songs, and I cannot wait for them to release a full-length album.

What do the others think?

Nick

When North Macedonia all of a sudden went for a very contemporary track, they all of a sudden sent three at the same time, which may have been a little too much, but it was a great track to listen to. However, at first listen I had no idea how they were ever going to stage this. Sadly, it turns out I was right… Neither did they. It just didn’t work on stage, despite being a fantastic song. It could’ve done great, but sadly, it didn’t. Thankfully North Macedonia stuck in there and made sure decent tracks were sent year after year until Tamara Todevska rewarded them in 2019. Hang in there, guys, you know the path to victory is a long one.’

Costa

2018 was my least favourite Eurovision year since 2011, and I remember sitting in my room on the day before the Heads or Delegation meeting frantically trying to scrape together a top 10. And then, out of nowhere, Lost and Found came along. Catchy, daring, high impact and kinda weird – this song stood out from a mediocre, beige pack. I was never convinced it would do well, but I was hopeful. Unfortunately, whilst countries like Lithuania and Ireland brought their A-game with staging, North Macedonia couldn’t translate their ambitious entry into a cohesive and impactful stage show. On the plus side, I still play it to this day.

Wivian

I’m really sorry, but no matter how hard I try, I struggle finding anything positive to say about this song and performance. I have however managed to find three things:
1) The rhythm is cool and I find myself kinda swaying along to it
2) The idea of the “back to front jacket” outfit is fun, but for it to work it needs to be tailored to actually fit
3) The teleporting moment
I almost feel like stopping there, since I know that Eye Cue and their team have poured their hearts and souls into this. And they are all such wonderful people too. But I have to go on. There is no escaping that this performance was…shall we say…not good. Singing out of tune (and out of beat?). The outfit, that could have been great but wasn’t. And it only got worse with the costume change. The bland and awkward stage “show”. The mash-up of three (or is it four?) songs that really don’t go together. Again; I’m really sorry, but I just can’t.
North Macedonia has sent so many interesting songs to the contest, including one of my favorite Eurovision entries in the history of ever. Tose Proeski is possibly the best voice to ever grace the Eurovision stage, and even though “Life” is not his best song by far, it’s still in my top 5 Eurovision songs ever. (It was pushed one place down on the list last year, though, when a new song took over first place on my list. More on that in a later Slideback.) I also really liked their 2002, 2009 and 2019 entries (and half of 2012!) However, they have also sent quite a few songs that place in the opposite end of my list. I’ll settle for mentioning just two; 2005 and 2018.
I am really looking forward to hearing their 2020 entry, and hope it will join place near the top end of my list

Alexi

Lost & Found has remained an ear-worm since 2018 – it’s a catchy, fun bop. For various reasons in 2018, I only had time to really dedicate my time and interest to the contest week itself, so only heard the song upon its first live performance in the semi-final. It stood out then and it remains a song I’ll include on my Spotify and regularly listen to. Clearly not a ‘winner’, nor maybe that radio friendly, but it gets stuck in your head straight after that first listen! There’s a number of songs between 2016 – 2018 that I include on my lists to listen to again, Lost & Found is always on it! It’s simple yet effective and is another of North (then FYRO) Macedonia’s strong choices for Eurovision. I look forward to hearing Vasil’s song today! And I hope it can be equally as catchy as 2018…

What did you think of Lost and Found?  Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter@escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to see our reactions to the news in the run up to Rotterdam!

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