XTRA Decides returns for the Eurovison 2022 season! In this feature the team here at ESCXTRA rank the national final songs, giving our choice of the winner. We are ranking the songs using the Eurovision style 12-1 scoring system. We’ve now chosen Inbal Bibi with ‘Marionette’ as our winner of Israel’s X Factor.
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Our Scores
| Total | Twelve | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inbal Bibi – Marionette | 95 | 6 |
| 2 | Inbal Bibi – ZAZA | 84 | 2 |
| 3 | Sapir Shaban – Head Up | 65 | 0 |
| 4 | Michael Ben David – I.M. | 60 | 0 |
| 5 | Michael Ben David – Don’t | 58 | 1 |
| 6 | Eli Huli – Blinded Dreamers | 55 | 0 |
| 7 | Sapir Shaban – Breaking My Own Walls | 43 | 0 |
| 8 | Eli Huli – Nostalgia | 35 | 0 |
Reviews
Nick (12pts)
How can you make a generic pop ballad sound authentic? By using the vocal techniques Inbal BIbi is demonstrating on “Marionette”. If she can pull this off vocally in a live performance, it could absolutely be a moment on stage. If she doesn’t, it will be a car crash of catastrophic proportions. “Marionette” sounds incredibly radio friendly. And normally that’s a bad thing, but for this… I would not be surprised if radio stations played this. This song is the kind of thing that just fits in on any pop radio station. However… it’s just not that competitive in the sense that it will draw lots of televotes in because of a hook or anything… So, if it makes it to Eurovision, has 18th place written all over it, but it certainly would do Israel proud. In NF terms: This sounds very Andra Chansen.
Sean (12pts)
Frankly, it was a coin flip for me between this and ZAZA. The producers of the show clearly want Inbal Bibi to win, because they’ve given her far away the best songs (which I would’ve expected they’d favor Sapir Saban instead because of her popularity in Israel). Marionette is the safer of her two options, but it’s not soulless. She can clearly sing, and the song isn’t painfully dated. However, homegirl needs a revamp. It’s not competitive yet. It kind of plods along, and it doesn’t have the slick production that is necessary to make a pop ballad like this shine. Luckily there’s still time to tighten things up if this is chosen, because the makings of a solid song (and a safe qualifier) are there.
Xtra Decides so far…
Previously on Xtra Decides:
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