A little bit of history...
This is Belarus' third appearance at Eurovision, and they have probably had the worst luck any new entrant has had.
Both their songs in 2004 and 2005 were early favourites, yet have both failed to qualify for the Final. Their delightfully
quirky performance in 2004 could only muster up 10 points after a mixture of flat notes and clunky, indecipherable english
- which also plagued their slightly better 2005 performance, when they managed 13th with what was a really good song.
This year, they find themselves in the Semi-Final... again.
Singer & Song
Polina Smolova Ma
After having listened to it for a month now, I still can't decide if I like it or not, or even if it's any good
at all. It's a modern rock stomper, something you would expect from Britney or Kelly Clarkson. Polina is a great
performer, and definately gives the song that extra 'oompf' that it needs to pick itself off the ground. All in all,
it's not bad, and with a really good performance, it just could do the trick.
Prediction
Unlikely qualifier: 14th-19th
The competetition is strong in the Semi, and across the board this certainly isn't one of the favourites. I don't
think Polina will be last, infact I would expect lots of votes in the form of 1-4 points, and the draw, coming up 5th in the
running isn't exactly wonderful. I can't see them making the final unless she really delivers on the night, if
she does, it's certainly not too far out of reach at all.
Prediction after Semi-Final
After an interesting performance, Belarus failed to qualify.
Review of the Eurovision Performance
This was the perfect example of what not to wear at Eurovision - Polina looked awful. The outfit was presumably
to imply that she was showing as much cleavage as she possibly could by wearing a skin coloured vest underneath her top -
it was hideous. Other than that, it generally wasn't bad - Polina's english was slightly better than the recorded version
and the choreography was really rather impressive. I just can't help thinking that a decent outfit - even for all the
dancers might have made this look a whole lot better. Credit to Belarus though, the song wasn't bad and I hope they
give it another shot next year. As for my prediction? I wasn't really close but I was never convinced that this was
a top contender for qualification - nonetheless, wrong again!
