The Singles Jukebox

It’s official (by 0.56 points): Cyprus should have won…

[Video]
[5.56]

Alfred Soto: This Eurovision entry belongs in a Brickell Avenue club on Friday night, not a stage. 
[3]

Katie Gill: Is this discount Shakira? Absolutely. But sometimes all you want from a song is discount Shakira with typical Eurovision corny-ass lyrics: this offender is “you’ve got me pelican fly-fly-flying.” And this is so much fun! That “ah yeah ah yeah” is perfectly patented sing-along followed by a big sexy drop. This song does exactly what it needs to do in an amazingly catchy way and that’s why it got second place in Eurovision this year.
[8]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: The Latin/Caribbean influence — dembow beat, breezy synths and all — may be the big appeal of the track, but “Fuego” still contained enough Greek ethno-pop elements to make a bonafide Cypriot ESC entry. Add Eleni’s huge personality and you get the European Song of the Summer, a Eurovision runner-up that deserved more, and the best version of Fifth Harmony we never really got. 
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Can confirm that this had plenty of radio legs in Europe long after the contest was over, but where I think it falls down slightly is that its biggest musical hook is an instrumental, not vocal, one. That’s always a penalty of a chart position or leaderboard position or two. Still, it’s impressive how this contemporary-for-Eurovision (which means slightly dated in real life) didn’t fall into the uncanny valley between lame and cool. It’s just much less a great song than it was a terrific spectacle on the night. Looking forward to more countries adopting the “What would Rihanna do?” principle a lot, though.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: More Eurovision songs than you’d think stand up after the contest, if you’re willing to sift through the hundreds of chancers. A few of my favorites: Hanna Lindblad’s “Manipulated,” which is like Natalia Kills doing “S&M” — no, that isn’t just Natalia Kills — or Laura Nox’s “Save a Little Love,” which was not actually a Eurovision song but demands to be sung under strobe lights, on a fake cliff, in a dress thrice your height. Thing is, though, their quality is dependent on the quality of the era’s workaday pop music. On stage “Fuego” sounded like plausible pop; offstage it’s mediocre Maroon 5 or Gwen Stefani.
[3]

Scott Mildenhall: “Step one: believe in it,” a wise man once noted, “and sing it all day long. Step two: just roll with it — that’s how you write a song”. “Fuego” is proof, if proof be needed, that that man was right. “Yeah yeah, fire” — what could be simpler? As elementary as air, earth and water (and also pelicans), its slickness may have made it a less interesting winner than “Toy,” but if Eurovision were a search for songs with hit potential, Foureira would have the edge.
[8]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The impact of the first chorus’s drop is huge. The rest? Not so hot.
[3]

Juan F. Carruyo: This tune marries a reggaeton beat with a more Mediterranean flavor provided by sampled violins that run through the main hook of the song. Now, the hook itself treads a bit too heavily on rampant exoticism for my taste, thus a notch is docked. 
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: This is paint-by-numbers 2018 pop, so your mileage may vary depending upon how played-out you feel the production has become. I find the titular hook phoned-in, cynically playing into the vaguely international feel of the beat. But I still find a lot of life left in the stomping drums and the humming beat drop despite Eleni Foureira’s faithful following of instructions, so let’s consider “Fuego” a success.
[6]