Previewing the Entrants of Eurovision 2019 – Part Eight: Croatia

Good evening to everyone, I hope that you are having a great Sunday! Welcome back to The Blogging DJ, where I will be continuing to look in-depth at each of the forty-one acts competing in Eurovision 2019. Today we are moving to Zagreb, to look at the Croatian entry, Roko and “The Dream”.

Selection Process

After three years of internally selecting their entry, the Croatian broadcaster HRT organised a national selection, with voting split between a national jury and the televoters. On the 16th of February 2019, Roko and “The Dream” won both segments of the National Final to get the ticket to Tel Aviv. It has also been announced that Croatia will perform in the second half of semi-final two.

Music Video

The Blogging DJ’s Review

No one element in this entry seems to connect with another. The music is faintly modernised for “dramatic effect” (a couple of electronic beats), yet the song itself could have been the first ever Croatian entry back in 1993. The singer has a very impressive set of pipes, yet there are no peaks and troughs; he is instead belting out the whole of the song, making the performance one giant plateau. He also tries to sing with emotion, which works with Croatian, only most of his song sounds cheesy in English. On top of that, he has some gimmicky angel wings attached to him (100% remove them for Tel Aviv). Everything about this screams dated and I will seriously question Europe’s taste levels if this makes the Grand Final. 4

Live Performance Video

Odds

According to Oddschecker, you can currently get odds ranging from 100/1 to 300/1 on Croatia winning Eurovision 2019. This puts them right near the bottom for betters and bookmakers, so it is clear they see this entry as a certain non-qualifier.

Record at Eurovision

Croatia have competed in the Eurovision Song Contest on 24 occasions since making their debut in 1993. In all but six of those years, they performed in the Grand Final. Their best result came in 1996, when Maja Blagdan took fourth place with “Sveta ljubav” and was later matched by Doris Dragović in 1999. Last year, Franka’s sultry performance of “Crazy” was not enough to prevent the entry from only finishing seventeenth in a competitive semi-final.

So what do you make of Croatia’s entry this year? Will it be a “Dream” return to the Eurovision Grand Final? You can let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, and stay tuned for more preview posts in the next few weeks!