Hello welcome to my series of quick takes designed to get you ready for Eurovision 2019. Just some quick thoughts / my take on each of the 41 songs this year. The countries are in alphabetical order so without further ado: Croatia.

Country: Croatia
Singer: Roko
Song: The Dream
Personal Score: 26 out of 41
My Prediction: NQ

There is no doubt that Roko can sing. The problem is not Roko at all. Roko is crushing it. Roko is living his best life. Roko is ascending to heaven right of those $10 party store wings. The problem is literally absolutely everything else in this entry. I think the major offender here is that this is such a dated song, its so dated that it would have CRUSHED Eurovision in 1996. Next up, the outfit isn’t working with the vibe of the song and his haircut honestly says “douche” more than anything and the stage presentation is just plain lazy. Croatia has said they’re changing absolutely nothing about this performance so what you see in the video is what we’re going to get but I’m still holding out hope that someone comes along and decides that it needs so much changing. For such a dramatic song it has such a boring visual that I often clock out about halfway through the song and just stare into space.

This song is very close to Iceland’s song last year (also by a very talented 19 year old singing a song that would have been wildly popular nearly a decade before he was born) and no matter how hard this may be trying for jury bait it’s going to fall short in a contest full of great voice. We know Croatia can put on a good show though, so hopefully someone wakes up and restyles this but otherwise , it’s probably a non-qualification for Croatia.