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: Iceland.

Country: Iceland
Singer: Hatari
Song: Hatrið mun sigra
Personal Score: 4 out of 41
My Prediction: Q

The most important thing to remember when considering this entry is that you can only vote for things you like, you cannot vote against things you do not like. This works well in favor of what I would call “specialty” songs, songs that fall outside the ballad, pop, and pop-ballad that regularly show up in Eurovision’s stable of qualifiers. It worked for Georgia’s psychedelic inspired rock in 2016 and especially for Hungary’s metalcore song last year and the odds are pretty good it’s going to work for Hatari this year as well.

Personally I love this. The stage show is fantastic, the costumes are fantastic, the message is intense and strangely delivered but also really fantastic, and everyone’s singing is top notch. I think this delivers exactly what Eurovision needs which is a three minute cohesive story told dramatically to music. If you look at what makes a Eurovision winner that’s all the key pieces. This is not a winner by any means (and I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if it gets stuck in the semi-finals) but this is a really well crafted piece of music and an even better crafted idea. It’s nice to see something like this at Eurovision because it always influences more diversity of sound in Europe.