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: Russia.

Country: Russia
Singer: Sergey Lazarev
Song: Scream
Personal Score: 29 out of 41
My Prediction: Q

This song confuses me. Sergey isn’t the worlds strongest singer and this song is basically a vocal showcase song. I don’t know what they’re angling at but I do know this will qualify probably no matter what. I’m very interested to hear this live and I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s some elements on the stage which move around him so that he can stand perfectly still and do his best belting. I’m a big fan of Sergey, he just has one of those friendly puppy attitudes that makes him get along with nearly everyone and this song, is fairly good as far as songs go. However, this is nothing to write home about and the literal only part of the song I recall is “they screeeeeeaaaammmmm” which bodes badly for cracking the top 10. All that being said, this is Russia and like Sweden before them, they will likely easily crack the top 10. This song could be a jury bait song with the right vocal precision and staging and it will vacuum up plenty of extra votes since Ukraine pulled itself out of the running but like “A Million Voices” (Russia 2015) I don’t think its high placement is really going to be all that deserved. I wish Russia could deliver more modern sounding songs alongside their big personalities and stage shows instead of something as middling and forgettable as this.