"Will Artsvik's "Fly With Me" soar to the top of the Eurovision leaderboard, or will Armenia fail to launch?
Country: Armenia
Song Title: "Fly With Me"
Artist: Artsvik
First Semi-Final: Position 16
Last year's entry: "LoveWave" - Iveta Mukuchyan (7th Place)
Armenia has taken part in the Eurovision song contest for just over 10 years now, and there seems to be a pattern to how well their entries do: while they've only missed the finals twice (once in 2011, when Emmy's "Boom Boom" finished 12th in its semifinal, and when they sat out 2012 due to political ~drama~ with Azerbaijan, who was hosting), how well they do in the finals is directly connected to how close their song follows typical pop structures. If they go too far off course, they're likely to place lower in the finals. How does this year's entry, Artsvik's "Fly With Me", look to fare?
So, I'm going to be up front and just say that having watched this entry multiple times over the past few weeks, I just plain don't get it. I recognize it as a song, but it is so far from the structure of what I consider a "Eurovision song" with some semblance on choruses and verses that I can't quite process everything that's going on with it. I'm all for non-traditional song structures, but this feels closer to some past entries Albania has sent, where I can appreciate interesting vocal melodies but don't like the larger song as a whole. Even the video feels disjointed, with its ring-o-hair opening that has no connection to the rest of what goes on.
To tie this into my opening spiel: Armenia's two most successful entries, 2008's "Qele Qele" and 2014's "Never Alone" both hewed much closer to standard pop than this one does, so even if it makes the final, I don't see it resonating with audiences as much as those entries did. Add in the fact that Armenia is in the much-more-heavily-stacked first semifinal and you've got another level of difficulty they'll have to "Fly" over. Artsvik will be performing right between Cyprus and Slovenia - I think they'll easily be better/more memorable than Slovenia, but Cyprus has both of those entries beat in terms of quality. I don't foresee this one soaring to the top of the results board, if it doesn't fail to launch in its semi.