Introducing 2010: Croatia

by Marcus Klier 106 views

All songs for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 have been selected. During the weeks between the national final season and the actual Eurovision Song Contest, we will introduce all 39 entries in random order. Part twelve of the series is dedicated to the Croatian entry.

Basic information

Performers: Feminnem
Song: Lako je sve (Everything is easy)
Language: Croatian
Music: Branimir Mihaljevi�
Lyrics: Neda Parma�, Pamela Ramljak
Draw: 15th in the second semi final

The song

Lako je sve is a classic ballad. The lyrics are a decalration of love and the singers ask their lovers to forgive them a betrayal:

Teže mi je riješit ovu bol sa sobom
Jer ti si prevaren a mene ubija

Lako, lako je sve
Jer ti najbolje poznaješ me
Dok pred tobom stojim
Vidiš da se bojim
Jer na licu mome piše izdaja

It has become more difficult to solve this pain
Because you have been fooled and it kills me

Easy, everything is easy
Because you know me best
When I stand in front of you
You see that I am scared
As my face says betrayal

The performers

The group Feminnem was founded by Ivana Mari�, Neda Parma� and Pamela Ramljak, who had all been contestants in Hrvatski Idol, in 2004. Their first hit song was Volim te, mrzim. In 2005, the group competed in the Eurovision Song Contest national final of Bosnia & Herzgovina, the part of then Yugoslavia where Ivana Mari� and Pamela Ramljak were born. With their song Zovi, they could win the national final and therefore represented the country in Kyiv, where they performed the song in English under the title Call me. Their entry was actually about the contest itself, as it celebrated its 50th edition that year. It finished 14th in the fnal. The Croatian version of the song was included on their debut album Feminnem Show.

The line-up of Feminnem has changed twice since. Ivana Mari� left the group in 2007 and was replaced by Nikol Bulat, who would leave the group again two years later. The group currently consists of Neda Parma�, Pamela Ramljak and Nika Antolos, who is the newest and youngest member of the trio. After the performance in Kyiv, Feminnem tried to represent Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest various times. They competed in Dora 2007 and finished ninth with Navika. Last year, they returned to the show and finished fourth in the semi final and third in the final with Poljupci u boji.

In 2010, the group was third time lucky. They returned to Dora and finished fourth in the semi final but won the final being the favourites of both the jury and the televoters with their song Lako je sve. This is also the title of their second album, which has recently been released.


The songwriters

The Croatian entry was written by Branimir Mihaljevi� (music) and group members Neda Parma� and Pamela Ramljak (lyrics). Branimir Mihaljevi� is a singer and songwriter and he competed in Dora four times as a performer. In 1996, he finished 11th with Zbog ljubavi, in 1998 he finished third with Daj daj, in 2001 he finished sixth with Milenij ljubavi and in 2002 he came 16th with Hvala ti za sve. He has also written songs for various Croatian artists and bands including Crvena jabuka, Alke Vuice and 1996 Eurovision Song Contest representative Maja Blagdan.

The national selection

As every time so far, the Croatian representatives were chosen during the national final called Dora. The event was held over two evening. In the semi final, 16 acts presented one song each and eight of them were chosen by televoting to proceed to the final, where they would meet the eight pre-qualified acts. Eventually, the winners were chosen by a mixture of jury voting and televoting. For the first time since the 50/50 voting system was introduced, jury and televoting agreed and they both gave their top mark to Feminnem.

Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Croatia entered the Eurovision Song Contest as an independant country in 1993. After mediocre results during the first two participations Croatia found a run of luck finishing in the top ten six out of seven times in the following years. However, Croatia has not been reaching the top ten in a final since 2001 and was eliminated in the 2007 semi final. However, the Croatian boadcaster gave Yugoslavia its only victory in 1989 and it was also the region the most Yugoslav entries came from. Other Croatian entries under the flag of Yugoslavia took part in 1963, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1986, 1987 and 1988.

Hrvatskoj i Feminnem želimo svu sre�u i dobar rezultat u Oslu!

Videos

Live performance in the national final:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jywxwlsf_cI

The preview video:

Original Feminnem in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005:

Feminnem in Dora 2009 (semi final performance):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vM9VT6ME54

Tomorrow, we will take a look at the Finnish entry.

Previous parts of this series:

  1. Ireland
  2. Belarus
  3. Albania
  4. Denmark
  5. Russia
  6. Bulgaria
  7. Switzerland
  8. FYR Macedonia
  9. Armenia
  10. Spain
  11. Poland