Simple, yet effective. That seems to be the recipe Croatia is aiming for this year. The rehearsals have revealed what we can expect from Franka on stage.

Croatia is competing in the first semi-final as start number 12. The country is represented by Franka and the song Crazy, which is written Franka herself in collaboration with Branimir Mihaljević. The song has a very sixties vibe going on, but still belonging very much to today’s sound.

Gallery

Second Rehearsal

Opinions expressed during our second rehearsal coverage are personal from the mentioned writers.

Michael, United Kingdom (in the press centre) Having not been the biggest fan of this before Eurovision, finding it having too may twists and turns, it’s actually these quirks that make the song stand out on stage. Franka’s voice is also another asset to the song, Having been forced to appear on the stage alone, Franka has all eyes on her. The song is sung with such power that the whole package just works well. Again this has a good chance of qualifying but equally could be left in the semi. Let’s hope it makes it.

 Josef, Czech Republic (in the arena) Franka Batelić is another gorgeous woman on the board of Eurovision 2018. She has a little bit different song than the others, but unlike the others, she is on the stage alone with the wind machine. I am not sure if she is a qualifier but I would definitely put her in line for the Eurovision next top model.

Complete The Sentence

First Rehearsal

After  long delay due to technical problems with FYROM’s entry, Franka appeared in a long brown dress, but it may be a black lacy number, Franka’s voice is out of this world. She stands at the microphone alone and she is a powerhouse even  by herself. White smoke bellows out from the stage at appropriate moments. As the song progresses Franka removes the microphone from its stand and walks around the stage for a while, Basically the lady needs no gimmicks to sell her song.

How Franka was selected

Initial plans to bring back Dora as national final was dropped, and broadcaster HRT instead presented Franka as chosen internally. Her participation was announced in February 2017, and a few weeks later, the song was revealed, first with a short teaser and then later with the full version.

Franka mentioned that she had written three possible songs for the Eurovision Song Contest, but in the end she felt that Crazy was the right one.

Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest

As part of Yugoslavia, Croatia took part in the Eurovision Song Contest ten times, and was also behind the Yugoslavian victory in 1989 with Rock Me by Riva. A few years later, Yugoslavia fell apart, and Croatia was one of the new independent countries to quickly join the Eurovision Song Contest.

They debuted in 1993 with the song Don’t Ever Cry, which reached a 15th place. Croatia has yet to win as an independent country, but they do have two fourth places from 1996 and 1999 to look back at.

Since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Croatia failed to reach the final 5 times, which included four of them in a row. After that, the broadcaster pulled out for a two year break before they returned to the contest again in 2016.