Bathroom break, colourful, cheesy, or full of positive energy and happiness? Those are only bits of opinions from Eurovision fans about Yodel it! What are the other reactions on this Romanian entry from Eurovision 2017?

After Romania was disqualified from Eurovision Song Contest in 2016, they returned one year later. And in their traditional national selection Selecția Națională 2017, Ilinca Băcilă and Alex Florea won with their song Yodel It!.

Song composed by famous Mihai Alexandru is a combination of rap, singing, and yodeling. It got the biggest attention from professional juries in the national semifinal and got six times 12 points. This success was repeated in the final when Yodel It! was a clear winner, obtaining twice as many votes as the runner-up M I H A I (Mihai Trăistariu, Eurovision Romania 2006).

This yodeling song quickly became a “love or hate” song. While some praised it’s originality, the others hated it for it’s weirdness. It definitely was one of the most discussed entries in Kyiv. In the semifinal, Romania passed to the grand final from a safe sixth place. And the overall result in the grand final was not much worse as the final place for Alex and Ilinca was 7th with 282 points. But even though the entry received mixed results from fans, general public loved it (5th place in televote in the final) and Yodel It! was the most successful Romanian Eurovision entry since 2010. And on top of that, it’s to-date the last Romanian entry to make it to the Eurovision final.

Yodel It! – opinions from fans

In order to find out what Eurovision fans today think of this Romanian entry from 2017, we asked our Eurovision Fan Panel. It includes team members as well as fans from all over the world.

🇨🇿 Josef Š. – I want to start with mentioning that I heard Yodel It! for the first time before it was announced for the Romanian national final. And immediately, I fell in love with it. Especially with the positive energy mostly from Ilinca’s yodeling and singing. And the happiness in the song made me cry the first few times I heard it. It rocketed to be my no.1 in 2017 and stayed there until the very end. I just love this song forever!

🇬🇧 Ashleigh K. – This is the kind of song that people love from Romania, but if the UK had entered with this we would have been laughed off the stage. I quite like the yodeling parts but the rap is a cheesy and I don’t understand why they have images of nutcrackers on the screens.

🇷🇴 Doina A. – Although yodeling has nothing to do with Romanian culture, it’s nice to listen. The lyrics are simple, the music flows, the rhythm is growing…as the boy says: “I’m a dreamer” and just invites the girl: “Come on sing along”. Kind of optimistic melody, nice to listen and danceable! 😊 Maybe, without yodeling it would have been better (my personal opinion!).

🇳🇴 Stine F. – This song is the musical manifestation of the Great Wall of China, placing me on one side of it and all my Eurovision fan friends on the other. They all really LOVE it and I just… don’t. I’m sorry! Although I admire the vocal range of the yodeller, I tend to take a bathroom break every time my friends turn up the volume and dance to this festival of a song. Call me a party pooper (pun intended).

🇨🇴 🇫🇮 Alvaro S. – This song was in my opinion overrated by the audience. It is funny to me that Alex Florea, the guy that accuses Salvador Sobral of “making a circus” to gain sympathy votes, is literally bringing a cannon on stage in this performance. His pitch failed at some point and besides that, that unrequested kiss at the end… eww poor Ilinca.

🇬🇧 Michael O. – It appears on Wikipedia that I described this song as the most colourful in the show, I guess it was, but after the contest, I never wanted to hear this ever again, and thank goodness I have indeed gone out of my way to avoid it. Horrible.

🇩🇰 Charlotte J. – Sitting in the press centre watching the first rehearsals, I quickly realised that I was in a minority that year. The press went wild when this came on – and I didn’t get it. Today, three years later, I still don’t understand why. Yes, it’s catchy, but for me, it’s in an annoying way. It sure stands out, and I don’t hate it, I just don’t like it either. 3/10 – and the highlight for me was him kissing her at the end of the song, and her quite clearly not liking it.

🇳🇱 Jacques H. – Did Alex Florea and Ilinca know what they wanted with ‘Yodel It’? He doesn’t really sing nor rap properly. Ilinca starts to yodel and then takes over singing. As a result, this song limps three minutes long without knowing what it wants to be. It confuses me, and the yodel is not an improvement, as I’m absolutely not a fan of it. In short, a terrible song, not attractive at all, but fortunately that is what Alex and Ilinca are. Apparently it’s their looks why they were selected, not for the song or the yodelaheeeeteeee…

🇹🇷 Gunec G. – I can tell that it’s really loved among fans. Ilinca and Alex were very harmonious together on stage. The song was jolly and uptempo to dance with. However, Ilinca’s exaggerated yodeling vocals somehow distracted me and I think it ruined the song.

🇭🇺 Vangelis M. – About Romania in 2017 I can’t say I did not enjoy the performance, it’s nothing special in my opinion. The yodel sound sometimes can also be annoying. Not a song that is saved in my playlist.

Enjoy Ilinca’s and Alex Florea’s performance from the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in the embedded video. Below the video, you can read more about them.

Ilinca feat. Alex Florea – a mini biography

Maria Ilinca Băcilă is a young singer and yodeller from Romania. She participated in many TV shows and competitions. First, she took part in Romania’s Got Talent in 2012, then in 2013, it was X-Factor Romania, where she sang as a part of a four-piece girl band Quattro. Another year later, in 2014, she showed her yodeling abilities in The Voice of Romania. After three years, it was her time to shine at Eurovision, together with Alex Florea. After Eurovision, Ilinca started her solo career by releasing two singles – Amici and Nu acum. She also was a jury member in Romanian national final in 2018.

Alex Florea had similar previous experiences from TV shows just as Ilinca. He was among the contestants of both X-Factor Romania and The Voice of Romania, always one edition after Ilinca took part. After their common Eurovision experience, Alex tried his luck again in 2018 in the Romanian national final with his song Nobody Told Me It Would Hurt, this time on his own. Even though Ilinca was in the jury, he did not succeed and failed to win for the second time in a row. After that he has not released any new music.