The Israelis have had a hard time of it in Eurovision in the last two year’s. Eddie in 2006 and Teapacks in 2007 both failed to reach the high bar that Shiri Maymon had set in 2005. Can Bo’az live up to her 4th place finish this year?
The Israeli Eurovision site yesterday premiered the five songs that Bo’az Ma’uda will sing in this year’s smaller version of Kdam. One of the songs, ‘As if here’, was co-written by the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest winner Dana International. You can navigate your way to the Eurovil page at the link below, there you can find the video that contains all five songs.
On the same that that the Irish Eurosong 2008 entries were first aired the Israeli songs seemed to get little coverage. The rumours that several of the songs would be duets with a female vocalist seem to be true. We understand it that Maya Avraham will accompany Bo’az with ‘Here is the light’ and then Oshrat Papir will be his singing partner on the song ‘Butterflies’. The door has yet to be firmly closed on the rumour that Dana International could take a singing role in her entry.
Kdam 2008 will take place on the 25th and 26th of February. For the first time in the history of the contest Kdam will be aired on a channel other than IBA 1. This year in an effort to cut the cost to the national broadcaster they have reached an agreement where IBA will show the Eurovision Song Contest itself while giving up the rights to broadcast Kdam.
In my view
This is a fantastic group of five songs in Israel that put what many countries have in their national finals to shame. Out of the five ‘Here is the light’ is my immediate favourite, but it’s a situation where I would be happy to see Israel enter any of these songs. Let’s hope that Bo’az’s live voice stands up to the quality of the entries!
The opinion expressed in "In my view" are those of the author and are not necessarily the one of EuroVisionary.com.
