SLOVENIA 2024

  


Last month, Slovenia announced that Raiven would be representing the nation in Malmö, and now we have her song. Here's "Veronika":



About the Artist

Sara Cirman, performing as Raiven, is no stranger to the Eurovision process. She's tried to qualify three times before: losing by 1% in the final vote to ManuElla in 2016, finishing a solid 3rd in 2017, and getting trounced in the final vote in 2019 to the well-deserved winners Zalagasper. This time, with no voting involved, she's got a direct ticket to the big show. Raiven is classically trained, performing in operas all across Europe and acting in musicals. She also knows how to play the harp!


Song Analysis

More or less what we expected from Raiven - a witchy, operatic ballad. I do think it might take too long to get going - not much is happening for the first half-ish of the song. Once it gets going, though, it really gets going.

Slovenia's History


One of the less successful Balkan nations, Slovenia has a penchant for sending very genuine entries (particularly ones in Slovene) that are adored by the fandom and ignored by voters. No Slovene entry has placed better than 7th, and the best Slovene finish since 2001 is 13th, achieved in 2011 and 2002. Maja Keuc (2011) had a great chance at a top-ten finish after receiving 4th place from the juries...then placed 4th-to-last with the televote. Sestre (2002) would have likely done better in later years, considering they were Eurovision's first-ever drag act. Alas, it was 2002. At least Joker Out is selling out tours across Europe now?


Since our last song reveal, I've revamped my country rankings with *math*. This math puts Slovenia 11th overall of 48 countries (9th among current participants). It's been pretty hit-or-miss: 4 Slovene songs rank as my #2 for a given year, but only 2 have hit my top 10 in the past decade. Regardless of the results, Slovenia's one of my favorite countries in the contest.

Prognosis

The good news for Slovenia is that Raiven's a very good live performer, so they shouldn't have to worry about a complete flop. But I'm not sure I can see the televoters getting behind this in the semifinal. Feels like a borderline qualifier unless the staging really pulls things together.

Current Rankings










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