Review: Germany: Eurovision 2015 | Ann Sophie

Ann Sophie is on her way to Vienna

After an ongoing knockout process, the German national Eurovision final, Unser Song für Österreich, was reduced to a field of two. It was now a straight knockout decision between Ann Sophie with her song Black Smoke and Andreas Kümmert with Heart of Stone - some soulful pop against some different soulful pop.

The German public overwhelmingly voted for Heart of Stone (78.7%) to represent the country in Vienna, but Kümmert had other ideas. In one of Eurovision's more dramatic moments, he decided to pull out and hand his win to the runner-up. No amount of persuasion would change his mind and thus Black Smoke became Germany's song for Europe.

Before the final, I was more familiar with Ann Sophie's other contribution to the event: the fun and lively Jump the Gun. Once this was booted, it was the very radio-friendly Black Smoke which emerged as a major contender in Germany. As it transpired, the song was not as close a rival as some may have thought or hoped but, although only a minority of the public voted for it, it's really a very strong effort.

Contributions to the track's energy and attitude come from young British singer/songwriter Ella Eyre, who is best known for her work with modern day music luminaries such as Rudimental and DJ Fresh. Furthermore, if you close your eyes traces of Paloma Faith seep into Ann Sophie's vocals, giving Black Smoke a very contemporary vibe.

On a Eurovision level, Ms. Sophie also has something of 2010 winner Lena in both her voice and her demeanour, which gives this very solid pop/R'n'B tale of the classic break-up a bubblier quality than it perhaps should. Regardless, uptempo is what this year's competition needs and Black Smoke isn't just any run-of-the-mill uptempo composition. It's a refreshingly well-produced track and, at the time of writing, it clearly stands out from the crowd.

That's undoubtedly an advantage. Unfortunately, it's not going to benefit from the extra exposure afforded the semi-finalists due to Germany's 'Big Five' status, so their entry really needed to be instantly memorable. In my opinion, it has achieved this, demonstrating a strength in its hook to draw in listeners both quickly and easily.

As a result, I've a hunch that a good score beckons for Black Smoke. Do you agree?

Image by Frank Schwichtenberg (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons