This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
I remember back in the noughts, I’d routinely say “Oh, cheer up Serbia! Show us a happy!”, and they’d send us another Balkan ballad sure as eggs was eggs.
Fair play, given Moje 3 and this, they’ve clearly cheered up. Bojana Stamenov’s Eurovision 2015 entry, “Beauty Never Lies”, is all majestic, unashamed ridiculousness. Serbia chose Stamenov with “Ceo svet je moj” in the national final; for Vienna, it was translated into English and retitled “Beauty Never Lies”.
The performance starts with Bojana and her four backing vocalists — Saška Janković, Sanja Bogosavljević, Oliver Katić and Marko Nikolić — in coats and masks, waving coloured flags. Then the disguises come off and the whole thing bursts into a much more energetic dance performance: a theatrical transformation from heartbreak to liberation, if you believe composer Vladimir Graić’s explanation. I mostly believe it because it looks tremendous fun.
The energy Bojana and the team bring to the stage is quite infectious in a bit of running order that’s generally short on fun. The headline’s suggestion that the backing singers are “mocking” Trijntje Oosterhuis is my own mischievous reading rather than an officially confirmed connection: both Serbia and the Netherlands were in the first semi-final, with Trijntje singing “Walk Along” fourth and Serbia scheduled ninth. Trijntje’s much-discussed black outfit and veil certainly made the comparison irresistible at the time.
Don’t underestimate a bit of crowd adoration as well, because they will LOVE this. Also don’t underestimate that Bojana has got a heck of a voice on her…
And, retrospectively, the crowd appeal was not entirely imaginary: Serbia qualified in ninth place from the semi-final with 63 points, then finished tenth in the grand final with 53 points. The Netherlands, meanwhile, failed to qualify after coming fourteenth in the semi-final.
Unashamed. And why not?
