Forţele de Muncă — “Hai afară, frate!”
This has an early 1990s indie vibe about it, which I enjoy — it’s a nice listen. However, this is supposed to be an entry to the biggest music contest in the world, not an acoustic folk festival. Did they even have one microphone each when they recorded this? Was it done in a single take? It certainly sounds like it was recorded live and little was done in post-production. And while this gives the song a warm, homely feel, it is simply not competitive. It’s all very well for Romania to be inclusive and let all these people compete, but you need to be able to gently tell some of them that Eurovision isn’t what they’re looking for before it gets to this stage.

Gabriel Basco — “One Night”
Young man sings a heartfelt ballad about the end of a relationship. All very familiar. I was constantly thrown off by the sudden silence which precedes the chorus: my initial thought was that my internet connection may have disconnected. This is fine — it’s competent, follows the formula, Basco sings fairly well — but there’s very little that sets apart from the kind of ballad we’ve heard so many times before at this contest.