Israel 2023: Noa Kirel with ‘Unicorn’

The most anticipated internal selection of the year is here with Noa Kirel's ‘Unicorn’:

This is a really interesting song and joins Latvia and Serbia as the only two trying something a bit out there (structurally at least). There is a lot packed into the three minutes here and it certainly doesn't get repetitive, and holds attention. The general rule of progressing “louder and faster” to put it simply is still followed however giving it a typical big finish but when going for something like this with so many layers you do tend to end up with a grower rather than an instant hit.

There's been a couple of other times Noa has featured some Inception-like dance sequences within her music videos and something impressive will be needed live. Whilst I'm not certain the song matches expectations, I'm going to go back in and assume we get an exceptional staging with this entry developed with the stage in mind.

Norway and Israel (and Sweden a little) step on eachothers toes in the semi final but I can't imagine a live performance bad enough to make qualification any sort of issue. Once in the final this is one with potentially equal and strong jury and televote support somewhere in the top 10 for both. I don't think this is nabbing a place or challenging but it should do very well.

I should also add with a bigger name artist like Noa there's potential for this to start spreading pre contest which would aid it's chances significantly- there's already more natural jury appeal than Norway for example. If that's a 20s song I can see this coming back down again whether it has a real chance or not.

Personal Rating: 7/10

Competitve Rating: 8/10

Early Prediction: Semi One 3rd-6th, 5th-9th in the final.