We’ve been waiting weeks for him to drop the song and music video for his Eurovision 2019 track ever since Russia announced that Sergey Lazarev was returning to the contest, representing them, determined to win this time around. We knew the track was going to be good, considering his releases following his previous Eurovision track, but we weren’t quite ready for this amazing ballad, titled “Scream”.
We last saw Sergey Lazarev at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 where he sang “You Are The Only One” as he climbed an LED wall in a spectacular stage performance. He topped the televote with viewers loving his performance, however he didn’t score as highly in the jury vote, and therefore placed third behind Australia’s Dami Im with “Sound of Silence” (second) and Ukraine’s Jamala with “1944” (winner). This time around, he’s back with a vengeance, prepared to take the top spot and earn more points from the jury with a brilliant vocal delivery.
Watch Sergey Lazarev’s Music Video For Eurovision Song “Scream” Here:
Written by Dimitris Kontopoulos, Phillip Kirkorov, and Sharon Vaugh, produced by Dimitris Kontopoulos, and mixed by Andrew Konoplev at CineLab Studios; “Scream” is one of the best ballads we’ve heard from Sergey Lazarev to-date – and he has sung quite a few in his lengthy career. This established Russian singer is easily showcasing his pure-perfection vocals on this track, identifying with the meaning behind the lyrics and unlocking the pure essence of the song. He effortlessly sends that essence to every single listener with each word of “Scream”, so much so that it gives us chills every time we listen to the song. The lyrics are about tears themselves, how he will hold them back and stay brave until the person who hurt him looks away. We’ve all had a point in time where we didn’t want to show our emotion but how tears may give us away because they don’t just fall, they scream.
As for the music video, which has been directed by Konstantin Cherepkov whilst Alexey Kupriyanov acted as director of photography, pours the emotional song into a beautiful narrative story paired with intercut performance scenes. It’s a totally different approach to his “You Are The Only One” music video, which makes us worried for the stage production of this as it could be more stripped back – although we do hope Russia will blow us away again with something new, different, but relatable.
The visual paints the story of childhood fears and as we grow up they become more fearsome and yet as we adult, we have to tackle them head on. It’s a dark visionary starting with Sergey Lazarev on a boat, heading to an island, one he remembers from his childhood. We watch a young Sergey Lazarev, played by Andrey Lishchenko, journey to the island, prepared to rescue a young girl, played by Maya Pestryakova. In other scenes, we watch the girl, all grown up, played by Elena Arutyunova (who has her own singing career and released a song titled “Blow the Roof”), with Sergey Lazarev in similar situations, including battling dragons. It’s a deep dark music video that works so well with the song, but we wonder what the staging of the song will be like – we will have to wait until May, to find out.
Russia is set to make it to the Grand Final this year, and they’re pulling out all the stops. Last year, Yulia Samoylova represented the country, after she was previously meant to represent them in 2017, however she was banned from entering the host country of Ukraine and so Russia withdrew from the contest for that year. In 2018, she performed in Portugal with the song “I Won’t Break” but failed to make it through to the Grand Final. This time around, Russia clearly wants to win, and so it’s no surprise they brought back Eurovision 2016 televote favourite, Sergey Lazarev.
To win, he’ll have to score more points that the other 41 representatives. Announced acts so far for this years Eurovision Song Contest are Srbuk for Armenia, Tamta for Cyprus, Jonida Maliqi for Albania, Eliot for Belgium, Miki for Spain, Serhat for San Marino, Duncan Laurence for The Netherlands, Tamara Todevska for North Macedonia, Michela Pace for Malta, Bilal Hassani for France, Lake Malawi for the Czech Republic, PÆNDA for Austria, Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman for Finland. Michael Rice for the United Kingdom, Sergey Lazarev for Russia, Mahmood for Italy, Kate Miller-Heidke for Australia, D-Moll for Montenegro, Kobi Marimi for Israel, Katerine Duska for Greece, Joci Pápai for Hungary, Jurijus for Lithuania, Leonora for Denmark, S!sters for Germany, Ester Peony for Romania, Victor Crone for Estonia, Roko for Croatia, Carousel for Latvia, Tulia for Poland, Hatari for Iceland, Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl for Slovenia, KEiiNO for Norway, Nevena Bozovic for Serbia, Conan Osíris for Portugal, Oto Nemsadze for Georgia, Anna Odobescu for Moldova, and Luca Hänni for Switzerland. The other countries are expected to reveal their acts in the forthcoming days.
The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest will be hosted at the Expo Tel Aviv in Israel after Netta won last year with the song “Toy”. The two Semi-Finals will take place on 14 May and 16 May with the Grand Final taking place on 18 May. A total of 41 countries will compete in the contest.