Switzerland is one of the stalwarts of the Eurovision Song Contest, taking part every single time they haven’t been excluded due to relegation. Although they won the very first contest with Lys Assia and helped Céline Dion on her way to global stardom by letting her sing for them in 1988, recently things have been tougher for the neutral nation in the heart of Europe: an eighth place for the borrowed Estonian girl band Vanilla Ninja is their only truly decent result in the past two decades, and six of their last seven entries have failed to make it past the semi-final stage. (And the one that did finished last in the final!)

After several years of pre-Christmas national finals, the Swiss selected their entry for ESC 2014 in early February, and it was Sebalter – real name Sebastiano Paù-Lessi – who won the ticket to Copenhagen. Sebalter’s solo career follows periods in bands called The Stalkers and The Vad Vuc, both of which sound quite intriguing in their own way.

Hunter Of Stars is the song with which he will seek to qualify from the second semi-final. It comes with a fun preview video involving the liberal use of spaghetti, and the singer is arguably one of the few pieces of eye candy in this year’s contest, although his performance risks coming across as just as slappable as it is charming. Still, there are votes in that – plenty of those who voted for Alexander Rybak probably found him quite irritating too – and with Switzerland appearing late in the running order and needing to beat only five other songs to reach the final, the chances of seeing the famous square flag on the Saturday night scoreboard must be reasonably strong.

My verdict? This isn’t really my kind of song at all, but my sad face below says nothing about its chances at ESC. Although Hunter Of Stars lacks a memorable chorus, it still has plenty of hooks (not least the whistling) – and for all there is stronger competition in the same musical field, not least Malta, what Switzerland has on its side is a far more favourable starting position. As such, I’m classifying this as a “borderline-plus” qualifier – I wouldn’t put any money on it making the final, but I’d still be a little surprised if it doesn’t. Assuming Sebalter makes it through, I can’t see him achieving anything other than a low placing in the final, but that may already be enough to satisfy the success-starved Swiss.

Top 10	Victory	Personal