Moldova Entry: SunStroke Project & Olia Tira - Run Away

June 01, 2017 Critic Jonni 0 Comments


Run Away - Sunstroke Project & Olia Tira |

The song that created the Epic Sax Guy meme, I was hoping there would be a music video for this song so I could review it for my Thursday Revisit, and here I am. SunStroke Project, in collaboration with Olia Tira, represented Moldova in Norway at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, with this song. They won the right to represent their country by winning O melodie pentru Europa 2010; and they came 22nd at the Grand Final with 27 points. Luckily for us, SunStroke Project returned seven years later and represented Moldova in Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with "Hey, Mamma!", where they did even better in the Grand Final, coming out in third place. It really shows how much of a difference seven years has made; yet we're still waiting on an album with this song and their new Eurovision 2017 song, come on SunStroke Project! Watch Olia Tira shine throughout this performance-based visual compared with SunStroke Project in this music video for "Run Away", where the Epic Sax Guy meme was born.

SunStroke Project are a three-piece group consisting of Sergei Yalovitsky, Anton Ragoza, and Sergey Stepanov, who have represented Moldova at Eurovision twice, to date. They went viral when Sergey Stepanov was turned into a meme called Epic Sax Guy; then, upon their return in 2017, they hit the Eurovision scoreboard hard, managing to come third overall; "Hey, Mamma!" was my favourite out of all the contestants and I voted for them to win. I hope they continue to push for success, as I truly believe they could bring some saxophone flavour to charts around the world. As for Olia Tira, she's mostly known for this track, although she has attempted to represent Moldova at Eurovision a number of times, not quite making it to the Eurovision stage. She has collaborated with SunStroke Project often in their bids to represent Moldova. She even tried something new in 2014 by competing under the stage name FLUX LIGHT, but that didn't work either. She needs the right song to win, as SunStroke Project proved in 2017. I truly believe that if she keeps trying she'll make it to the Eurovision stage again, all by her own though. This song is catchy, but it's more because of the backing track rather than the singer's vocals. It was written by Anton Ragoza, Sergey Stepanov, and Alina Galetskaya.

The music video is a pure performance piece, with some of the scenes shot amongst the crowd, giving the viewers a live feel of the stage performance.

There's not a lot going on, but Sergey Stepanov does take over the song with his Epic Sax Guy routine and song, which defintiely switches this track up.

Many have noted that Anton Ragoza is just as memorable with his light up violin, with many calling him Epic Violin Guy.

There's not much to this song, and there's not much to this music video either. Olia Tira takes centre stage when it comes to her solos but her vocals aren't on form and it just doesn't work all that well, the same goes for Sergei Yalovitsky. Luckily, he has worked on his voice in the past seven years, and he was much better at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.
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