Amelina is thirteen, and I’d happily let her make an extravagant Eurovision entrance with The Juggle Is Real. Give her the ridiculous lighting budget, too. Her latest single goes straight for commercial dance-pop, bringing a big-beat backing, an Eastern flavour and a chorus with serious replay potential. After her experiments across different genres, this sound seems a particularly good fit for her current enthusiasm.
Her voice has acquired some depth, which is the detail that gives this release significance beyond the immediate hook. She sings with greater boldness, putting weight into the delivery. The commercial setting suits her: she has a direct, attention-seeking song to get her teeth into, and her performance has the appetite for it. I’m interested in this stage of a young singer’s development, when changes in the voice start suggesting fresh possibilities for the material. Here, the deeper sound makes me curious about where she might take a slower song, too.
For now, though, the dance floor wins. The beat supplies the momentum, while the Eastern colouring nudges the music towards the flamboyant end of European pop. Eurovision is the association I keep returning to, specifically its cheerful willingness to throw several attractive ideas into the same production. My tolerance for that approach is embarrassingly high. A memorable chorus usually buys a considerable amount of goodwill from me, and The Juggle Is Real has one. Its straightforward commercial ambition is a virtue.
Mikhail Philippenko, her father, wrote and produced the song after watching her fit music, school, theatre and dance into everyday life. An adult singing about an overloaded schedule can quickly turn pop into an office away day. At thirteen, with another activity still sounding tempting, the subject has a different energy. You get the eagerness alongside the exertion. I’d put this among Amelina’s promising directions. The production offers a clear pop framework, the hook does its job, and her increasingly bold voice gives the release a recognisable point of interest.
The biggest compliment I can pay it is a fairly practical one: the chorus makes me want to play the song again. For a single reaching this openly towards a broad audience, that counts for plenty.
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