Eurovision 2013: How Euphoric!

[allezfred]

I'm kind of sad with Eurovision this year...it's not the fun it usually is because there's legitimately very little there this time around! Come on, everyone who hasn't picked--time to pick some awesome music! Preferably something voidy

Actually, I can't remember a year when this many songs have been picked this early. It used to be just Albania most years.

Back in the day, most countries would pick their songs late February/March and then the final would be six weeks later.

[TAHbKA]

Yay, tone deafness galore began!

Ukraine: starts a bit off key, but then gets back. Wow, she can shout. Not sure she can sing though. She borrowed the dress from Jenna VDP, right?

Albania: I was waiting for the guy with the guitar to start singing but he never did. His guitar solo is quite impressive though. Do they HAVE sing in the europvision? Is vocal a must? They should ditch the singing ,especially the guitar guy's

Lithuania: Started well, but whenever he gets to the deep notes he is all over the place (FWIW he is singing he is falling apart. Indeed he does). The music is catchy, wish they had catchy lyrics as well.

Belgium: Sandhu? Oh... well... why he insists finishing every phrase with a note he can't hit???

Belarus: I'm sure there was a song somewhere, it just escaped me completely

[Ziggy]

39 countries are confirmed to take part. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia and Portugal decided to withdraw for financial reasons. I wonder whether Turkey's real reasons (obviously that excuse is just bullshit) are also financial or maybe political?

EBU has told Switzerland that it won't accept them to enter an artist using a name of a religious organisation (Salvation Army) and wearing their uniforms. There's an impasse at the moment. Salvation Army was initially throwing a tantrum and threatening to quit but then saying that they hope some solution can be worked out.

Speaking of Switzerland, first Eurovision winner Lyn Assia tried her luck again for Switzerland with this piece of shit. Didn't even make the final, thank god.

10 artists will battle it out to represent Germany and there's some major, successful recording artists in the list. Very successful peddlers of lowest-common denominator dance crap Cascada will take part (and probably win :/) with "Glorious".

I still can't get over Gerai Gerai and Miss Sheep not winning the Lithuanian final (they came 2nd).

Moldavia will have two contests. One for the song and one for the singer.

Aleksandr Lukashenko, I mean Belarussan TV has decided to replace that godawful song with a new one. In his own words: "They took the money and brought no results" (speaking about Litesound) so from this year the winner of the contest will have to cover most of the costs.

Spain will be represented by El Sueño de Morfeo who will present four songs and one of them will be chosen 50/50 by the jury and the public.

Lozano (Vlatko Lozanoski) will represent Macedonia together with Esma Redzepova (70-year old Gypsy music legend). The song is yet to be picked.

Montenegro will be represented by a hip hop duo Who See. Hopefully with something as inane as "Euro Neuro".

Albanian communist era style music festival was won by "Identitet" by Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko. There's already accusations of plagiarism, refuted by the artists. The song is supposed to be heavily changed (as usual for Albania) before Eurovision.

Greece seems quite desperate. They asked Helena Paparizou to take part but she's refused. Greek National TV channel has given the organisation of the national selection up to a private tv channel Mad TV who promises a lot of changes, blah blah blah.

Azerbeijan national selection will last every day for eight weeks (!!!). Vast majority is karoke style performances of course.

Kazakhstan looks set to join EBU and would become eligible to enter Eurovision starting in 2014.

Some changes to the contest itself. It will last a day less and media center will open later. First rehearsals are going to be behind closed doors. All cost saving measures sold as making everything less about "bigger, louder, more flashy" and more "intimate".

The most controversial change is the song order not being chosen by random draw but hand picked by the Swedish producer in order to "provide the best show". Whilst on the one hand, it does make sense, it's just opening a huge pandora's box and asking for massive drama, to be honest.

[FarFarAway]

Ah, Cascada!

When I first saw her video on MCM Top I had a thought cross my mind that she is just the right type for the Eurovision

[allezfred]

This year's Eurovision logo.

[TAHbKA]

cute

[shah]

Ziggy, as for Cascada - I doubt whether she'll win. I don't think she is able to sing live .

And I agree about Lithuanian song - Gerai Gerai & Miss Sheep were sooo underrated ...

[allezfred]

Semi-final allocation:

Semi 1:

First half
Denmark
Croatia
Ukraine
The Netherlands
Austria
Slovenia
Estonia
Russia

Second half
Lithuania
Serbia
Ireland
Belarus
Cyprus
Montenegro
Belgium
Moldova

The UK, Sweden and Italy will vote in this semi-final.

Semi 2:

First half
Latvia
Azerbaijan
Malta
Iceland
San Marino
Macedonia
Finland
Bulgaria

Second half
Israel
Norway
Albania
Hungary
Switzerland
Georgia
Greece
Armenia
Romania

France, Germany and Spain will vote in this semi-final.

The full running order will now be decided by SVT and the production team once the songs are known, in conjunction with the EBU.

[Ziggy]

The logo is fantastic!

Swedes have already showed how awesome they are by holding a very well organised and efficient presentation + semi-final draw with no glitches happening (unlike in recent years).

And I agree about Lithuanian song - Gerai Gerai & Miss Sheep were sooo underrated ...

It's even more annoying because they've actually won the public vote but stupid boring jury... :/

[Reuven]

How does Bulgaria alway wind up in semi 2?

[Ziggy]

Croatia has chosen "Mižerija" by Goran Topolovac as their song (not published yet) and now will be choosing the klapa (traditional folk band) to perform it.

This has caused some uproar because the whole point of a klapa is that it's you know... an actual band and not something like a boyband that you opportunistically cobble together.

Lys Assia who failed to qualify to Swiss finals was rumoured to be representing San Marino but that turned out to be untrue.

San Marino is at the moment choosing between four artists. Two are local and two are from Hong Kong and have no relation to San Marino whatsoever.

Serbians have until Monday to submit the songs and a lot of major and popular artists did so. Interestingly the three girls who have made it to the final of a X-Factor/Idol-like Serbian show submitted a song together.

First Finnish semi-final has taken place and the two songs which qualified to the final are from second place Diandra Flores "Colliding Into You" and from first place Mikael Saari "We Should Be Through".

I find Diandra really mediocre, to be honest. Both vocal and song like a million others.

Mikael is great. He seems really awkard but in a cute way. Lovely vocal, beautiful beautiful song. If he wins (which I expect him to), he should easily make top 10 in Malmo.

Moldavia has a rather terribly organised selection. They got 126 songs and 49 singers submitted. Singers have two days to pick a song they will sing in the semi-final and then another two days to negotiate with the composer and arrange the song (LOL!). Also there's nothing forbidding same song to be chosen by different singers. It's going to be a total hot mess.

[shah]

First Danish semi-final has taken place and the two songs which qualified to the final are from second place Diandra Flores "Colliding Into You" and from first place Mikael Saari "We Should Be Through".

I find Diandra really mediocre, to be honest. Both vocal and song like a million others.

Mikael is great. He seems really awkard but in a cute way. Lovely vocal, beautiful beautiful song. If he wins (which I expect him to), he should easily make top 10 in Malmo.

Ziggy, Finnish, not Danish . I started to wonder what happened to Daze .
Btw, Mikael's song sounds very promising! I can't say the same about Diandra...

Some other observations:
*Yohanna takes part in Icelandic preselections again, this time with a song entitled "Þú", which I find rather disappointing... There is also Birgitta again (ESC 2003) with Meðal andanna.
*the first Norwegian semi-final includes Carina Dahl whose "Screw" was quite popular here and there...
*in Germany, apart from Cascada, there are also Söhne Mannheims . hopefully, with Xavier Naidoo and a good song! have a look also at Ben Ivory who has a Patrick Wolf vibe about him!
*I'm really curious about the British entry. Sophie Ellis-Bextor turned down the offer to represent UK, but seemingly Girls Aloud are interested .
*I'm also waiting for Melodifestivalen and reactivated Army of Lovers (La Camilla ).

[shah]

I forgot to post the link to Ben Ivory's song. Is Eurovision ready to face the fact "we are the queers/gods/stars" etc. ?

[Ziggy]

Ah yeah Finnish ofc, typo there.

Yohanna's song is awful. Birgitta's song is also awful. Really middle-of-the-road soft-rock crap. Ugh.

Söhne Mannheims are awesome but I think Xavier Naidoo won't be taking part.

I really really love Ben Ivory's song! Unfortunately in a public vote, it'll have no chances against the likes of Cascada. :/ And since queer theoretically means strange, Eurovision can piss off.

Sophie-Ellis Bextor sold about nine copies of her last album so you'd think she'd be after getting into the spotlight again. It was a freakin' amazing album but she got no promotion whatsoever. On the other hand, she did report she wanted her next album to feature 'a more mature sound', so she probably doesn't want to get associated with Eurovision.

OMG, Girls Aloud would be AMAZING. One of the most incredible pop acts ever. Given they are about to split up , they have nothing to lose! It'll only be more promotion for their farewell tour. Since the "song couldn't have been released before X" rules have been relaxed now, they could enter "On The Metro" or "Every Now And Then" since neither of those songs were singles and they are both awesome.

I am freakin' excited about Army of Lovers reforming! Sadly "Rockin' the Ride" is not available anywhere yet but I hope it kicks ass and they win. Go Alexander Bard!

[shah]

well, theoretically they can enter "Something New" as it was released mid-November... I agree, it would be amazing to have Girls Aloud at ESC. let's keep dreaming .

[Ziggy]

"Something New" wouldn't be eligible because it's been a major single which received substantial promotion, I think.

Although given it's past the cut-off date who knows maybe you're right.

But yeah it's a bit of a pipe-dream isn't it?

In Norway, the first semi-final took place yesterday and the following three acts qualified to the final:
3rd Vidar Busk "Paid My Way"
2nd Datarock "Underground"
Winner Gromth feat. Emil Solli-Tangen "Alone"

Emil Solli-Tangen is the younger brother of the dude who represented Norway with that awful song a few years back. He's also classically trained.

[Ziggy]

Here's the first Norwegian semi-final winner (studio recording):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4dowLuUwJs



This is going to win the Norwegian final, isn't it?

[Reuven]

Ah, Cascada!

When I first saw her video on MCM Top I had a thought cross my mind that she is just the right type for the Eurovision

Yep. Same house mix rhythm we’ve heard only, oh, about 128734123795 times.

[Ziggy]

Whenever I hear that cringe-worthy, bottom-of-the-barrel "Evacuate the Dancefloor" song of theirs, I wish that a big hole would open up in the dancefloor to evacuate the singer.

[Ziggy]

France has chosen Amandine Bourgeois who will be performing "L’enfer et moi" (song not published yet).

Armenia has chosen Gor Sujyan, a rock singer. On 2nd March he'll be performing submitted songs and viewers+jury will pick the one to be performed in Malmo.