26/02/12 SLOVENIA

The Slovene Final was held at the RTVSLO TV Studios in Ljubljana on February 26th, hosted by Klemen Slakonja & Maja Keuc. Leading up to the final there were heats and a knockout completion (in an x-factor style way) to select the 2 acts in the final. Each act had 3 songs. In the first round, the favourite song for each participant was chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%). In the second round the most popular song for each artist went through to the final which was wholly chosen by televoting.

The winner of EMA was Eva Boto with the song “Verjamem” meaning I believe. This is a Balkan style ballad currently in the local tongue. This is a very strong song and a really good performer. It has been heavily commented that the song shares a lot with a previous winner “Motliva” and shares a mood and style. It is not plagiarised but its similarity does make it quite familiar, which will gain it votes. The song builds really well from a quite start to a belting finish and is very much a complete song.

Eva is backed by four female singers who wear white dresses and funny white net things on their heads. Eva also wears a white dress, but fuller in the skirt. It also has leaves on the belt. They all move well around the set although this is not a song that needs a dance routine. This song and performance will definitely lend itself to a large stage. It will be very interesting to find if they keep the song in Slovene or translate it partially or fully into English.

Finally – a song which would be worthy of the title of winner !

SONG  -  Verjamem (I believe)

ARTIST – Eva Boto

COMPOSERS – Vladimir Graić, Igor Pirković

LANGUAGE – Slovene

26/02/12 NETHERLANDS

The Dutch Final was held on February 26th at Studio 24 in Hilversum, hosted by Jan Smit. For the first half of the competition, the 6 songs were paired into duels. The 3 winners of each duel then went into the second round where the overall winner was chosen. Voting in both rounds was a mixture of televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%).

The eventual winner was the song “You and me” sung by 21 year old Joan Franka. Joan  wears a white native American Indian headdress (just like the bloke from the Village People) Her four backing singers/dancers are dressed in various Pocahontas inspired beige outfits with fringing and tassels. Joan also plays the acoustic guitar while she is singing. The look fits the song but is a little it dated (if not a bit on the jokey side) . That said it is a very noticeable look and Joan will be visually remembered however a bit of modernisation would not go amiss.

The song is a mid-tempo country song. Jans voice is quite strange and has a touch of the Lena Mayer-Landrut ‘mockney’ accent especially at the end of her words. The song is ok – however the chorus does save it slightly. The chorus is very simple and the main parts are repeated enough times to make in impact. The bridge part where she goes quite high is a little bit painful as she can get a bit too squeaky.

This is nowhere near a winner but could just about squeeze into the final.

SONG  -  You and me

ARTIST – Joan Franka

COMPOSERS – Joan Franka, Jessica Hogeboom

LANGUAGE – English

25/02/12 FINLAND

The Finnish Final will be held on February 25th at Helsinki Ice Hall hosted by Anne Lainto & Joona Kortesmäki. The Finnish selection process was quite complex…

There were shows to select and whittle down the participants and then other votes to determine the songs to qualify for the final.  The final was eventually won by Pernilla Karlsson with the Swedish language ballad “När Jag Blundar” (When I close my eyes)

Pernilla’s performance is very straightforward, which fits with the flow of the song. She has a female dancer and male cellist with her on stage although they don’t really interact. The backgrounds and lighting gives the song real mood and atmosphere. The camera work does it best to try and show the action on stage and this movement of the camera helps to show to flow  between the people on stage and the song. Pernilla and the dancer have similar dresses on which really helps with the continuity of the whole act.

The song has very nice laid back contemporary vibe with a slight jazzy feel, although in Swedish. That said her Swedish accent sounds a bit strange, although Swedish is her mother tongue. At times it sounds like Swedish but with a Finnish accent. The chords in the chorus are so sweet and intriguing that this could be a sleeper. Pernilla has already stated that she wished to sing tot song In Baku in Swedish.

I am very pleased with this choice and I think that the song itself is excellent. This will be one which will appeal to the judges, especially those who are songwriters. I personally would like some of it sung in English as I feel this would widen its appeal.

SONG  -  När jag blundar" (When I close my eyes)

ARTIST – Pernilla Karlsson

COMPOSER – Jonas Karlsson

LANGUAGE – Swedish

24/02/12 IRELAND

The Irish Final was held on February 24th at the RTE TV Studios in Dublin, hosted by Ryan Tubridy. The winner was based on a split 50-50 percentage of a jury and televoting. The unanimous winner was the act who represented Ireland last year, Jedward with their new song “Waterline”.

It was a very typical Jedward performance with lots of armography and points as well as a lot of jumping about and cart wheeling. The stage was not that big yet they were able to use all of it well. They were dressed in song very strange black and gold outfits which reminded me of a Michelin man dressed as a wasp. Being used to the huge Eurovision stage, they will be able to come up with something even bigger and bolder for May.

Unlike “Lipstick” one could say that “Waterline” is an actual song. A song with a tune, lack of tedious ‘oh-oh’earworm, no lyricy gimmicks. They *do* have to sing. Yes, they were backed by two male and two female singers but you could audibly hear the two brothers singing live. This, twinned with the fact that they were running around like made men made for quite a performance.

This is definitely one of the better songs from this year’s selections. I feel I would be safe to say that with their ‘previous Eurovision pedigree’ and huge personality Jedward are almost guaranteed a spot in the final.

Right now, I’d say this is possible the first song I could see winning.

SONG  -  Waterline

ARTIST – Jedward

COMPOSERS – Nick Jarl, Sharon Vaughn

LANGUAGE – English

24/02/12 AUSTRIA

The Austrian Final was held on February 24th at the ORF TV Studios in Vienna, hosted by Mirjam Weichselbraun, Robert Kratky & Andi Knoll. The winner was chose through two rounds of televoting. The first round would select the top 2 and then another round would select the winner from these two.

The final two were last years’ runners up, Trackshittaz and reality ex boy band contestant, now drag artist, Conchita Wurst. After a very close final round of voting, the winners, by a very small margin was Trackshittaz with “Woki mit deim popo” meaning “shake that ass”.

It must be said that last year’s runner up etry “Oida Taunz” is far superior to this song and  that way it is a little disappointing. The song is in a very strange dialect of German and does sound very strange to the untrained ear. The chorus is very brash and loud but it does get you involved, which is probably its only saving grace.

The band does its normal visual routine whilst they’re are backed by 3 ladies who send most of their time doing pole dancing. Close to the end they do part of their dance routine under ultra violet lights which shows of the highlighted bits of their catsuits/ The whole overall effect of this is that is all seems a little bit to rude. It just steps over the line a tad. Plus I am not quite sure how they are going to cart o and off three poles onto the stage in 45 seconds…

In addition to this the EBU will also probably have to make them change their name…

It’s an interesting song and certainly different to anything else we’ve heard this year. The juries won’t like it but will get the dirty old man vote.

SONG  -  Woki mit deim popo (Shake your ass)

ARTIST – Trackshittaz

COMPOSERS – Lukas Plöchl, Manuel Hoffelner

LANGUAGE – Central Bavarian/Mühlviertlerisch (dialect of German)

BELARUS - update

It was announced on the BRTC website today that Litesound, finalists in this year’s preselection contest, will now be flying the Belarusian flag in Baku after an internal selection.

No official reason has been given for Alyona’s disqualification, although many ESC fans are already suggesting with there may have been allegations or proof of vote rigging with the voting although some state she may have angered the country’s president….

That said, this song is a HUGE improvement on the dire song that originally won…

It is a rocky electro song with quite a good chorus, however I am not too sure on their styling (or should I say lack of it!) The singer is quite good and his accent is tolerable but he could easily improve before May. The band seem quite together and seem to be enjoying the performance although at times they look a little bit old too be pogo dancing like they were in Busted or something…

I don’t think this is bad and with a following wind, this should be a qualifier

SONG  -  We are the heroes

ARTIST – Litesound

COMPOSER – Vladimir Karyakin, Dmitry Karyakin

LANGUAGE – English





22/01/12 TURKEY

The Turkish entry was revealed on Wednesday 22^nd February during a special broadcast on TRT. It

was revealed many weeks ago that the Turkish broadcasters had internally selected Can Bonomo to represent them in Baku. Here he revealed the track he'll perform at Eurovision, “Love me back”

Oh dear.

The song is extremely disjointed, it starts off in quite a traditional epic way then becomes quite a jolly mid tempo number with strange dramatic interludes inserted for very little reason (or effect). His voice is ok however his pronunciation needs a lot of work and during the quick parts you really cannot make out what he is saying. The lyrics of the song are very figurative yet in some ways are nonsensical, especially the “nani nani naaaaaa” parts

Can delivered this performance vocally by himself (although he was obviously miming) and spent a lot of time dancing around, including messing about with his cloak. At points he looked like a a very poor "Stars in you eyes" contestant trying to be Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot from Curiosity Killed The Cat....This said, he was backed by quite a full orchestra of traditional instruments whose payers joined him on the stage near the end of the song. This was a very simple performance and it will be interesting to se how this is expanded and improved for May.

As Can was miming it is hard to give a full critique but I am really not impressed by this song and feel that on so many levels it is weak and will not stand out. That said – this *is* Turkey so could just scrape through to make it to Saturday’s final.

SONG  -  Love me back

ARTIST – Can Bonomo

COMPOSER – Can Bonomo

LANGUAGE – English

Debuts

After a week away the podcast is back!!!

This week I focus on Debut entries and I've tried to select not just a range of songs in terms of tempo and languages but also wide in a geographical sense...

Stay tuned 'til almost the end to discover the very special TV related theme to next weeks podcast...

 

You can download or listen to it here http://www.archive.org/details/Debuts


Click here to listen to this podcast in your usual music player (M3U Playlist)

19/02/12 GEORGIA

The Georgian Final was held on February 19th at the 1TV Studios in Tbilisi, hosted by Temo Kvirkvelia. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%).

The winner, which was the only placing to be announced, was Anri Jokhadze with the song “I’m a Jocker” which I think is supposed to be spelt ‘joker’ – but who knows… or frankly cares.

In fairness his song did stand out at the national final as most of the songs were very rocky, Emo-type songs which are fine but when you hear several in a row, it gets monotonous. Saying that, the song and performance are both just ridiculous. His voice and accent is really awful and he seems to screech and shout his way through the song. No effort seemed to have been made in writing the song and certainly little thought went into the styling or production of the performance. What he needs to do is make it a really OTT performance following the list of type of people included in his song with lots of interaction with the backing singers (which were on the backing track but not in person on the stage)

I really don’t know why they even bothered. DNQ all the way

The video below is a little chopped up but many of the videos available online have been dubbed over by the studio version which is very sneaky but still makes it no better.

SONG  -  I’m a joker

ARTIST – Anri Jokhadze

COMPOSERS – Rusudan Chkhaidze, Bibi Kvachadze
LANGUAGE – English

18/02/12 CROATIA

On 18^th February the Croatian internal selection was finally revealed during a special Dora show for HRT. The well known singer Nina Badrić was selected as the singer many weeks ago but the song presentation was not revealed until this date. She will be singing “Nebo” (Heaven)

Nina presented her self penned song (although she was clearly miming), a growing ballad in Croatian, to an eager crowd.  The song, meaning heaven, had a very serene backdrop and dress akin to Doris Dragovic in 1987 with a flowing cloak which made the most of the wind machine. She was also able to use clever armography to make the most of her dress and make the most of the highlights of the song. The clever camera work at the begin really grew with the song.

Apart from the use of her dress, there is not much of a performance to the song. If her voice is strong enough to belt it out, not much more will be needed anyway. Plus if they can get a similar backdrop in Baku it would really set the song off. Backing singers appear on the track but were not on stage. I don’t feel she needs dancers either, unless they are need to detract from her voice.

The song will be very popular in the Balkans and may appeal to the Schlager types. The song does grow and have a good overall look and feel to it, however I am very unsure as to how well this will do. I feel that the juries may give it point but not quite enough for an entry to the semis. I really need to hear the song sung live to give a firm decision. It is very unlikely that the song will have a language change for Baku.

To be honest after a couple of listens and views it is certainly memorable, but not singable. Am really on the fence…

SONG  - Nebo (Heaven)

ARTIST – Nina Badrić

COMPOSER – Nina Badrić

LANGUAGE – Croatian

18/02/12 UKRAINE

The Ukrainian Final was held on February 18th, hosted by Timur Miroshnichenko & Tatiana Terekhova. The winner was chosen by a mixture of SMS voting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%).

The ticket to Baku was scooped by the song “Be my guest” sung and written by Gaitana. The song has touches of Ruslana and Ani Lorak about it. Her voice is quite strong and does sound very modern and suits this style of music. The four dancing /horn players are a little bit of a distraction and the faux horn playing gets quite tedious by the end of it. Saying that, she herself is dressed a bit too much like a drag queen… bit this is Eurovision so she can probably get away with it.

The song as a whole piece is not well constructed. First of all the chorus is far too repetitive and to be honest the horn tune in the background is far more interesting! Secondly the verse, especially the second one, does not really have a tune or at least a tune that is easily repeatable. What would help the song is to have some kind of dance routine for the chorus which can be used as a bit of an eye worm rather than the weak earworm. Also having a larger stage may well help matters.

So the song will qualify and will possibly do well but to me not a winner…

SONG  - Be my guest

ARTIST – Gaitana

COMPOSER – Gaitana

LANGUAGE – English

18/02/12 LATVIA

The Latvian Final was held on February 18th at the Juras Varti Theatre House in Ventspils, hosted by Kristine Virsnite, Jolanta Strikaite & Valters Fridenbergs. Previous to the final there were two semi-finals.

The winner was the Eurovision-themed song ”Beautiful Song” sung by Anmary. The song makes references to winning the contest as well as other famous singers and songs. Her voice is not too bad and her diction is quite clear, which makes a nice change !

The performances of this have been a little bit odd. Not only does Anmary do a good job at eyeballing the camera so hard she frightens me she also walks very weirdly across the stage. In one version she starts off by singing from a ‘Eurovision book’ whilst sitting on what seems to be a chair made of hay. Then her 3 backing singers reveal French, Italian and Russian flags as part of their dresses. In another she is backed by Frizzle Sizzle from 1986 and do a very bad line dance during the chorus whilst wearing a very bad outfit. It’s all a bit too knowing. It’s like a joke entry trying too hard to be good and serious. It just doesn’t work. That said the chorus is actually quite catchy and memorable.

I think this song will not be troubling the upper echelons of the scoreboard, especially if between now and then they come up with more ‘tricks’ to get noticed. But if she just sang it, it might not do too bad.

SONG  - Beautiful song

ARTIST – Anmary

COMPOSERS – Ivars Makstnieks, Rolans Ūdris

LANGUAGE – English

 

16/02/12 GERMANY

The German Final was held on February 16th at the Brainpool Studios in Cologne, hosted by Sandra Rieß & Steven Steven Gätjen. Before the final there were 7 shows whittling down the initial 20 candidates to a final 2.

Roman Lob was vote the winner of “Unser Star fuer Baku”with the song “Standing Still” The song sounds very contemporary with the guitar/piano rock feel to it. It certainly sounds like the type of song that western Europe would really like as well be something that would appeal to the juries. The song does sound very familiar and sound like anything that could ahe been published by The Fray, Script or OneRebublic. It was revealed early on I the process that the song had been written by Jamie Cullum hose style of music is very popular as well as being a bit name to publisise then touring the song.

Roman is a good singer and has a strong voice which the song really complements. He has a good level of performance and can cope really well on the stage himself. I just hope they don’t spoil his charisma by adding dancers or funny backing singers. I also hope they do not try and stifle his personality by dressing him up in a suit. Leave him with the baseball cap and lumberjack shirts!

The Germans have once again come up with a song that is strong and will appeal. Will do well but possibly not good enough to make another trip to Germany in 2013.

SONG  - Standing Still

ARTIST – Roman Lob

COMPOSERS – Jamie Cullum, Steve Robson, Wayne Hector

LANGUAGE – English

14/02/12 BELARUS

The Belarussian Final was held on February 14th at the Sports Palace in Minsk, hosted by Denis Kurian & Leyla Ismailova. Before the final there was a semi-final consisting of 15 songs.

Alena Naskaya won the ticket to Baku with her rendition of te ballad “All My Life” The song seems to be a very typical rock ballad which many of the Eastern European countries might send (in fact it sounds like a slower version of “Eyes than never lie”)

Alena is backed a male and female dancer and three violinists who sway back and forward – good job I am not prone to sea sickness. She does not really do very much herself and the whole set up is a little distracting, including her oddly cut dress. Her voice is not bad but her pronunciation is awful I think it took me a good few listens to realises that she is singing the whole song in English and not just the choruses.

This won’t bother a soul on the night.

SONG  - All my life

ARTIST – Alyona Lanskaya

COMPOSERS – Leonid Shirin, Yuri Vashchuk

LANGUAGE – English

11/02/12 HUNGARY

The Hungarian Final was held on February 11th at the MTV Studios in Budapest, hosted by Zsóka Kapócs & Gábor Gundel-Takács. Before the final there were 2 semi-finals where 20 songs were reduced to a final of 8.

Compact Disco was the winning act with their song “Sound of our hearts”. The song is a slow electronic ballad which seems to sound a bit like a Hurts song…. But not quite. The song itself is quite straightforward although the chorus is quite strong and memorable. The singer used an old fashioned microphone, probably as juxtaposition from the style of song, during the semi but it whistled a lot during the slower verse part, which did not work. Luckily he changed to a hand held mic in the final which worked much better.

There is not much performance to the song as the band seem to spend most of their time standing around playing their instruments. It is something when the visuals behind them are more interesting than the band themselves. Their dress sense also has much to be desired as they seem to have employed the same stylist as the Greek entry from 2002. They also *all* need a hairbrush and a good shave.

At least the song is different, and possibly on the progressive side but it will not be at all memorable enough to gain enough votes to progress this year.

SONG  - Sound of our hearts

ARTIST – Compact Disco

COMPOSERS – Walkó Csaba, Pál Gábor, Sándor Attila and Benham Lotfi.

LANGUAGE – English

11/02/12 ICELAND

The Icelandic Final was held on February 11th at Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, hosted by Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir & Páll Óskar Hjálmtýsson. Before the final there were 3 semis with 5 songs. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%).

The winning song was a duet between Greta Salóme & Jón Jósep (also known as Jonsi, who represented Iceland in 2004) with the song “Mundu eftir mér” (Remember Me). The song is very dramatic and old fashioned. It has a very nice folkey quality to it, almost Celticly medieval in its tune like a Troubadour singing a madrigal on his lute. Jonsi sings whilst Greta, who also penned the song,  sings and plays the violin. The songs grows as it progresses getting ever so slightly rocker.

The performance is a little stilted although I feel with a bigger stage they might be able to move more and interact more with each other and the audience. They are also backed by 4 solid backing singers, one of which has the biggest ginger beard I have seen in a long time – they need to make more of this fact !!!

On reflection I think the song is interesting – and it will be interesting to see if they stay in Icelandic or not – but I don’t think it is a winner… possibly not even a qualifier.

SONG  - Mundu eftir mér (Remember Me)

ARTIST – Gréta Salóme & Jónsi

COMPOSER – Gréta Salóme

LANGUAGE – Icelandic

11/02/12 NORWAY

The

The Norwegian Final was held on February 11th at the Spektrum in Oslo, hosted by Marte Stokstad & Per Sundnes. Previous to the final, there were 3 semi-finals consisting of 8 songs each.

The final was won by the song “Stay” sung by Tooji. The song itself sounds very current and could easily be heard on the radio waves of Europe. Although its sound is very Western in its production the addition of some Eastern style elements in the backing track as well as some of the choreography (which also complement his background) will widen its appeal.

The performance is quite clever. It seems like a very active performance from the singer, however on closer looking Tooji barely moves from the spot. It seems like they have looked and learnt from Eric Saade’s performance from last year and produced a version of the song that can actually be performed and sung without spoiling the vocal. Not too sure about the excess smoke at the end…

All in all I think this is a very good song choice by the Norwegians, a solid chance of qualifying but possibly not an overall winner.

SONG  - Stay

ARTIST – Tooji

COMPOSERS – Tooji Keshtkar, Peter Boström and Figge Boström

LANGUAGE – English



Eponymous

The podcast is here!!! All the songs have people's names (real or fictional) in their title

You can download or listen to it here http://www.archive.org/details/Eponymous


Click here to listen to this podcast in your usual music player (M3U Playlist)

04/02/12 MALTA

The Maltese Final was held on February 4th at the Malta Fairs & Convention Centre in Ta' Qali, hosted by Ronald Briffa & Elaine Saliba. Before the final there was a semi-final, where the cast of  24was reduced to a final of 16. The winner was chosen by an "expert" jury (6/8) and televoting (2/8).  The eventual winner was Kurt Calleja and “This is the night” after a dingdong battle with seemingly perpertual runner up, Claudia Faniello.

Kurt is joined on stage by  a static drummer, 2 guitarists (who also do some backing dancing and singing), a DJ/dancer and a female backing singer. The song, like last year, is an uptempo dance number. Kurt has a very strange voice, almost operatic in places and at times doesn't fit the song. That said his voice is nice and clear and seems to cope really well singing the song live. Kurt also does a very annoying stamping dance routine during the 'oh-oh-oh' bit at the end of the chorus, which is also copied by his guitarists. Is this really the best of Maltese choreogaphy? If so I'm on the next plane to Valetta to share my degree level skills! He commands the stage quite well but the whole act is a little stiff and needs some sprucing and freshening up before May.

The song has quite a striaghtforward structure and has its fair share of earworms. It sound like several different songs (Usher, JLS and Ed Sheeran are just three examples) I don't think it is a bad song, or a bad performance but it does seem a little dated and amateurish. They really need to push the earworms and get people to remember those parts and get them addicted. Otherwise it will be another DNQ.

SONG  - This is the night

ARTIST – Kurt Calleja

COMPOSERS – Johan Jämtberg, Kurt Calleja and Mikael Gunnerås

LANGUAGE – English

29/01/12 FRANCE

The French entry, like the past few years, was internally selected.

It was revealed many months ago that Anggun, a French-Indonesian singer, would sing the song in a mixture of French and English. On 29th of January the song was released online. No proper video as yet, just clips of her in the studio.  William Rosseau and Jean Pierre Pilot are the writers of the song whilst Veronica Ferraro, well recognised for her collaboration with David Guetta, was in charge of sound mixing.

I have to say that even after four or five listens of the song - I am confused. What exactly I am confused about is also confusing.... You confused yet?!?!!

The song starts of quite slow and rocky and then slowly ratchets up to its proper speed. Angunn has an intersting voice although it sounds like she's really straining to get those high notes.The songs itself is quite good and has lots of separate parts and section that get inside your head.  The mixture of English and French works well and the choruses are quite memorable. Will be intersting to see if they wake a big thing about the whistling in the background....

I think my unsureness about the track comes from the music. It seems to stop, start, quicken up, slow down, chop and change too much for my liking. It gives it that feeling like there is no continuity, at one point I wan't sure if or when the song was going to end as ech time I thought I was changing to finish it would change again ! Will be interesting to find out which part of the song they use for the voting clip.

Obviously, more will be revealed once it is sung live and I will be very interested to see how the song is made into a show for Eurovision !

SONG  - Echo (You and I)

ARTIST – Anggun

COMPOSERS – Anggun, William Rousseau, Jean-Pierre Pilot

LANGUAGE – French/English

Last but not least

It's podcast time again !


This week we have a range of songs that came bottom of the leaderboard - and don't worry they are not all Norwegian - in fact I made a point of not playing not even one!!!


You can download or listen to it here http://www.archive.org/details/LastButNotLeastEsc


Click here to listen to this podcast in your usual music player (M3U Playlist)