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





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

BELARUS

A few weeks ago the dong “Born in Belorussia” was presented on TV. Soon after, the song was re-written to be more modern. It was then revealed that the son had been performed as early as April last year, and so the song was officially disqualified. In the meantime a new song has been recorded and a new film clip made. On March 14th, the last official day for entries, Anastasia Vinnikova’s new song “I Love Belarus” was previewed.

The song has a rock mix of traditional and modern instruments, and does sound very Eastern European. The song is quite formulaic and the chorus is quite simple. Anastasia’s voice does not co across very well and at times her voice seems garbled. This type of song is also not the type of song people vote for, especially if the title is “I love (insert country name here that is not your own!)”
I am still not 100% convince this girl will be able to put this off live, especially the middle parts which are quite strained, even with help from several backing singers. I thin she will be able to perform and emote to the audience and camera, but if the voice us bad, she will have no chance.

As far as the presentation in the video, I found that the mix between modern and folk in the music was not matched in the video. I also found the backing singers punching the air very predictable. I think the whole thing would have been much better if it was all one or the other. I think the more folk way of dressing up the song would be softer, as the more modern take, sounds and looks a bit too threatening. I will be very intersted how they decide to style this on the stage.

This is a shame as I don't think this is anywhere as immediate a song as "Iam Belarussian" and not as catchy. I think the song title may well put people off voting for it.


SINGER – Anastasia Vinnikova
SONG – I Love Belarus
MUSIC – Evgeny Oleynik
WORDS – Evgeny Oleynik, Svetlana Geraskova

UPDATE 3

Although most of the songs have been presented, songs are re-written, re-produced and changes made and finalised. Aslo offical video clips are madepublic. Here is around up of some news over the past few days.

HUNGARY – As reported a few days so, the Hungarian song “What about my dreams?” has finally been released with a very professional looking video clip. The song is mostly in English, but the second verse is in the original Hngarian




BELGIUM – Witloof Bay have finally released their video for their entry “With love, baby” The style of the video really suits the song but this type of visual with be almost impossible to recreate on the ESC stage.




SPAIN – Lucia Perez has been very busy over the past 2 weeks making her music video which was filmed during the carnival at Sitges. The song has been slowed very slightly and sounds much more folky than before with more instruments used rather than electronics. I think is needsto be speeded back up again slighty.




IRELAND – the video clip for “Lipstick” has been released. Not sure whether they are at the Eiffel tower or Blackpool tower XD I hope that Jedward are working hard on their choreography for the Semi-final and don’t do their Michael Jackson impressions half way through !




BELARUS – as expected the entry “I am Belarusian” has been replaced due to the fact it had been performed before the EBU opening date. A new song and video imaginatively titled “I love Belarus” has been recorded and filmed over the past few days. The song will be presented on March 14th.

UPDATE 1

As the songs are selected and time goes on, things change.
In these updates I hope to very briefly add any news (good or bad!!!) about the songs or acts chosen for this year’s Eurovision.


UKRAINE – Just like last year, this year’s national final turned out to be a total fiasco!
It was announced at the time that Mika Newton had won the final with her song “Angel”. After the result many, including some of the other participating singers, protested the results. After some investigating it was discovered that there was a major voting anomaly with the public televote. Although Mika recieved the most SMS and internet votes, those votes came from very few unique phone numbers and IP addresses, inferring block voting and rigged voting.
To try and address the situation NTU announced a “Top three run off” between Mika Jamala and Zlata. However just a few days later Jamala withdrew from this new final – then Zlata did the same. So NTU were back at square one and decided to just go with Mika. Rumours of a new song for Mika to sing were uncovered but both Mike and NTU have decided to keep with the original song.

GEORGIA – just a week after Eldrine won the ticket to Düsseldorf, the lead singer was sacked! Tako Vadachkoria has been replaced by Sopho Toroshelidze, one of the backing singers from last year’s contest. A video featuring the new singer is to be produced.

BELARUS – Firstly, it was decided that the lyrics to their selected song were to be changed, to reflect the new “Belarus” rather than of the nation during Soviet times. Then a video emerged of this song being played in April last year, well before the EBU’s cut off date. No official word yet has been made by Belarusian TV or the EBU about the song or country’s disqualification.

NETHERLANDS - As expected, the Dutch act, 3JS have decided to sing their winning entry in English. The song is now renamed “Never alone” and the song and video are being recorded as we speak. Rumours from the band suggest that the intro of the song will be changed and more guitar-led. In addition they will be doing all the singing themselves without the help of extra backing vocals.

SLOVAKIA – The selected act TWiiNS presented their song at the close of the Miss Slovakia contest on the 5th March. Unfortunately the girls were very much miming and the TV director seemed more interested in getting views of the winning (and losing) ladies f the competition. We are no closer to knowing if they can sing yet or what their presentation will be like.

BELARUS

This year BTRC decided to internally select their entrant for Düsseldorf to try and increase their chance of getting out of the semis and into the final. The winning candidate was Anastasia Vinnikova with the song “Born in Belorussia” and was presented on TV on the 28th of February

The song is an up-tempo disco number with Eastern European overtones. As the title suggests the song is all about being from Belorussia and refers to the fact that it was once part of the USSR (I am not sure if stating this fact will be a vote winner or vote loser!) During the presentation Anastasia is alone however there are quite noticeable male backing vocals on the track, which have a very chanted military feel to it. The chorus is actually very good. The chorus’ tune is almost instantaneously memorable and sticks with you – its is one of those songs that is so simple and you cannot help but start singing along!

The visuals of this song need to be worked on a lot. I would suggests that the song would really benefit from having a kind of contemporary military feel to the visuals. This would then fit the kind of chanted feel of the vocals as well as helping choreograph some very simple dance routine to go with it. Anastasia obviously likes the song and does get quite carried away with the song. This is no bad thing but it need to be tamed and channelled in the right way

Further to this there are 2 small but problematic areas that need work. First, time length. The presented song is about 30seconds too long. I am sure it can be cut down easily without damaging the song’s power, but will need careful trimming. Secondly, the backing vocals. There seems to be 2 types of backing on the song, the more normal male/female mix and the powerful military vocals. Can they pull this off with 5 backing singers? I don’t know.

A surprisingly cheesy entry from Belarus, with some promise!


SINGER – Anastasia Vinnikova
SONG – Born in Belorussia
MUSIC – Evgeny Oleinik
WORDS – Evgeny Oleinik, Viktor Rudenko