A Good Icelandic National Final In Sight

Yesterday Iceland presented its 12 artists who will participate in the national final. There are a considerable number of returning artists two who have competed at Eurovision and five who have competed before in the national final.

Many fans, including myself will be delighted to see the return of Bigitta [Eurovision 2003: 8th] and Yohanna [Eurovision 2009: 2nd]. Others may also be happy with the return of Magni Ásgeirsson [National Final 2012: 3rd], though I never really understood what made that song so special in the eyes of fans.

The Icelandic songs should be released on Monday 14th January and I'm very much looking forward to hearing them.

Could It Be The Winner of Eurovision 2013?

I was just typing up a boring piece of analysis to do with Melodifestivalen when I noticed that Cascada's entry in the German national final was available online. Each year, like most Eurovision fans, I notice some artists coming through national finals who make you wonder could they winner. Cascada is a group which I had earmarked as possible winners, so their song one I was watching out for.

Having listened to their song I'm not convinced it can win the German national final with ease however it would certainly put Germany in the top 10. It's a good song, it might win, but I was hoping for something a little more inspirational. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you think this has winner written all over it. Maybe you think this is a definite no no. Feel free to comment or tweet to me as usual.

Cascada - Glorious

A Change Is Gonna Come - Nope, It's Here Already

One of the more odd changes in this year's list of changes to the contest is the insertion of article 1.2.1a into the rules of Eurovision. It deals specifically with commercial release date of songs. The article reads as follows:
Compositions  (lyrics and music) must not have been commercially released before 
1 September 2012. In case the composition has been made available to the public, for 
example, but not limited to, on online video platforms, social networks or (semi-) publicly 
accessible databanks, the Participating Broadcaster must inform the ESC Executive Supervisor, 
who shall have authority to evaluate whether the composition is eligible for participation in the 
Event. In particular, the ESC Executive Supervisor shall assess whether such disclosure prior to 
1 September 2012 is likely to give to the composition an advantage in the Event vis-à-vis the 
other compositions. The ESC Executive Supervisor shall authorise or deny participation of a 
composition which may have been available to the public as described above, subject to the 
prior approval of the Reference Group.

This is actually a highly subjective rule, which apparently was proposed by the Danish broadcast - which makes me wonder what they are up to. As with many of the newly introduced rules this year we will have to wait to see it in practice before we can make a judgement on it. Sadly this means that the newly implemented rules will actually impact the contest before they are judged, which is far from optimal.

I am calling on the EBU to ensure that this rule will be applied prudently even if this means that many countries have to change their songs.

This rules seems to likely to be used with some of the songs in the German national final [five of which are already publicly released].

Melodifestivalen Running Order Revealed

Today on what has now become known as SVT Thursday SVT revealed the Melodifestivalen running order (For the semi-finals). The semi-finals are opened by David Lindegren and end with Ulrik Munther. Really their is not a whole pile of surprise involved in this, largely because there is not quite as many returning artists as normally would be expected.

The most interesting is who received the coveted last place in the semi-final went to Ulrik Munther. This generally considered to mean that he is Christer Bjorkman's favourite and is a song that Christer thinks has a chance. This means one of two things: The song is amazing or more than likely Christer just thinks he's onto a hunch. Christer's crazy ideas have had very much mixed success even when they do actually make it out of Melodifestivalen. In 2009 he decided the world needed to hear Malena Ernman. BAD IDEA. Didn't even get to the top 10 despite all the great songs in Melodifestivalen that year. 2010, Anna Bergendahl. I don't need to elaborate. 2011 Eric Saade. Good Choice Christer. 2012 Danny Saucedo. Oh but who won Eurovision. It wasn't Danny.

Certain those who catch Bjorkman's eye are always worth watching mainly because of the massive budget that is thrown at their performance.

Now those of you who may be thinking that Ulrik might have a chance but I am somewhat skeptical. Last year he was though he came joint third with David Lindgren he still didn't manage to win his semi-final against David and only managed to come in fourth place with the juries. On top of that he only finished eighth in the televote. This is an artist who doesn't exactly have the hallmarks of someone who really has a strong chance of winning. You could argue that many artists may have had a shot had it not been for Loreen hoovering up the votes, however I'm not convinced that Ulrik would have massively improved in the absence of Loreen.

What A Great Year It Was

2012 certainly has been a wonderful year for Eurovision fans. We've learned new things about the contest, we're now better able to ask other questions, but what stands out?

Loreen

Without a doubt the star of 2012 in the eyes of so many fans. I must admit I was not impressed by Euphoria at first but it does take me a couple of listens to get my head around a good song. At Eurovision she has definitely wrote a chapter in the history of Eurovision, not just for being a great song or gaining the second highest number of points ever received, but more importantly she won the contest for the fans. For this we should be grateful.

What national final formats actually work?

There is a huge difference of opinion about the best way to run a national final. While most fans will talk about running Melodifestivalen styled finals that may be too big and expensive to run in smaller countries, there has been many changes to national final formats this year. Yet, in spite of this there has been little convergence in formats which makes it very difficult to argue that one type works. 

Are the changes to the contest for the better?

Certainly it has been well flagged by the EBU that Eurovision will change substantially over the coming years, as Sweden the contest this would appear to be a relativity easy thing to achieve this year. We saw the beginnings of this change in Oslo in 2010, but it to difficult to say what the ultimate results of this change is. There have been differing opinions about the changes to the contest. Personally on the macro level I agree with the change and I don't see it as threatening the future of the contest. However I don't agree with everything that has changed but as with nearly all changes to the contest we cannot say how they will affect it until we see it in practice.

 Will we see another Junior Eurovision Song Contest?

This is probably one of the more regrettable questions that I write here. There are a lot of threats to JESC at the moment however I think it would be a real shame to lose it. Rather than being just a smaller version of the contest run in December, it has developed its own distinctive flavour and is differ to many of the other shows, I hope that the EBU will continue to develop ideas about how to allow it to continue and hopefully grow in size. 

So those are the main stand out points and themes of this Eurovision year. 

I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Happy Christmas!

I always love this time of year.

I'm  lying on my bed at one o'clock in the morning thinking about the joy this time of year spreads around the world....I know tomorrow that many children around Ireland and the world can look forward to a visit from St. Nicholas. I know Santa has visited the two children who live across the road from me and their presents are sitting under their tree, waiting for them to get up. Its a really nice thought that though we become obsessed at this time of year with commercialism and materialism it is nice to know that once in the year the whole of the world can come together in the spirit of community, happiness and a sense of loving thy neighbour.

The spirit that comes with Chirstmas is unique but the spirit of Eurovision, as it is known, is also built on the same principles, its just expressed differently. But no matter what the occasion it shows we can strive for a more peaceful time in our lives. This is Christmas, and what it means to me.

Whether you've never visited this blog before, whether you visit everyday. Whether you're Irish, British, Russian, French or any other country, whether you're a celebrator of Christmas or just someone who likes the time off, whether you like the winner of ESC or not, I wish you, your family and your friends the very best this Christmas. I also hope you will stick with me until the end of our Eurovision year, when around midnight on May 18th we will know the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. Until then, let us pause to think of the important time of year, relax and embrace the spirit of  Christmas.

Tranche One Has Arrived

I think its definitely a strange year to have no less than six Eurovision songs already selected and its not even Christmas. Over the last four days three more songs have been picked. To summarise:

Albania
Albania have chosen to send Adrian Lulgjuraj and Bledar Sejko, with the song Identitet. This is a rather odd choice from Albania in my opinion, I was expecting something that was a bit closer to Rona's song last year. While that would have been a difficult song to spot I really didn't expect Albania to go with such a rockish song. You can listen to the song here.

Lithuania
Lithuania have decided that Andrius Pojavis will represent them in Malmo with the song Something. There was going to be nothing formulaic from Lithuania this year after last year, still this song fails to impress me, thought with a little work it could improve greatly. You can see the national final performance here.

Ukraine
Ukraine have decided the runner up from last years contest will represent them in Malmo. Zlata Ognevich will represent them in Malmo with the song Gravity. It sounds like it was pulled straight from the Lion King, not that I view this as a bad thing. Certainly one of the best songs selected so far. Very much looking forward to seeing this one on the Eurovision stage. You can see the national final performance here.

Overall I am not overly impressed by the first tranche of songs which have arrived, however they are generally from countries who I am rarely a huge fan of. The remaining songs, in case you missed them are:

Belarus - Alyona Lanaskaya - Rhythm of Love
Belgium - Roberto Bellarosa - Love Kills
Switzerland - The Band that won't perform under the name The Salvation Army - You and Me

If anyone has written a post that attempts to explain why so many songs have been picked before Christmas, please let me know, I'd be most interested to reading it.

Disappointedly Sitting On The Fence

For those who have not yet looked at what is in the news in Eurovision land you may not be surprised to hear that there will be only 39 countries in this years Eurovision Song Contest, as the trends were suggesting, there are no surprises on the list, only the absence of four countries. According to Jon Ola Sand, three out of the four have left due to financial reasons. And then there is Turkey.

Also in the news was the changes to the rehearsals schedule. In future we are looking at closed rehearsals for the first round and open rehearsals for the second round of rehearsals. I have no problem with this. Countries arrive at Eurovision and generally the amount of rehearsals done by countries before Eurovision varies a lot, depending on the broadcaster or artist. It makes a lot of sense not to let everyone be able to see the first couple of rehearsals. Those of you who follow the rehearsals may have noticed that in each of the last three years the eventual winners were slated by the press for their first rehearsals. As long as some level of footage is released from the first rehearsals I really could not care.

In addition the other noticeable change is that rehearsals will begin the 8 rather than 9 days before the first semi-final. However in reality this is just one nights accommodation savings, and really the higher prices for accommodation occur during the week of the contest. Looking at a four star hotel in Malmo this will represent an average saving of €160 per delegate. Based on the Irish figures obtained through the freedom of information act, this would represents a saving of about 1.5% for Ireland [excluding the participation fee]. Once again I am drawn to mention a Big 5 country would make a saving of 7.75% if they had to arrive as early as some of the semi-finalists. [Assuming the same size delegation as Ireland].