A Friend In London Vs. Crystal Lake

The good people at Crystal lake music sent me over this video which I thought I might share with you. It is an interesting remix of one of my personal favourite Eurovision songs, and before anyone asks I'll be starting to review the songs in this year's JESC shortly

It's Been A While

Once again I'm back in college and adjusting back into that routine is hard going particularly when your workload is increased on last year. I'm also getting to grips with a new blogger interface which powers the blog. This is a bit tricky to deal with but hopefully in the future I'll be able to do a little more with the blog.

Anyhow if you should notice any problems with the way the blog is being displayed please let me know!

News is once again picking up but I have found myself a little more detached from it than I normally am. I think that this might be due to the fact that I know what to expect over the next two or three months in the run up to the Swiss national final/JESC. I will be starting some coverage of JESC probably in months time.

In the meantime some of you may have noticed the famous Gangnam Style video by PSY that is gaining over 5 million views per day. However I think that this honour really does belong to Lys Assia and her rap video with New Jack. It's actually quite an interesting song but as I always it's about how this might come across live. There's got to be a way to bridge that gap but I'd say there's a low probability of them doing that successfully.

What's Happening In Ireland?

You may have been closely following the series over on ESCXtra about who Ireland might send next year. This makes RTÉ sound like great strategic Eurovision experts. They're not. I think what is going on in RTÉ at the moment might look a little like this:

Or maybe they're just thinking about Jedward again.....

Some News (Bit Early Though!)

As I'm sure you've noticed the amount of actual Eurovision news has increased this week. The main points are:

• Switzerland will, as usual, probably be our first song of 2013. Their National Final is scheduled for Dec 15th (One day before my birthday!). Their pre-selection process is as complicated as ever but there will a few less songs in the national final, not a bad move on the Swiss part I do think.
• Finland hold their national final on Feb 9th. No confirmation as to the exact format of the contest but submissions will be taken from Sept 3rd. 
• Turkey are going to do something other than withdraw there appears to be some from of discussion about changing the selection format. Personally I think if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I know that it does seem early to be restarting so early, and last year as many broadcasters did not seem to plan for the change of the Sept 1st rule nothing really happened until October. Of course we still have Junior Eurovision to look forward to but as I realised today another month would be a welcome break particularly if you, like me have had a very sporting summer.

Looking Back On The Oldies: 2002

Let's face it: Without a doubt this has to be one of the quietest Eurovision summers on record, so to try to stop going me insane, I decided to re watch a contest from the years gone by. From me, the golden era of Eurovision was from the late 90's up to 2004, when the semi-finals were introduced.

Why these years? Well, while there have been many great contests, this era saw some real competition grow. No longer was Eurovision between a couple of songs that would appeal to juries now it was in the hands of the public. There were many surprise winners during this era, and it also was one where high quality performances began to score well, not just the song. This era is unqiue also as it was just before the introduction of the semi-finals and we still could have many surprises "on the night".

John Kennedy O'Connor (2009) noted that 2002 was a year where relatively new reality TV talent shows began to make an impact on Eurovision. Singers like Jessica Garlick from the UK came to Eurovision via a television show, this was also the case for some of the other contestants.

The songs were a fairly diverse range when compared with previous years. Obviously by today's standards they are fairly bland though. The show itself was a big event in Estonia and helped to contribute to the young states national image, follow the break up of communism in 1989 (Jordan, 2011). Music is also hugely important in Estonia many protests of singing were held against communism before 1989.

The show was presented by Annly Peebo and Marko Matvere. The show's opening act was simple the winning song from last year, "Everybody". The show was opened by Cyprus with a strong performance of the song "Gimme" by One, a boyband. Jessica Garlick from UK was second with a powerful performance of her song "Come Back", eventually coming a very respectable 3rd place. Greece definitely sent the oddest song of the night, with men dressed as robots. Personally I feel that it was the worst song ever to go to Eurovision, but that is only my opinion.

Spain's high energy song was extremely popular in Spain but failed to really impress even though it was one of the pre-contest favourites. Sahlene, the Swedish singer represented Estonia and was sang a very competent performance which eventually led to a high leader board placing for the host nation. Sweden's high energy performance probably hurt Spain's chances of winning, with their infectious and catchy song "Never Let It Go", dressed in silver boots and dresses eighth place was surprisingly low in my opinion. Sweden's neighbour Denmark were one of the pre-contest favourites but ultimately ended up in last place after a subdued performance.

Of course the 01 and 02 were the two outstanding years for France in Eurovision. In my view this should have been the winner of the contest by a mile. Sandrine Francois's performance was faultless and one of the best we've seen at Eurovision. Malta sent the wonderful Ira Losco with her fantastic song "7th Wonder" her extremely strong performance was well received. But Latvia's performance was stronger and they were eventual winner. Personally this is a result that really throws me.I don't think that Marie N's win was great for the contest. Failing to enter the Top 20 in any country it can widely be seen as a poor winner. My personal Top 10 would have been:

• 12 - France
• 10 - Estonia 
• 8 - Malta
• 7 - Sweden
• 6 - Spain
• 5 - Austria
• 4 - Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 3 - UK
• 2 - Finland
• 1 - Switzerland

 

It's Time To Talk About Malmo

I know things are very quiet at the moment. I know I should still be posting a little more than I am but sometimes in life you've just got to accept that. Put simply things are quite for the summer and that probably will not change until October or November. But in the mean time it's time to take a look at the city that is Malmo.

Malmo, as everyone now knows was announced as the surprise host of ESC 2013. While many fans will be familiar with Stockholm, Malmo is somewhat unknown territory. So what do we known about Malmo?

• Malmo is the third largest city of Sweden.  
• It has a a population of more than quarter of a million people. 30% of the population are non-Swedish. 
• The economy is largely traditional historically being a shipbuilding city. Construction is a major employer. During the financial difficulties in the early 90's in Sweden, Malmo was the worst hit city in Sweden for unemployment.
• The economy is largely integrated with Copenhagen. 10% of the population work in Copenhagen. They commute over the large bridge spanning between the two cities.
• Women are allowed to be topless in public swimming pools on the grounds that men are not told to cover up their upper bodies and men can have bigger breasts than women. 
• Football and Ice Hockey are the two main sports of Malmo. However they have a GAA club! They won the Scandinavian championship.

 I'm going to leave it there for now but more facts to come!

Reaction: Malmo to host ESC 2013

In what can be best described as one of the most shocking decisions to come from Eurovision organisers in many years SVT has announced that Malmo is to host Eurovision 2013. Malmo is Swedens third largest city and is in very close proximity to Copenhagen. The city has a 15,500 seat stadium to hold Eurovision.

This decision has been greeted with some surprise over in Sweden. Many Swedes see this as an opportunity to share hand over part of the contest to Denmark. I'm not entire sure what to make of all of this. On one hand I can understand the EBU's wish to have the contest in a smaller city and in general break the cycle of trying to beat last year's contest. However I thought that Sweden would have been less agreeable to this. I still will be interested to see what happens and if any more reasons come in relation to the choice. [I'm expecting some more detail as to why the Friends Arena failed].

I've nothing against Malmo, whatsoever. In fact this would make the possibility of me being able to attend the contest even more possible. [It still is a long shot]. I'll put up a fact sheet about Malmo in due course.

New Singles and Videos!

So with virtually no news of Eurovision of late, we turn to the follow up singles and videos that come in the mist of Post Eurovision Depression.

Elferia Elferiou [or something like that] from Greece has released her song Hearts Collide. The song is a bit hollow for the average northern European but it is a good summer song.

As, in similar news Loreen has released the video of Euphoria which is sort of what I expected, as Loreen is keen not to link the song with relationships/love/normal Eurovision topics in my opinion and the video reflects that. A link to the video is here.