Estonia: Elina Born & Stig Rästa – Goodbye to Yesterday

Estonia were amongst the early favorites to win the competition, even before they had selected their entry. The Indie-esque national final of Eesti Laul was used again this year, giving room to various styles of music yet again.

2 semi finals were held before the big final which consisted of 10 songs, in all honesty most of the good songs made it through while the less impressive ones stayed in the semi, so I will focus only on the songs that were in the final:

This time i’ll start from the song finishing 10th, and will work my way up until I get to the winner.

10th: Luisa Värk – former idol runner-up and wife of Estonian Prime Minister, this was her 2nd attempt at the contest (the previous one was a duet in 2008 with Stig Rästa’s band Traffic). The song was pleasent enough, typical Estonian radio song, the performance was OK too, there was just nothing really interesting there. Luisa was obviously not pleased with her result ;).

9th: Maia Vahtramäe – Probably the least impressive performance of the night for me, she was off for some parts of the song, and the song itself is quite boring.

8th: The Blurry Lane – The song itself is not that bad, but the performance killed it for me, she really took all the life out of the song. The televoters seemed to have liked it more placing it 5th (compared to the juries last place).

7th: Kali Briis Band – This is actually a good indie-electro song, and the performance was nicely done too, but its just not a song for the broader audience, as its very niche.

6th: Robin Juhkental & The Big Bangers – Robin has already represented Estonia back in 2010 together with old band Malcolm Lincoln. This time Robin went for a happier and more soulful tune. The song is quite good for its genre, however I have to say Robin wasn’t at his best, particularly towards the end of the performance. His semi-final performance was miles ahead, it was still enough to finish as the 3rd favorite with the juries.

5th: Triin Niitoja & John4 – I found this to be a bland pop-country Ronan Keating type of song that probably escaped from the Danish final and ended here by mistake. I found the song tediously annoying and the performance was very forced as the singers didn’t really have chemistry between them. I was really worried this might be the surprise winner, but thankfully it was not to happen.

4th: Elephants From Neptune – This was the indie rock song of the night, I can’t really spot what it reminds me , but it definitely has a bit of Strokes and other early 2000s indie acts sound. The performance was actually very professional, and although personally I think the song is dated for its genre and not that good, the performance totally made up for it. It almost won the jury vote as it was placed 2nd, however the audience only placed it 7th which prevented it from making the super final.

3th: Elisa Kolk – This was the pop ballad of the evening. All in all a good song, the performance was a bit flat, and I found the whole package to be a little bit too cheesy. It almost sounded like a Melodifestivalen reject to me. On backing vocals was 6-times participant Rolf Roosalu, who can clearly be heard in some parts of the song, still all this didn’t help.

2nd: Daniel Levi – This was the surprise of the competition, when I heard the song at first in studio version it was not as impressive as Daniel’s amazing live performance. The song is a pop-rock song, very upbeat , very energetic and so was the performance. Daniel was spot on his vocals, even when he stage dived into the audience. If only he wasn’t up against such a strong entry as the winner was, he could have easily won this and he would have been a very dignified representative for Estonia.

This leaves us with the winner, who are Elina Born & Stig Rästa. Elina has participated in Eesti Laul 2 years ago right off the back of her finishing 2nd on Estonian Idol, but could only finish 8th. For Stig this is technically his 8th attempt, as he previously competed twice with his band Slobodan River, 4 times with his current band Traffic, and one time with his project band the Outloudz. His closest was in 2009 with Traffic and in 2011 with Outloudz, both times he lost the superfinal to finish 2nd.

This song was the big favorite to win since it was out, and it of course didn’t disappoint and won the superfinal with 79% of the total votes between the top 3 songs, and also received record breaking number of votes in the previous rounds.

The song is a melancholy duet between the two, as they work very well together on the song. The original concept of the performance was that they were not supposed to look at each other, maybe an exact contrast to the Common Linnets performance from last year, this was however changed and now they do look at each other, even so if not facing one another directly. The black and white screening and the the whole staging create a wonderful atmosphere to the message of the song, and as a package it is very impressive, as it’s a very well written song, and sounds totally professional.

I still have a hard time seeing it as the winner, because I think its not very easily accessible to get the whole song and its concept on first listen, but here’s hoping its gonna be another well deserved great result for Estonia.

Lithuania: Monika Linkytė & Vaidas Baumila – This Time

Lithuania is known to be one the less interesting countries in the contest, and despite failing to qualify last year, they have stuck to the same selection method they created, which chooses the artist and song separately.

They ended up with the same 3 artists that finished second to fourth last year; Mia, Vaidas Baumila and Monika Linkytė.

Yet again it seemed the juries weren’t favoring Mia, and the song which was selected was the song submitted with a demo version sung by Vaidas as it was written especially for him.

The song was actually selected a week before the artist, and while each of the 3 finalists were supposed to perform it separately in their own version, a last minute change has happened. Since the songs were performed randomly by the contestants throughout the weeks of the competition, it was also previously performed by Vaidas & Monika as a duet, this performance has gained popularity and the decision was that instead of competing separately against each other they would compete in the final as a duet as well versus Mia.

Previous to that Mia had already stated that she dislikes the song, and it could be seen in her performance of it , where it looks like she just didn’t give damn. Generally I think she is a weak and bland singer, and hopefully this will be the last we hear from her in this selection.

As for the winning song, I personally think Monika is not really needed on this song, as she is a weak singer, and Vaidas’ version on his own had worked much better. I guess the thing about this song is supposed to be the chemistry between them, which is actually great (not including that awkward kiss, which is like their gimmick), but still I think it works better as a solo performance rather than a duet.

Vaidas is actually a decent enough singer, but when he sings with Monika it seems he sings in a higher tone which he struggles with, of course this is something both him and Monika can work on, and hopefully they will if they want a better result.

The song itself is just a simple nice pop/country type of song, maybe as the more happier version of Malta’s entry from last year. It’s very catchy, and the chorus will definitely be stuck in your head after one listen.

So Lithuania is still in with a chance, just some work on their vocals is needed, and stage presentation which is also lacking a bit at the moment.

Serbia: Bojana Stamenov – Ceo svet je moj

Serbia is returning to this year’s contest after being absent last year, and after failing to make the final in 2013, they seem to be eager to not make it happen again.

They’re selection Odbrojavanje za Beč, consisted of 3 performers, all of which performed songs written by Vladimir Graić, who wrote Serbia’s 2007 winning entry ‘Molitva‘.

Finising 3rd, was the male counterpart of the competition Aleksa Jelić. His song ‘Vodi me’, was a mixture of Serbian sounding cheap pop and some Swedish schlager all from the early 2000s. The performance wasn’t that bad, the choreography seemed like it was stolen from Magnus Carlsson,  and the whole package was just too dated and ridiculous to be taken seriously.

Runner-up was Danica Krstić, she was an unknown singer, and had to go through a preliminary round, where she competed against 9 other unknown artists for the right to participate in the selection. She performed the song ‘Suze za kraj’, and while she can definitiley sing those high notes, the song was just a bit boring, and sounded like another not so distant cousin of ‘Molitva’, hence not being so original.

The winner of the selection was Bojana Stamenov, she is only knows for taking part in Serbia’s Got Talent, where she finished 4th. Bojana is a big singer, she has a great voice, and she just belts out the song. Her appearance may resemble that of a young Esma Redžepova, with her traditional outfit styles and image she has going for her.

As for the song itself, it starts as a typical Serbian-Graić Balkan typical Eurovision song, powerful build up to a great hook in the chorus. However, during the last minute of the song, the song transformers into a dated sounding dance track. I don’t know if this is such a wise decision, as the song sounds great until that part where it kind of loses its structure and goes all over the place. Maybe with a new production to that part it can work better, as Bojana is comfortable with it and gives her best on this song.

Regardless of this, with a little work this song can bring Serbia a qualification and a nice result in the final, it’s nothing ground-breaking or innovating, but it’s still good for what it is in it’s genre and the Eurovision Song Contest context.

Italy: Il Volo – Grande amore

Where do I start with this? I have so much to say about this year’s amazing edition of the mother of all festivals, Sanremo festival. It was truly a wonderful edition with many great songs which also produced a very strong and competitive winner.

If I start talking about every song in Sanremo I will probably never finish, so instead I will just talk about the other 2 songs that made it into the ‘superfinal’ voting stage and the winning song of course.

So let’s start with biggest suprise of the festival, Nek with ‘Fatti avanti amore’. Nek is a well established artists in both Italy and Latin America, however is career peak time was sometime between the late 1990s and early 2000s, something he hasn’t really managed to recreate in the last couple of years. I used to like him a lot back in the day, and I think just like me, not a lot of people were expecting him to be in the race to win the whole thing.

The song is an anthemic pop-rock song, and it had definitely liven things up when he came on stage in between the classic Sanremo songs, and had received great receptions from both audience and the juries. If he had won the festival, he could have made a great entry at Eurovision, as he is a great performer and the song really catches you on first listen. He has to settle for the runner ups position after finishing 2nd in both the jury and televote.

The other finalist was Malika Ayane with ‘Adesso e qui (nostalgico presente)’. I actually think this was one of the blandest songs in this great edition, and the Italian audience seemed to have agreed with me, but not the Italian juries, who pushed this song further and further, including as choosing it as they’re winner for the whole contest.

Malika gave a solid performance, but the song just doesn’t go anywhere, and lacks the charm that some of the other female contests had in the contest, like Chiara or Annalisa for example. I can’t really say it’s a bad song but definitely not something that deserved to reach the final stages of the competition.

Which leaves us with the winner, Il Volo with their song ‘Grande amore’. Il Volo were discovered on a kids TV talent show, about 5 years ago when they were still young boys. They sing in opera-pop style and have managed to gain success and recognition around the world, in particular in Latin America.

Usually I hate opera songs, and especially opera-pop songs in the style of Il Divo, or even France’s 2011 Eurovision entry. However, this song is just so powerful and emotional, that it just gets you on the spot. The boys are very impressive live, all 3 have really great voices, and when combined together they just sound great. The song is exactly what Italy needs in Eurovision, opera-esque in Italian, dramatic, romantic kind of song that climbs slowly until it finally peaks, and being performed by 3 appealing boys. This is the ultimate crossover song, the teenager from Sweden may vote for it and the Housewife from Moldova too.

Italy is currently the favorite to win the whole thing, and quite deserves so. The moment they stepped on the Sanremo stage, it was obvious that they will win the festival (which they did, thanks to over 50% of the televote), and quite possibly the entire Eurovision Song Contest too. They’re performance is even quite more powerful than the studio version itself, and they will definitely provide the same reaction come May.

I will leave you with the music video and the live performance, both can give examples of the song’s potential.

Iceland: María Ólafsdóttir – Unbroken

Iceland had quite a big Eurovision season this year, with record breaking votes in Söngvakeppnin 2015. It took 2 semi-finals and a final to find out who would represent the northern country.

Here’s the jist of how things went, 3 songs qualified from each semi finals, and another from the jury wildcard, while all songs had to be performed in Icelandic in the semis. In the final the songs had to be performed in English if the artists would like to perform it in that language at the actual contest.

I won’t go over the songs eliminated in the semi finals because, most of them aren’t worth it actually. But here’s a brief review of the other 6 songs that made the final round:

CADEM – or as some referred to them as ‘The Icelandic Alcazar’, performed a cheesy dance-pop song, despite being catchy the performance was very amateur looking. (Result: 6th).

SUNDAY – was the token indie entry. The song had electronic sounds which actually represent a lot of the music made in Iceland today, but something in the performance was just quite static. (Result: 5th).

Elín Sif Halldórsdóttir – had a little quite song, but seemed to be nervous doing the big moment and was quite off key through most of it. It was a snooze-fest anyway. (Result: 3rd).

Björn og félagar – was to me a big joke, it was such a dated cliche that I almost confused it for a parody. It reminded me of Israel’s 1993 entry of Shiru Group, and we all know how that ended ;). So despite being one of the only 2 songs kept in Icelandic in the final and being 2nd in the jury vote this song was not received well by the audience thankfully. (Result: 4th).

Haukur Heiðar Hauksson – was the jury wild card, also quite a known name and also kept his song in Icelandic. The song was actually a nice anthemic radio song, but the performance was very underwhelming and bland. (Result: 7th).

Friðrik Dór – Last but not least we have the song and artist which was the biggest favorite to win this but failed. Friðrik Dór is actually a famous and very good artist that makes contemporary pop/dance/r&b music. However, his song in this selection was the exact opposite than that, we ended up with a dated bland ballad, something which you cannot find on both of the albums he released before. Quite a shame because he had great potential, and now he only gets to go to Eurovision as a backing singer. (Result: 2nd).

This leaves us with the winner, ‘Unbroken’ by 21 one years old María Ólafsdóttir. She was quite unknown before the contest which is not so typical for a Söngvakeppnin winner, as usually bigger artists win. Friðrik Dór actually won the first round of televoting by a small margin, but in the super final when it came down to just those 2 songs ‘Unbroken’ prevailed.

The song itself is a harmless Disney-esque pop song. I sense a bit of ‘Only Teardrops’ mixed with a bit of Jóhanna. In all fairness it was probably the best choice out of these bunch to do well in the contest, despite not really being original or innovating.

María is a good singer and she provided a very solid performance. She looks cute and appealing and the dancers help giver her performance a bit of depth.

I think Iceland can qualify again this year, but will probably get another mid-table result as usual.

Denmark: Anti Social Media – The Way You Are

Denmark usually tends to send bland radio friendly songs to the contest, however this year they totally outdid themselves creating one the worst national finals they ever had, and one of the blandest selections this year.

So before we get to the winner let’s start with a quick recap of Dansk Melodi Grand Prix

1. Sara Sukarani – performed horribly a cheesy dated ethnic song co-written by Arash. (Result: 10th).
2. Tina & René – performed a horrible G:son penned song, which sounds like a 3rd rate ‘In A Moment Like This’ (which is awful to begin with). Not a surprise as both song were written on the same day, and the former was rejected from Sweden’s Melodifestivalen and DMGP for several years. (Result: 7th).
3. Marcel & Soulman Group –  performed a dated retro soul-esque song. The definition of bland. (Result: 8th).
4. Cecilie Alexandra – probably had the most decent song, however her performance was boring and non-appealing. (Result: 4th).
5. Andy Roda – was over-breathing his in his mic throughout his performance of another bland pop-dance song. (Result: 9th).
6. Julie Bjerre – got confused and thought that this is Junior Eurovision, with a cheesy bland pop song, but a consistent performance. (Result: 3rd).
7. Anti Social Media were the winners, so i’ll discuss them in the end.
8. Anne Gadegaard – is actually a fromer JESC participant. She had a small decent pop song, but she kinda butchered it live. She still managed to win the televote, but lost due to the jury vote. (Result: 2nd).
9. Babou – another former child star, his vocals weren’t really good and the song was a mess, mixing English with Danish. (Result: 5th).
10. World of Girls – provided an amateurish performance, staging and vocal-wise, to a quite bad pop song. oh well. (Result: 6th).

This leaves us with the winning song, ‘The Way You Are’ by Anti Social Media. Boys with guitars singing a happy radio song. So innovating from Denmark isn’t it? it’s basically a bit of 2005 mixed with 2008 and 2011. So we can probably expect another mid-table result for Denmark again.

The song was actually performed well, and the staging was OK too. I guess out of the bland mixed with bad performances this selection had to offer it will perform the best in Vienna. The song is also co-written by Remee who is one of Denmark’s top producers.

I have nothing really to add actually, retro-pop-guitar-radio friendly again for Denmark.

Cyprus : Giannis Karagiannis – One Thing I Should Have Done

Following their absence in last years contest and their return to this years’ , Cyprus have decided to gear up a notch this year, and have had probably the largest broadcasted selection in Europe this year. A total of 54 songs went through audition rounds and semi finals in order to choose the best representative for Cyprus. It ended with a national final consisting of 6 songs.

Before I will get to the winner, I will briefly review the other 5 candidates:

Hovig – Stone in a River : Hovig is from Armenian descent, and would have probably gained some extra points for that. The song is actually a nice ballad, but Hovig provided a very amateurish performance; being out of tune, mixing some lyrics and with horrible English. No big loss here. (Result: 4th).

Doody – Magic : Doody has a long connection to Eurovision as he is the younger brother of Constantinos Christoforou, who represented Cyprus before in 3 different occasions, and also have written this song. Some criticism within Cyprus was raised as Constantinos had previously performed with former Eurovision participant and judge in this selection, Despina Olympiou. Doody’s song is quite a generic pop song, his singing abilities are quite bad, and he can’t even pronounce the title of his song properly. Definitely would have been the worst choice in this selection. (Result: 5th).

Panagiotis Koufogiannis – Without Your Love : This was actually the televote winner, that finish 5th with the juries. The song was too much of a cliche Eurovision ballad, and despite Panagiotis being quite good vocally, he lacked any charisma to pull off this king of song in a good way. (Result: 2nd).

Minus One – Shine : Not much to say about this one, it’s basically just a typical rock song, nothing special, nothing horrible. The performance was below average, dull not in tune and very uninspiring. It won the jury vote, but finished last in the televote, says it all. (Result: 3rd).

Nearchos Evangelou & Charis Savva – Deila den agapo : The song not to be performed in English, it is performed in Greek and some sort of dialect of French ;). Despite not understating what they’re singing about, its quite a heartbreaking ballad, and they are both excellent performance with great chemistry. However, these type of duets seems to not do so well in Eurovision for some reason. Charis is also not a stranger to the Eurovision stage, as she was a part of the act who represented the country in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2008. All in all this could have been a good entry for Cyprus, however with little chance to succeed in Vienna. (Result: 6th).

This leaves us with the winnier, Giannis Karagiannis, or John Karagiannis as he will probably be known around Europe. The song finished 2nd in both the jury and televote, and since the lack of consistency between the two with the other songs it ended up winning the whole thing.

The song is a little mid-tempo song that develops quite well. The first thing I thought of when I head this song is its resemblance to Cyprus’ Eurovision 2004 entry, ‘Stronger Every Minute‘ by Lisa Andreas. This is not a coincidence as Giannis co-wrote the song with Mike Connaris who is the man behind the latter song. Giannis provides a clean performance, vocally very good and also manages to create some sort of intimacy with the viewer.

This song can easily achieve a nice result for Cyprus, with the same effect that gave Belgium’s Tom Dice success in 2010, and of course seeing as its the male counterpart to Cyprus’ 2004 Eurovision entry it can only bode well for it. So far this is probably a very likely qualifier, but we’ll just have to see how it fairs against the other songs which are still not chosen. Cyprus did well by choosing their entry this year, as this is definitely the one with the most potential in the contest.

Switzerland: Mélanie René – Time to Shine

For the 5th year running Switzerland kept their national final Die Entscheidungsshow. Despite a varied range of submissions the final 6 songs in the Swiss final are the definition of mediocrity.

So what did we have: Deborah Bough provided us with an outdated underperformed song. Romanian band Timebelle probably had the entry with the most potential to succeed in the contest, with their uplifiting and well performed song. Licia Chery had a horrible dated song with barley any good notes, buy at least she had an amateur dance routine. Andy McSean probably meant to submit his song to the Irish final originally, as it’s a typical bland radio song that would fit perfect there. The Voice of Switzerland winner Tiziana performed a small ballad, which was quite boring but at least well performed, oh and she should also fire her stylist for sure.

This leaves us with the winner, ‘Time to Shine’ by Mélanie René. It definitely stood out in this bland Swiss selection, and it was performed well. However, the song just goes nowhere, doesn’t’ really develop nor peak. It’s basically just a few monotonous lines as the verses and a chorus.

The song also follows the style of the dark-pop songs that were chosen in Malta and Georgia, however it’s a lot less impressive or original than either of them (although Melanie seems to be the better singer).

Switzerland has a reputation of being a failed country, and after making it to the final last year it seems that this year they will go back to failing.

France: Lisa Angell – N’oubliez pas

France has been one of the most under-performing countries in the last few years, and after trying for several years to send more ‘original’ and outside the Eurovision box songs, they went back for they were known best, big French ballads.

France went back to internal selection this year, and have chosen Lisa Angelli. Lisa has been doing well in France in the last few years, but is still not a household name in France. Her choice was a bit random and surprising, as there was no lead that this would be the direction France would go for this year.

The song is a typical French ballad, growing and developing throughout the song. It seems to be a return to the type of ballads that gave France success back in 2001 and 2002, when both songs finished inside the top 5. It is a bit outdated, even for a French chanson, but some can say that these type of songs are actually timeless.

The song’s message is also another interesting topic. Translated as ‘don’t forget’, it’s supposed to be a song written last year for the 100th commemoration of World War I. However, seeing as the song was chosen briefly after the Paris terror attacks, the song gets a double message, as it seems France is trying to get some extra votes by using the memory of those horrible events. On top of that, some would say that it’s also a little bit politically incorrect to go perform in Austria, one of France’s enemies in WWI, with a song that basically lectures them about the horrible things they did in the war.

Regardless to all of that, I can conclude that France seemed to have chosen a good performer to perform a quite bland song that hides behind its double messages. Whether or not it will pay out for them, I am completely not sure, but a safe choice was always likely after last year’s last place in the final.

There is no liver performance available right now (or at least I couldn’t find it again), so instead here’s a lyrics video for the song.

Georgia: Nina Sublatti – Warrior

The second ‘Warrior’ song of the year comes from Georgia. After finishing last in last years semi, Georgia went for a national final this year, with a safer selection of songs. There were no real horrible songs, just really a bunch of generic decently performed songs.

Edvar Meison provided the cheesy dance-esuqe specifically tailored for Eurovision song, Eter Beriashvili had a boring ballad (kinda sounds like Russia’s 2013 ‘What If‘) in a language that can barely be called English, Misha Sulukhia provided a male version of the ballad type and Niutone performed a typical Georgia rock-pop song. None of these were horrendous as last years entry, the latter 2 would also be possible qualifiers to the final, but Georgia went for a different choice, as they usually like to.

I have no idea if Nina Sublatti is actually famous in her homeland, but she won both the televote and the international jury vote in the national final to be declared the clear winner. Titled the same as the Maltese song for this year, this ‘Warrior’ also has a dark atmosphere to it, with a production that makes the song sounds a bit cold and mysterious. However, the song still sounds like a demo, and a new version is definitely needed to buff it up a little, rumor is it’s gonna be re-worked by Sweden’s Thomas G:son, if it does it’s probably just become more generic sounding like all his other works.

Nina herself is also not the best singer, she only sings the chorus of the song really well, while the verses are really underperformed, but then again that’s the interesting part of the song. Hopefully by May she can improve her performance skills and have a better version of the song, otherwise it’s another risky choice for Georgia that will probably not go down so well in the contest.