Final Prediction

There are only minutes to go until the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest final begins. It is one of the most open contests for years but I'm going to have a go at predicting the outcome. Here we go:

1st Russia
2nd Greece
3rd Ukraine
4th Serbia
5th Armenia
6th Sweden
7th Finland
8th Portugal
9th Georgia
10th Turkey

Spain could surprise us somewhere in the top 10 but I think they'll suffer a similar fate to Dustin The Turkey. I knew Russia, Greece, Ukraine, Serbia and Sweden would do well, even before they'd selected their entries. They always bring quality entries to the contest and I don't know where we'd be without them.

The final running order

1. Romania
2. United Kingdom
3. Albania
4. Germany
5. Armenia
6. Bosnia and Herzegovina
7. Israel
8. Finland
9. Croatia
10. Poland
11. Iceland
12. Turkey
13. Portugal
14. Latvia
15. Sweden
16. Denmark
17. Georgia
18. Ukraine
19. France
20. Azerbaijan
21. Greece
22. Spain
23. Serbia
24. Russia
25. Norway

You can watch a playlist of all the songs in the final below or at http://www.youtube.com/loveeurovision

Second semi final surprises

After correctly predicting 9 out of the 10 qualifiers from the 1st semi final (Finland was the only one I missed) I knew the second semi final was going to be much harder. In the end I only got 5 out of 10. The countries I chose that didn't make it were Bulgaria, Belarus, FYROM, Switzerland and Hungary.

I never in my wildest dreams expected Denmark and Iceland to qualify. We'll see when the results are revealed on Saturday evening where those points came from.

The 10 qualifiers from the second semi final were:

Iceland
Sweden
Turkey
Denmark
Ukraine
Croatia
Latvia
Portugal
Georgia
Albania

First semi final predictions!

Last year I managed to predict 8 of the top 10 in the semi final. This year the task seems much harder but I am going to go one better and also predict their positions! Here we go:

1. Russia
2. Greece
3. Armenia
4. Romania
5. Israel
6. Bosnia
7. Azerbaijan
8. Poland
9. Norway
10. Belgium

I'm still not sure about Ireland, it may well qualify but my prediction is 11th place.

UK Eurovision preview party

The Scala was packed out for the Eurovision preview party by nationalities from all over Europe (but mainly Scandanavia).

Photos. 1. Isis Gee. 2. Bosnia. 3. Andy Abraham talks to Paddy but doesn't sing. 4. Paul Oskar. 5. Ani Lorak's dancers get them out for the boys.












Video: Ani Lorak previewing the Ukraine's entry 'Shady Lady'

What's the point of 'The Big 4?'

Ok so France, Germany, Spain and the UK pay the most into the EBU and therefore pick up a lot of the cost of staging Eurovision each year but should that guarantee them automatic qualification to the final? The only argument I can see for this is that if they all failed to qualify a few years in a row it might provoke them to pull out of Eurovision and put the whole thing in jeapordy. In practice however it just seems to make them all lazy with the quality of songs they enter each year.

Today France's entry was announced. Sebastien Tellier will be representing France with 'Divine,' the first French entry to be sung entirely in English. That's about the most exiting thing about the song. It's boring, pure and simple.

You can listen to Divine on Sebastien's Myspace here.

Germany chose their entry on Thursday. 'Disappear' by No Angels could be a good song but it doesn't go anywhere, it's just boring.



'Even If' by Andy Abraham is a rather inoffensive song but it just seems more suited to 1995 than 2008. Again it goes around in circles and doesn't really go anywhere. The UK will once again be shocked by their placing at the bottom end of the scoreboard and blame it on 'the war' or block-voting by eastern Europe.



Spain have been very innovative this year in using Myspace to select some of the finalists for their national final. They obviously didn't trust it too much as they reserved 5 places in the final for entries chosen by a jury. It's probably a good job too as some good songs were pushed out of the public top 5 by various bizarre novelty songs. Perhaps the best song to come through the public voting on Myspace and make it to the Spanish national final is 'La Revolucion Sexual' by La Casa Azul. They have a slight problem though, how to edit it down from 4 1/2 minutes to under 3. I think it is the best song of The Big 4 and I hope it wins the Spanish final on Saturday.

Kari Tapio - my Finnish favourite

Now this may not have been to everyone's taste and perhaps I'm getting old but I really liked this song and I think it would definitely have attracted the grey vote if it had made it through.

New mixes ruin songs

What have Belarus done to their song? It was quite a funky song to begin with but the new mix has ruined Hasta La Vista's qualification chances. Nice new hair though Ruslan ;-)

Old version




New Version




In the Greek national final Kostas Martakis went the other way and changed his backing track to one that sounded like a late 80s Stock Aitken & Waterman record. Kalomira beat him ;-)

Old version



Greek final version

I feel the same way - Sandrine should be Beligium's 2008 Eurovision entry

This song is great.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYN_avtsfyA

Kalomoira's Secret Combination gets her to Belgrade

"I predict Kostas Martakis will win the Greek selection with 'Always And Forever." Famous last words eh?

Greece staged a gruelling show lasting over 2 hours but featuring only 3 finalists! The extra time was filled by the 2 host that looked like the Greek answer to the Cheeky Girls and live performances of some of this year's worst entries (Azerbaijan, Slovenia and Cyprus).

Kostas Martakis' Always And Forever had undergone a transformation with a terrible dance backing track that totally ruined it. In the end Kalomoira's slick dance moves, good vocals and catchy song ensured 'Secret Combination' won the vote and goes forward to perform third in the first semi final in Belgrade in May.

UK not quite so bad after all?

I think I was a little too harsh in my initial reactions to the UK songs. Rob Mc Veigh and The Revelations are relatively good songs that, although they won't win, won't shame us as much as Scooch did last year.

The BBC have gone for a very odd format for 'Eurovision:Your Decision' this Saturday. There are three categories; Joseph vs Maria, The Soloists and The Girl Groups. A panel will choose one act from each category as well as a wildcard to go through to the public vote. From what I've heard I'd choose Rob McVeigh, Andy Abraham, The Revelations and LoveShy as the wildcard.

None of these entries stands a chance of winning Eurovision but I think Rob McVeigh is probably the least bad of the six. LoveShy's Mr Gorgeous sounds too much like Jamelia's Beware Of The Dog.

Rob McVeigh - I Owe It All To You

The Revelations - It's You

LoveShy - Mr Gorgeous

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eurovision/

Israel brings number of confirmed entries to 25

Ireland went for a turkey, Ukraine chose a Shady Lady and Poland chose an American lady. This Saturday also saw Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Iceland choose their entries, however none of these countries made as big an impact as Ireland, Ukraine and Poland. It remains to be seen if anyone outside of Ireland will get Dustin The Turkey. It's utterly bizarre but there's actually something quite good about the song, it's definitely entertaining. Isis Gee sings a powerful ballad for Poland. I see it being in the top 10 but I don't see it winning. Ukraine have once again delivered the total package with Shady Lady. It's a good song, the vocals are good and the dancing is good. It's definitely up there with Switzerland as one of my two tips to win this year.

Israel have chosen a rather boring song.

This is how the running order currently stands:

SEMI FINAL 1

1. Finland - TBA
2. Montenegro - Stefan Filipovic - TBA
3. Greece - TBA
4. Ireland - Dustin The Turkey - Irlande Douze Pointe *1
5. Israel - Boaz Mauda - As If Here *2
6. Poland - Isis Gee - For Life *3
7. Bosnia & Herzegovina - Elvir Lakovic Laka - Pokusaj
8. Estonia - Kreisiraadio - Leto Svet *4
9. The Netherlands - TBA
10. Romania - Nico & Vlad Mirita - Pe-o Margine De Lume *5
11. Moldova - Geta Burlacu - A Century Of Love *6
12. San Morino - TBA
13. Slovenia - Rebeka Dremelj - Vrag naj vzame *7
14. Norway - Maria Haukaas Storeng - Hold On Be Strong *8
15. Belgium - TBA
16. Andorra - Gisella - Casanova *9
17. Armenia - TBA
18. Azerbaijan - Elnur Gusseinov feat. Samir Javadzadeh - Day After Day *10
19. Russia - TBA

SEMI FINAL 2

1. Denmark - Simon Matthews - All Night Long *11
2. Croatia - Kraljevi Ulice En 75 Cents -- Romanca *12
3. Bulgaria - Deep Zone & Balthazar - DJ, Take Me Away *13
4. Portugal - TBA
5. Ukraine - Ani Lorak - Shady Lady *14
6. Switzerland - Paolo Meneguzzi - Era Stupendo *15
7. FYR Macedonia - Tamara Feat. Vrcak And Adrian Gaxha - Vo Ime Na Ljubovta *16
8. Iceland - # Eurobandið - This is my life *17
9. Cyprus - Evdokia Kadi - Femme Fatale *18
10. Latvia - TBA
11. Belarus - Ruslan Alehno - Hasta la vista *19
12. Hungary - Csézy - Szívverés *20
13. Albania - Olta Boka - Zemren Lame Peng *21
14. Sweden - TBA
15. Turkey - Mor ve Ötesi - Deli *22
16. Lithuania - Jeronimas Milius - Nomads In the Night *23
17. Georgia - TBA
18. Czech Republic - Tereza Kerndlova - Have Some Fun *24
19. Malta - Morena - Vodka *25

Serbia, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom - all TBA

You can watch all the entries on the Youtube playlist below.


More videos of the national finals and previous Eurovision entries can be found at
http://www.youtube.com/user/LoveEurovision

If you are having trouble viewing embedded videos you can access the playlist direct here

Malta choose Vodka

I can't work out if this song is brilliant or terrible, probably a bit of both. Judge for yourself. Morena sings 'Vodka' for Malta.

Czech Republic choose Tereza

Tereza Kerndlová's entry 'Have Some Fun' has won the Czech national final. It's a great song but her vocals were really bad. Compare the live performance below to the video further down. The placings of the other songs were not revealed.

Norway - Torstein sails through to the final on the Eastern Wind

This has been my favourite Norwegian song from the start but for some reason it had the longest bookies odds to reach the final.



Meanwhile Lena Alexandra (Norway's answer to Silvia Knight) scraped through to the second chance round.

Switzerland - Hot favourite

Not only is he hot but he has a good voice too. Switzerland have gone for a song in Italian song this year. Let's see if they can resist the temptation to translate the song into English like most countries end up doing. It's quite a powerful ballad and definitely the best of the bunch so far but then again we only have Albania and Cyprus to compare it to.

Cyprus - absolutely dreadful

Cyprus, what are you doing? You nearly always send a half decent song to Eurovision. What is this?!

Love Eurovision Youtube Channel

Since all I really do is post Youtube links I thought it was about time I set up a Youtube channel to go with this blog.

http://youtube.com/loveeurovision

Here's a player I've created with all the 2008 videos so far.

Eurovision 1991

Let's go back 17 years to the first Eurovision Song Contest I ever watched. Samantha Janus was the hot favourite with the British bookies (which is nearly always the case however). She pulled off a good performance but didn't impress the judges, having to make do with 10th place. That year's contest was won by a youthful fresh-faced Carola singing for Sweden.

UK 1991: Samantha Janus - A Message To Your Heart


Sweden: Carola - Faangad Av En Stormvind

Andorra tries again

In 2007 Andorra sent their version of Busted to Helsinki but failed to qualify for the final. This year they've gone for a traditional bit of euro pop sung by a blonde beauty called Gisela. Is it a recipe for success? See what you think of this 70 second clip.

Moldovan National Final

A jury have selected 12 songs from 27 that were submitted to be Moldova's 2008 Eurovision entry. The entries are listed below with the score they received from the jury. Alexa's song is much better than Olia's so hopefully she'll beat Olia to become Moldova's entry this year. If she does Moldova have a good chance of winning this year.

86 points: Olia Tira- Always will be
82 points: Alexa - We are one
63 points: Edict - I believe
52 points: Geta Burlacu - A century of love
52 points: Cristina Rujitcaia - You make me feel crazy
49 points: Catrina Pislaru - Dance with me
39 points: Jay Mon - Point of view
35 points: Dana Marchitan - Your name
27 points: Galina Scoda - Your own vision
24 points: Scroom - Jane
22 points: Elena Dermidjean- Living creatures
18 points: Liusia Znamensky - Don't deceive my heart

Apparently you can listen to the entries here but I had trouble getting the player to work.

Olia Tira's song is on her Myspace page here

I managed to find Alexa's 'We Are One' on Youtube:

Eurolaul 2008 to take place 2nd February

Here are the 10 songs taking part in the Estonian national final, Eurolaul 2008.

Kreisiraadio - Leto Svet


SKA Faktor - Real Big Money (no video)

Rolf Junior - One On One


Taavi Peterson - Question Man (no video)
Kristjan Kasearu & Paradise Crew - Üksinduses (no video)

Birgit Õigemeel - 365 Days


? - It's Never Too Late (no video)
Supernova - Stefani (no video)
Iiris Vesik - Ice-cold Story (no video)
Margus Vaher - ? (no video)

Belarus - working no magic this year

Belarus managed a respectable 6th place in 2007 with Koldun's 'Work Your Magic.' None of the four candidate songs for this year's entry look likely to work their magic in Belgrade.




Here are the televoting results from the semi final:

Ruslan Alehno - Hasta la vista (6089)
Litesound - Do you believe (3967)
Palats - Kola mlyna (2438)
Gunesh - I can't live without you (2317)
Skandal - Everybody (1689)
PinCode - You can (1075)
Anya Sharkunova and German Titov - My budem pervye (991)
Lena Voloshina - That's all I feel (858)
Yuliya Guseva - Maybe (759)
Dali Silver - Sky (679)
Katrine - Follow me (663)
The Champions - Drive me crazy (486)
Po glazam - Devochka tryohtysachnih let (420)
Victor Pshenichniy - Baby Blue (338)
Oksana Kovalevskaya - Vsegda odna (271)

First off the starting blocks for ESC 2008 - Albania

Eurovision isn't until May but Albania have got in early this year. Here's their rather unremarkable entry: