Sweden

La Voix Malena Ernman

"J'entends la voix..."

The last year has seen a shift in the focus of the national selection process for Eurovision in many countries, but nowhere more so than on the shores of the Baltic Sea. But whereas Estonia and Lithuania took the option (to greater or lesser success) of cutting the cord between Eesti Laul and Dainų Daina and the contest itself, Sweden's Melodifestivalen - the biggest national final in Europe - implemented changes that although more cosmetic in nature will have a greater impact on their Eurovision entry. Choosing to forgo live backing vocals and upping the numbers of artists on stage could be seen as a move by SVT to say "this is MF, not ESC", but it will force the broadcaster to significantly rework the performance of its entry for the first time in many years. And given the nature of that entry - the operatic, schlagertastic La Voix - how it will translate is one of the great unknowns of the 2009 season.

Perhaps realising that resting on their laurels was producing ever-diminishing returns, the Swedes would seem to have taken the decision to steer the set-up of their national final away from the ESC norm in a deliberate move to ensure that whichever song won would have to be reworked for Moscow. Luckily for Sweden, they have a knack for coming up with flawless backing vocals, so we can only assume that if they're let down anywhere it won't be in that department, however demanding the vocals themselves may be. Only time will tell whether my fantasy of an OTT Louis XV frock overload materialises, but till then my greatest misgiving with La Voix remains its performer, Malena Ernman (a vision in blonde to rival Petr Elfimov). Her opera vocals are the stuff of goosebumps, but her delivery of the verses verges on drag-queen-hitting-on-terrified-twink, and she does tend to look the part. She also lends a strange nasal quality to the vocals here, like she needs to give her nose a long overdue blow. Mind you, with all the arm-pointing and divaesque elevation going on, very few are likely to notice or care.

Because basically the two things La Voix has going for it are (a) that despite the move away from the Eurovision norm in terms of performance in Melodifestivalen it remains a very contest-friendly song and (b) the 'popera' genre is one with a proven track record, with both Slovenia and Latvia qualifying in 2007 (the latter, albeit, in sub-Il Divo fashion (if such a thing exists)). Both did so from much later starting positions, but La Voix is the kind of song that should be immune to the caprice of the draw since, as ever with Sweden, it is impeccably, if at times economically, produced. It would be ironic (or perhaps apt) if they were to come unstuck having been forced to remodel the song for the Eurovision stage, but it would also be a surprise.

Belarus

Eyes That Never Lie Petr Elfimov

"All my life I waited, thinking I would never fly..."

However good a song is, however good a performance is, try as we might we sometimes simply cannot get past what someone looks like at Eurovision. With only three minutes to make an impact on the audience, the performers often shoot themselves squarely in both feet - occasionally unintentionally - with the visuals: from picking an outfit Barbara Dex would baulk at (think Andorra 2006) to something seemingly as harmless as not pushing the hair out of their face (and as brilliant as 2003's Monts Et Merveilles was, I still can't watch it without being absorbed by Louisa's indifference to the tresses plastered all over her countenance). A case in point in 2009 is Belarusian entrant Petr Elfimov and his aptly titled Eyes That Never Lie.

A vision in white and blond, the elfen Mr Elfimov obscures all before him, not least of which his undeniable talent for singing. Your average viewer is only human, and it can be a struggle dragging yourself from thoughts of how wrong someone looks to take in anything else that might deserve your attention. Here it certainly doesn't help that Petr's peculiar appearance is offset by a song that sounds (and needless to say looks) just as unfashionable. While benefiting from a makeover we can only hope its performer will also receive - and they worked wonders on Ruslan Alehno last year - Eyes That Never Lie still comes across as if it was unearthed from a time capsule buried in Minsk some time prior to the collapse of the Iron Curtain. As a composition in its own right it's surprisingly listenable, and even has decent lyrics. So it's a pity most people will never be inclined to appreciate them.

To be honest, there's not much wrong with Eyes That Never Lie at all, if you like that kind of thing. On the face of it much of Eastern Europe still does, so if Belarus makes it to the final they may improve on whatever result they achieve in the semi. However, there's no overlooking the fact that they are one of the worst-placed countries in either of this year's semis, all but reliant on televoter support but cut off from virtually every country likely to give them any. Being performed in Russia will doubtless see the song more warmly received than it would be anywhere else, but whether that's enough to convince the viewers at home remains to be seen.

As, indeed, does Mr Elfimov. Eyes That Never Lie is far from the car-crash television that previous Belarusian entries like Love Me Tonight and Mama provided, so if hair and wardrobe work their magic on him* he may yet make it onto the screen in a form which doesn't leave most people ogling him in a mix of fascination and repulsion. And in that case all we'll have to contend with is the music...

* Boom-tish.

Belgium

Copycat Copycat

"He's too dead to rock'n'roll..."

Well into its 50s, Eurovision has long mirrored the musical habits we all fall into in our lives. At an early age it was too young to have developed its own taste in music, and so existed for many years listening to the kind of stuff its parents preferred. By the time it was old enough to have hit upon its own style it was still impressionable enough to have it stick, and has often since been accused of looking down its nose at 'modern' music in favour of something it feels more comfortable with. The upshot of this is that although the contest was born into an era dominated by rock'n'roll, it has rarely embraced the genre (at least in Western Europe), and barring one startlingly familiar-sounding German entry in the '50s, never at the time. It is both ironic and appropriate then that Belgium - arguably the least perceptive of the longer-standing countries in terms of what kind of music works at the contest - should redress the balance with their 2009 entry Copycat.

When rumours surfaced that Belgian broadcaster RTBF were planning to enter an Elvis impersonator as their Eurovision entry for Moscow, it's fair to say that the general reaction was one of weary skepticism. Renowned for poor choices (whichever broadcaster made them) that have only very occasionally paid dividends, the country has a reputation in the contest which - when combined with the selection of deliberate pastiche in a style that has seldom worked in the Eurovision context - meant that the hearsay did not bode well. And yet to the surprise of most, Copycat is fun and clever in a way that is completely unpretentious, exhibits exemplary production values and is very catchy. It is arguably the best Belgian entry since... well, since rock'n'roll was at the peak of its popularity.

Which is not to say that it will necessarily go down well with a different audience half a century later. One thing we've seen in the contest is that there is only really one country that seems able to get away with consciously emulating a bygone era, and that's Sweden (and even then recent results have suggested its ability to do so is slipping). What stands Copycat in good stead is the way it is delivered: its humour, and the fact that it is not taking itself in the slightest bit seriously, is accessible to everyone, and while clearly stylised it is not pretending to be anything other than what it is. Unlike the Montenegrin entry that opens the semi, the Belgian entry feels authentic.

If Patrick Ouchène & Co. manage to convey that sense of genuineness to the audience without labouring the point, Copycat could well surprise a lot of people not only by qualifying for the final, but once there edging into contention for a place on the podium. Belgium has done it before, with a song that was just as credible and yet just as largely overlooked, and which harked back to another era; they may well do it again. Potentially giving the contest the winner it ought to have had 50 years ago in the process.

Czech Republic

Aven Romale Gipsy.cz

"If you really wanna understand, just sing it with me..."

For a competition that is more or less reliant on the input of the voting public for an outcome, Eurovision is remarkably short on audience participation. The restraints of the production - in particular the sheer pace at which it gets through the songs and the fact that each song has only 3 minutes to make its mark - leave the performers oddly detached from the audience in the arena: the best they can hope for in terms of interaction is a spontaneous burst of applause mid-song that the microphones pick up and project to the viewers at home.

This may prove problematic for the Czech entry in Moscow, Aven Romale, which perhaps more than any other in the history of Eurovision needs to appeal directly to the audience for it to resonate. There has been a curious lack of songs in the contest - especially in the televoting era where appealing to the massed viewers of the continent was your only hope of making any impact on the scoreboard - of the 'I sing this bit then you all repeat it' variety. Shorn of this kind of support, the Czech Republic could easily find themselves propping up the rest of the semi once again at the end of the night, since Aven Romale's hook (and pretty much its whole point) requires the audience to sing along and go a bit mental for it to work.

And that's in spite of the colourful and at times surprisingly subtle and complex composition, which could see them doing very well indeed in the final if they run the gauntlet of the semi-final's cut-throat televote and come out the other end unscathed. If the boys from Gipsy.cz pitch it just right, getting the audience wanting to be involved, I can see Aven Romale's inoffensive comedy appeal serving it just as well, if not better, than the similar feel to the Turkish entry in 2004, For Real, and Moldova's debut in 2005, Boonika Bate Doba. While lumbered with an unenviable draw, it has the added benefit of standing out from everything else in the 1st semi, and that - in combination with a fun performance - could be enough to see it through. It all depends on whether we, as the audience, really do wanna understand and sing along.

Montenegro

Just Get Out Of My Life Andrea

"Everybody's talkin' 'bout all the things I'm missin'..."

Try to pass yourself off as something you're not at Eurovision and people will almost always see through you. Whether it's an unexpected switch in style, language or performance, the audience tends to frown on any entry designed to tick all of the contest's boxes unless it does it with equally unexpected panache. This year's entry from Montenegro - bearing the double-edged title Just Get Out Of My Life - does not, and is as complete an about-face as you could imagine.

After following up their solid but uneventful debut with just as solid but just as old-fashioned an opener to last year's contest, the Montenegrin delegation would seem to have taken their lead from similarly hopeless and even more pint-sized Andorra in abandoning their language, bypassing their own song-writing talent and shipping in a team of foreigners to save them from semi-final ignominy. (And look what became of Casanova.) Aligning themselves with and masquerading as composers and lyricists from schlager powerhouses Sweden and Spain, German stalwarts Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger return to Eurovision with another entry from their catalogue of cheesy pop, this time for a country they clearly have no affiliation with. The mathematical approach they take to composing and lyric-penning might see Montenegro challenging Slovenia for the title of trashiest Balkan nation at ESC (I don't count Romania, whatever Elena Gheorghe might claim) if it weren't so incongruous and didn't smack of desperation.

In a concession to the rule requiring some sort of national flavour in an entry, Just Get Out Of My Life is being fronted by the striking, home-grown Andrea. Hitherto unheard by and unknown to the wider European public - but touted by many from the former Yugoslavia as someone to watch (and indeed as a good singer) - her ability to sell the song vocally and in terms of performance on the night will be almost entirely responsible for securing any chance it may have of qualifying. The song's been-there-done-that quality is unlikely to sit well with more demanding televoters, so however spunky Ms Demirović is she may yet have to rely on the OGAE jury vote which was perceived to have plucked Sweden from the jaws of disaster in the 2nd semi last year.

'Convincing' is the key word with Just Get Out Of My Life. Where its uncomplicated pop may fail to win most televoters over, its performer may just have the wherewithal to make the song the frothy, flag-waving, zoomaholic opener the semi needs. My feeling is that it won't, precisely because it's Montenegro trying to do what other countries have been doing, often better, for a long time in this contest, and I expect the audience will see it. I don't begrudge them searching for their niche, but I don't think they've found it with this entry.

Semi 1

Unlike the opening semi of 2008, the 1st semi-final in Moscow is a Eurotrash tour-de-force from the off, with little in the way of ballads to trouble the voters until well past the halfway mark. This provides for an upbeat opening to the contest, but makes predicting who will fall foul of such a relentless opening slew all the more difficult. Georgia's withdrawal may mean that the songs in this semi have only a slight advantage over their counterparts in the 2nd semi, but that 3% may make all the difference.

Hardest done-by in the early draw for the 1st semi would seem to be the Czech Republic, whose offbeat entry will have to be pitched perfectly to make a lasting impression, particularly when followed by the more blatantly cartoon fun of perennial also-rans Belgium. The Swedes would also have been hoping for a better start than fifth, but their entry is perhaps less susceptible to the whims of the draw. Rounding off the first third of the semi, Armenia seems impervious to failure with yet another ethno-pop number and a diaspora to die for.

The middle run of the 1st semi is likely to see the televote dominated by the Turkish entry and Iceland's well-placed, well-produced and very traditional ballad. This may not bode well for the Israelis and their vocally complex and rather beautiful anthem or the Swiss, arguably coming into the contest with their best entry in a very long time. Andorra is likewise presenting probably its most approachable entry to date, but by its very nature will struggle to make the cut.

Formerly fated finalists FYR Macedonia lead us into the home straight with another solid entry, but this year more than any other they are likely to fall short, especially in contention with the striking Bosnian entry that rounds off the night's proceedings. The remainder of the semi is a bit of a mixed bag, with Romania's Europop and Portugal's folk number just as likely to do well as the Maltese anthem that comes after them. Finland's slice of the '90s seems the obvious candidate to fall flat here, but coming towards the end of the run - and given as professional a performance as it was in the national final - you'd think twice before ruling out its chances altogether.

Considering that the voting system in this year's semis remains unchanged from 2008, with nine of the ten finalists chosen by the public and one 'rescued' by juries (whose composition is as yet unknown), there are some clear candidates for qualification in this 1st semi - and that's despite the limiting effect of the split draw. Beyond these, though, the possibilities are endless. Well, not endless, but certainly harder to predict than last year. I'll throw my hat into the ring more definitively after reviewing each of the songs individually.

Добро пожаловать в Москву!

Welcome to my blog about the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Moscow on 12, 14 and 16 May. Over the next month and a bit I will be attempting to look at all of the competing entries as objectively and constructively as possible, with the generally pointless aim of trying to ascertain which are most likely to succeed and which will fall by the wayside. I did pretty well last year.

Feel free to leave comments in response to my posts, and enjoy :)