With the UK’s Eurovision selection show beginning tonight, I’ve been looking into who may be their competition. As I’ve mentioned, the Swedish finals are set to be utterly brilliant this year as many of my favourite acts are competing. Also of interest is Norway’s Melodi Grand Prix, which this year features the brilliant (and crazy) electro-rock-pop group Surferosa. They may never recreate the fantastic madness of their early album track German Socks, but with the poppiness necessary for a successful Eurovision entry, I think this could well be their best song yet. Another interesting entrant is Velvet, but apparently this is not our beloved Swedish dance-popper but a girl group trying to steal her name. Tone Damli Aaberge is another well known contestant (came 2nd in Idol 2005), so if she has a good song she’s probably in with a good chance.
Other names I recognised on my Wikipedia travels were Waldo’s People (Finland), Sakis Rouvas (Greece), Hadise (Turkey), System of a Down (Armenia) and France are promising another big name after the positive reception for Sébastien Tellier last year. If you’re into betting I’d recommend putting a small one on Armenia, as they could easily ‘do a Lordi’ if SoaD are confirmed as their entrant. Although that has been done once already, they are much more famous than Lordi (with many ignorant fans who would like to mess up Eurovision) and Armenia usually gets lots of points from its neighbours anyway. Then again, their song will probably not be a pop song in disguise as Lordi’s was, so they are unlikely to pick up many votes from people who actually like Eurovision and its typical musical styles. It should be an interesting year, anyway!