This years Eurovision is now well under way, with the semi final having just taken place in Helsinki, Finland.
Due to 42 countries taking part in the Song Contest this year, tonight's semi final was a chance to eliminate 18 of them ready for the main event on Saturday. Just like the final, each country performed it's song and the opportunity was given to vote at the end of the performances.
As always, there was a strange mix of songs ranging from those that sounded pretty good, those which were downright awful and those that were just plain weird. The line up of countries was as follows:
Only ten of these countries would make it through to the final, and throughout the performances I decided to list the countries in my prefered order. The top ten of which were:
As you can see, I've put some comments against some songs just to highlight the type of music being played. Unfortunately, out of my list only 2 made it through to Saturday's show - FYR Macedonia and Hungary.
Oddly, the favourites Switzerland, Denmark and The Netherlands all failed to get through. Those countries that did succeed are all Eastern European.
What does that mean for our entry then? If Eastern Europe is going to dominate, we'll probably end up right down the board again. My big concern is that there are a fair few good songs from the automatic qualifiers on Saturday, and we have a cheesy pop song, so we probably won't even get the Western vote.
It could be bad news for the UK in two days time!
Due to 42 countries taking part in the Song Contest this year, tonight's semi final was a chance to eliminate 18 of them ready for the main event on Saturday. Just like the final, each country performed it's song and the opportunity was given to vote at the end of the performances.
As always, there was a strange mix of songs ranging from those that sounded pretty good, those which were downright awful and those that were just plain weird. The line up of countries was as follows:
- Bulgaria
- Israel
- Cyprus
- Belarus
- Iceland
- Georgia
- Montenegro
- Switzerland
- Moldova
- Netherlands
- Albania
- Denmark
- Croatia
- Poland
- Serbia
- Czech Republic
- Portugal
- FYR Macedonia
- Norway
- Malta
- Andorra
- Hungary
- Estonia
- Belgium
- Slovenia
- Turkey
- Austria
- Latvia
Only ten of these countries would make it through to the final, and throughout the performances I decided to list the countries in my prefered order. The top ten of which were:
- Montenegro
- Belgium (Great 70's disco style)
- Netherlands (Sounded a lot like Anastacia)
- Denmark (Draq queen - and that's not just the name of the song)
- Norway
- Switzerland (Something weird about vampires)
- FYR Macedonia
- Hungary
- Andorra (European rip off of Busted or McFly)
- Poland
As you can see, I've put some comments against some songs just to highlight the type of music being played. Unfortunately, out of my list only 2 made it through to Saturday's show - FYR Macedonia and Hungary.
Oddly, the favourites Switzerland, Denmark and The Netherlands all failed to get through. Those countries that did succeed are all Eastern European.
What does that mean for our entry then? If Eastern Europe is going to dominate, we'll probably end up right down the board again. My big concern is that there are a fair few good songs from the automatic qualifiers on Saturday, and we have a cheesy pop song, so we probably won't even get the Western vote.
It could be bad news for the UK in two days time!