The Final Needs Us!

Eurovision Express is on its way to BBC Television Centre to see the final of Your Country Needs You and to hear the much anticipated song which will represent th UK in Moscow. The song, as we know, has been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren and is called - My Time.

The finalists will perform the following songs tonight and we'll be there to cheer them on -

Mark: Try A Little Tenderness (The Commitments); Me And Mrs Jones (Billy Paul), My Time (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Diane Warren).

The Twins: Sweet About Me (Gabriella Cilmi); The Promise (Girls Aloud), My Time (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Diane Warren).

Jade: Lady Marmalade (Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mya and L'il Kim); Deja Vu (Beyonce), My Time (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Diane Warren).

Our fingers are crossed for Jade, but whoever suits the song most, we hope to see as the UK representative in Moscow!

Denmark, Finland, Romania and the UK decide....

This Saturday is the first BIG weekend of the Eurovision season, with 4 countries making their final deliberations as to who will represent them in Moscow.

If Eurovision Express had its way this is how things will shape up on Saturday night.

In Denmark we'd like to see Brinck come out on top with Believe Again - a good, modern pop song, likely to get the Danes through to the Final.

Waldo's People and Lose Control is our choice for the Finns. Again this is a fresh, 90s sounding song, and a welcome departure from the Finnish rock we've been used to over the past few years.

Romania is more difficult to make a final decision on. We reckon the Sugababes sounding Round & Round by IMBA could well win, although prefer Sunny Days (below) by Zero.



And that leaves the United Kingdom. Of course, the song will be My Time, and our tip for the top is Jade.

Will our four favourites win? Only time will tell....

Norway: Round Two with Tine and Tone

Saturday sees the second heat in Norway's Melodi Grand Prix, taking place in Bodø. Eurovision Express has its fingers crossed for Tone Damli Aaberge and the fantastic Butterflies, and Tine Wulff with Ride.


Tone (pictured above), who came 2nd in Idols 2005, is favourite with the bookies to go 'direkt til Spektrum', and quite right too! Butterflies is a great song, which at the beginning reminds us of Annie Lenox's Walking on Broken Glass mixed with Coldplay's Viva La Vida. It also is reminiscent of former Estonian entries like Runaway and Looking Through My Window.


Eurovision Express also hopes that Tine (pictured above) does well with her underated entry, Ride. It's a well composed song, which might surprise a few people on the night.

Potty Time

The pots (or rather the Russian Dolls) containing the countries for the semi-finals have been in action today in Moscow. In a less star-studded draw than Belgrade, some dolly models drew the countries out of their relative pots/bowls. Of course, it all depends on the songs but initial reactions listed beside some countries below.

The draws were as follows:

1st semi final - Tuesday 12th May

UK, Spain, Germany voting in this semi.

Bosnia & Herzegovina
Sweden (not good)
Israel
Belgium (not good)
Andorra
Czech Republic
Montenegro
Iceland
Georgia
Bulgaria
Portugal
Switzerland
FYR Macedonia
Finland
Belarus
Turkey (good)
Romania
Malta
Armenia (good)

2nd Semi final - Thursday 14th May

France and Russia voting in this semi

Slovenia
Denmark
Azerbaijan
Netherlands (not good)
Latvia (good)
Hungary
Serbia
Norway (not good)
Ukraine
Greece (good)
Lithuania (good)
Poland
Croatia
Estonia (good)
Moldova
Cyprus (good)
Ireland (not good)
Slovakia
Albania

Of course, the jury effect could change all this as will the quality of the songs!

You can watch the glamourous draw here.

Andorran finalists now known!

The 3rd song hoping to represent Andorra in Moscow was aired tonight. Lluís Cartes sang his own composition Exhaust - a rock song which is very different from the previous two offerings we have heard. Rock songs don't tend to do well at Eurovision (remember San Marino last year?). Somehow, we can't see this song winning the selection.

So, the three finalists in the Andorran final which will take place on February 4th are Susanne Georgi, Mar Capdevila and Lluís Cartes.

Full details of the Andorran selection here

Meanwhile, here is tonight's 3rd finalist

Viva La Diva ..... Viva Patricia!

It now looks almost certain that Patricia Kaas will represent La Belle France in Moscow. Kaas is one of the most successful French-speaking singers in the world. Stylistically her music is not classical chanson, but is closer to a mixture of pop music, jazz and chanson.

France TV is expected to officially announce that Ms Kaas will represent her home country in Moscow within the next two weeks. Patricia will be one of the most high-profile singers in the competition, having racked up sales of over 16 million albums worldwide. Patricia has many marvellous songs, but our particular favourite from way back in the early 90's is this one - Les Hommes Qui Passent



Bon Chance France...excellent choice of singer...can't wait to hear the song for Moscow.

Is it true? Is it Uncle Ralph for Montenegro?

Rumour has reached us here at Eurovision Express that the composers of the Europop song from Montenegro are none other than the Eurovision legends - Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger. The other writer is head of OGAE Spain, José Juan Santana Rodriguez.

Just get out of my life sung by Andrea Demirović is co-composed by Peter Match and Gunvor Johansen - apparently nom de plumes of the Eurovision duo! Furthermore, the song was recorded in Mr. Siegel's Olimpia studio in Munich. We've also heard that Andrea said in an interview that the composer is a former Eurovision winning composer.

It looks like Mr. Siegel still just can't live without Eurovision!

Will it be the UK's time with 'My Time'?

The title of the song Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren have written to represent the UK has been revealed. In an interview in The Daily Mail, Lord Webber reveals that the song is called My Time, and took just two hours to write.

Next Saturday everyone will get the chance to hear the song for the first time, and the British public will decide whether it will be The Twins, Mark or Jade who gets to sing it.

Norway, round one, and it all kicks off in Kongsvinger

Tonight Norway begins its bid to find a successor to Maria Haukaas Storeng, with the start of Melodi Grand Prix 2009 from Kongsvinger.

Seven acts will be battling it out for two places to go to the final, or 'direkt til Spektrum', as (we think) they say in Norway.


Eurovision Express would be keen to see girl group Velvet (pictured above) and their funky number Tricky make it through. We just hope they don't do a 'No Angels' and bomb!


We also have a keen regard for girl soloist, Charite (above) who sings the catchy Sweeter Than A Kiss.


Apparently, though, the smart money is on Surferosa (above), described on NRK's website as a 'trashpop' band. Although Eurovision Express is obviously shocked that the word 'trash' and 'Eurovision' are being so closely connected, we do think their entry, U Look Good, is, appropriately enough, 'good' (if you like that kind of thing!)

Last year's MGP was one of the best national selection programmes on offer, coupling great songs with the dry wit of MGP-host Per Sundnes, so, with it being broadcast on the web via nrk.no, make sure you don't miss it.

Congratulations Ukrika!

Eurovision Express is delighted that Ulrika Jonsson, co-host of the 1998 Eurovision, has won the UK version of Celebrity Big Brother. To celebrate, let's have a look at Ukrika and Terry Wogan in a little promo for the 98 Contest:

Montenegro in "Good Song" shock!

My goodness, we have just heard the 2009 song from Montenegro....and it's very good! After some lacklustre entries in 2007 and 2008, they have gone and done a "Sweden" and entered a pop/schlager/disco song. How marvellous!

Following an internal selction (very wise!!) Montenegro have decided to send the lovely Andrea Demirović with the equally lovely Get Out Of My Life.

Maybe this is the beginning of Balkan pop songs at Eurovision? Slovenia has always been the ex-YU country that embraced the pop side of Eurovision, and it looks like Montenegro has now followed its example.

Let's hope it gets Montenegro into the final for the first time! Here's the song...

Man Meadow are back!

Swedish male duo, Man Meadow, who came 3rd in last year's Polish final with Viva La Musica, are back.

This year they are again trying their luck in Poland, with their new song, Love is gonna get ya (co-composed by Eurovision veteran Thomas G:Son). Here's hoping for a Euro-stomper!

Douze Points Denmark

The 10 songs taking part in the Danish national final are now online, and Eurovision Express is impressed!

Although we liked All Night Long, we were disappointed with the general standard of songs on offer from Denmark last year. Thankfully, things are back on track in 2009, with a diverse selection of tunes, including gospel, ballads and schlager.

It's very hard to pick a favourite, and we expect it to be a closely fought battle on Saturday 31 January when the Danes make their choice.

If pushed we would go for Believe Again, sung by Niels Brinck (pictured above), and penned by former Eurovision host and Boyzone frontman Ronan Keating, and Lars Halvor Jensen and Martin Larsson.

Andorra's second helping!

It's Wednesday night and time for the 2nd song competing for the chance to represent Andorra in Moscow. Mar Capdevila sang PASSIÓ OBSESSIVA - a song penned by Eurovision fan Josep Roca.

The song has a nice modern sound and a Nelly Furtado feel about it. It will certainly give Susanne Georgi a run for her money in the final on Feb 4th. You can learn all about Mar and the Andorran selection on their very own Facebook page (Eurovision Andorra).

There is one more song to be presented next week before the tiny nation decide who to send to Moscow.

Here's tonight's song...BONA SORT Mar and BONA SORT Josep!

Gotta be Gunesh!

Tonight Belarus will be choosing its representative for Eurovision 2009. The field's been whittled down to 5, and Eurovision Express reckons that the winner just has to be Gunesh's Fantastic Girl.

It's a pretty decent song with some interesting choreography featuring girls in white dresses and odd headwear. The other songs aren't really that good (so we can't imagine what the songs that didn't get this far were like).

If Belarus wants a decent position in Moscow then it's gotta be Gunesh. Enjoy the semi final performance below.



UPDATE: Gunesh loses, Petr Elfimov goes to Moscow. See video on right-hand side of this page.

A snippet from Slovenia....and Brigita is best

This time last year Eurovision Express spent a few Sunday afternoons tuning into Slovenian TV to hear a quick burst of the songs taking part in their national selection.

But this year it looks like we've missed the first instalment! How careless of us! Anyway, we've caught up, and are pleased to report that, going on the 90 second snippet below, we really like Brigita Šuler, who had the best song in last year's EMA, Samara. This year she returns with Druga Liga, which apparently means Second League.

Brigita, don't do yourself down - we reckon this is Premier League!

Lithuania's answer to Sestre and Scooch....YVA!

Songs with an airline theme haven't done that well at Eurovision.

Sestre gave the whole trolly dolly thing a go in 2002 for Slovenia, and came 13th. Five years later Scooch decided to Fly The Flag for the UK, landing in at 2nd to last position. In fact there must have been something in the water in 2007 because Annette Heick decided to go airport-tastic when she tried, and failed, to represent Denmark that year with Copenhagen Airport.

So the message seems clear. Don't bother pursuing anything to do with aeroplanes if you want to do well at Eurovision. Nonetheless this hasn't deterred girl group, YVA trying a similar idea in Lithuania, with their song, I Dangu (video below). To be fair it's not a bad entry, and has progressed to Lithuania's semi-finals. However, only achieving 6th in their heat, it seems unlikely we'll be seeing YVA in Moscow. Looks like this is one song that's not really going to take off.

We're Waldo's People

Eurovision Express loves to boogie, and we think that the winner of the 2nd Finnish semi final - Waldo's People with Lose Control (below) - is pretty groovacious.

It's got a great 90s style chorus and, thankfully, not too much rap. After Lordi it seemed that Finland were destined to send rock songs to Eurovision forever, but this song could take things in a new direction. It's a little way off from the heights of Eläköön Elämä, but, it's still pretty darn good.

Let's hope Waldo wins!

Andorra may "Get a Life"

The first of 3 programmes to select the Andorran entry for Eurovision was broadcast tonight. The first song is Get a Life (La teva decisió) sung in English and Catalan by Danish-born Susanna.

This is not the first time Susanna has been seen at Eurovision - she was one half of the Danish pop duo Me & My who took part in the Danish MGP in 2007 with the song Two Are Stronger Than One, which finished 6th. She also called in the televotes for Denmark in 2007.

As for this song, it's a little bit unoriginal but quite likeable, pleasant and bouncy all the same. Apparently this is the favourite to represent the principality in Moscow. Whether it's the best of the three, we'll wait and see. We'll hear song 2 next Wednesday, and the final song a week later.

Here is "Get a Life" from Andorra.

Mediocre Malta!

Here at Eurovision Express, we've always had a soft spot for Malta, and we would dearly love the small meditteranean island to win Eurovision one day. However, we're struggling to find a favourite amongst the 20 songs in their national final.

Chiara is better than her song What if We and Claudia Faniello should have entered Caravaggio this year instead of the less impressive Blue Sonata.

Maybe Malta should go down the tacky route and send Tonight at The Opera by Classic Rebels written by Eurovision legends Ralph Siegel and John O'Flynn (aka Bernd Meinunger).

Sadly, we can't see ourselves in Valetta in 2010 unless Chiara's song is vastly re-worked for the national final.

An Iced Gem

In amongst all the UK and Malta hype last night, a little gem of a song in the Icelandic semi-final almost passed us by. The excellent Is it true sung by the very lovely Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir was the highlight of the offerings from across Europe last night. A very well presented and polished song.

Thankfully the song made it to the Icelandic final on 14th February, and we would be very happy to see this represent Iceland in Moscow.

UK recruit song-writing legend

It's all shaping up nicely for the UK this year. Not only have they got Andrew Lloyd Webber to write the music for their entry, but we have learned tonight that the well respected Grammy award-winning Diane Warren (pictured above) will write the lyrics. Diane has written some of the most well known songs of recent years. Check out her credentials here.

As for tonight's show, we were disappointed to see Damien leave the contest but were very impressed with both Jade and Mark. We hope they make it to the final on 31st January when we will hear the much anticipated UK song for Moscow.

OK Malta, this is your last chance!

Tonight we see the final instalment of songs in the Maltese pre-selection show Euro Showbox. Having been disappointed with Chiara's song last week, we're hoping that there is a Maltese gem in the final offerings later tonight. Otherwise, Malta may not be in the final in Moscow if they pick any of the songs played so far. Fingers crossed for you Malta!

Also tonight,the UK kicks off the elimination rounds of Your Country Needs You. We're hoping Mark, Damien and Jade are safe tonight.

Elsewhere in Europe, Iceland and Lithuania also start their pre-selections.

Looks like the national final season has well and truly started...hurrah!

Norway's giving us Butterflies!

Norway has a special place in the heart of Eurovision Express. When Bobbysocks won the Contest in 1985, we were delighted. Despite being unfairly labelled with the 'nil points' tag, Norway always seems to enter a high quality song, culminating in the best entry from Eurovision 2008 - Maria Haukaas Storeng's Hold On Be Strong.

So what has Norway got to offer this year? Snippets of the 21 songs competing in Melodi Grand Prix are now available to listen at NRK's website

It's a mixed bunch of songs, including rap, schlager, R'n'B, American soft rock, something from the 1920s and some pretty contemporary sounding stuff too. We were however a tad disappointed to discover that there doesn't seem to be a strong ballad.

Our favourites (on 30 seconds of each song) are Butterflies, a catchy number sung by Tone Damli Aaberge (pictured above), and the kicking toon, Tricky by girl group, Velvet.

There's also something about Alexander Rybak's song, Fairytale, which may mark it out from the rest of the field.

The first of three qualifying rounds kicks off on 24 January. Norway's selection last year was one of the most exciting and well produced, so let's hope for as much fun this year!

Birthe is back!

The legend that is Birthe Kjær is back on the Eurovision stage - albeit it as a presenter rather than participant.

Birthe will co-present the Danish Melodi Grand Prix on 31st January. We narrowly missed seeing Birthe live in 2005 at the Eurovision Song Contest's 50th anniversary celebration show in Copenhagen. Unfortunately she had to withdraw at the last minute due to illness.

Hopefully she'll be fighting fit for the Melodi Grand Prix in a few weeks time.

Let's relive that stalwart of many a Eurovision disco - Vi Maler Byen Rød which really should have won in 1989!

UK in Eurovision U-turn!

Last night was the first airing of what will be the UK selection process - Your Country Needs You - and what an opening. We were very impressed with the new professional attitude being adopted in the UK with regards to Eurovision.

The BBC and Andrew Lloyd Webber have done their homework this time and have quite openly admitted that something needed to change to restore the UK to a respectable position on the Eurovision scoreboard.

They have realised that the UK needs to market their Eurovision song abroad before the contest, and start embracing the Eastern countries and their Eurovision credentials if they want to get votes for their song. This was illustrated by Lord Webber's visit to the Russian Prime Minister! Can't imagine Mr. Wogan ever doing that!

The acts themselves were of a good standard, and our initial favourites are Damien, Mark and Jade. Of course, the real star must be the song, and we won't hear that for a while yet.

Overall, well done BBC! We welcome the new positive and realistic attitude towards Eurovision - the UK doesn't have to take the contest seriously, just professionally, and this is a good start! Douze points!

Disappointment from Malta

After the much anticipated return of the Maltese Eurovision legend that is Chiara, we were very excited when she took to the stage last night in another of the Euro Showbox shows on Maltese tv with her 2009 effort to represent Malta in Moscow.

However, this excitement soon turned to disappointment when we heard the song - What if We. Having had the superb The One That I Love in 98 and the equally superb Angel in 05, songs that almost won the contest, we don't think it's going to be 3rd time lucky for the Maltese songstress. Chiara, as always, has impeccable vocals, but this song just isn't good enough for her! What a shame.

It's not looking promising in Malta so far this year! Perhaps they have kept all of the really good songs until the final week of Euro Showbox...let's hope so!

Here is Chiara's performance from last night.

Thank The Lord!

Ahead of the UK's bid to regain some Europride, which begins tomorrow (Saturday 3 January) with the start of Your Country Needs You, Andrew Lloyd Webber has been speaking about his plans for the UK's entry.

And, having read an interview with the man himself on the BBC's website, Eurovision Express is pleased to see that the composer of this year's UK song looks like he's done his Eurovision homework.

In response to why he thinks Eurovision has such a poor reputation in the UK, Lloyd Webber seems to hit the nail on the head: "It's because our entries have been absolute and total rubbish.

"I get a little bit of an advantage because I've got quite a lot of shows running round Europe so I have got a kind of grass roots support. I canvassed all the casts in my shows and they said the reason why they don't vote for Britain is because we don't bother. They resent it.

"Let's face it, some of the acts have been rather ludicrous, but from their point of view, what we've done to Eurovision is almost worse."

So it's goodbye to the gimmicks of yesteryear; for Lloyd Webber it's all about 'the song and the performer". Hooray to that!

A small taster of tomorrow night's show can be found here.

The second song of the season from Turkey

Well here's Hadise's song for Moscow, representing Turkey.



It seems the Turkish recipe for Eurovision 2009 is:

A dash of Sakis
A splash of Paparizou
A dollop of Sertab
and a sprinkling of Kalomira!

A well-tested and successful formula and therefore a likely semi-final qualifier.

С Новым годом! (Happy New Year)

Welcome to 2009, the year that Eurovision goes to Russia!

If you're planning a trip to Russia in 2009, or just want to learn more about this year's home of Eurovision, then click here.

Eurovision Express will be travelling to Moscow in May and will keep you up to date on all things Eurovision-related in the run-up to the contest.