10 songs for Denmark

Eurovision Express loves Denmark. Well they have given us some of the best entries ever, especially in the 80s.

Recently Denmark has gone all modern pop on us, and that's absolutely fine! Snippets of the 10 songs competing in this Saturday's Melodi Grand Prix are now available here.

And they are pretty good! At the moment our favourite (and it seems to be 'the' favourite) is Anne Noa (pictured below, photo by Bjarne Bergius Hermansen © DR) with Sleepless, written by Peter Bjørnskov, Lene Dissing and John Gordon (composer of Lena's Satellite).

Most of the songs are good uptempo pop songs. Amongst our other favourites are Jenny Berggren with Let Your Heart Be Mine and Le Freak's 25 Hours a Day.

Looks like Denmark's going to give us another great final this Saturday night!

Haba a good time tonight in Norway! And fingers crossed for Yohanna!

For the second year running Eurovision Express is going to be part of the live audience at Norway's MGP.

It seems that Stella is going to triumph with Haba Haba. We quite like the song, and it definitely stands out. But we actually think the best song is You're Like A Melody performed by Hanne Sørvaag, who co-wrote last year's Norwegian and Georgian entries. Listen to the song below.



We'll be popping along to this afternoon's dress rehearsal to see how the 8 acts are shaping up, and to see if there are any surprises in store.

We're going to be on the edge of our seats tonight, and not just because of the excitement of being in the Oslo Spektrum. Tonight a number of other countries will be choosing their songs, and we're particularly interested in the result in Iceland. Fingers crossed for Yohanna, whose song, Nótt (below), is by far the best Eurovision song we've heard this year. We have a feeling in our water that she's not going to make it, but if she does, she's got to be a contender for this year's Eurovision crown.

Lipstick Lads for Ireland

Eurovision Express is back in Oslo for the final of MGP. But before we contemplate the excitement of tonight's spectacular, we caught the Irish national final on the internet last night.

Our verdict? We're delighted that Jedward are representing Ireland. Why? Because they had the best song! It's as simple as that.

Eurosong 2011, part of The Late Late Show, was a pretty entertaining shebang. Former Eurovision entrants Cheryl Baker and Bryan Kennedy were on hand to give their opinions. We love Cheryl but think it's time she moved on from the East block voting argument. Norway? Finland? Germany? They won because they had good songs.

Anyway, back to the final itself. It was always going to be a two horse race between the X Factor's Jedward and Nikki Kavanagh. We thought Nikki was most definitely the best singer of the night, but she just needed a better song.

The 6 juries votes accounted for 66% of the final score, and it was fantastically exciting, as it seemed Nikki was going to pip Jedward to the title. But the Sligo jury, if we remember correctly, gave Nikki a pretty low score and awarded Jedward 12 points.

Before the public televote came in, Nikki led by 4 points, but she only came 2nd in televote, allowing the twins from Lucan in Dublin to leapfrog her and win by a mere two points.

A good, tense final, and a great outcome. OK, Jedward aren't the best singers, but the song is infectious and they certainly sell it. And, if it does manage to get to the final, we're certain that the UK will be giving it douze points!

8 acts battle it out in Norway's "Sistesjanse"

Eurovision Express is looking forward to jetting off to the Norwegian MGP final in just over a week's time. Six acts have made it directly to the Oslo Spektrum, and this Saturday 2 more will join them from the Sistesjanse round.

NRK has created the lovely graphic above to illustrate how Saturday's show will work. It's going to be a series of duels.

Here at Eurovision Express we love nothing more than to get out our crystal ball and predict what's going to happen. So, taking you round by round, here are our thoughts:

Use Me v Pernille and Marius

We reckon Daisy, the poppy rock song by Use Me will just pip Pernille and Marius' slightly schlager-lite I'll Be Yours in this first duel.

Sie Gubba v Mimi Blix

Tricky one this. Alt du vil ha is a country style number by Sie Gubba, absolutely poles apart from Mimi Blix's Allergic. We like them both, but hope that Mimi's modern dance track will take this round.

Gatas Parlament v The Lucky Bullets

We really don't like either of these songs. Gatas Parlament's Jobbe Litt isn't our bag at all, and we find The Lucky Bullets rockabilly Fire Below uninspired, but if we had to choose we'd go for The Lucky Bullets!

Endre v Susperia

We were amazed last weekend when metal group Susperia didn't get an automatic pass to the Final with Nothing Remains. It's not our cup of tea, but we thought it was pretty good if you like that sort of thing. However we reckon Susperia are going to be disappointed a second time, as Endre and Puppy Love looks likely to pull in the girly vote.

OK. So first rounds over. Our predictions would then create the following second round duels:

Use Me v Mimi Blix

We hope that Mimi will win this one. Her funky tune is much more us!

The Lucky Bullets v Endre

Endre would definitely deserve to win this battle, although would probably be the weakest song in the Final.

So, our predictions are:

Mimi Blix and Endre to the Grand Final! Let's see if we get it right!