[LMBTO] 4th Feb '18 - A Different Swiss Eurovision Show?

That Christer definitely gets around, doesn't he?  Perhaps with his influence, it was announced on 13th July how the Swiss are going to pick their entry for Portugal and it's been streamlined a bit:
The full article (get your Google Translate on automatic for this one) links into the Swiss Regulations this year in various languages - we'll come onto a potential reason why in a moment.  So it's all about the song this year apparently - something tried across the continent with varying degrees of success, requiring not only the need to find the best song but then mesh that with the right singer!  My mind cannot comprehend that but that is probably why I am just a blogger and listener of music and not an active participant in the song creation process!  Click on whichever language you like - to be fair, they are the main official ones of Switzerland plus English but having the "world's second language" as one might help with one of the major interesting points of the selection process...

The really stand out points for me aren't all the technical and legal necessities that these regulations contain - it is the potential for the musical genre and nationality of artist to be wide and varied and the scrutiny of process becoming more MF-like in its scope (not surprising, given who was invited to help them out).  The General Terms have a couple of points that should be highlighted:
Straight from the off, we have a statement as to what SRF are looking for - 'a modern song' with lyrics that have a 'strong, clear and understandable message'.  Interesting choice of words, seeing that we have just had a winner in Kyiv who arguably sung a style of song that was more prevalent in 1950s and 1960s Eurovision and that struck a chord so much in 2017 that it stormed to victory with a landslide points total.  Would Salvador have made it into the Swiss NF?
Admittedly "Amar pelos dois" would fit into the message criteria, albeit in Portuguese.  It' ll be interesting to see what is submitted based on that - it all sounds very "Wars For Nothing" in sentiment to me...



The second highlight immediately 'pulls the plug' on any return by our favourite Salvation Army band TAKASA/Heilsarmee, so a repeat of their DNQ in 2013 would not be repeated.  One of the more unusual Eurovision entries, quite the departure from the Swiss normal fare but maybe the wrangling about name and uniform changes proved too much hassle then and they want to avoid the same thing happening now...
A 20 person jury, filtering out the songs and picking the best ones - should be a lot of ears and matters of musical taste amongst that lot, with the Swiss hoping that this supplies a better selection process than the Expert Check one that has preceded it.  The old way of doing things didn't really produce an entry that got Switzerland to the Final but I have to say that Rykka's performance at that stage in 2016 was a lot, lot better than anything that she did thereafter - and her look was spot on there too:



We'll get to the issues about staging at the NF and Eurovision later, don't you worry!  The make-up (no intended reference to Rykka's smeared lippy) of the jury is mimicking what appears to be happening more frequently around Eurovision - not getting just musos involved but also us fans and here even television viewers (which is a new one on me).  Maybe having people not totally immersed in this Contest we love or the music industry is a good thing, maybe having tv viewers who might have an insight into what might sound good coming out of their soundbar, surround sound speakers etc will give a different perspective.  As for the fans input, why not?  It has happened in the UK, Sweden and Denmark, a few NFs plucked out of the air - I suppose that SRG SSR (the combined entity of the three broadcasters in Switzerland) haven't gone too mad as they will have music/media as the majority, so we might only see a couple of fans in the process.  Having all languages represented on the jury (I am assuming this means the official ones) is possibly a compromise for the three channels losing their individual NF choices as used to happen even just a couple of years ago.

I have to admit that I am smiling when I read the 'get out of jail' clauses of potentially having wildcards and varying numbers of finalists - if the standard isn't that good, maybe they can take inspiration from Jade Ewen, who appeared out of nowhere as a sixth artist in the UK selection process in 2009 to boost the quality level and end up taking the UK to 5th in Moscow...
Onto the Song and Artist Regulations and nationality, as always in any NF around Eurovision, differs in a big way.  The Swiss are obviously trying to 'big up their own' but are not 'cutting off their nose' by unnecessarily restricting their choice:
 So if someone is the next Sebalter or Sandra Studer and either composes or fits one of these songs perfectly, wonderful.  However, SRG SRR have been clever enough to not rule out artists like Vanilla Ninja (Estonia), who provided Switzerland with their last top ten entry:



Or even their second and last winner, Celine Dion (Canada):



Celine might be happy to know she could sing in French still, although I wouldn't be surprised to hear the 2018 NF winner still singing in English, as they have done for the past seven years.  Of course, she would need the title of the song in the lyrics somewhere - not sure why that restriction is in there to be honest, the broadcasters scared of being presented with three minute versions of a classic song like "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "A Day In The Life" that ran contrary to that?  At least in the Artist section the Swiss are trying to avoid an "Andreas Kümmert moment" by saying up front that each artist is totally committing themselves to singing in Portugal...

Assuming that the selected songs end up with a decent singer, us as the Eurovision viewing public will get to see them all compete at:
Pencil that date in your diaries, if you haven't already done so:


Probably all that is needed at the moment, assuming that you'll be watching the livestream, which is normally one of the best quality across the Eurovision world.  The fact that it is in Zurich might only be a factor if you are Swiss, a member of the Eurovision press or a very keen fan!  We will be treated to some promo work by the artists in the NF too but I would assume that they would want to increase their profile with the voters anyway...

Now we are onto the staging!  Nothing to do with the artists themselves, so it seems.  Does this mean we'll end up seeing the sickly colour show from Kyiv again or, perhaps even worse, the smoking and rocking of Stockholm:
I suppose as long as the right staging designer is chosen then the Swiss might end up with the very visually effective gig performance of Sebalter:



It is all down to the broadcaster though - it seems as though Melanie, Rykka and Timebelle might not have had much say in how they looked at Eurovision at least, assuming that this regulation held true for them.  Their staging at the last three Swiss NF's was a lot better than at the 'big event' - simple is best perhaps?
To determine the winner, we have a fairly traditional 50/50 split, televoting and an 'international expert jury'.  It doesn't say or hint at whether the jurors are the same people who chose the songs for the NF, whether it is the same number or what qualifies participation as an 'expert'.  A music teacher in London?  A record producer in Oslo?  Christer Björkman?  Everything will become clearer on the night but at least the public get the casting vote if there is a tie - something that should happen everywhere when money is paid to cast your vote...


So what do we have to look forward to with the Swiss Eurovision selection process this year?

• Six songs (probably) will be found by a selection panel that will have at least one Eurovision fan in it, from whatever is submitted between September 1st and 22nd (unless the standard isn't brilliant and then we might get a wildcard appearing OR they have more than six superb songs, in which case it's a bigger NF);
• The combined broadcasters SRG SSR will be finding the artists to perform those songs - meshing them together will be the 'dark arts' here;
• Potentially anyone on the planet could write the song, compose the music and sing it but being Swiss is preferable;
• No Live Expert Jury stage this year - straight into the NF with them all!
• What we see visually is what the broadcaster decides - their show, their staging;
• The paying public gets 50% of the say and the casting vote.