Benny Cristo
On Monday we found out that this guy was going to be the artist for the Czech Republic with his song "Kemama", coming second with the International jurors but most importantly top of the televote. My favourite pick of the seven might have been Barbora Mochowa with her eclectic entry "White & Black Holes" but even though it would have been a jury pick, the fact that she finished bottom of the televote indicates that public votes for the Czech Republic would have been difficult to come by in Rotterdam if that had won. Will Benny do better than Lake Malawi on that score? We will have to wait and see but his song was one of the most radio friendly of the seven and given the right staging, the Czech Republic have moved on from indie-pop to an Afrobeat party tune that could be one of the stand-outs this May. Be aware that there are some rumours of this being revamped but this is the winning video:
To be honest, reading of his popularity in his home nation and how he has grown his social media following, it did not surprise me that he did win - hopefully for the Czechs, that online presence will be transferred to votes in May. ESCZ 2020 was a great line-up and I had no issues with any of them going to Rotterdam, it was just a question of which genre the voters wanted to go with. I didn't go with Benny opening this week's show though - I decided that the honour for show 78 should go to this guy:
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We finally have the studio version of Spain's entry for Rotterdam and it is a good solid entry, coming from a singer who has experience, control and, from seeing his previous performances, some decent stage presence. We will see Blas Cantó perform "Universo"live in the next episode of Operación Triunfo - it will be perhaps only then that we get a real idea of how well this might do this May. I think he will perform this song really well but I am not quite sure if it is distinctive enough to garner the televotes he may need to push Spain up the Eurovision leaderboard. As we only know three total entries (and one of those is undergoing a language change), that is impossible to tell at this moment. Also on the show was the latest release from the other artist we now know is going to travel to Rotterdam (although not that far geographically, bear with me):
Stefania
She has been down as Greece's choice for Eurovision 2020 for months now and it was only not being nailed down as a given due to EPT not confirming it and her not having the title of her song sorted. The track will be called "SUPERG!RL" - yes, all in capitals bar the letter 'I' that has been changed to a "!", making it so easy to find on social media, like S!sters in Tel Aviv. As you will hear when you listen to the Mixcloud of Tuesday's show, Stefania could just as easily have been singing for The Netherlands as for Greece, more so in fact, as she was born and lives in Utrecht! She even performed for her birth nation at JESC 2016 as part of the band Kisses:
Admittedly they only came 8th but it gave Stefania the experience of being at a big musical event and dealing with the 'bubble' that accompanies it. You will hear her latest release "Turn Around" on the show and as long as she is given a decent pop track to sing, I cannot imagine that Greece will miss out on the Final this year, where they might then get the benefit of the Dutch vote going towards 'one of their own' (not at the SF stage, The Netherlands vote in SF1, Greece perform in SF2). So we now know THIRTEEN artists (one of which was announced in the last fifteen minutes of Tuesday's show, see below) and three songs (although only "Universo" is arguably the version we will hear in May, "Shaj" already undergoing a language and style revamp and "Kemama" rumoured to be tweaked). Of course these three singers were just the start of Tuesday's show - there were 22 other tracks to listen to:
More by luck than design, this show sounded really good and had a lot of variety in it as I was listening to it through my headphones in the studio, so hopefully it comes across that way to you too. Have a listen and enjoy...
I am one song away from playing all of the Norwegian entries for this year on the show but most importantly and urgently, I needed to catch up with all the Australian entries this time as the Final is this Saturday and I am delighted that I accomplished that too! The one song this week that sounded amazing through my super high quality headphones from the Aussie three I played was this one:
"Universo" - Blas Cantó
"Kemama" - Benny Cristo
"Turn Around" - Stefania
"Rabbit Hole" - Jaguar Jonze
"Raw Stuff" - Didirri
"Don't Break Me" - Montaigne
"Stay" - DRIKSNA
"Duemiladiciannove (2019)" - Francesco Gabbani
"Namų dvasia" - Baltos Varnos
"Ballerina" - Malou Prytz
"BOYS WITH EMOTIONS" - FELIX SANDMAN
"Oculis Videre" - Iva
"Save It" - Assol
"Over The Sea" - Magnus Bokn
"Attention" - Ulrikke
"Stem på mæ" - Kevin Boine
"We Are As One" - Elin & The Woods
"I Am Gay" - Liza Vassilieva
"Mr. Hello" - Jenny Jenssen
"Walking Out" - Srbuk
"Icebreaker" - Agnete
"Irelande Douze Pointe" - Dustin The Turkey
"Colours" - KEiiNO
"+" - Aitana (ft Cali y El Andee)
"Let Me Be The One" - The Shadows
I am one song away from playing all of the Norwegian entries for this year on the show but most importantly and urgently, I needed to catch up with all the Australian entries this time as the Final is this Saturday and I am delighted that I accomplished that too! The one song this week that sounded amazing through my super high quality headphones from the Aussie three I played was this one:
If that power and frenetic intensity can be replicated live on the Gold Coast stage, then I think that Jaguar Jonze has a chance of causing a surprise at Eurovision : Australia Decides this Saturday. It is really too close to call - as I said on my show, there is no entry this year that has gripped me the way "Zero Gravity" did, from the moment I heard Kate Miller-Heidke start singing that song, all the way through to her staging at last year's NF. This year has a lot of entries that COULD win - I could see Vanessa, Casey, Diana, Montaigne, Mitch and Jack all being in with a shout but if someone smashes their live performance out of the park, there is no reason why the other four artists couldn't do it too. As far as my radio show goes, it was another tick for completing a whole list of participants, to go along with the Czech Republic and Norway. I will have to accept that I might only be able to play a sample of the NFs to come and of course for some nations, I will only be able to play their actual entry on the show, much like the winner in Israel:
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Eden Alene won HaKokhav HaBa L'Eurovizion 2020, beating off competition from Ella-Lee Lahav, Gaya Shaki and Orr Amrami Brockman, thereby securing her place in Rotterdam. Her song will be picked for her by the public on March 3rd but she has released two singles before and one of them will be on next week's show! As for the rest of Show 79, there will be the winner from Latvia's Supernova, the Italian song that will be going to Rotterdam and of course the winner of Australia's NF too. If the winner of X Factor Malta has ever released anything commercially, you'll get to hear them too. It is all getting faster and faster and we will be now getting songs and artists for May 'coming out of our spiky ears', as a certain German radio presenter might say...
The one thing that is certain is that you will hear them all
on LET ME BE THE ONE on Bradley Stoke Radio every Tuesday!