12 Artists, 3 languages, a variety of music genres...
"Eurovision France - C'est vous qui décidez!"
is giving us all an early 2021 present!
As the French Christmas television schedule had given huge spoilers on 5 of the 12 artists already, the delegation head Alexandra Redde-Amiel decided to let us all have an early look at who is participating in the French NF, along with their studio videos. As you will have realised, I have looked at them and rated them all, with four of them appearing on the show this week, including my #1 and #3. These twelve are an eclectic mix of songs with Corsican and Tahitian making an appearance along with the French language, in styles including ragga, pop, EDM, traditional chanson and a Polynesian haka! The videos are here to watch:
but you WILL need a VPN to watch them if outside France. As pre-Contest videos go, these were extremely enlightening as they were all tv studio performances with live vocals - we therefore got a really solid idea of what they might be like at the NF in January. To be honest, all the vocals were at least good, the staging gave us all a hint of each artist's stagecraft and for me there were three standouts - LMK, Philippine and Barbara Pravi. LMK's ragga took my #1 placing, sass and attitude from Phillippine that reminded me a bit of Amandine Bourgeois in 2013 was my #2, whilst Barbara Pravi's very traditional (and yet contemporary) French chanson was my third choice. Those three were clear of the rest in my opinion - you will hear all of the French entries over the coming weeks, as you will with the Eesti Laul songs that kicked off hour one of the show:
Four French tracks started hour two and there was so much more, as shown in the playlist...
"The Lucky One" - Uku Suviste
"Tartu" - REDEL
"Wingman" - Andrei Zevakin & Pluuto
"Tuuled" - WIIRALT
"Fai rumore" - Diodato
"Attention" (Acoustic Live) - Ulrikke
"Water" - Ana Soklič
"Sogno" - San Marino United Artists
"Handgeschreven Kus" - O'G3NE
"Svårt sometimes" - Amanda Aasa
"Kommer du" - William Stridh
"Voilà" - Barbara Pravi
"Amour fou" - PONY X
"Maeva" - AMUI
"Magique" - LMK
"Volcano Man" - Will Ferrell & My Marianne
"Morning After" - Anett
"11 RAZONES" - Aitana
"Ślad" - Kasia Moś
"IDU DANI" - Who See feat. Saša (TBF)
"All Of My Love" - Destiny
"Kesäkuun 4" - Laura Voutilainen
As far as national final tracks are concerned, the tally heard on the show so far is:
Estonia - 8 out of 24
France - 4 out of 12
Unfortunately I won't be able to play any of the FiK 59 entries from Albania ahead of the competition itself, as they only get released around the time of the Festival itself. Chances are that the first Albanian track you will hear on LET ME BE THE ONE is the winner and that will be on the last show of 2020, December 29th. Keep listening to the show throughout the next few months and I will play as many NF entries as I can - a third of the way through these two nations is a great start!
As for the new releases, we had a really intriguing project coming out of yours and my favourite microstate, San Marino. The self-entitled San Marino United Artists consists of 14 different singers, as many styles of music all under one banner - you'll probably recognise Miodio (2008), Valentina Monetta (2012, 2013, 2014, 2017), Anita Simoncini (JESC 2014 & Eurovision 2015) plus Irol MC (1 in 360). "Sogno" is the result and if you watch the video, a little girl will take you around the sights of San Marino itself. Talking of sights, the Slovenian mountains look incredible:
Ana Soklič has provided us with the last video to go with a 2020 entry (Voda) but what a piece of cinematography it is! A total experience with a prologue by rapper Illy Problemz before the song itself - if you want to get all of that speech and you don't speak Slovene, you can watch the English version:
The other beautiful aspect of the films, apart from the backdrop, is the acting by Ana herself and her co-star Kaja Lin Jagodic - contemporary movements at their finest and truly befitting of the singer's persona and powerful vocals. This lady can perform anything and although I would love to see her sing in her preferred genre of jazz/blues, an epic ballad would surely see Slovenia into May's Grand Final. Not long to wait until we have an idea of what she is singing, hopefully...
Two other items were mentioned on the show that I wanted to link to here - first up was the Entertainment Weekly article about "Eurovision Song Contest : The Story Of Fire Saga" that triggered the playing of "Volcano Man" again. It was a great read (always best to go back to the source material, rather than read summaries from the news sites) so here is the link:
I think that the proposed marketing campaign was absolutely fascinating to read about and it is a massive shame that we never got to experience that or Will/Rachel performing on the Rotterdam stage in the Final's interval. At least we did have the feel-good film of the summer to enjoy! As we come to the end of 2020, we have eventually seen and heard the last of the 2020 alumni to have their first live performance:
Given that this was performed in a tv studio with no fans to feed off of and singing in front of a multiscreen to four judges and a production crew, this was a performance of quality to close the book on one of the strangest 2020 stories. Destiny was one of the last to reveal her official video and therefore we only had a matter of a week before Eurovision 2020 was cancelled. Nothing else had really happened with "All Of My Love", so having a live showing was a nice way to show off that Destiny can still sing incredibly live, that she has a stage persona that belies her age and that Malta will hopefully give her a song that is the perfect fit for 2021. We are still on course for the first JESC/ESC winner with her and Malta's first win too - even the naysayers who had an issue with this performance would surely have to agree with that!
It's Christmas!
Show 21 in 2018 was one of the last of my hour long editions and I played songs from the Contest that had words in the song title that could be associated with Christmas, whereas show 72 in 2019 had a mix of songs of that ilk plus Christmas songs from Eurovision artists in their back catalogues. What to expect for the 2020 show?
Newly released Christmas songs by Eurovision artists this year!
I will play as many as I can over the two hours next Tuesday and you will get to enjoy music from stars such as Anna Bergendahl, Arvingarna, Dotter, Edurne, Johnny Logan, Sanna Nielsen and many more. Including from this trio who you might recognise (gorgeous picture by Per Heimly too)...
The show might be on "A Winter's Night"
but KEiiNO and the others will be giving you all
a warm feeling before Xmas!