News of the day on Tuesday...
SIXTEEN Nations will compete in JESC 2023!
We now know who will be in Nice on Sunday 26th November...
We have all 'Big 5' Eurovision nations at JESC together for the first time and Estonia are debuting! "Heroes" is the slogan, the artwork is above and we only have 12 weeks until we know who will take over from Lissandro as the Junior Eurovision champion. At the moment, we will have a female winner, as the six nations who have declared their artist have gone for girls (as per the Junior Eurovision website pronoun listings):
Estonia - Arhanna Sandra Arbma
Georgia - Anastasia Vasadze
Malta - Yulan
North Macedonia - Tamara Grujeska
Portugal - Júlia Machado
Spain - Sandra Valero
Ten more nations to select their artists (maybe even some male ones!) and all have to show us their songs - six National Finals are planned, so watch this space on LET ME BE THE ONE! Two JESC alumni were on the show - one winner and one 6th place both from 2021, both now 16 and therefore eligible for Eurovision 2024. Have a listen for them, along with fan favourites, new releases and music linked to news of the week...
And the playlist?
Pastora Soler - "Quédate Conmigo (Stay With Me)"
James Oliver - "What We Say With Our Eyes"
Mae Muller - "MTJL"
Martin Stenmarck - "Las Vegas"
Lord Of The Lost - "Dead End"
Simone - "Heart Shaped Hole"
Hanna Pakarinen - "Leave Me Alone"
Ulrikke - "Attention"
Hovig - "Gravity"
Benny Benassi ft Emma Muscat - "M.I.A"
Maléna - "Flashing Lights"
Olena Usenko - "ТАТУ"
Sweaty Machines ft Izhar Cohen - "Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears"
STEFAN - "Hope"
Daði Freyr - "Bitte"
Levina - "Who's Laughing Now"
Joel Nuñez & Cecilia Kallin - "Wait For Me"
Mimmi - "We Don't Feel Blue"
SENNEK - "Gelukkig zijn"
Dami Im ft Jude York - "In Between"
The Shadows - "Let Me Be The One"
A forgotten classic from 'A Song For Europe 1985' was Peter's choice for favourite National Final song, with James Oliver and "What We Say With Our Eyes" giving us a beautiful entry... ![]()
And finally Simone's "Heart Shaped Hole", one of the DMGP 2016 entries that the Danes SHOULD have sent to Stockholm, instead of Lighthouse X, was the National Final choice of Richard again.
You probably won't recognise any of the artists (all bar one if you were a fan of Timoteij) above but they are the finalists of P4 Nästa, the radio competition in Sweden that from 2012 to 2020 provided one of the acts for Melodifestivalen. I played the entries of Mimmi (bottom row, second left) and Joel Nuñez/Cecilia Kallin (bottom row, far right) on the show anyway, as I traditionally covered the contest during the Melodifestivalen days - the Final took place on Friday 1st September, so I shall play the winning entry on Show 265. Some artists still come out of this process to sing at Sweden's National Final, so who knows? If you want to hear the Final beforehand and get some background of P4 Nästa, click here. As for the rest of show 265? We now know our first artist for 2024! And it is this singer:
Belgium's RTBF have announced that Mustii will be their representative in 2024!
Listen next week to find out more about him on LET ME BE THE ONE.