[LMBTO] Five nations narrow it down for Eurovision...

Oh yes, it's one of my favourite Eurovision ladies, Krista Siegfrids, already appearing as a co-host in UMK this year (Krista co-hosts UMK), has created a bit of a stir by also being one of the 28 artists vying to be this year's Swedish entry in Eurovision via Melodifestivalen!  SVT have just announced who is going to be in the Contest and the title of what they are singing but we have no idea of what the songs sound like.  The only other entrant with any previous ESC experience is Molly Sandén, who came 3rd in JESC 2006 but there are lots of returning Melodifestivalen veterans (over half of the contestants) - whether that is a good or bad thing is more for aficionados to discuss - February 6th is when it all kicks off...
As for the other countries whittling down the masses of entries that they receive each year, Belarus had their live audition stages and picked out ten finalists, the playlist of which is here:

I know that these audition stages are always 'rough and ready' and a little 'low tech' but the setting did nothing for the first impression that the majority of these entries gave!  Belarusian Eurovision fans will be hoping that Olga and Denis, the regular hosts of the NF, will bring some sparkle and life to the proceedings otherwise the main show in December/January (we don't know the exact date yet) will be a strain on the ear!  Personally only two songs stood out in a good way - "Flame", sung by Alexey Gross:

Both acts gave a solid vocal and some semblance of basic staging, enough that would make me think they would at least stand a chance of getting to the Final in Stockholm.  Alexey would be a safe choice as he sounds as though he'd hit his vocals perfectly every time but it's not the most inspiring choice.  The EM are two excellent singers who supplied a masterclass in vocal range but there would need to be a lot of work on their staging.  At least half of the ten selected will not be good enough to win, in my opinion, if they sing as they did here when they perform in the National Final, but who knows?  Maybe a proper stage, another month's rehearsals and some improvement in their staging might bring one of the other eight into the reckoning.  Belarus started with 84 songs and only two are halfway decent...

The other mammoth audition process was in Switzerland on Sunday (6th December), where 19 acts had a twenty minute slot to get themselves ready for their performance.  Using my poor level of maths, that meant that this online stream went on for about NINE hours (give or take the host and judges having food and toilet breaks)!  Even Lithuania stretched their process out over two months!  The German tv channel SRF had ten acts to be reduced to three, French channel RTS six down to two and the Italian channel RSI three down to one.  In the end, we got the six artists who will be singing in the Swiss NF, two of which were far better than the two best Belarusian entries and the other four who weren't too bad either - see what you think:

Two classically beautiful women playing the piano?  That didn't work too well for Molly Sterling last year and Bella C's effort sounds a bit 'Bond theme' to me - been there, done that in Copenhagen?  Vincent and Theo's vocals didn't strike a chord either with me so it came down to the other two artists, both originally hailing from North America:

Stanley Miller from Virginia in the USA, who currently lives in Spain having been third in 'Spanish Idol' and a musical theatre veteran, singing with the Zurich Gospel Choir; and



Rykka, originally from Vancouver in Canada, who now splits her time between there and Zürich.

For me, both of these entries were the stand-out vocals in such different ways.  Stanley had the gospel sound off pat, with a bit of soul in there for good measure, something I can't remember hearing at Eurovision for many, many years - if the Contest is as 'ballad heavy' in Stockholm as it was in Vienna, an up-tempo heart warming song such as 'Feel The Love' would stand out a mile, especially with such superb vocalists as that on stage.  If it had more of a lyrical 'hook', this would be amazing and I could see him doing really well at Eurovision.  'The Last Of Our Kind', in contrast, is contemporary, innovative and catchy as hell!  Rykka will draw obvious comparisons to Sia and the start of this entry is spell-binding.  The chorus is a bit 'Eurovision by numbers' but this feels to me that this could be this year's "Rhythm Inside" - I can imagine some stunningly avant garde staging to accompany this and it sound and feel like no other ESC entry in 2016.  I think either song would be a great choice for Switzerland and get them back in the Final on Saturday May 14th - unfortunately, the Swiss always complicate matters by making everyone sing their favourite cover song as well, so it is still all to play for...

And so that is three countries who have either decided upon their NF performers or, in the case of Sweden have listed their artists, one of which will be singing in the Eurovision Final.  So I said five, didn't I?  Albania have announced their twenty-nine participants for 'Festivali i Këngës 2015', fourteen to be sung in SF1 on Christmas Day (no, really!) and the rest on 26th December, with the final being on 27th December.  All the songs are on the FiK official website: