Sweet!

Ukraine has been fined by the EBU for their mucking around since the deadline for entries passed. The EBU fined NTU over the entry submission delay and also imposed an additional fine for every next day after the deadline with no entry submission.

As the old saying goes, bureaucratic fines are the mother of invention.

NTU has revealed the official entry to ESC 2010 for Ukraine will be: "Sweet People" to be sung by Aloysha.

Stay tuned in case someone figures out it was released two years ago and/or is plagarised.

You've Got Homework...

Following a hasty (actually, just 'read' hasty for anything relating to Ukraine, OK?) investigation into Aloysha's winning song 'To Be Free' the Ukrainian broadcaster has realised it was done before.

Rather than disqualify the cheat, and give second place a go (love you Masha, right) OR even re-instate poor ole Vasyl Lazarovych, the Ukrainians have asked to write a new song for Alyosha.

The EBU has granted Ukraine an extension to COB on Friday (26 March) to submit the song.

Now that's a recipe for great music.
What could possibly go wrong now?

Same ole f%&#in Story

Hey, you know how your Eurovision entry has to be brand new? Like, it cannot have been performed by someone else or infringe their copyright?? Yeah, you do?

Interesting... coz it doesn't look like the new board controlling Ukrainian television knows about that (quite important) rule.
As we saw yesterday, having fired the pro-Ukrainian TV board, the new pro-Russian board declared Vasyl Lazarovych to be an invalid selection and forced him to enter a new National Final with 19 other unfortunates. As luck would have it, the singer who went on last - Alyosha (real name Olena Kucher) - won the Final with her song 'To Be Free.'
The lyrics were written in 1977 and the music supposedly written by Alyosha herself - except that it sounds pretty much exactly like 'Knock Me Out' by Linda Perry and Grace Slick.

Yep - past the date for all entries to be final, the Ukrainian delegation cancels Vasyl's entry, holds a new Final and select a song that must be disqualified. Are the ESC going to allow Ukraine a third shot at this? Or will second place Masha Subko with 'Ya tebya lyublyu' be sent?

Tune in for the next thrilling installment - same bat-sh*t crazy time, same bat-sh*t crazy country.

Butterflies and Elvis

Belarus has gone back to its playbook from 2005 and done the old swapping-the-song-at-the-last-minute trick.
After five semi-finals, the public selected the group 3+2 to perform 'Far Away' at Oslo. But the day before the Meeting of the Delegates, Belarus announced that 3+2 had a new song - written by an influential Russian music producer - called 'Butterflies.'

Like Lazarovich with a Double By-Pass

EDU is calling shenanigans on Ukraine's Eurovision process for 2010.
Last December the Ukrainian selectors announced that Vasyl Lazarovich would compete for Ukraine and then sought songs for him - nothing too controversial there, same thing is happening in Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Belgium & Turkey. In a broadcast final on March 6th, 'I Love You' was selected from five songs as Vasyl's entry.

But a funny thing happened on the way to those finals... Ukraine had national elections, the pro-Russian candidate won and the entire board of the TV network were replaced. And so, Vasyl was informed that his selection had been retrospectively deemed to be illegitimate.

On March 10, a new National Final was announced and 19 candidates quickly collected.
Vasyl announced he would compete in the new Finals on March 20th: "I am not afraid of a national selection; I know that I have support in Ukraine in the face of fans of my talent. Yes, I am not happy with the re-selection, as I was elected by a legitimate vote. But, in order to dispel such doubts, I accept the rules of the new leadership of the channel.”

Rush to Judgement - Part Five

ESTONIA
Artist: Malcolm Lincoln
Song: "Siren"

Malcolm Lincoln got 54% of the popular vote, beating former Vanilla Ninja (Switzerland, 2005) Lenna Kuurmaa who sang "Rapunzel."

GERMANY
Artist: Lena Meyer-Landrut
Song: "Satellite"

Breaking a long tradition, Germany is sending a cute girl. Lena won the Nationals in a sing-off with Jennifer Braun: each of them singing "Satellite" as well as "Bee." Jennifer also sang "I Care For You" and Lena sang "Love Me."

A knock-out final followed, where Jenniferreprised "I Care For You" and Lena Meyer-Landrut won with her version of "Satellite."

U.K.
Artist: Josh Dubovie
Song: "That Sounds Good to Me"

"That Sounds Good to Me" is written by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman (of Stock Aitken Waterman infamy). Get ready to be Rick-Rolled!


SWEDEN
Artist: Anna Bergendahl
Song: "This Is My Life

Anna was on Super Troopers a music program in 2004, and came 5th in their Idol in 2008. The Swedes pick on the Norwegians a lot - expect the love!


SERBIA
Artist: Milan Stankovic
Song: "Ovo je Balkan" (This is the Balkan)

Milan is also an also-ran from the world of Idol - he came 4th in Zvezde Granda.

Haven't we Been Here Before?

Two artists return to the scene of the crime... well, one artist and Feminnem.

Feminnem divided the Editors in 2005 when they performed 'Call Me' for Bosnia & Herzegovina - some of us got the joke and others treated them as serious performers (and justifiably panned them). We are united in 2010 in thinking this is historical - Feminnem are back, singing "Lako je sve" (Everything is Easy) for Croatia ! We are pretty sure no other act has represented two nations at the Finals before. Plenty have entered Nationals in multiple countries...

The other repeat offender is Niamh Kavanagh who won the thing in 1993 for Ireland. She returns (rather boringly for Ireland again) singing "It's for You."

Rush to Judgement - Part Four

Too many entries... not enough Editors!

Azerbaijan
Are sending Safura [Safura Alizadeh] but they're not sure of the song just yet. It will be "Drip Drop", "Under My Skin" or "Soulless" or... "Don't let the Morning Come"

Bulgaria
Having opted for singer Miro and having advertised for someone to write him a tune... they're doing a Tose tribute with "Angel si ti" (You are an Angel)

Lithuania
InCulto will perform "East European Funk"

Turkey
Punctually challenged maNga have selected their song - "We Could be the Same"




Moldova
SunStroke Project and Olia Tira will channel Lady GaGa with "Run Away"




Russia
Peter Nalitch sings "Lost and Forgotten"



Portugal
Filipa Azevedo is so new to performing all her website photos were taken by herself in a toilet. She will be singing "Há dias assim" (It's One of those Days).




Romania
Paula Seling & Ovi sing "Playing With Fire"


Greece
Easily the oldest contestant this year (heck, he's our age!) will be Giorgos Alkaios & Friends - they're singing "Opa"

Shock! French Surrender... want to play football instead

FRANCE faced a hell of a challenge trying to follow up the success of Patricia Kaas in Moscow.

Bruno Berberes, the Head of Delegation for France made no bones about it - "We can't give less than Patricia Kaas" he stated. Rumours were flying of the big name who would appear...
suggestions ranged from retro (Natasha St-Pier) to the obvious: Christophe (The Turtle) Willem - winner of the 2006 Pop Idol. To top it off, a public suvey showed a majority wanted UK's Mika to represent France. Choices! Choices!

So it was something of a surprise when Europe 1 radio announced that France was sending relatively unknown rapper Jessy Matador, a musician and dancer from the Democratic Republic of Congo with the song "Allez! Ola! Olé!" (Come on! Ola! Olé!) which is a song promoting the 2010 FIFA World Cup!

Gaëlle Placek, journalist for French weekly Télé Loisirs retorted: "France Télévisions is not willing to win the contest but aims to promote a song in relation to the Football World Cup and to have a smash hit for next Summer... France's got very few chances to win Eurovision with this singer."

Scandal - Finally!

The first juicy scandal of Eurovision 2010 is warming up in Armenia.

Eva Rivas (real name: Valeria Tsaturyan) won Armenia's national finals with the song "Apricot Stone." She placed second with the jury and won the popular vote, while rap duo Mihran & Emmy won the Jury vote with "Hey (Let Me Hear You Say)" but came third in the popular vote. Mihran & Emmy find the results harder to swallow than... well an Apricot Stone.

Fans of Emmy & Mihran immediately claimed that their SMS votes had failed to go through - whilst E&M's PR manager has claimed that 5,000 SMS votes had already been registered for Rivas just 30 seconds after voting was opened. Apparently overloaded by the huge number of instant votes for Rivas the servers mysteriously went down. Armenian television acknowledged that over 30,000 SMS votes had not been counted.

Emmy & Mirhan plan on mounting a challenge in court.

Did we mention that Rivas' main sponsor is Samuel Karapetyan, an influential businessman who is the brother of Karen Karapetyan, the chief of staff of the Armenian president?

Rush to Judgement - Part Three

SPAIN
Spain has selected an actor who has recently turned to musicals. Daniel Diges will sing (Something Tiny) or "Algo pequeñito."

Diges rose to fame in a teen drama series "Nada es para siempre" and has appeared in kid's TV and five other productions. His recent work has been in large scale commercial musical theatre - appearing in the Spanish productions of "We Will Rock You", "High School Musical" and "Mamma Mia!"

Rush to Judgement - Part Two

BELARUS
Belarus is sending the song 'Far Away' by 3+2 to Oslo. 3+2 are Artyom Mihalenko, Elgiazar Farashyan and Yulia Shisko, along with backing vocalists Alyona Karpovich and Ninel Karpovich. That would be three lead singers, plus two backing singers - so Three Plus Two. Ya get it? Amazing creativity on display there. zOMG.

LATVIA
Winner of Latvia's Nationals is Aisha (full name: Aija Andrejeva) who will be singing "What For? (Only Mr God Knows Why)."


SLOVAKIA
The Czechs are gone, but Slovakia is ready for another tilt - this time they are sending Kristina (name: Kristína Peláková) who will be singing "Horehronie"(that is a Slovak province, so there may be a tourism angle at play... I hear their mountains are the new Alps.)


By the way - SBS has confirmed that they are televising Eurovision 2010. The dates are:
First semi: 28 May 2010 (Fri, 19:30)
Second semi: 29 May 2010 (Sat, 19:30)
Final: 30 May 2010 (Sun, 19:30)

Rush to Judgement - Part One

POLAND
Poland has selected Marcin Mrozinski whp will sing "Legenda" (The Legend). Marcin is an actor/singer (we hope he may be a singer/actor!) and he was the last of six wildcards added to the original four entries selected by TVP. He won a third of the popular vote in the Nationals.

FY MACEDONIA
Gjoko Taneski will represent FYROM with the song "Jas ja imam silata" (I have the Strength). Gjoko won by the skin of his teeth thanks to the Jury giving him 12 votes (public had him in second place). The popular vote went to Vlatko Ilievski with "Sreka" (who came second in the Jury).


MALTA
Thea Garrett has won Malta's eagerly contested Nationals with the song "My Dream." She saw off a large number of contenders including some very familiar faces in Malta such as Lawrence Gray (7th place) and Claudia Faniello (8th).


SLOVENIA
Ansambel Roka Žlindre and Kalamari will represent Slovenia with the track "Narodnozabavni rock" (Folk Rock). Roka and his back-up band won by a huge margin - second placed Nina Pušlar scored less than a quarter of the votes of first place! EMA also saw the return of EDU favourite Nuša 'Energy!' Derenda who came 9th place with "Sanjajva." Most intriguing song title of the show was Lea Sirk's "Vampir je moj poet."

Dima Bilan touring Sydney & Melbourne

Winner of Eurovision 2008, Dima Bilan, is heading Down Under for a short promotion tour this month. He will play the Dallas Brooks Centre in Melbourne on Thursday 11th March and the UNSW Science Theatre in Sydney on Friday 12th.

Dima's press release promose a concert "sure to enthrall spectators, showcasing a group of Russian ballet dancers, as well as a live music ensemble." On Dima's first ever visit to Australia he is looking forward to experiencing "Australian culture, warm weather and see some beautiful attractions including the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, the famous Bondi Beach and maybe I'll even get to meet some koalas.”

Dima Bilan was recently in Vancouver, where he devoted a song to Eugeniy Plushenko (the skater who did not remove any of his toes on stage in Belgrade). He sang "Impossible is Possible" in Eugeniy's honour and said "There is no one in Russia who would be indifferent to Eugeniy, everyone believes in his success."

Eugeniy Plushenko got silver.