Back for a while: 2011

I am back from the long Eurovision off-season to welcome in the new year of songs. Already three songs have been chosen for the 2011 Eurovision contest.

The first song chosen and released to the public this for this year's contest was Switzerland's "In love for a while" performed by Anna Rossinelli. I'm not sure which version to comment on. The demo version is plain and sounds like a demo. The live version adds more instruments, including an ukelele, giving it a fuller sound but also making it more twee. Definitely the best and most mainstream sounding song so far.

Next was Albania with "Kënga ime" performed by Aurelia Gace. This song will probably go through an edit or two like most Albanian songs lately, but I doubt it will gain an interesting melody, despite its passionate performance. Then again, I also thought France 2009 was boring and went nowhere and we know how that turned out.

Finally, on New Year's Day Romania chose "Change" by Hotel FM. I agree with some other commenters in various other places on the internet; this song sounds very "Denmark". In the national final he's even wearing suspenders like Simon Mathew. It's pleasant but not exciting, but there weren't many other better songs in the group of competitors.

A few other countries have had online selections going on but I'll refrain on commenting on them until their televised selections approach. Ukraine has had a couple of semifinals but besides saying that "Smile" seems like the front runner to me, I won't comment on those any more until more have been held.

What's up for next week? I don't know! I usually rely on ESCToday's calendar but they haven't updated it. You'll have to wait and find out!