Scandinavian Firsts of the Year

I skipped last week because nothing much was happening, but this weekend a few countries held semifinals.

On Friday, Finland had their first semifinal. I’m not a big fan of the qualifying songs. “Rapture in Time” is probably the most original and energetic of this semifinal’s qualifiers. “Synkän maan tango” is okay too but it’s just an average tango that might not do so well if it makes it to Dusseldorf.

On Saturday Norway held their first semifinal. My pre-show favorite was “Trenger mer” which didn’t qualify but I’m not too broken up about it as it wasn’t very good on stage. Of the qualifiers “Vardlokk” is the one I like more but it’s slow to excite, and I’m not a fan of “Not that Easy.” The two qualifiers to the second chance round, “Daisy” and “Alt du vil ha” are good but not my style, although I prefer the latter a bit more.

Iceland also held their first semifinal on Saturday which resulted in two qualifiers: “Ástin mín eina” which is a ballad, the better of the two but not amazing, and “Ef ég hefði vængi,” an average rock song.

Next week brings semifinals from all these countries plus Croatia. Of the Finnish songs in next week’s semifinal, I prefer “Strong” and "Sydämeni kaksi maata,” but neither very strongly, and the songs in the other three countries’ semifinals haven’t been revealed yet.