Everybody's Free

It's not even the end of January and already this Eurovision has two entries with the same title. In honor of this, here are two songs from this week's preselections with very similar titles.

Cyprus held a 20-song semifinal, from which 10 songs qualified to the final. Dance anthem "Come and Fight for Freedom" by Eva Diva wants to turn you into a mildly passionate activist of some sort, probably in support of partying.

Georgia had a five-song final earlier in the week. The most interesting of the four remaining songs is “We Are Free”, which is also spelled a lot of places as “We Are Freeeee” as that is the actual lyric being sung.

Next week: another semifinal from Cyprus and the first heat in Hungary!

Cypriot Unicorn Attack

This week, the only Eurovision selection show held was in Cyprus, and it was the sixth out of nine preselection shows. In the interest of brevity, here are three songs that didn't make the cut from those first six shows.

"Steko akoma" by Kostas Archontous was discqualified in the second show. It's a Eurovisiony rock song with a great chorus.







 "Unicorn" by Anastasia Liberos was disqualified in the third show. It's a sweetly vocalized ballad, fairly old fashioned in a way that might fall under the influence of last year's winner-itis. It's even got another mythological creature as the title.


"No Money No Honey" by Helena was disqualified in the fifth show. It's a catchy early 00s style pop song that's pretty unremarkable except for its pretty daring, out of touch even, message because something something economy.


It's still early in the season so the schedule is light. Next week brings a semifinal in Cyprus and a final in Georgia.

It's Time Again

Happy 2015. The blogging break is over! This year's Eurovision Song Contest is a special one. It's the 60th edition of the contest, the 10th contest I've blogged about, and the first one I have secured (some) tickets to see in person!

Several countries selected their entries before the new year. As with last year, I will highlight one song weekly from each selection that was eliminated.

Albania had their annual Festivali i Këngës. Fourth place in the final went to Besjana Mehmeti & Shkodran Tolaj and their song "Kështjella" which is a beautiful mix of folk and operatic styles.


The best song from the Belarussian preselection didn't even make it to the televised stage. Sweet Brains is a dance act in Plants vs Zombies masks, and they deserve many points for effort and determination (see below). Their song "Run Away" is an always-welcome monster song, and includes the sublime lyric "no one helps you/even Batman/even Willis Bruce."


FYR Macedonia had a national final after not having one the previous year.
Aleskandar Tarabunov and Toni Mihajlovski came in 4th with their funky slow jam "Marija"
Would it have done well in Eurovision? Probably not with that bizarre dance of the puppet clowns, but it would have been a performance for "remember when?"


Malta had 20 songs in contention and the standard was better than usual. The 3rd place finisher was "Breakaway" by Glen Vella, which is much better and more contemporary than "One Love." His stage presence has improved since then too. What might have been!
       

Next week: Cyprus has its sixth audition round show, so next week's post will have a Cypriot preselection roundup.