Romanian final tonight- our award ceremony

A new Eurovision year is rapidly approaching, and the national finals bonanza is already up and running. For GEE bloggers that means a lot of work heeding all the songs making up our mind several times too many. We have to admit it can be quite tiresome. Because in spite of our love for Eurovision, there is still some bad stuff going on around Europe. But oh, what sacrifices we make for our beloved readers.

The time has come to Romania. This is a country that really takes Eurovision bloody seriously. Actually so seriously that their national final is on New Year’s Eve, lasting for six full hours. Now that calls for some special attention. And since this day is a day for happy thoughts, that's what we'll give you. Because no matter the extent of suffering brought upon us, GEE girls see something good in everyone.

So here's what we'll do: We'll give every entry and every participant some awards - all the awards they deserve, actually. And since we already scrolled through all those numbers, we'll reveal the awards to you now. You can see it as our way of predicting the future. Chances are you won't be stuck watching the Romanian national finals at the strike of 2011 anyways!

Here are the results of the GEE jury:

#1 Adi Cristescu - One by one
Best misplaced moustache in a too leading role; best choir chick dress; best weird purple clothing underneath a white shirt and best attempt at contacting the sun when really you can’t even reach your neighbor with that boring song.

#2 Dalma - Song for him
Best hairdo; hottest woman; coolest woman; most shocking turn of events; best red shoes; most confusing story and best song, ‘nough said.

#3 Leticia - Dreaming of you
Best woman in possession of almost the same name as the Crown Princess of Spain; best overly dramatized opening; most confused woman; best dancer with too much makeup and most successful attempt at being so uninteresting you'd rather watch the not so good dancer on mute.

#4 Silvia Stefanescu - I can't breathe without you
Best boobs in competition and in entire Romania when Paula Selling is on vacation; best impersonation of Catherine Zeta Jones; best respirator in a leading role; best attempt at singing 'can' when the song title specifically says 'can’t'; most zombied choir chicks and most annoying piece of crap in a leading role.

#5 Blaxy Girls - It's so fine
Best attempt at turning a blanket into a skirt without succeeding; best rapper disguised as a rather dull folk musician and best attempt at convincing yourself everything is fine when really that is very far from the truth.

#6 Claudia Pavel - I want u to want me
Best wig; best attempt at trying to make someone like her when really no one does; most muscular arms; best choir chick dressed in something very interesting; most bored white clad guitar player; most self absorbed keyboard player and best song that you didn’t really catch until it was over and you praised the Lord.

#7 Laurentiu Cazan - We can change the world
Best attempt at saving the world when the entire band is busy doing something else and really you are the one who needs saving; best leather jacket; best satin pants that are way too tight in all of the wrong places and none of the right; best bar stools in a major role; best attempt at straightening up and staying right and definitely not moving and best man looking like a woman while trying to look like a man.

#8 Dan Helciug - My Facebook girl
Best social media song in traditional media in a supporting role; best use of drum as nothing but footrest; best stageshow with laptops; best attempt at turning Van Morrison, Cher and Bob Marley into social media; best travel sticker collection; best adaption of Mark Daniel Read's hairdo by someone definitely not being Mark Daniel Read and best use of sentences like “when you added me as a friend, it felt like Christmas day in July” and “My mouse is burning hot from clicking on the internet”.

#9 Distinto, Ianna & Anthony Icuagu - Open your eyes
Best dress; best misplaced moustache; best attempt at looking like Mark Anthony when clearly you’re on the wrong continent; worst choir man hairdo; best late entrance by blonde babe and best eye opener in a leading role.

#10 Directia 5 - Cinema love
Best keyboard playing with several instruments except keyboard present; best repeating bending of knees by bass player; hottest man with pink jumper in a leading role; best boyband with one hot man and a lot of weirdos doing their own separate things; most alluring moves by a male vocalist and best choir man acting like he is in a leading role, when really he shouldn’t have been there at all.

#11 Rallsa - Take me down
Best movie opening; best heels; hottest catsuits; best destruction of entry when starting to sing; best ass shaking; best attempt at cloning Brittney Spears and Madonna; best whatta fuck is this music kind of music; most obvious attempt at being taken down.

#12 Hotel FM - Change
Best combination of Supertramp and Robbie Williams; best playing of drums and a grand piano while the sound is entirely electronical; best clapping of hands by a pianist while the piano is still playing; most variety in facial expressions by the lead singer; best understanding of not being able to save the world; largest teeth and best snapping of fingers in a leading role.

#13 Mihai Alexandru featuring B-Body & Soul - Bang bang
Best welding glasses of 2011; best attempt at banging the 90s; best fat, short George Michael; best unuseful women; best double chinned rapper; best sudden happening that doesn't fit the rest of the entry; best lack of money and an ace to play and best blown kiss.

Ok, so a lot of goodies from all of Romania to you there. In terms of winning, guess we should vote for Dalma, since she does have the best song. But do we? No, it isn’t that good. Instead we opt for Directia 5. Only for the chance of making some cinema love to the lead singer in Germany in May. Take a look at the video below, although with our sincerest apologies for the camera man practicing his zooming abilities.

Happy New Year!

Dmitry Koldun returns to Eurovision 2011?

We picked up a rumor on the Internet today that Dmitry Koldun might be yet again working his magic on a Eurovision stage near you next year. Apparently he will enter the Belarussian preselection with this number:



Could it be true? As this piece of information comes a bit out of the blue (yes, pun intended) we are staying cautiously optimistic at this point, but we can't help but admitting we have a soft spot for this dandy charmer.

Perhaps any of our readers proficient in Russian can help us out on this one? False or true?

Retro Sunday: Portugal 1996

We suppose you'll have to be a hardcore Eurovision fan to prefer old ESC classics over Christmas carols these days, and we have been searching really hard to find something sufficiently Christmassy in this week's Retro Sunday. The most obvious choice must be this pearl from the first time Oslo was the Eurovision host city:



Not only is this Portugal's best result so far, and a wonderful, happy celebration of Portugal's versatile historic roots. It has also connections to one of the best feelgood Christmas movies of all times, Love Actually. Lúcia Moniz portrays Colin Firth's (aka Mr. Darcy, we forgot his character's name in this movie) love interest Aurélia. Their encounter makes us almost start to think that Portuguese, not Italian, is the language of love and it's so very romantic when Aurélia mumbles something in her own language while Mr. Darcy keeps blabbering away in his own stiff upper-lip Oxford English. It's all extremely stereotyped, but what the heck, it's Christmas and we will allow ourselves to become mushy and sentimental.

Thanks to the Portuguese for keeping it real and almost always singing in their own language in Eurovision. We look forward to the Festival da Canção and hope to God they choose a decent entry for Düsseldorf. Because there's no other country we more wish success and a long awaited victory. And we wouldn't mind spending a couple of spring weeks in Lisbon either.

Feliz Natal a todos!

Albanian final tonight

Merry Christmas everybody from the bottom of our cups of eggnog. We had to add considerable amounts of rum to be able to endure a quick flip through the 18 finalists of tonight's 49th edition of the Festivali i Këngës. The Albanians will treat us to an extra Christmas pressie as usual as they will be the second country to choose their entry for Düsseldorf 2011. And by the look of it, this might very well be a ballad.

Here's the final line-up selected through two semifinals (thanks to esctoday for info):

Finalists from semi-final 1
• Selami Kolonja – Ëndërr Kosovë

• Miriam Cani & Alban Skenderaj – Ende ka shpresë

• Dorina Garuci – Mirëmbrëma ëngjëlli im

• Orges Toçe – Mari

• Kamela Islami - Jetova për ty
• Marsida Saraçi – Vetëm s’jemi në botë

• Dorian Nini – Mirësevini në Shqipëri

• Hersiana Matmuja – Me cilin rri ti dashuri

• Maria Prifti - Pasuri e pasurive (newcomer)

Finalists from semi-final 2
• Besa Kokëdhima - E bukura dhe bisha

• Saimir Braho - Shtegëtar i jetës time
• Enkelejda Arifi - Një dashuri

• Denis Hasa - Mbi xhaketën time

• Goldi Halili - Në krahët tua
• Françesk Radi - Kemi dasëm' o

• Xhejsi Jorgaqi - Rastësi

• Aurela Gaçe - Kënga ime

• Albi Xhepa & Sam Jaupaj – Dritë (newcomer)

We are trying really hard to pick a couple of highlights for you, but to be honest we find this to be a rather weak bunch, and we can't imagine any of the entries doing well in the international Eurovision final. However we do suspect that some of the entries might be a grower and the Albanians are also known for re-vamping the winning song which usually is an improvement. They also tend to change the language to English, which we don't take a particular liking to.

It will be interesting to see whether the song Ëndërr Kosovë by Selami Kolonja will stand a chance. At least the song title implies enough political connotations to cause tensions between the Balkan neighbors. Marsida Saraçi with Vetëm s’jemi në botë has the potential to become a funky floor stomper and those who want a sugar coated love duet should check out the Albanian Barbie and Ken Miriam Cani & Alban Skenderaj's Ende ka shpresë. GEE are always suckers for the ethno influenced entries and in that department there's enough to go around for everybody, but most of the songs are too slow and in combination with too much eggnog it just makes us very sleepy. Aurela Gaçe does her best to wake us up with her shouty song Kënga ime, catchy, but in the end, in lack of a better word, simply too shouty to become a favorite.

This final is wide open, we have no idea how the Albanians will vote tonight. We can only hope to be pleasantly surprised by a smash entry that went under the GEE radar first time around.

Edit: looks like all the videos uploaded on YouTube (which we based this review on) have been blocked. According to esctoday you can watch the webcast live from the final through this link from 20:30 CET.

Look who's dancing!

It's official, our very own Alexander Rybak is one of the participants in "Let's Dance", the Swedish edition of Strictly Come Dancing. We have never heard of any of the other participants so we guess Sweden must be running out of celebrities to put on the show. And as Norway import so many youngsters from across the border to do the work that we just can't be bothered with, we suppose we could spare a Eurovision Star or two for our dear neighbors.

We wish Alexander the best of luck, we hope you really can dance as well as you sing and play. And the best of luck to the Swedes as well, you might be in for a hell of a ride with this crazy fiddler in the line-up!

Retro Sunday: Ukraine 2007

Ah, Verka Serduchka. She is so caricatural she's almost a parody on the parody. And do we love those kind of people? Oh yes. Seriously, no Ukraine has ever been this good at counting to seven in German:



If you don't tap your feet even just a little to this, you're either totally deaf or the Scissor Sisters. From the very first sieben, sieben this is a song you cannot ignore. You are forced to make a stand, either on the hateful or on the affectional side. We're of course lovin it, mostly for what it represents. Verka offers us complete dedication, craziness and happiness. She is a doll in tin foil and does look like a silvery Christmas three with that bright star to top it off. Whatta woman. And we do want those shoes for New Years, mind you.

Also, please notice that gold clad man on accordion. His somewhat cool calmness is admirable amongst all those other nutcases. While the stewardess to our left is one smoking hot woman. Hips and breasts FTW! Guess there is nothing more to say here than Lasha tumbai. And yeah, of course: Ein, zwei, drei, Tanzen!

Retro Sunday: Yugoslavia 1965

It's sunday and only a couple of weeks before Christmas. Time to be nostalgic:



Oh, don't you just long for those times when the world was presented to you in in shades of black, white and grey? When the men were as classical as the music with their bowties and tenor voices, there still was a country named Yugoslavia and the Philarmonic orchestra gave you the perfect background music? Well, then we guess you long for Vice Vukov.

Vice is the Dean Martin of Eurovision and Eastern Europe with his intensity and style, singing a beautiful ballad. We have absolutely no idea what it's about, and that just adds to the charm. Apart from that, this isn't exactly a song to remember, but we love it anyway. Just because of the fiddlers and the hairdo and the reminders of the glorious times that once were. For that it deserved both the points it got. Thank you, Portugal and France.

The Swiss will choose tonight!

Much the same like Christmas it seems like Eurovision season kicks off earlier every year. And for the record, that's not a bad thing. In the Good Evening Europe HQ every day is Eurovision day all year around. And tonight the first entry for Düsseldorf will be selected. Oh joy! The Swiss have done terribly bad the last few years and darling Michael von der Heide even told us that they might consider withdrawing if he didn't make the cut in Oslo. Well, we all know how that went and his sinister prediction turned out to be a bunch of BS, thank Gawd. 



But they seemed to have realized that something must be done to try and save the sinking ship and it would be nice to see a Swiss entry proceed from the semi-finals at the very least. Step one towards restoring Swiss ESC-greatness is to bring back the national selection final. We've had a quick spin though tonight's candidates, and that's about half an hour of our lives that we will never get back. We better hope that the Swiss will choose wisely so we're not stuck for the next six months with the realization of Switzerland sending yet another non-qualifier. Cause most of the entries in the line-up won't have a snowball's chance in hell to make it through, we reckon.

Here's tonight's line-up:


1.    Polly Duster - Up to you

2.    Duke - Waiting for ya
   
3.    Andrina - Drop of drizzle
   
4.    Bernarda Brunovic - Confidence
   
5.    Anna Rossinelli - In love for a while
   
6.    Aliose - Sur les paves
   
7.    Dominique Borriello - Il ritmo dentro di noi
  
8.    Scilla - Barbie Doll
   
9.    CH - Gib nid uf
   
10.    Ilira and The Colors - Home
   
11.    Sarah Burgess - Just me
   
12.    The Glue - Come what may

You might as well skip the first 8, unless you take a particular twisted joy in torturing yourself. In that case you might consider seeking professional help. Andrina's Drop of drizzle is perhaps not that bad. She's young and we get a hunch that she might be ok live. The song is very commercial in a Faith Hill kinda way. It should have played out the country feel to it to a much greater extent to really stand out. We like the fact that Dominique Borriello sings in Italian, but that's it, the song itself is one big yawn. And Scilla's Barbie Doll, we expected it to be bad, but we actually couldn't finish listening to the whole song, it's just too awful. Anna Rossinelli's name gets our hopes up for a full blown Italian power ballad, however instead she gives us a bland and boring sqeekathon, what a bummer. Polly Duster's kilts and Aliose's French sugar pop are equally horrible in very different ways. Top that with Duke's wannabe hip hop/rap, perhaps of even poorer quality than FYR Macedonia this year and a boring ballad in the Jesus/Praise the Lord segment by Bernarda Brunovich you're in for a roller coster ride of bad taste and heart wrenching moments.



CH's Gib nid uf is not half bad, we like that it's sung in Swiss German and it has a radio friendly sing along melody. But it's not ESC material we're afraid. The ex-American Idol participant Sarah Burgess seems to emerge as a fan (aka gay) favorite, but we don't like it much. It's annoying, kinda fake and very Katy Perry wannabe. And for those of you that didn't care much for Lena's freaky accent, here's another challenge for you. 



This boils it down to a couple of favorites, really. Ilira and The Colors with Home, has that something special. It sounds a little like Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around.../...Comes Around and that can't be a bad thing. And we became very puzzled by the language, could it be Romansh? It turns out it's Albanian, and the song is about how it's like being a second generation immigrant in Switzerland. Interesting. With a pimped-up production this could turn out to be a real dark horse in Düsseldorf.



The Glue with Come what may also reeks dark horse miles away. What is this? Is it entirely a cappella? We're intrigued and wonder how this will turn out live. After some contemplation we have reached the decision that this must be our favorite for tonight.



A last piece of advise for Switzerland, forget about neutrality for once and take a stand. Happy voting!

Retro Sunday: Italy 1974

Suppose we're not the only Eurovision fans screaming "yes, yes, yes!" from the top of our lunges when we received the terrific news that Italy most likely will return to ESC next year. Or should we rather say "Sì", as the lovely Gigliola Cinquetti so sweet and softly did back in 1974 when she came second representing Italy for the second time:



There's no shame in being defeated by a bunch of triggerhappy Swedes on a mission, armed to their teeth with the most schlagertastic stompathon ever. At least not when you already won the competition 10 years earlier. And most people do of course remember the winning song "Non Ho L'Età" better than this runner-up. "Sì" is perhaps not as ear catching and instantly touching, but it has this very alluring, sincere feel to it, which sways us ever so gently into the state where we would say yes to just about anything. Well, nothing new there, we suppose.

And the choir chicks, wow, apparently you didn't need to show much skin to be sexy back in the 70s, sometimes less is more, peeps, or more is more, or yeah, whatever. As long as it's with brown floral print! And apparently you don't need more than one microphone shared by four people either. Those were the times, indeed.

Finally: Welcome back Italy!

We are crazily happy over in the GEE office right now. Could we be dreaming? Or is Italy really returning to Eurovision?

Yup, turns out Italian broadcaster RAI really has applied for participation. Wow, that's like the best news since Roxette sang their last song. Only we won't really believe it until an Italian participant is actually on stage. Berlusconi isn't really famous for sticking to standards. On the other hand, he does need to gain some more popularity in Europe, so who knows. Let's just cross our fingers he won't bring in his bikini ladies or, wait a minute, why not?

We for sure start wondering if our work in September actually did work. We did after all try to pay off a couple of people. And that makes us wonder who we should pay off to make Toto Cotugno return as well. He is, if you didn't notice, our fav Italian after Francesco Totti, and we believe the latter cannot sing just as well as the former.

Anyway, this will for sure be pretty amazing. We can't wait to see the best of Eurovision!