Reaction: Lozano and Esma for Macedonia

Macedonia has long been my favourite country at Eurovision, ever since entries like 'Samo ti', 'Ne zori zoro' and 'Od nas zavisi'. Even '100% te ljubam' is a great slice of cheesy 90s girl-pop. They've lost their way somewhat in recent years, failing to qualify to the final four times in a row (though I still liked the entries), before changing their approach in 2012, internally selecting one of the biggest stars in the country in Kaliopi, a decision that paid dividends.

Now for 2013 MRT is repeating that formula, announcing last week that Vlatko Lozanoski and Esma Redžepova will represent the country in Malmö. On the surface, this combination of young popstar and folk music legend is pretty unusual, but I have pretty high hopes that they can build on their success in 2012, and potentially go even higher with this choice.

Vlatko Lozanoski, or Lozano as he is known, is perhaps best remembered among Eurovision fans for his song 'Letam kon tebe', which probably should have won the 2010 Macedonian Final. The track, and particularly the album that was released in the same year, have strong echoes of the late Toše Proeski about them, both in Lozano's vocals and in the production. Indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of the tracks he has recorded had previously been written for Proeski. Lozano has been one of the most popular Macedonian pop singers over the past few years, both in terms of sales and radio play.


In contrast, Esma is known as one of the biggest names in Romani folk music, both in Macedonia and beyond. Much of her repertoire is in very traditional styles, with new songs building on Romani folk motifs, and she has released over 50 albums, in both the domestic market and the world music scene. She even took part in Jugovizija in 1971. Her work frequently appears on those terrible 'Music of Eastern Europe' compilations, which, if you didn't know any better, would give you the impression that all anyone in the former Eastern bloc listens to is gypsy wailing and cow-stomach instruments battling with overly cheery hippity-hoppity dancers.

Fortunately, that's far from the case, and Esma has also lent her distinct vocals to pop tracks over the past ten years, creating some pretty interesting fusions of pop and folk styles that show just how well these combinations can work. She duetted with Magazin on 'Dani su bez broja', and in 2003 joined Kaliopi on 'Bel den', one of the best tracks on the latter's critically acclaimed Ne mi go zemaj vremeto album.


'Ljubov e', a duet with Adrijan Gaxha, placed a close second in the 2006 Macedonian Final. The best of these collaborations, however, is a duet with the aforementioned Toše Proeski on his Ako me pogledneš vo oči. 'Magija' was a huge hit in 2003, and also came out in a Serbian version. With the comparisons I mentioned before, I have my fingers very firmly crossed, and if Macedonia's songwriters can come up with something like this again, I will be very happy.


It probably wouldn't be a winner - it's far too Eastern for that - but I do think they have the potential to pull off a great performance, and hopefully secure another strong result for Macedonia. We'll hear the song in February, and I personally can hardly wait!

Closed rehearsals for 2013 - why I approve

This morning, the EBU announced one of the major changes for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. Unlike in previous years, each delegation's first rehearsal will take place behind closed doors, with fan press being able to watch on screens in the Euroclub.

Importantly, this means that there will likely be no video clips of initial rehearsals - except perhaps for those on official Eurovision YouTube channel.

As someone who doesn't like to watch rehearsal videos, I fully approve of this. In recent years, the rush to be the first to have a rehearsal video uploaded has meant that a lot of false impressions are given, with the first run-through often only a dry run with no-one putting in much effort. This means that acts often look and sound a lot worse than they really are - not an impression many are happy with, I imagine!

More importantly though, the advent of the video clips has meant a drop in the quality of actual writing about rehearsals. Five years ago, a Eurovision blogger had the quite difficult job of succintly summing up the appearance of the performance and the vocals, describing backdrops and costumes, as well as how the song was coming across on stage.

Now it's more or less deemed sufficient to embed a video and say 'Lithuania's coming across much better than we expected' and leave it at that.

That latter approach is boring, quite frankly, and does nothing to differentiate the content of various sites, or make them interesting. It means that the experience of reading the rehearsal blogs is far less enjoyable than it could be.

So, I hope that there are no videos at all of the initial rehearsals. I look forward to reading some strong, vivid material produced by some really good writers - and I hope to be doing the same thing myself.

Swiss Final - Preview

Tonight, it's the turn of Switzerland to select their representative for Malmö. Nine entries will battle it out on stage in Kreuzlingen, and the winner will once again be chosen by televoting.

RSI, the Swiss Italian language broadcaster held its own pre-preselection again, though this year on radio rather than with Barbara Berta offering her comments while propping up the bar. The first qualifier was Ally, whose American-sounding, jazzy number 'Catch Me' is unrelentingly repetitive. Her voice isn't much less annoying, and I don't see this troubling the top end of the results sheet.

Chiara Dubey (above) came 3rd last year, with the lovely 'Anima nuova'. Her entry this year, 'Bella sera', is even more quiet and understated, and has the potential to come across beautifully on stage. Fingers firmly crossed for second time lucky.

Carrousel bring a very French sounding entry to the Kreuzlingen stage, which reminds me a little of Les Fatals Picards in 2007. The fact there's a woman involved generally brings the likelihood of it being as punchable as that excruciating three minutes down a little, but I always approach this kind of song with a degree of caution.

Do the Monkey... do I have to? This kind of song is all about the performance and the video (which is of course how acts should be thinking about their Eurovision entry), but listening to just the audio files, it's close to unbearable. Anthony Bighead's live performance will almost certainly redeem the lack of melody if they can make it fun and engaging though - and they'll have the benefit of only having to keep that atmosphere going for two minutes tonight.

The German Finals in the era from 1997-2005 almost always had something like this - melodic rock with a God-bothering edge - and it always did better than you'd expect it to. The edge is more of an entire side this time around, and with a strong chorus, Heilsarmee must have a really decent chance.

After what are, for better or worse, two of the more interesting entries in tonight's contest, comes the most unremarkable. Nill's rock-lite sounding 'On My Way' is perfectly serviceable but has absolutely nothing to recommend it for a second listen. Doomed.

Melissa has been a favourite of the fans since even before the finalists were announced. This may be because she was once in a national final before or may even be because she's nice to them on Twitter. She does however have the most obviously fan-friendly song, but, unfortunately, 'The Point of No Return's chorus is a let-down after a promising verse. You'll be hearing this in Malmö, but it's more likely to be in Euroclub than on the international stage.

'Lève-toi' is far more my kind of thing than most of the songs in this line-up, but it's another victim of the 'strong verse, weak chorus' syndrome that affects so many unsuccessful national final songs and is especially prevalent tonight. A shame, because a bigger chorus would lift this, and could help Nicolas Fraissinet (above) go very far indeed.

Jesse Ritch's 'Forever and a Day' is radio-friendly pop. It's pretty contemporary, and could even have some success at Eurovision if it's well-performed, but I'm concerned that, like so many of tonight's songs, it's just a little too mediocre and, well, Swiss. It's another one that will all depend on the performance.

So, who's going to win? I genuinely have no idea. Swiss finals in the past couple of years have been notoriously hard to predict, with the winner (and often the second and third placed songs too) often coming out of nowhere. I suspect it's probably between the Monkey and the Godbotherers, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Chiara Dubey or Jesse Ritch off to Malmö either.

And I still miss Lys.

Repeat offenders: Inger Lise Rypdal

In the 1960s and '70s, it seemed like there were only a handful of singers in Norway, so it's no surprise that many of them turned up in numerous editions of Melodi Grand Prix. One of these was Inger Lise Rypdal, a successful artist who had several hits in her own right, but never made it to Eurovision.

Rypdal came to fame in 1968, with Norwegian-language versions of hits by artists as disparate as Peggy March and Jeannie C. Riley, scoring two #1s on the country's singles chart. The following year she took part in Melodi Grand Prix for the first time.



Wikipedia describes Rypdal as the 'dominant female artist on the Norwegian popular music scene' in the 1970s, so it's perhaps a surprise that she never won Melodi Grand Prix. She took part almost every year, including in duets with Stein Ingebrigtsen (Christian's dad) and Jahn Teigen, even 'winning' in 1973 singing 'Å for et spill'. Unfortunately, it was as part of the group accompanied by the small band and, as was traditional, the singers of the orchestral arrangement from the national final - the Bendik Singers - represented the country in Luxembourg.



In total, Rypdal participated 13 times in Melodi Grand Prix:

• 1969: "Eventyr" – 9th place
• 1972: "Lillebror" – 2nd place
• 1973: "Å for et spill" (with Stein Ingebrigtsen, Gro Anita Schønn and Ola Neegaard) – 1st place
• 1973: "Alternativ" – 4th place
• 1974: "Yo-Yo" (duet with Stein Ingebrigtsen) – 4th place
• 1976: "Voodoo" (duet with Jahn Teigen) – 2nd place
• 1979: "Så lenge du er hos meg" – 3rd place
• 1980: "Svart fortid" – 5th place
• 1981: "Tanker" – 3rd place
• 1981: "Født på ny" (as part of The Darlings) – 8th place
• 1982: "Lady Di" – 2nd place
• 1983: "Elegi" (duet with Freddy Dahl) – 9th place
• 1984: "Vindar" – 3rd place

Perhaps the best remembered of these is 'Voodoo', the bonkers duet with Jahn Teigen in 1976, which features Jahn exchanging his braces for a skeleton outfit. It could have been the infamous 'nul points' two years earlier for Norway, but either way, this would have been somewhat amazing at Eurovision.



Her later entries are a closer reflection of the electro sound that her career took on in later years, including this personal favourite.



And, as a little bonus, here's Rypdal receiving the Spellemann prize in 1974 and performing one of her biggest hits.

Missed opportunities: Sarah Dawn Finer - I Remember Love

In the middle of the last decade, it felt like a ballad stood no chance in Melodifestivalen. In both 2005 and 2006, nearly all the slower songs fell out of the competition in the semi-final stages, leaving a final full of upbeat pop songs, schlager-by-numbers and the occasional Caroline Wennergren.

2007 promised a much greater variety of song, and not of the type that brought us Kwanzaa and The Elephantz. And it was a relief when, in the second semi-final, Marie Lindberg made it through direkt till Globen, and then when Sarah Dawn Finer managed the same in the fourth.



In a field featuring acts like Andreas Johnson, Måns Zelmerlöw and The Ark, fourth place in the final was about as much as the unknown Sarah Dawn Finer could reasonably expect, especially with a ballad. It's one of Melodifestivalen's best though – heartfelt without being melodramatic, honest and emotional lyrics and a strong, big performance that doesn't overshadow the song.

How would it have performed at Eurovision? Probably better than The Ark, but in a year with Molitva at the top, it almost certainly wouldn’t have challenged for the win. And if 'I Remember Love' had won Melodifestivalen, we wouldn't have got the drama-fest of 'Moving On' two years later, and Lynda Woodruff have probably never been more than a spark in Sarah Dawn’s eye. And *that* would have been the real missed opportunity.