My favourites for Malmo 2013- Azerbaijan have done it again with Farid!

                                                A perrfect combination muscles & a mono-brow

                                  We cannot fault the recent track record of Azerbaijan at Eurovision Song Contestand for Malmo they have kept up the momentum with Farid Mammadov and a simple power pop ballad called 'Hold me' On first hearing I was thinking hold on ..Johnny Logan in 1987, surely this song title is wearing thin. With further listens the ballad grew on me, and with a powerful performance
from the stunning iron man Farid- in Malmo Azerbaijan will not be running scared but high on the scoreboard I think.
                                The only drawback being- Baku again in 2014, surely not?

My favourites for Malmo 2013- Hurrah for ByeAlex from Hungary

               As Sarah Dawn Finer would put it..there will be alot of 'crash boom bang' in Malmo this year.. and I am only refering to the special effects, fire, men in class cubes and all the rest. So among all this it is refreshing to find some simplicity 'Kedvesem'  has all this and more..
The moment I U-tubed this video, I got this track on i-tunes right away. It was love at first listen.

Hungary, as a country is one of the best team players at Eurovision Song Contest for me, they never bring to the contest the same sounds or song twice. Last year we had Compact Disco's 'Sound of our Hearts' and of course the wonderful Kati Wolf, this song is a another gamble for Hungary to make the final for sure. Yet it is a great song no less - I wanna see ByeAlex in the final.

Please note - there has been plenty stories going around that Malmo 2013- Is the Year for the 'mono-brow' although we can tell ByeAlex has infact not got a mono-brow eye-brow, that does not mean they have not been evidence earlier. If you need further proof of le mono-brow factor look no further than Armenia - Oh my Gor...

Eurovision 2013 : Downunder it's become all about Le Lovable- Julia & Sam

Since 2009 in Australia the hosts on SBS coverage have been Julia  Zemiro & Sam Pang for me they do each year an awesome job, and the Eurovision artists interviews and flirts are a joy to watch. So imagine when I read this morning they have history together...

Le Julia & Sam Story

              -it could one day be a TeleMovie !!

Check Out SBS Eurovision's own Preview clip that features just all songs in one Remix!!!!

Wow SBS Have done it again......click here to see the Mix

Eurovisionary Marcel Lucont's own Eurovision 2013 Mix

Eric Saade goes 'Green for Malmo 2013'

As we head for Le Eurovision week, the excitement is reaching fever- pitch in Malmo...
One of the fantastic highlights for 2013 is the fact that our host country is of course Sweden who are already famous for putting on a great music song contest annually with Melodifestivalen.

So what can we expect...when the three shows begin....

The running order of the songs sung in the contest will be choosen by SVT this year (expect the swedish entry) this is a new rule. I think this may add to the entertainment factor of the Grand Final night as planned lets see.
Eurovision 2013 will have one single host with Petra Mede. That's right- a one woman show
Petra' is a real funny lady who has actually lead a Melodifestivalen season before by herself, an interesting choice of representer for the Green Room is the fantastc singer 'Eric Saade' who has come a long way in Sweden since his 'popular'
entry for Sweden in 2011. However Eric Saade has not done presenting before, yet joining in the Green Room should not be too foreign to Eric. Who can forget his many hooded antics in Dusseldorf  in 2011.

With the interval acts we are promised a performance from Darin and Agnes, who had a massive European hit with 'Release Me' and for grand final night we may see an appearence from the Eurovision Melodifestivalen Queen herself 'Carola'

Let the countdown begin..

My Favourites For Malmo 2013- Belguim's Roberto Bellarosa

Roberto's name rolls off the tongue, the first thing that I liked about Belguim's offering for 2013. Was really Roberto's voice - it has a quality that is very appealling so I understand how he won 'The Voice'
back home in Belguim. The song is a really a grower, the early version we heard was even rather dull..I believe it started out as a slow ballad.
The upbeat version was certainly a step in the right direction, and seemed to add a couple of extra hooks into the whole song, with the right performance on the night 'Love Kills' will stand out I am sure.

I hope we see Belguim in the Top 10 with Roberto Bellarosa, I get the feeling he is already a Euro Fan favourite. Here is some choosen words from Roberto after his rehearsal..

My Favourites For Malmo 2013- Norway Will feed us Margaret Berger

It's not always been the case in Eurovision Song contest history.. but in 2013, a winning song needs to make an impact! not a gummick or a loud drum. It can be a simple impact, which I think Margaret Berger has..As for the song 'Feed you my love' it's very different and will stand out - The electro beat and dramatic lyrics and the simple performance..
This entry is not for everyone we know, but it is instant and stays with you. It took a matter of seconds
for me to tell myself 'this is really different and something special'...let's see how Margaret Berger goes.
Is it too early to go back to Oslo in 2014? I think not.

My Favourites For Malmo 2013- Italy and Marco Mengoni

           For the past 6 weeks schlagertunes has been on a break, moving in fact and then for the past 3 weeks we have been without internet! can you imagine that? Ok better not it's too painful.
           During this time it was back to basics in more ways than one, for once I played the new Eurovision 2013 CD in full and tried to judge my options on the song merits along, apart from a few National Final clips I had seen... it was like the old days. Let's not forget the Eurovision music of the 70's and even early 80's were nothing more than a song heard on the radio station, for me growing up in UK. The BBC radio stations rarely played the songs and singles that did'nt successed in winning the contest!
 I even recall actually buying vinyl versions to just hear the music at all.

           So here is my early impressions from the recorded music tracks only, in no particular order for starters:
 Italy's Marco Mengoni with 'L'Essenziale' this song is fully sung in Italian. A trend stronger than any other Eurovision contest since the laugauge rule change back in the late 90s I am sure.
            This tune is not a give-away Eurovision style, jam packed with emotion. Since their comeback to Eurovision -Italy have sent only orginal quality songs from their own San Remo competition. Only for Baku last year the italians in their wisdom choose a more Eurovision sounding choice for the San Remo winner Nina Zilli. It worded very well however for 2013 we get nothing more than this amazing
 wonderful San Remo tune L'Essenziale' that won San Remo this year.
 I found that 'goose-bumb factor' on my second hearing... a great sign.

 I hope Marco will 'stand out' as this song and artist has winner or Top 3 -written all over it, oh and he loooks very cool as well
He did an eurovision.tv interview here too- very funny...he seems to have some of the same charm
we found from Germany's  Lena back in 2010 - when she sang her version of Boyzone's 'No matter what' at the Oslo press-conference- What a Eurovis'moment that was..

Melodifestivalen 2013 - What was different? just what happened

Melodifestivalen 2013, alot of eurovision fans seem to have been expecting more, even felt let down. The results seem to have gone abit wrong? It's not all bout the lack of schlager in the final.
As 2013 is the very year that Sweden get automatic qualification into Eurovision Final 2013 in Malmo, so I for one was expecting actually a far greater interest, and higher standard of established swedish artist and great songs.

Recently I was reading a old biography of Cilla Black, I stumbled upon a chapter covering 1968. When The Beatles manager Brian Epstein, was most keen to have Cilla Black to sing for UK at Eurovision 68 that year in London. Cilla was against the idea, for a simple reason Cilla could not believe a female singer would take winning honours for UK two years running! (Sandie Shaw won in 1967)

Does this ring true for Melodifestivalen this year- do the swedes think they cannot be a double winner two years in a row, so choose not to write or sing for Melo selection this year?
The songs this year did not seem up to the normal standard, however the final 10 songs were not the best choices as well. After several re-cap listens of my Melodifestivalen 2013 CD of which I did enjoy
these are the best songs and the result I would have liked to have seen...

1. Begging -Anton Ewald
2. Alibi -Eddie Razaz
3.We're still kids - Micheal Feiner & Caisa
4. Rockin the Ride - Army of Lovers
5. On top of the world - Swedish House Wives
6. Hello goodbye - Erik Segerstedt & Tone Damli
7. In and out of Love - Martin Rolinski
8. Skyline - David Lindgren
9. You- Robin Stjernberg
10. Trivialitet - Sylvia Vrethammar

Actually only 3 of these tunes made the Melodifestivalen final line-up that happened last week?

Agnetha Fältskog- The voice is back with us at last

This week saw the most exciting single release of them all- I'ts been 25 years since Agnetha Faltskog,
the part vocal-power behind Abba. Released original music and songs, in 2004 she did comeback with a 60's classic cover album 'My colouring book'. This next  album is different no covers, as new modern songs have been choosen by Agnetha herself, one new album track will be even wrote by Agnetha.
However this debut single from the new album 'A' is very impressive -

  the voice is realy back....

Crash Boom Bang- Lynda Woodruff is back for Melodifestivalen 2013 !

Well it came around so fast this year, the semi finals are over and last week's Second Chansen round brought us two finalist with the same hair! this is kind of ironic as Jedward made a guest appearence in the show.. That seems to create Sweden's own Jedward twins...with the results and winning singers

'I'm Robin, he's Anton 
and together we're 'Rob-ton' 

Yet separately these two songs from the twin starletts battling it out in saturday night's grand finale will add a limited sparkle. To what promises to be a actually rather dull song line-up of Melodifestivalen Final  2013.. This is the line up for Friends Arena'  

1. Ulrik Munther - Tell the world I’m here
2. David Lindgren - Skyline
3. State of Drama - Falling
4. Anton Ewald - Begging
5. Louise Hoffsten - Only the dead fish follow the stream
6. Ralf Gyllenhammar - Bed on fire
7. Ravaillacz - En riktig jävla schlager
8. Sean Banan - Copacabanana
9. Robin Stjernberg - You
10. YOHIO - Heartbreak hotel

But wait there is hope .... a couple of real Schlager Superstars will return for the show. Not of course in the Melodifestivalen competition but the most exciting news for us is the return of Lynda Woodruff aka Sarah Dawn Finer. Last year during Melodifestivalen in a real funny skit Sarah created Lynda.
A british host thrown into the EBU offices to put together an introduction of bakoo.
Lynda popped up again at Eurovision to present the votes of the swedish jury.
For Melodifestivalen final Lynda will return...we cannot wait to see the new skit.

Musically we can expect the long awauted return to Melo of Carola who will sing some of her many Melodifestivalen/Euroviison tunes that span almost 30 years (gulp)