Ireland 2011 - Jedward - Lipstick

If you want to get an act noted for not being able to sing terribly well voted onto Eurovision proper, just let them leap about in the foreground doing all the shrieky bits and let the backing singers get on with the meat and potatoes business at the back. Total fecking genius!

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Latvia 2010 - PeR - Quiet Like A Mouse

The sad news was announced earlier this week of the passing of the Latvian pop singer and songwriter Martins Freimanis. He died of complications of influenza at the criminally early age of 33. He left behind a legacy of great pop music - most notably as one third of F.L.Y, whose song Hello From Mars was the home entry in the 2003 contest in Riga.

His interest in the contest never wained. He also wrote Latvia's entry in Kiev in 2005, The War Is Not Over by Walters and Kazha, which bagged an unexpected and popular fifth spot, and has a song in this year's contest, the until-now unfancied Hop, performed by the band Blitze. But our favourite of his tunes here at Eurovision Apocalypse was his 2010 stab at qualification, the delightfully creepy teen-stalker human beatbox anthem Quiet Like A Mouse, which you can watch below. He was a lovely, unassuming chap, and he will be sadly missed.



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Iceland 2011 - Matthías Matthíasson & Erla Björg Káradóttir - Eldgos

The 2011 Eurovision Song Contest took a while to get going, but it kicked off with a vengeance in its second semi-final when a chap looking like a chunky Adam Lambert in an overtight top belted his way through this little treat. The 40-second segment from around 1:16 is so intense that it'll make your brain  explode!

To my great surprise it managed to get to the final - although it's up against a darling of the local pop world and a bloke that died last week, so I'd be amazed if it made it to Dusseldorf. So enjoy it's shouty splendor right here!




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