Russia 2012 - Syostry Syo - Une Marionette

With all the attention and TV advertising showered upon the top three of Dima/Julia, rapper Timati and the fabulous nans, you may not have noticed that there were another 22 songs in the contest. So what actually came fourth, you might wonder.

This.

It appears to be two teenage girls arguing about an accordian – in French –  but I have absolutely no idea what the flipping heck is actually going on. See if you've got any idea...

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Russia 2012 - Buranovskiye Babushki - Party For Everybody

The Russians have finally realised what the rest of the world has been saying for two years and sent the Nans! Finally a Russian election result that everyone (barring perhaps Dima Bilan) agrees with!

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Russia 2012 - Dima Bilan & Yulia Volkova - Back To Her Future

Here's the first sneaky clip of the song many are tipping to walk the Russian final tonight. I think someone's filmed it on a 90s mobile from under their coat, but you still get a general idea.

It's the standard mawkish and over-wrought minor key ballad that you;d expect, but that's the music of choice over those parts at the moment, so it's got to be in with a pop - especially considering the pure star power on stage.

I still reckon the turbo nans or Russia's top rapper Timati are going to give them a run for their money, though. Tonight's final is going to be a bloodbath!

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Slovakia 2012 - Max Jason Mai - Don't Close Your Eyes

So finally after months of not saying much and keeping their plans under their hat, Slovakia finally revealed their act. At least when the UK did that, to much derision from the fanboy rank and file, we came up trumps with one of the top selling artists of all time.

Slovakia, however, suprised us all with a nice chunky little slab of Soundgarden-lite sung by a cheekyly handsome looking rock cherub called Max Jason Mai (or Miro Šmajda to his nan). It's just about rock enough to keep the grumpy grounded emo daughters interested on Eurovision night, but scrapes in with just enough melody not to offend the pop fans too much as well.


How it'll do on the night is anyone's guess, but I kinda like it being there. It's nothing groundbreaking, but I still wasn't expecting that at all.

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Armenia 2012 - Lucia Moon - Delicious Feeling / Call It Insane

What is it with Armenia this year? The lack of news coming out of the host country's nemesis neighbour is encouraging any nut job with access to a microphone to claim that they are the only true successor to the crown. And Lucia Moon here isn't helping any.

Just looking at her you kind of suspect she's American - and surprise surprise she is, also claiming to be Azeri born (from Nagorno-Karabakh, no less, which will please the hosts) and of Armenian heritage. I suspect this makes her think she's the perfect candidate for the job, when in actual fact she's more like that slightly worrying woman from the late night dispensing chemists doing karaoke in an empty bar. On her own. At 4am.

If Armenia choose this old tripe, I'll eat my dog.

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Cyprus 2012 - Ivi Adamou - La La Love

Been wondering why this year's Cypriot singer Ivi Adamou has preferred to mime at all her public appearances so far this year?

This video might help answer that...

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Romania 2012 - Electric Fence - Shunta

Nestling among all the usual turbo pop, plinky plonk and mawkish ballads in the Romanian final, you can find this splendid little joy of boisterous wonder.

Employing the the kind of hardcore folklore frequently beloved by their cousins next door in Moldova, this is a happy-go-lucky stomp riot that would light up any stage - and especially one plonked on the very banks of the Caspian Sea.

I'd love to see them send this to Azerbaijan, and fancy that it would do pretty well if it got there - but will the good people of Romania be brave enough?

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Lithuania 2012 - Donny Montell - Love Is Blind

Lithuania chose their song last night, and rather than picking the rather fabulous Vytautus Matuzas, they went for the pre-match favourite Donny Montell (or Donatas Montvydas as he's known to his mum). It's a well song but unremarkable song that starts slow, then pumps up to a fairly lame mid tempo disco tune at about the halfway mark. But this clip is worth seeing for two hilarious reasons.

In a move of arch literalism, our Donatas spends the first half of the song wearing a rather festching satin blindfold. Not only will I have to resist the urge of yelling: "a bit further forward mate. A little bit more..." when he's on stage in Baku, but I really kind of hope that a real life blind singer manages to win one of the remaining Eurovision berths, just to fuck up his show, like.

But better than that, when the song shifts up a gear at around the 1:30 mark he's briefly possessed by the combined spirits of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Nijinsky (the dancer, not the racehorse) for one of most laugh making ten seconds of the year so far. I hope he keeps that bit in when he gets to Azerbaijan!

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Azerbaijan 2012 - Sabina Babayeva - Our Love Song

To hear the teaser trailer for the home song, click here...

A micro snippet of this year's host song has just appeared on the official website for Azeri telly, and it's pretty interesting.

The few seconds that they're teasing with us offer up an eastern tinged jazz ballad that appears to be sung in the singer's home language. There's also no suggestions of the kind of hapless vocal runs she was prone to in her national final - but we wouldn't bet that there won't be any there. In fact we rather fear that there will be.

However, on this showing, it could be an interesting choice for the home town song - we'll be curious, if not a little frightened,  to hear the whole thing.

***STOP PRESS***
Sadly this isn't the Azeri song. Instead they've gone for a standard Disney ballad, with the predictable Whitney-esque howling. We sha'nt be showing you that here.


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Sweden 2012 - Dead By April - Mystery

I have a dilemma with this song. In my normal daily punk rock life, this is a pretty ludicrous little chunk of pop metal. Sung by possibly the cleanest looking lead singer ever to sport a tattoo, it's nothing much more than a slightly turbocharged schlager with some bloke shouting every 40 seconds.

But in a Melodifestivalen context this is pretty amusing. The fanboys glued to the front five rows will be horrified by the song's noisier chunks, and the marginal stabs at metal conventions, like the chains and flames, will confuse and bemuse the voting nans at home.

It's lemon squash weak in metal terms, but somehow in a Eurovision environment it works near perfectly. Damn its eyes!

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Russia 2012 - The UPS! - Kiss

Russia's vast list of finalists was finally released yesterday, and while the names of Bilan & Volkova, Buranovskiye Babushki (the folky nans!) and Jet Kids are the headline names, this likely little bunch are the first to have made their song public. And a bouncy little number it is too.

Describing themselves rather sweetly as hooligan-pop, their crazy-legged burlesquey crunch  could make quite the stir on the big night, although drawn perilously early in the fourth slot, they might be sadly overlooked when it comes to voting time.

Still, we'll enjoy it while we can - if for nothing else than the guitarist's insane dance shapes!

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Romania 2012 - Mandinga - Zaleilah

Romania were hanging on so long before they announced their finalists that I kind of hoped they'd be presenting us with something pretty special. Sadly though there few pop thrills in among the usual mawkish dead-eyed balladeer blokes, and those tiny shrieking girls wearing not quite enough shiny fabric they always seem to dig out.

So this song stands out like a sore thumb amongst the mediocrity that surrounds it. It's not particularly great, but it's been all over Romanian TV all year, and by the look of the official video - that sees the glamourous singer cavorting inappropriately in tiny garments the length and breadth of Dubai - they've got a bit of money behind them. So if the Romanian public isn't sick of the song by the time it comes to chose, they've surely got to be in with a decent shout.

Actually, I'm not sure that the girl is even a regular member of the band, as most of the videos of them on YouTube show them to be a cracking little six piece marching band. So which loyal member are they going to dump if they get to Baku? My bet's on the tiny trumpeter.

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Greece 2012 - Velvet Fire - No Parking

Greece have just presented their four songs to the public. The conceit is that they're not going to say who any of them are by, so as not to influence the voting public into chosing their favourite act before the song.

The thing is, all four of them sound like they're by the same girl singer.

This is the best of the bunch - a punchy little Kelly Clarkson-alike stomper. A ludicrous lyric, to be sure, but at least it's got a bit of gusto about it. I wonder who it's by?

***STOP PRESS***

Turns out it's by a rather interesting looking twosome called Velvet Fire. Apparently they've already had a decent sized hit towards the end of last year, so we can only but hope!

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Sweden 2012 - Björn Ranelid featuring Sara Li - Mirakel

Every year this contest throws up a few songs that pretty much defy explanation. The thing is, you never expect them to come from Sweden. Usually the home of happy-go-lucky schlager and eerily over-wrought ballads, nobody's quite sure what chain of events led to this one getting into the Melodifestivalen.

Quite how a cuprinol-treated crime novellist with the complexion of my old nan's sofa ended up barking randomly over a nice slice of formula Europop is unclear, but we're especially glad it did.

Nobody expected this song to even crawl its way out of its semi-final, but somehow it charged through direkt til Globen, and is building up such a head of steam that serious Eurovision commentators are now beginning to fear that it might actually win the thing. And with a host of parodies and spoof websites filling up the internet there's half a chance that might just happen. And then where will we be?

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Estonia 2012 - Mimicry - The Destination

I love Mimicry. They've got to be just about my favourite Estonian band with their tasty brand of early 80s style electronica, all infused with contemporary club dance flavour. I love their aimiable persistance, too.

Every year they send a cracker of a song to Eestilaul, only to have their hopes thwarted at far too early a hurdle - curse that Estonian public! This year's attempt was a gorgeous mash up of Human League keyboards and New Order dance beats, with the singing boy looking cool and disaffected and every bit like a pre-acid Julian Cope, and the keyboard gal just looking cool.

I hope they don't take it to heart and give up trying, because hearing their annual effort is one of my favourite bits of Eurovisionism every year! Keep it up kids, you're flipping ace!

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