Now were getting into strange territory. A hamfisted and perhaps slightly disrespectful pub-electro song about what strippers do when they get older?
Did the folks at Belarussian telly actually listen to the words of this one before they shortlisted it for their final? If this wins it's going to open a whole can of worms. Bit of luck it's a pretty poor song - but who ever knows in Belarus!
In my unlikely other life as a punk rock singer, I play on a lot of bills with bands exactly like MadCraft. They're young, fresh-faced and enthusiastic, and always cite bands like NoFX, Sum 41 and New Found Glory in their influence lists, where in real life they sound more like McBusted (although for most ESC fans, your only point of reference will be Andorra 2007).
But let's not knock them for that. Their happy-go-lucky bounce and crunchy guitars add a little fun and grit to an otherwise pretty staid UMK line up (although it is rather nicely cleaned and polished grit), and I for one would love to see them take this all the way to Denmark. Not sure it will happen, but a boy can but dream!
Last year's terrific Hungarian entry was a bit of anomaly for its national selection process. Usually the best you can hope for are a couple of pneumatic disco dollies and a handful of sombre blokes in shiny suits.
So we have absolutely no idea how this terrific little piece of stripped back, low slung krunk has managed to make the A Dal shortlist! What chain of events could possibly have led to this happening? But I'll tell you what... I'm so very glad it did!
While one suspects that it's doomed for an early exit, I can't wait to see how the C-man carries this minimal gem off on stage. Are going to have the bored looking girls lazily swaying their hips? I should hope so!
My song of the year so far - but probably nobody else's...
Turns out it was too good to be true! By a weird fluke of coincidence it tuns out there's a completely different Lil C doing a completely different song called Break Up in Hungary this year! What are the chances of that happening? Boo!
The real Break Up is a serviceable-yet-dull spot of Euro R'n'B that is still refreshingly un-Hungarian, but, well, not a quarter of the song that I originally thought it was.
The Latvian process in recent times has been significant for the rise in cloyingly cheesy lyrics, and knuckle-gnawingly appalling rhymes. But this year's selection takes the biscuit - or the cake, as it seems in this instance.
Listen to the words of this and you'll shrivel like a slug under salt with pure unabashed embarrassment. But hold hard - it's not even got the worst lyric in the contest... but I've not found a video clip for the other one yet!
Stranger still, this is being offered up as a genuine contender for the boat to Copenhagen. One senses this will be a difficult year.
The Albanian selection was a surprisingly straight-laced affair, with very little worthy of Apocalypse note.
But I was rather taken with Ms Jorgaqi here for two reasons. The first is her frankly terrifying eyebrows, and the second that the show's director was clearly terrified of them too, and after a couple of early head shots, does as much as he can not to frighten the nans of the nation with that considerable scowl.
You've never seen so many long shots from the back of the hall! And heck, from about halfway through even the portly guitarist gets more face time than her!
There's a bit of an intro on this clip, but the fun starts bang on the minute mark. See how far you can get through without hiding behind the sofa!
There's always something to love in the Finnish selection process, and I'm glad to see that they haven't let us down this season. Yes, Miau might look like they're a made up electroclash band straight out of central casting, but their track record suggested that they might offer up some joys, and they most certainly have.
And that title isn't going to endear itself to the more fragile fanboy, either. Good work, girls!
So Lithuania appear to be doing some manner of Pro-Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes, whereby many of their biggest pop artists slightly humiliate themselves by singing popular Eurovision songs of the past in pretty much a straight on karaoke treatment.
Up to now there's been no clever remouldings or interestingly sparse arrangements, although even we weren't expecting quite so literal a version of Ruslana's Wild Dances.
It's all a bit car boot. Bring back the usual Lithuanian first round mentalists - they were much more fun!
We have our first actual selected song for Copenhagen 2014 after Ukraine hosted this season's first national final in their usual curious mid afternoon slot. And what a song. No, it's not especially good, but it seems like a distillation of every Eurovision-by-numbers tune of the last fifteen years.
How many things can you think of that rhyme with Tick and Tock? The one that springs to mind is very appropriate...
Turkey, somewhat churlishly, pulled out of this year's Eurovision, partly because it had the hump after a couple of years of disappointing results, but also because it had the concept of Turkvision up its sleeve.
Ostensibly a project to unite the Turkic world in song, the show gathered artists from many well known countries with significant Turkic populations, and some smaller regions and oblasts from around Europe and Asia (although funnily enough, it was mainly the larger countries who made it through to the final on the SMS vote).
It was as much a fascinating geography lesson as much as a singing show, and despite being of variable quality there were some real gems on show, not least this fascinating piece from the West Siberian Oblast of Kemerovo - a song apparently about the quality of the local flour, but sounding more like a punch up down the petting zoo. If they ever had a wolf petting section.
Rather disappointingly it didn't make it through to Saturday's final, so take this chance to revel in five and a half truly hypnotic minutes.
Oh my giddy aunt! This somewhat cloying twosome appear to think that they're being terribly delightful, and maybe a tad ironic by gluing together all those funny Eurovision song titles from down the years together into a single song. Oh dear.
The Swiss have missed a trick here. One of the intentions with Eurovision is surely to showcase the best elements of your national culture to the wider continent and beyond. So why they didn't shortlist this little gem from Appenzellerland is beyond me!
There's none more Swiss!
The song itself is either a work of deliberate Dadaist genius, or is a little bit rubbish, but quite accidentally became one of the best things ever, despite itself.
I just wish the bloke in the specs would take his hands out of his pockets…
So the Swiss have finally sifted through the hundreds of bedroom chancers and funky pub jazzers, and dealt us a particularly uninspiring short-list of 18 songs to put before the quality assessors (I kid you not!) to decide who's going to appear in their national final.
Uninspiring except for this mob.
Three blokes in ties and regional jackets singing a hymn to excessive drinking – in LATIN! - anyone?
When the inevitable happens and people start to bleat that a song that is either noisy, creative, has a smart lyric or is sung by an ugly man is the worst song that's happened in the history of ever, let alone Eurovision 2014, may I just draw their attention to this small gem...
Sure as eggs is eggs, when Switzerland open up their Eurovision flood gates, you know that it won't be too long before Männerchor Steili Kressä treat us to their delightful squinty view of next season's host country.
This year's tribute is a much sweeter affair than their Ikea-based singalong last season, but it's no less bonkers in the nut.
These boys are the true heroes of the earliest stages of Eurovision. Click the link and bathe in their goodness!
Eurovision 2014 has now officially begun, as Switzerland have launched their annual, frequently painful open submissions process in the vain hope of pulling out at least a few hopefuls from the sea of hopeless.
As it turns out, the very first four songs submitted are probably the macrocosm of what
to expect from this whole sorry affair. The aging acoustic neverwas, the dreary cod funk cobblers, a pneumatic bird from abroad with some empty Hi NRG fluff and a queeny loner in his bedroom.
Anything that's not that should get into the final...
Of the dozen or so tunes already submitted (apart from the ones that have already been taken down!), Cem-lon's effort here is probably the most hapless. Look at the camera, mate, not your word sheet. Be warned - this isn't as bad as it's going to get!
