Sweden 2016 - Samir & Viktor - Bada Nakna

(Click here to treat your ear...)

Now here's a curious bit of business. You know how hard it can be to get your hands on clips of the qualified MelFest finalists once they've done their semi-final turns. It's all part of that delightful Swedish fairness thing that makes it pigging difficult to actually report on the goings on of the previous week. Well, Daily Motion seem to have found a way around that and have published some mic-only videos of the plucky contenders.

And boy do they make strange viewing!

Witness the terrible twosome here. OK, so we knew they were going to be no Caruso twins, but their vocal only performance is somehow simultaneously both ear-bending and incredibly charming. On top of that, watching the songs stripped of music becomes a weird, zen-like experience. I'd wholeheartedly advise that you work your way through the whole batch, but this is our favourite by a street.

Go boys, go!

***STOP PRESS***

Aww nuts, SVT clearly don't have a sense of humour and the videos have now been taken down. What a shame, I was looking forward to seeing how that developed!

Latvia 2016 - Marta Grigale – Choices

(Click here for a sweet little three minutes...)

I wanted to resist it, but this sweet little song pup has been working its may under my skin, and now I keep finding myself singing it round the house and worrying the neighbours. Well, slightly more than normal.

But on the face of it, I shouldn't really be much bothered with it. Marta looks sweet enough, but gives the impression of a sixth former at a school talent show who's been playing around in mummy's make up box, and stands stock still, reciting a song that could have come straight from a Blue Peter poetry competition.

And yet, one rotation in and the song starts to hook you, and by the end you see it for the innocent, endearing little number that it really is - so much so that we found ourselves cheering ever time she nipped in front of the grievous Samanta Tīna in the televoting. It's unlikely to be troubling the scorers all that much on finals night, but if nothing else, it's achieved the welcome feat of getting bloody Miracle Drums out of my internal jukebox!

Latvia 2016 - Riga Beaver - Beavernova

(Click here for the Beavocalypse...)

Anyone who followed last year's Supernova would have been delighted to disover that the undoubted star of last year's show had returned - yes, the Beaver is back! Almost entirely a cult for those of us strange foreigners, the Riga Beaver is reasonably little-known in his home country. But to us hardy few who suffer stuttery sunday night streaming connections, he is our one true idol.

And we've been upgraded this term, too. For last year's semis all we got tomsee of him was a silent clip from a locked off camera at the back before they realised his international and mic'd him up for the final. This year we get full routines of last season's songs, and delight as the fluffy lad himself leaps about and gets in the way of the grump next acts as they set up.

So delight here in a good quarter hour of last night's best bit. Our fave was was his take on ElektroFolk's previous entry. Although his Mntha was pretty goo. Hang about, there was also his racey Aminata skit... Oh see for yourself!

Ukraine 2016 - Svetlana Tabarova - Never Again

(Click here for another war song...)

The Ukrainian show last night wasn't so much a national semi-final as a full blown people's rally to stir up the country's fervour against those neighbours to the north. It was a pretty stunning artefact from start to finish, and could easily be held up as a historic document chronicling a moment when a country started to assert its national identity against a common foe. Seriously, politics and cultural studies students will be doing dissertations on this in sixty year, I tell you.

It started with a three song salvo, straight off the bat. You had that lass who sang for the neighbours about Mother Russia in Moscow telling us that she was free now, followed by a moderately pop rock mob whose singer appeared to be dressed like a gothicky version of the statue in Kiev's Maiden Square. This was then topped by a performance from a folksy looking lady that seemed to evoke the wonders of the Ukrainian countryside. A pretty wowsers start indeed.

After a couple of apparently usual songs, Jamala smacked us between the eyes with her breathtaking dissection about the Crimean tartar resettlement, then it all seemed to get a bit normal again. Until this.

 A stunning woman with flame red hair stood stock still in a snow-white dress. In the background you could see projections of a bombed and burned cityscape, as Svetlana howled "Never Again" repeatedly straight down the pipe to the folks at home. The camera pulled back to reveal the bottom fringes of her pure white dress were muddied by the dirt of conflict. But that wasn't the most emotive moment. That came right at the end. I won't spoil the effect for you, but do watch her performance right through to the end, because even if the song's a bit regular, the message delivered comes straight from the cabinet war office!

Hungary 2016 - B The First - You Told Me That You Loved Me

(Click here for a hep cat hop...)

Now I'm not averse to a spot of old time, good time rock 'n' roll. So when I first heard the hillbilly blues of  B The First, I hoped that we would be in for something interesting on the live front. After all, the Hungarian shows so far have polished up an awful lot of turds into decent looking performances. However, I wasn't quite expecting this.

Rather than young, spiky quiffabillies, BTF have more the demeanour of three smug old pub musos, like some kind of mid-70s pre-punk pub rock band, all decked out in signature black and red. But wait a minute, what is that singer wearing?

Some manner of slashed-to-the-waist darts shirt with tassly epaulettes on the shoulders, it seems. And when married to his whispy, spiv's moustache and small-scale bodybuilder physique it all seems a bit incongrous to the sounds the band were making. Still, as strange as it may seem, it qualified - albeit in a complicated manner that would have had even the Lithuanian score-keeper scratching his head.

One to watch, but I'm not entirely sure if it's for the right reasons...

Iceland 2016 - Sigga Eyrún - Kreisí

(Click here for something a bit dark and crunchy...)

I'd somehow managed to miss this little gem on my first sweep through the Icelandic song - I guess I must have nodded off before I got this far through the list. But so many people have told me that I should give this tune an ear that I relented. And now I'm really rather glad that I did.

It's got the kind of dark, farty keyboard squelches that I'm usually quite partial to, an insistant and unexpected vocal hook on the bridge, and an underlying atmosphere of edginess and oddity that stands out a mile from the otherwise safe batch of her other semi-final contenders.

See if you can make sure that this goes through tonight, if you have the power. Especially if she translates the stageshow from the video directly to the live stage. Oh boy, that would be a thing!

Ukraine 2016 - Tonia Matvienko - Tin Whistle

(Click here for a return to the woods...)

The Ukrainian selection is looking a bit good so far, I tell you. Only eleven tunes have snuck out so far, but they're mostly looking pretty interesting in their own curious ways. And it's all gone a bit etherial, too.

Witness this little beauty. Floaty, arboral, with flutterances of birdsong and chirpy pixie vocals - it's kind of what you imagine the inside of Björk's brain sounds like. I flipping love it, and can't wait to see how she presents it live!

Ukraine 2016 - Jamala - 1944

(Click here to hear a very different song...)

Jamala's back - and wowsers, what a return to the contest this is! You may remember her from the brutally infectious singalong pop hit Smile from a few years back - a song that managed to get binned not once, but twice by some apparently dodgy goings on in Ukraine Eurovision Towers. But anyone expecting a return to the bouncy cartoony form of her well loved previous attempt will be pleasantly surprised by this one.

Indeed, rather than an explosion of pop joy, 1944 is an altogether more sombre outing, recounting the tale, as it does, of the forced resettlement of the Crimean Tartars - Jamala's own people. But while such politically tinged songs often feel either mawkish, overblown or just plain dumb (think Don't Deny, Apricot Stone or I Don't Wanna Put In), 1944 is a dark, understated tune, which grooves along with a powerful dark melancholy.

OK, so it's clearly a nose thumb at her nation's bigger, bolder cousin to the North, and there will be constant complaints if, as is very likely, it gets picked for the golden ticket to Stockholm. But as a restrained and classy tune in its own right, albeit one that tells a story about an emotive and near forgotten moment in history, I for one can't wait to see her on a Swedish stage.

Latvia 2016 - ElektroFolk - Miracle Drums

(Click here for a cheap seat in the dress circle...)

 There's quite a few old familiar faces in Latvia this year, and few more welcome to the Apocalypse fold that ElectroFolk. You may remember them as the band who came third in last year's Supernova with their stampy piece of proggy techno folk Sundance. You know, the band with the terrifying baldy bass muso staring out into your living room from beneath his shades.

So when we heard they were having another pop at the contest we were expecting more of the same unintentional comedy gold. But no, they've gone and confounded us all with this rousing slice of uplifting pomp pop. And boy is it confounding.

Imagine, if you will, The Alan Parsons Project remodelling the soundtrack to Les Mis, then chuck in a few more sprinklings of bitter prog granules and you're on the way to guessing it. It's also a song devoid of a crescendo - it just builds and repeats and never quite hits the money shot, leaving you both anxious and spent at the end of it.

Their formation dancing last year was a true wonder to behold, so we can't imagine how they're going to stage it this year! Roll on Supernova - fast becoming one of our new favourite national finals!

Georgia 2016 - Young Georgian Lolitaz - Midnight Gold

(Click here to tune in and wig out...)

Georgia are in the building, and much to the dismay of the rank and file, they delivered a pretty decent fistful of wigout indie rock tunes tonight - and this one was my fave.

It starts a little sweetly on a decent 1998 beatpop groove, but by halfway in the boys begin to rock out good and proper and deliver us a lovely slice of bouncy chunkiness. And by the time guitarboy gets down on his knees and starts widdling with his pedals I was sold good and proper.

One suspects that it's probably a bit to end-of-the-rock gig to meet with too much popular appeal, and suspect that the Georgian public will either go with the Oasis-meets-Kula Shaker pop tune in trap four, or the much slower and more accessable one that the band themselves wrote at the end. But I'll always have this tune, and suspect that I'll be keeping a close watch on their career from here on in!

Latvia 2016 - Justs - Heartbeat

(Click here for the coolest three minutes of the season so far...)

Oh hello! Now we're talking! LTV were clearly paying attention after Aminata's heartening high finish last season, and have absolutely peppered their 20 semi-final slows with cool slices of minimal electronica. But of course, if you want the job done well you go straight to source. 

Yep, for the coolest, neatest three minutes of the year so far you need go no further than this Aminata-penned beauty. while still sparse, it's still much fuller and beatier than last year's effort, and Justs' voice has just the requited bluesy fringes to give the whole production a little edge.

Sure, there's still familiar names like Marcus Rivas, Samanta Tīna and Ivo Grīsniņš Grīslis in the mix, but one suspects that this is going to be the tune to beat this year. Well one hopes so at the very least.

Sweden 2016 - Ace Wilder - Don't Worry (Lyric)

(Click here for  a murdering of the written word...)
(And click here for a tiny snippet of the song...)

She was the revelation of Melfest 2014. Her cheeky, chirpy up tempo stomp about being a lazy arse in the 21st Century wowed the fans both home and abroad, and will forever more be dubbed as one of the ones that got away. Indeed, she was desperately unlucky to have been up against serial near-misser Sanna and her first half decent song.

So news that she was returning for this year's tournament filled those who have been following this contest over the years with a mix of joy and dread. Whould she come back stronger and tougher, like Måns, Sanna and Sanner, or would just be another sad example of the Sean Banan law of diminishing returns?

Well judging by the lyric sheet that SVT produced this morning we fear it's the latter. Yes, there's the same two-fingers-up-to-the-world attitude, but the storyline is a bit more garbled and clichéd. And on top of that, some of those lines are absolutely cringeworthy... "My money's low/my wifi slow/and I've got a useless, dumbass, smartass phone" - oof! And there's worse still to come, so I figured that in lieu of a video for the next little while, you might enjoy groaning through the lyric sheet to prepare yourselves for the groaning. 

Let's just hope the musical track that lays beneath it is an absolute belter, and we scarcely notice the more groanworthy moments, cos we like Ace, we really do. Oh, and one more thing... She really wants to sack whoever wrote that lyric out - the only time you've ever seem such bad spelling and punctuation was that one time you got your dad to do your homework!

***STOP PRESS***

We've just heard a clip of the song. Don't worry, there's nothing to see here...

Norway 2016 - The Hungry Hearts feat. Lisa Dillan - Laika

(Click here for a doggy disco...)

An oompah disco song from a lesbian performance art group about the first dog in space*?

This is what Eurovision is for!

*(At least, that what the title and lyric suggests the theme is about – forgive us if we've missed some specialist jargon here!)

Now with added live video for full spacey goodness. You won't see many better, or at least more unhinged performances all year!

Spain 2016 - Barei - Say Yay!

(Click here for some of the least apt dancing ever...)

So you're the clear favourite to win your national final. You start your performance in a reasonable manner, all demure and meaningful. The beat picks up and you start to bob about a bit, and all is well.

But then the chorus kicks in, and... oh my dear lord in heaven, what the hell is that dance you're doing there girl?!!

You may have won the show tonight, but that ugly little jig of yours will be a real dealbreaker in Stockholm if you insist on keeping it on - so go on, do it... it'll be funny!

Hungary 2016 - C.E.T. - Free

(Click here to see things getting away from the lad a bit...)

You've got to feel a little bit sorry for the poor boy singing here. The song that he's fronting was half-decent without blowing anyone away, but the choice of staging was perhaps a tad confusing. The dancers may have seemed a little out of place - especially as at first we imagined we were going to be watching a boyband outing - but it was when the stagehands wandered on mid song to remove some of the scenery that we started to get really confused.

Was this meant to happen? I think it probably was, but it did distract from the musical goings on somewhat.

And then there was the evident monitoring issues. Our lad here looked intense enough from the offset, but the in-ear monitors clearly hit peak volume at about halfway through the song, and he ripped them out in some great discomfort, looking every bit like a scalded cat. This resulted in him losing his way in the song for a moment, and then losing his pitch just a shard for the rest of it, which was a real shame, because I was growing to like it at this point.

And worst of all for him, it came plumb last in the voting. I'd say that he was more than a little hard done by here. There were far duller songs in that show that qualified in much higher places - even if their singers weren't quite as scary as out boy here. I hope we get to see him again next year, cos he's definitely got something about him.