Slovenia 2016 - Nuša Derenda - Tip Top

(Click here for double oh heaven (sorry)...)

You'll have to help me here. I can't decide if this is utterly fabulous or incredibly, painfully rubbish. I know you'll have an opinion. 

We like the girl Nuša in this parish. We had a couple of terrific nights out with her in Copenhagen back in 2001 (not that we're name dropping or anything), and she's a really good egg. But is a hi-nrg disco Bond theme really the kind of thing she ought to be revisiting old haunts with?

Even taking the singer out of the equation, there's a lot of me that enjoys this over-blown little number. The John Barry pastiche orchestration is both cheesy yet pretty well done, her voice, obviously, is pretty strong, with a lovely edge of maturity only enhancing her familiar power pipes. But that title. Oh that title. It's very in keeping with the recent run of near rhyming couplets that always make you cringe, no matter how good the actually song is. 

Oh I don't know. It's probably rubbish, but there's something about it that I just can't hate. I must be losing my touch.

UK 2016 - Kezia Gill - Glory Days

(Click here for a good little chuckle at someone else's expense...)

So you're trying to convince a major organisation to select you for an international performance. You think long and hard about the things that might enamour you to them, and try to work out exactly how you can write a song that will both appeal to their inner soul, and the hearts of the wider nation, and continent, beyond. So it's probably not the best idea to tell that organisation that they've been doing their job wrong for the last 19 years. 

Eurovision songs about Eurovision are almost without fail a bag of monkey balls, and ones that are moaning about their country not doing very well frequently litter the first sweep of the toilet entries every single year. Although to be fair, most of them are Swiss. Still, we get our fair share, and they're nearly always very much like this.

They usually begin with a terribly dated intro, slide gracelessly into an over wordy lyric about the old times and how we were good once, and they more than often come presented a two-bob video shot in the studio of the back alley wedding musician that usually writes them. And on top of that they always, always smugly imagine that they're the first person ever to have come up with the idea, and get terribly indignant when they don't make it to the telly.

Come on people, look around you. Our final selections are usually pretty poor, but they're never anywhere near this poor...

Poland 2016 - Margaret - Cool Me Down

(Click here for a quick cool down...)

I've long held a theory that aliens could accidentally crash on this planet with no prior knowledge of the Earth's existence, and still be able to identify a song as Swedish if it was the first tune that was ever played to them. This song underlines that theory perfectly.

Margaret here is a top Polish pop star, famed for singing in that kind of flat nasal street style beloved of the likes of Rihanna and her ilk. Neither of which lend to immediate thoughts of Scandic sort. Like them aliens, I had no prior knowledge of this song, but the second I heard the chorus I instantly knew that it had grubby little Swedish fingerprints all over it. After years of following this contest you just know. And sure enough, after a tiny bit of digging I discovered that, yes, it was part-written by a Swede. But wait, you say, isn't it also part-written by that Arash of Azerbaijan? What, the Iranian lad who moved to Sweden at the age of ten? I reply. Got them bang to rights!

What's even more interesting is that in the last hour or so, Poland have flown up in the betting, from middle ground outsiders to a spot jostling among the contenders. Are the gambling folks second guessing that this one is getting through? Or has someone made an arrangement somewhere down the line? Keep a close eye on this one, it could get interesting...

Ukraine 2016 - Japanda - Anime

(Click here for a touch of the East. Although not THAT far East...)

I can't tell you how disappointed I was with Japanda's appearance in the second Ukrainian semi on Saturday. Now you may be thinking: "Colourful costumes, Japanese style, dancing bloody pandas - this is right up your street!" But no. If you've ever seen any of their other work you will share my disappointment.

Anime was a slow, ploddy, hook-free morass of a song, limply based of the Japanese J-Pop style. Previous tune Tamagotchi, however, was a riotous explosion of colour and sound that made you grin from ear to ear quite involuntarily. If you don't believe me, click here to see what you could have won...

Now of course, those not so well versed in the pop stylings of the Far East have been quoting Dolly Style as their only reference with regards to Japanda. Boy do you have a lot to learn. Both acts are a pale imitation of the queen of all colourful pop Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Just watch this and discover what you've been missing all your lives. But be sure to have a couple of pairs of sunglasses handy, as it's quite possibly the most visually lively video of all time!

Latvia 2016 - Samanta Tīna - The Love Is Forever

(Click here for the best chuckle of the weekend...)

Ms Tīna is well known among Latvia watchers for not only having had more than a few goes at this, but also for providing us with a few snide chuckles along the way. So when her entry in last week's first Supernova semi was a bit, well, usual, we had concerns that maybe she had grown up a little and got all serious like.

We shouldn't have worried.

Yep, because tonight she confounded all expectations and delivered a performance of such bewildering strangeness that it's difficult to put your finger on exactly quite what happened. It started off strangely enough. All dressed up like a disco Nefertiti, pulling strange gurns to the camera, amd seemingly unable to stick with a single song concept for more than a few second,myou really thought it couldn't get any stranger. But then it did. Big time. We won't spoil the surprise for you if you've not seen it, but you really won't see it coming. And from there on in the bonkesness magnifies, before an ending of such stultifying comedy that you'll start to wonder if this wasn't all some crazy in-joke that none of the rest of us were party to. 

But you know the strangest thing? It only went and qualified for the next round - via the jury! This season gets weirder and weirder!

Estonia 2016 - Cartoon featuring Kristel Aaslaid - Immortality

(Click here to see a brave, or terrifying, new future...)

Now here's a curious thing - and I'm amazed that there hasn't been more of a hoohaa kicked up about it. On the face of it this was a bold and interesting move. Motion capture your real life singer, and plunge the animated version of her into an amazing cartoon landscape. Occasionally tease the audience, letting them think you've gone back to the studio, then make things get even more unhinged on screen. Then at the end, reveal the real human singer in the same outfit, just to connect it to real life.

Great in theory, but give it a little extra thought and a whole hatful of potential problems begin to rack up. The first, and most simple one being - who are they going to do this in a more live situation in the Eesti Laul final. It's a slightly open secret that they record all the semi-final songs a couple of weeks in advance, with only the voting bits being shown live. But in a big live show in front of a hefty audience? Well that could prove a lot more tricky. And then there is the problem of the mo-cap itself. Those that attended the Semis in Estonia report that this was all done well in advance, and for the most part Kristel just paced about on stage, singing live, but waiting for her visual cue.

So it was the mostly-animated, prerecorded visual performance that the home voters were spending their pennies on, albeit with live vocals. How is that going to work if they're lucky enough to get to Stockholm? Will the EBU stand for it? Or will it usher in lots of acts suddenly singing along to cartoons on a big screen. It's the beginning of the end, I tells you! Even if it did look pretty cool.

This one's going to run and run, one suspects...

Estonia 2016 - Mick Pedaja - Seis

(Click here for a breathtakingly minimal three minutes...)

You always come to expect something groundbreakingly exciting or achingly minimal from the Estonians, but last night's performance from Mick Pedaja knocked me aside with it's beautiful simplicity. Someone at ETV has clearly got a new box of lighting effects, because there were a few unusual bits and pieces in the first Laulish semi-final, but this one was the most hauntingly effective.

I won't give the whole game away, but expect a lone, back-lit figure on stage, with some of the most gently fragile lighting and camera effects we've ever seen at this show. They song's a really heartbeat slowing breathtaker too. Wowsers.

On suspects that if something this wispy got to Eurovision proper it would get a bit lost in the big noisy pack, but as a standalone three minutes it's an artefact of the utmost musical beauty. Could watch this one again and again and again.

Switzerland 2016 - Kaceo - Disque d'Or

(Click here, then immediately turn the sound down...)

That Swiss final was a bit of a strange one. No decent songs by any reasonable measure, a bland put winner, and a whole load of cover versions for no apparent reason. But it did have this...

OK, so the band are insufferably smug raggle taggle merchants trying to be wacky, but look... the drummer's wearing boxing gloves! And the singer's riding a little unicorn!

Oh please yourselves!

Italy 2016 - Stadio - Un Giorno Mi Dirai

(Click here to see a glorious bandwagon on the roll...)

An absolutely smashing thing has been going on all week in Sanremo. At the start of the week you wouldn't given this gaggle of understated old boys a light of hauling in the nobbily trophy and bagging themselves a chance of Eurovision glory. But as the days have slowly rolled by, the wind got in their sails and suddenly they started looking like serious contenders.

And when they walked the covers night the crowd got right behind them and we began to wonder if we weren't going to have a shock on our hands. Indeed, when they did the countdown of the final sixteen to see who was going to be in the superfinal, the normally staid crowd began to chant their name above all the others.

The voting in the final was a proper complicated case of cosines and algebra, and our charming host Carlo Conti kept us hanging on and hanging on for the result, like a never ending Dermot moment in the X Factor. In triplicate. But after an age they were announced as the worthy winners, and looked more surprised than anyone else in the building.

Now, will RAI be brave enough to send this to Sweden? I bloody hope so!

Austria 2016 - Bella Wagner - Weapons Down

(Click here for an intense three minutes...)

Alright, so when I made my first couple of run-throughs of the songs I didn't pay this one much mind. There's something in me that instantly recoils at the regulation Eurovision peace ballad, so I listened to a bit and then skipped on to the next one. But in this game, a strong performance can dredge a regulation performance out of the mire of anonymity - and boy did our Bella manage that in bucketloads!

From the start her cowelled garb, pallid anti-make up and alien expression set the viewer on edge, her strong but fractured voice emoting the song's lyric like she was actually standing there in a warzone like some kind of battle scarred bat. But then when she swooshed back her robe to reveal naught but gauze and bandage, it all started to get a bit intense.

You won't see many singers this season working the camera to a more powerful result, and in the three long minutes Bella swung me from not caring a fig about another worthy battle song to believing every damn minute of it and hoping she was going to win the ticket to Stockholm. She deserved a superfinal place at the very least, although we suspect the Elly V loving jury vote put paid to that. Bella versus Zoé? What an interesting battle that would have been.

Austria 2016 - Zoë - Loin d'Ici

(Click here for an incredibly sweet three minutes of pop...)

After the incredible highs and lows of the last two years, Austria really need to get back on track and reclaim their traditional mid-table position. But one quick skim down the finalists for tonight's big show yields a whole lot of lower order non-qualifiers and ne'er-do-wells - all bar one song. This song.

OK, so it might not be the most rock 'n' roll three minutes of the year so far, but it's quite possibly the sweetest, reminiscent of all those wide-eyed French chansons this contest used to spit out at the tag end of the sixties, but with a hip, contemporary underlay bubbling on beneath. 

"But wait a minute, you said French?", I hear you enquire. That's right, this song is delivered entirely in the language of love. And no, you haven't tuned into Switzerland by mistake. It's a big risk sending a song warbled in entirely the wrong language for your nation - even wronger than doing it in English. But good heavens, unless she sings like a coughing sealion in the live situation there's not going to be a lot to beat this in any language unless the Austrians have taken more of a dislike to their nearby neighbours than we ever imagined.

Romania 2016 - Hayley Evetts - Brand New Day

(Click here to witness something doubly unexpected...)

OK, so we're used to strange things happening in Romania, but something pretty difficult to comprehend has just happened down Bucharest way. Let's see if we've got this right...

Remember that Hayley Evetts? You know, the sweet one off Pop Idol 2002? Yes her. Well not only has she entered in Romania, but it sounds just she's being backed by an ELO trib act. Yes, we know.

Stranger still, word has it that it's written by one Martin Bayley - who you may remember as the musical airline pilot who wrote pretty much the UK's last decent effort - Jessica Garlick's Come Back.

There's too much maths there to fully understand, but how the heck has this come to be? Help me, mummy. Help me. 

Italy 2016 - Elio e Le Storie Tese - Vincere L'Odio

(Click here for the most hectic three and bit bit minutes of the year...)

You can always rely on the Elio's for a bit of a hoot, but the boys have excelled themselves this year, submitting an entry that's not so much a song, but a medley of all the best Sanremo songs from the 50s to the 70s that you've never actually heard.

Seriously, it's a thing of beauty. Every time you start to get familiar with a segment they whip off and kick into the next one at breakneck speed. Musical genres and epochs hold no bounds for them, as they dart stylistically around the world of song and manage to cram them all into a compact form, leaving you all exhausted and disorientated by the story's end. Fans of Frank Zappa and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band will love it, mind.

It's impossible to hum, and even more difficult to explain, and even though one suspects they'll get their traditional face-saving second or third place finish, I'd really love this to get chosen to get the golden ticket to Sweden. There are very few of the fan sites that even have the language to explain what's going on, and it'll confound and confuse the heck out of a whole continent of commentators. A boy can but dream though!

Iceland 2016 - Greta Salomé - Raddirnar

 (Click here to give your eyes a rare monochrome treat…)

I wasn't overly impressed why I heard the audio-only version of this tune a few weeks back. OK, so it was a pleasant enough song, delivered engagingly by a singer that we know we can trust, but it was kind of lost in the pack for me. That is until I saw her perform it live. Sometimes it's not merely the staging and attendant mcguffins that make a performance great, but the way the talent interacts with is, and Greta Salomé has got this one pegged bang to rights.

A few less imaginative commentators are calling foul and sying that she's lifting her act from both Loreen AND Måns, but I'm not sure that Loreen has copyrighted crouching down for a bit during about three seconds of a song in any way. The Måns accuasation is perhaps a tad more precient, but after how many years of artists limply stamping about in front of a dazzling screen, it was about time a few of them finally decided to embrace the art and get creative with the projections. And our lass here does it in shovels.

More reminiscent of that Hungarian shadow mob who kept winning Britain's Got Talent than any kind of animated stickman affair, this screen is an altogether darker proposition, in both tone and colour scheme, and if it's lucky enough to get to Stockholm should yield everybody's favourite icy island it's best result in years. Just as long as them tricky Swedes don't mess about with the back screen's format and shape, that is...

Italy 2016 - Enrico Ruggeri - Il Primo Amore Non Si Scorda Ma

(Click here to hear the lad himself...)

Samremo's on. Five full days of songs, shouting and confusion. Of slick, bored men and women who's been procedured to the very edges of expression talking an awful lot, and occasionally letting the odd tune or two sneak out among all the blather and madness. We bloody love it at Apocalypse Towers. But while the first half of the songs weren't quite up to the usual gravelly standards, here was still plenty to enjoy.

Enrico here's got form, of course, and still sits among the higher thrones of Italian music stardom. So when his Sanremo 2016 tune began a little inauspiciously we did begin to wonder if he still had it. This concern was compounded when it all turned into a bit of weak reggae two-beat. But we shouldn't have worried - an unexpected gear change lumped the whole affair into a bit of a stomp rock belter, and our Enrico started strutting around the stage like a bald peacock, crouching like a man with the knees of a 15-year-old in slightly too tight trews. 

And then it got stranger. A tuxedoed man began to wibble about with an analogue synth, before the orchestra stringed it up and it all got incredibly rich and noisy. Wowsers. This song would in no way light up Eurovision proper, but in Sanremo terms it made absolute, perfect sense. Part of me would love this to get through to Stockholm, if only because it would confused the heck out of the Euroclub set. But we'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow has to offer. Because in this game, anything could happen.