The Eurovision season so far – part 1

Yesterday the Eurovision season kicked off with “Die grosse Entscheidungs Show”, the Swiss national final. But though “Unbreakable” is the first selected entry for 2012, many other countries have done preparations too. Here are my thoughts on what’s been going on in Switzerland, Montenegro and Serbia.

Switzerland
Yesterday the Swiss chose Sinplus to represent them in Baku. “Unbreakable”, as the song is called, is rather okay, nothing more, but the stage presentation was very well done. Whether it will do well at Eurovision is hard to predict this early, it all comes down to the draw and the quality of the other songs. The entry certainly has a better potential than many of the songs Switzerland has send in recent years. But there is a but. The English pronunciation is extremely bad. I hope that the front singer has time to take some English classes before May, or that Sinplus will translate the song to Italian.

Before seeing the live performances I had Atomic-Angels as my favourite, but they were way out of tune, and I’m glad they didn’t go to Baku. A big surprise to me was the performance by Chiara Dubey. In my opinion she was by far the best entrant yesterday and she should have won the show.

Over all the staging of the show yesterday was very well done. I liked the stage, the jury, the host and especially the short clips from Azerbaijan. Unfortunately most of the songs and the singers was rubbish; I can’t believe that Switzerland doesn’t have anything better to give us,

Montenegro
It has been announced that Montenegro will be back next year after their little break due to financial problems. I hope that in the future all of Europe will participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, so having Montenegro back is definitely an improvement. During those few years Montenegro participated in the past they didn’t do very well and never reached the final. In my opinion this was due to some very dated songs, and I hope that this break has been good for Montenegro. Hopefully they will be back with a strong entry.

Serbia
Serbia seems to be going for the win next year, why else would they be sending Željko Joksimović? As the runner-up from 2004, Željko really has a high standard to live up to. I hope that we will get to see that he has evolved musically, and that it won’t be just a “Lane moje” number two. As the song hasn’t been published yet it is dangerous to predict how Serbia will do in Baku. But I will be very surprised if Željko doesn’t make it to the final or even the top ten. I am sure this could be one of the serious contenders for the victory, but we will all have to wait and see.