Estonia: 215 entries were submitted for Eesti Laul 2024!

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ERR, the Estonian national broadcaster, has announced that the Eesti Laul format will remain as the country’s selection process for Eurovision 2024. The submission window for Eesti Laul 2024 closed today and although until a week ago only 12 entries were submitted, it turns out that actually the vast majority of the submissions were made in the last moment.

A total of 215 songs were submitted claiming the Estonian representation in Malmö. Specifically, out of the 215 songs

  • 88 of them are written in Estonian language
  • 126 are written in English, and
  • one is written in Italian!

Moreover, among the candidates there are both famous and established artists as well as newcomers, who also intend on getting in front of a large audience via Eesti Laul.

What’s next?

This year, a special jury of 35 people is anticipated to evaluate the submissions in the upcoming period and will therefore choose the 20 songs that will advance to the next stage of the competition. Out of the 20 songs:

  • five will be chosen by the jury in order to advance directly to the Grand Final,
  • while the other fifteen will participate in the Semi-Final.

During the Grand Final and following the vote of the television audience and the jury, three entries will advance to the Super Final. At this point in the competition, Estonia’s representative in Malmö will be chosen solely by the television viewers.

The timeline of Eesti Laul 2024

Before November 8th, 2023, the 20 artists competing to represent Estonia will be announced, and before December 8th, the competing songs will be revealed.

The Semi-Final will take place on January 20, while the Grand Final will be held on February 17.

The winner of Eesti Laul 2023 and hence Estonia’s representative in Eurovision 2023 was Alika with her song “Bridges“. Alika finished 8th overall, marking the country’s best result in years.

https://youtu.be/HsbC-OYMA3s

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Source: ERR

Estonia: The Eesti Laul 2024 submission deadline has expired!

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Today marked the end of the submission period for Eesti Laul 2024, the national final through which Estonia’s entry for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Malmö, Sweden in May 2024, will be selected.

A special jury is anticipated to evaluate the submissions in the upcoming period and choose the 20 songs that will advance to the next stage of the competition. Before November 8th, 2023, the 20 artists competing to represent Estonia will be announced, and before December 8th, the songs will be revealed.

This year, there will be certain differences in the way that Eesti Laul is conducted from prior years. Five of the 20 songs chosen will advance directly to the grand final on February 17 while the other fifteen will participate in the semi-final on January 20.

Following vote by the television audience and the judging panels during the final, three entries will advance to the Super Final. At this point in the competition, Estonia’s representative in Malmö will be chosen solely by the television viewers.

This year Estonia was represented by Alika, with the song “Bridges”. Alika managed to defy predictions and deliver her country the best result in recent years by placing 8th with 168 points despite the bookies’ doubts about her qualification.

Stay tuned on EurovisionFun to stay up to date on all the latest news about the world’s largest music competition!

Source: ERR

Norway: The Grand Final of MGP 2024 will take place on February 3!

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Norway has confirmed that Melodi Grand Prix will remain as the country’s selection process for Eurovision 2024. The submission window closed for those interested in submitting an entry on August 31 and the process that will filter down the entrants, who will participate in the main event, is currently progressing.

As we get closer to the main show, Stig Karlsen, the Head of the Norwegian delegation, announced that the Grand Final of Melodi Grand Prix 2024 will take place on February 3 2024.

Melodi Grand Prix 2024 timeline

As far as we are concerned, MGP 2024 will include three semi finals, with six participants each. From each semi final, probably three acts will advance to the Grand Final of February 3. Hence, bearing in mind the afore-mentioned MGP 2024 structure, we conclude that the dates of Melodi Grand Prix 2024 will be as following:

  • First Semi Final: January 13
  • Second Semi Final: January 20
  • Third Semi Final: January 27
  • Grand Final: February 3

A new stage director

The recent developments indicate that after the retirement of Mattias Carlsson, MGP’s stage director since 2008, Mona Berntsen will take on.

Mona Bernsten is a famous dancer of Norwegian-Morrocan origin, who has worked with several big artists of the international music scene. Indicatively, she has worked with Justin Bieber on his Purpose World Tour, as well as with Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown and even Madonna on the latter’s Eurovision performance in 2019.

Mona has also participated in “So You Think You Can Dance Scandinavia“, which she won and in the Norwegian edition of this dance-show format, from which she withdrew because of an injury.

What’s next?

The assessment of the submitted acts is still ongoing and we expect the reveal of MGP’s 2024 line-up in early January, probably on January 5. Moreover, since there was no announcement made, we are still expecting the announcement of the venue that will host MGP 2024 in early 2024.

Norway has managed to establish a really successful selection process, which evolves and grows each year. The success story of the Melodi Grand Prix format is also depicted on the country’s results during the past years. Another example of this success story was the winner of last year’s Melodi Grand Prix, Alessandra, who represented the country in Liverpool with her song “Queen of Kings“, finishing third in the public vote and fifth overall.

https://youtu.be/PUHSM_vTqTI

Stay tuned to EurovisionFun for all news!

Source: escnorge

Germany: Artists who submitted for “Das Deutsche Finale 2024”!

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Seven more artists who are likely to represent Germany in the upcoming Eurovision contest in Malmö were made public earlier today on the ESC Kompakt website.

John Riot

John Riot is a German model and singer. His participation in The Voice seven years ago helped make him well-known to the general public and he currently has over 100,000 Instagram followers. The singer has attempted to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest before. In 2020, he attempted to represent San Marino but did not manage to win the ticket to Rotterdam. His song for this year’s “Deutsche Finale,” “Intoxicated”, addresses the bullying and exclusion that members of the LGBTQ+ community encounter, a topic he claims he has personally experienced.

 

Gute Katze Böse Katze

Among the artists that might be included in the final list of contenders for the “Deutsche Finale 2024” is the band Gute Katze Böse Katze, which characterizes its sound as “Hamburg cuddly punk”. The group submitted the song “Rendezvous” with Waldinsel Records. The band feels that winning the national selection will be hard, because the song is unconventional and is sung in German.

Gloria Massamba

Gloria Massamba rose to fame in Germany following her victory in the “Erftkreis Lied Contest,” a regional competition in which ten municipalities compete with one song each. This year, she submitted the pop-dance song “Start Again”, along with producer Dieter Kirchenbauer.

Eva Lima

Eva Lima is known in Germany’s electro-pop scene. This year, she is claiming the country’s representation with the song “Scared Of The Dark”, which stays true to the singer’s well-known musical identity. The hip-hop tempo and the song’s dark atmosphere give this particular participation an extra layer of interest.

@evalimamusic Mein Song für Malmö 🇸🇪🇩🇪#esc2024 #eurovisionsongcontest #germanyeurovision #unsersongfürmalmö #twelvepoints #esc ♬ original sound – Eva Lima

Fabio

Fabio, who is of Italian descent, is mostly known in Germany from TikTok, where he has a particularly high level of popularity. He recently released the song “Shake it”, with which she aspires to participate in the “Deutsche Finale 2024”.

Dario Black

Dario Black is another artist who made his interest in representing Germany known via TikTok. You can listen to his track, “Let The Music” below:

@iamdarioblack “Let The Music” for Eurovision Germany 2024. A fusion of latin pop & electronic music is gonna be 🔥 on stage. #eurovisiongermany2024 @ESC Deutschland #eurovision ♬ original sound – Dario Black

Ksenia Eirich

Ksenia Eirich’s song is entitled “Wherever I Go”. It is a combination of various musical styles, including rock, rap, and dark-pop. Below you can watch the music video of her entry, which she has directed herself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0fH0Dwpe_c

The German broadcaster NDR reports that 693 proposals in total were submitted. In particular, 475 solo singers, 71 duets and 127 bands aspire to participate on the German national selection. Greek-German singer Melissa Mantzoukis is among the artists that submitted an entry. Information on the upcoming stages of the evaluation as well as the final list of songs that will compete on February 18 will be released soon.

Germany was represented this year by Lord of the Lost and the song “Blood and Glitter”. The band, which is well-known in Germany, came in last place overall, with a total of 18 points. Will Germany be able to recover from its string of poor results and move to the left side of the leaderboard?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyGR4YWlPEs&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Feurovisionfun.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun to stay up to date on all the latest news about the world’s largest music competition!

Source: ESC Kompakt 

Netherlands: Caro Emerald’s lead singer wants to participate in Eurovision!

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Dutch Singer Caroline van der Leeuw has expressed interest in competing in the Eurovision Song Contest. The singer currently goes as “The Jordan” and rose to fame in Europe while playing with the band Caro Emerald. One of her greatest hits to date is “A Night Like This”, which she released in 2009.

In an interview with NPO Radio 5’s Volgspot she stated that when the appropriate song is found that best represents her as an artist, she would like to enter the competition.

More precisely, she stated:

“I have no intention of writing a song specifically for Eurovision. I don’t think it works that way. Artists ought to produce work that speaks to them and, if appropriate, submit it”.

Van der Leeuw has previously collaborated with Wouter Hardy, who has so far participated, successfully, three times in the contest. To be more precise, he has signed the following participations: “Bridges” (Estonia 2023), “Tout l’univers” (Switzerland 2021), and “Arcade” (Netherlands 2019). The singer was asked if she would be open to working with Hardy to compete in Eurovision. But in her opinion, at least not in the near future, such a thing is not achievable.

“I must say that it went through my head, but we haven’t talked about it and Wouter doesn’t have any time”.

The deadline for the submission of entries for the internal selection of the Netherlands expired on 30 September and the evaluation of the proposals is currently under way. Among the names likely to be considered for the Dutch representation are Douwe Bob, Tim Douwsma, Numidia, Joost & Donnie and  Stefania.

Last year, Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper represented the Netherlands with the song “Burning Daylight”. The entry placed 13th in the semifinals, marking the country’s first elimination since 2015.

Stay tuned on EurovisionFun to stay up to date on all the latest news about the world’s largest music competition!

Source: AD

Azerbaijan: 16 artists have advanced to the “Live Auditions” round!

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Azerbaijan will choose its act for Eurovision 2024 internally, as usual. The submission window, for those interested in submitting an entry, closed on September 30. The submission process turned out to be successful enough, as İTV announced that 214 entries were submitted in total.

İTV provided us today with some news about the development of the process via its social media accounts. The submitted proposals were filtered out and 16 artists have been selected in order to compete in the “Live Auditions” round.

 

Although, there is no further information about the progress of this selection stage, it seems that İTV intends on testing its Eurovision candidates’ vocal and performance skills. The candidate who has the best song and can deliver it vocal and performance wise, will be the one to represent the nation to Malmö.

Azerbaijan wants to overturn the tables after its second non qualification this year, in Liverpool. TuralTuranX with their song “Tell Me More”, managed to finish only second to last in their Semi-Final.

Stay tuned to EurovisionFun for all the news regarding the Azeri participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Malmö!

Malta: The participants’ list of MESC 2024!

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The Maltese archipelago has confirmed its 2024 Eurovision participation. Along with confirming its participation, it was announced in August that Malta Eurovision Song Contest (MESC) will return as the country’s selection process for the third year in a row. The submission window opened in late August and remained open until September 30.

After reviewing the submitted proposals, the 36 participants, who will participate in the Semi-Final of MESC were announced.

According to the official statement of TVM on Facebook, Malta Eurovision Song Contest’s 2024 participants are the following:

  • Kyle George – Arrows
  • Matt Blxck – Banana
  • Dan – Baraxx
  • Christian Arding – Bellus
  • Miguel Bonello – Better Off Alone
  • Dominic Cini – Bewsa
  • Thea Aquilina – Blood Stream
  • Karin Duff – Breaking Bad
  • Lisa Gauci – Breathe
  • Oxygyn – Cloudmaker
  • Mark Anthony Bartolo – Condition Or Friction
  • Sopranique – Empire
  • Marie Claire – Fading
  • Moira Starface – Feather Flight
  • Lyndsay Pace – Fire Proof
  • Cosette Baldacchino – Free Fall
  • Nathan – Ghost
  • Mark Portelli – Just Be
  • Ryan Hili – Karma
  • Michela Galea – Let’s Talk About Love 
  • Sarah Bonnici – Loop
  • Janvil – Man
  • Denise Mercieca – Mara
  • Martina Cutajar – Miles Away
  • Kurt Calleja – Misunderstood
  • Maria Christina – Moving On
  • Stefan Galea – Numb
  • Franklin Calleja – Puppet
  • Erba’ – Sirena
  • Jessica Micallef – Taghna Tnejn
  • Haley Azzopardi – Tell Me That It’s Over
  • Eliana Gomez Blanco – There’s Only Flowers
  • Greta Tude – Topic (Bla Bla)
  • Miriana Conte – Venom
  • Desirei Grech – Watch Me
  • Gail Attard – Wild Card

On the participants’ list, we can spot some artists that have participated in MESC before, as well as a former Junior Eurovision participant, Eliana Gomez Blanco(Malta 2019).

What’s next?

As revealed in August, MESC 2024 will see significant changes. In depth and from now on, the competitive procedure of MESC 2024 will include the following phases:

Phase II – Semi Final
  • Artists will perform their songs live via a TV show that will be broadcasted for several weeks.
  • The top 12 artists via a combination of jury and public vote will qualify to the Grand Final.
  • The procedure is expected to start somewhere between October and November.
Phase III – Grand Final
  • The Grand Final will be held in January 2024.
  • Every participant will have a budget of 5.000 euros for producing and filming a video-clip of its entry.
  • Every participant will film a live-on-tape performance in December 2023(the artists will have 60 minutes to film 3 performances and between these, the best will be chosen)
  • The winner will be decided from a jury and public vote.

After two consecutive years of non-qualification, Malta is trying its best in order to achieve again a spot in the Grand Final.

Stay tuned to EurovisionFun for all news regarding the Maltese entry in Eurovision 2024!

United Kingdom: BBC One will broadcast all Eurovision 2024 shows!

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The BBC recently announced that the UK will compete in the 68th Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Malmö, Sweden, in May 2024.

At the same time, it was announced that the two semi-finals of Eurovision 2024 as well as the grand final will all be broadcasted on BBC One, as was the case in 2023 when the country hosted the competition on behalf of Ukraine. The broadcaster’s decision to broadcast the contest once more on its top-rated and most popular channel is a sign of a significant shift in the latter’s perspective on the competition.

The record-breaking high television ratings from the competition last year, which reached 55% and 29.8 million people, had an important impact in this choice.

In addition, it was revealed that Lee Smithurst, executive producer for BBC Studios, and Will Wilkin, executive director for BBC Music, had spent the summer conducting a search for the UK’s upcoming participation in the Eurovision song contest.

This year, the United Kingdom was represented by Mae Muller with the song “I wrote a song”, finishing in 25th place with 24 points. Will the United Kingdom be able to achieve a higher position in Malmö ?

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun to stay up to date on all the latest news about the world’s largest music competition!

Source: Wiwibloggs 

Cyprus: Silia Kapsis wows again with her vocals!

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Silia Kapsis, Cyprus’s representative in Eurovision 2024, gave us another small but impressive sample of her vocal skills today. Silia performs the song “I’m Here” from the musical The Color Purple, live with just a piano accompaniment, in a clip she shared via her personal YouTube account. The final result, as you can see, is impressive, despite the fact that it was captured with a single camera shot.

Everyone has been praising Silia for her dancing skills, but the young performer is undeniably a great singer too. Anyway, that was the exact reason why she was picked by RIK to represent Cyprus in Eurovision 2024.

As we have previously informed you via Eurovisionfun, the RIK team, as well as the artistic team in charge, are already working feverishly on every detail regarding the Cypriot participation. Soon they will be able to unveil the rest of the team that will accompany Silia in Malmö.

As a reminder, Silia Kapsis will represent Cyprus in Eurovision 2024 with a song written by Dimitris Kontopoulos, a composer who has been linked with numerous successful Eurovision entries in the past.

Stay tuned to EurovisionFun for all news regarding Silia’s journey on the road to Malmö!

Lithuania: The “Eurovizija.LT” submission platform has been launched!

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A national final will be used to choose Lithuania’s representative in the Eurovision Song Contest for an additional year. Unlike the past five years, though, this year’s “Pabandom iš naujo!” won’t take place. On the other hand, Lithuania’s public broadcaster, announced that the country’s entry will be determined via a new process, “Eurovizija.LT”.

The submission platform is already open and interested artists can submit their proposals until 11 December 2023.

This new procedure differs from the previous one in terms of both the manner in which it is carried out and the rules under which it is conducted. To be more precise, there will be four or five semi-finals and a grand final in Eurovizija.LT. Both a jury vote and a public vote will determine the outcome in these stages. The top three entries from the final will move on to the “Super-Final”, where the TV viewers will be the only ones deciding who wins and represents Lithuania in Malmö.

Similar to past years, the semifinals will be taped earlier in the week rather than being aired live. Furthermore, in the case of a tie in the vote, the verdict from the jury will take precedence.

Artists are limited to submitting one song each and must be citizens of Lithuania. The songwriters of the song, though, can be foreign nationals as well.

The quantity of proposals received will determine the number of participants. Lastly, each finalist will get a budget of EUR 1500 from LRT for the stage presentation of their entry.

Lithuania was represented this year by Monika Linkytė with the song “Stay” , finishing in 11th place with a total of 127 points. Will Lithuania be able to achieve another favorable outcome in Malmö?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsgouAEd34U

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun to stay up to date on all the latest news about the world’s largest music competition!

Sources: LRT, escbeat