It’s the Eurovision foundation country that’s trying to turn around its recent run of non-qualification. Now Switzerland‘s Head of Delegation Reto Peritz has revealed that six acts have finally been selected for Die Entscheidungsshow. And a lot of effort has gone into getting just the right combination of singers and songs.

The last time we checked in with Switzerland, we learned that 670 songs had been entered into the revamped national final ESC 2018 – Die Entscheidungsshow. A songwriting camp was also held, where top songwriters gathered to pen potential hits for Switzerland.

Now Swiss Eurovision site douzepoints.ch has spoken to the Swiss HoD Reto Peritz to get the lowdown on the new national final.

He revealed that the selection jury has been hard at work listening to all 670 of the submitted songs. They evaluated the songs in stages, and came up with a short list of six songs.

The next step has been to match the songs with the most suitable singer. The reformulated Swiss national final has moved the emphasis to songs over singers. While songs could be entered with suggested singers attached, the selection panel primarily considered the quality of songs.

Peritz confirmed that many different singers were demoed for each song. But now the six singers have been decided. The final versions of the six songs are being worked on now and will be ready in mid-December.

Details of the selected artists and their songs will be revealed in just over a month’s time — in the second week of January.

Peritz told douzepoints.ch that a lot of debate went into picking the right singer for each song. He said, “For some songs, it was very easy to know which voice suited. For other songs, we had to resort to more tests and try different voices to achieve the desired quality. And of course, we had a lot of discussions on the subject. We are now very happy with the six selected artists and look forward to working together for Entscheidungsshow – ESC 2018.”

Peritz also says that the Swiss delegation is very happy with the jury’s decisions. He says the six selected acts offer different types of performers and music genres.

The six acts will battle it out at the grand final on 4 February. Switzerland’s 2017 act Timebelle will also make an appearance, and Peritz says the show will also pay tribute to “Amar pelos dois”. The national final will also debut an international jury, and will have a dramatic voting reveal to keep viewers guessing until the end.

What do you think? Can the revamped national final get Switzerland back in the grand final? Who would you like to see represent Switzerland at Eurovision? Share your thoughts below!

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AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

I’m not in favour of this “first the song and then match it with a singer” process. I don’t have high expectations from Switzerland. Hope for sth good though! Good luck to them!

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
6 years ago

They have the same problem that the UK have. If you are only putting up six songs for the national selection, you put a lot of pressure on your experts to get those six songs right.
Based on the quality of both national finals over the years, that is something they do. If they had 670 song submissions, why not put of them out to the public to decide?

Tomás Patrick davitt
Tomás Patrick davitt
6 years ago

I always have extremely low expectations for Switzerland. I’ve only liked 2 of their songs since 2007 – Dj Bobo and Sebalter. The rest have been complete misses for me.

I live in hope of being pleasantly surprised

Mark
Mark
6 years ago

Good lucky Switzerland

Blaziker from SG
Blaziker from SG
6 years ago

How many of you had missed the crazy online submissions of the previous years (to me, some of the online submission entries that did not make it to the final should have represented Switzerland)?

That aside, I am hoping Switzerland find a banger that is miles ahead of their amazingly catchy 2014 entry…