After four weeks of semi-finals, Norway introduced us to artists from all the regions of the country. Now it’s time for the last region — this week we’re heading North. NRK has revealed the acts for the fifth and final semi-final of the Norwegian Eurovision 2020 preselection.
They competing acts are: Elin & The Woods, Jenny Jenssen, Kevin Boine, and Liza Vassilieva.
Melodi Grand Prix 2020 – Semi-Final Five Acts (Northern Norway)
Elin & The Woods – “We Are As One”
Elin Kåven (40) is from Karasjok and has worked together with producer Robin Lynch since 2015. Elin & The Woods can best be described as “indigenous electro-pop” according to themselves. The musical project previously took part in Melodi Grand Prix in 2017 with “First Step In Faith”. This time, their song “We Are As One” is about believing in oneself.
Lyrics and music: Robin Lynch, Elin Kåven, Ylva Persson and Linda Persson
Jenny Jenssen – “Mr. Hello”
Jenny Jenssen (55) comes from Bjervik, not far from polar circle city Narvik. In Norway, Jenny is a household name with a varied career, having sold over 300,000 records in her life so far. When she last participated in Melodi Grand Prix in 2007, Jenny just had become a mother. Now, her daughter will join her on stage as a dancer during the performance of her song “Mr. Hello”.
Lyrics and music: Mats Larsson, Jørgen Andson and Jenny Jenssen
Kevin Boine – “Stem på mæ”
Kevin Boine (26) hails from Tana and has been one of the most popular artists to sing in the Norwegian language in the past few years. Nicknamed the “Finnmark’s party king”, Kevin Boine gathered over 70 million streams in December 2019. In Melodi Grand Prix 2020, Kevin will sing the entry “Stem på mæ”, which means “Vote for me”.
Lyrics and music: Henning Olerud and Stanley Ferdinandez
Liza Vassilieva – “I Am Gay”
Liza Vassilieva (30) was originally born in Murmansk, Russia, but moved to Norway at the age of three. She grew up in Kirkenes and studied European Studies in Trondheim. It was in Trondheim where she started her songwriting career, most notably co-writing KPOP group TWICE’s single “Eyes Eyes Eyes”. Although Liza is not gay herself, she wants to sing about LGBT acceptance since she wants to show solidarity and normalise the topic.
Lyrics and music: Audun Agnar Guldbrandsen, Stian Nyhammer Olsen, Myrtoula Røe and Liza Vassilieva
Melodi Grand Prix 2020: The five pre-qualified artists
Five artists have been pre-selected for the final in Trondheim on February 15. They are Tone Damli, Ulrikke Brandstorp, Akuvi, Didrik & Emil and Sondrey.
The five acts were selected by an internal jury — the usual method for MGP. Each of the pre-qualified acts has performed their competing song at one of the five semi-finals, to ensure that Norwegian viewers are exposed to all the competing songs prior to the grand final on 15 February.
The final pre-qualified act to perform her song is Melodi Grand Prix 2009 runner-up Tone Damli.She will showcase “Hurts Sometimes” during the fifth semi.
Are you excited by these artists? Did you know any of them before? Let us know in the comments box down below.
Pictures: NRK Presse
Elin & The Woods for me too. Though the definition “indigenous electro-pop” is more exciting than the song itself. Liza’s song sounds like if Disney decided to finally add a openly gay character to High School Musical (which I was told it happened in the new streaming show).
Elin & the Woods, please !
Stem på mae is catchy:) I am gay haha is very cringe.
Tbh, I don’t like any of them. I’m sorry… Until now my favorite finalists are Raylee, Ulrikke, Akuvi and Kristin.
Kevin Boine sounds sizzling
Umm… excuse me? Elin & The Woods is *definitely* my winner of the semi simply by the fact they are the only ones to have a solid song. It didn’t pull me in as their last one did on first listening, but I listened for the whole three minutes without a facepalm. My second would be Kevin for the simple fact that it’s a joke. It’s corny and repetitive, but if the performance is good, it *might* be a guilty pleasure. Liza’s song is exactly the kind of ”gay entry” I was talking about recently – substituting message with substance.… Read more »
I was the one saying people to stay positive, so this might be counter-productive. MGP has great stagings, production and entertainment values. I am sure it will be a hoot watching all of them on stage. Good luck to all the participants and good luck to Norway. 🙂
They all have something to them, but my winners are Elin & the Woods. Liza’s song is catchy so she’d be my runner up.
Jenny Jenssen is such a guilty pleasure, like its bad, but would be so iconic if she won the semi.
I like Jenny but that song….. Sad that she did not had any better
Hope Elin & The Woods!
Wigwam reformed and I was hoping they would be in one of these heats. Whereas i enjoyed Joust I prefered DEmolition a few years back. Awesome band. 🙁
Elin in the woods for me. The rest are dire.
well… they could’ve skipped all the semis and just done their usual final with 10 acts bc mgp songs this year have been mostly horrid, these four are no exception. at least we have ulrikke.
Ulrikke, Akuvi, Kristin, Hege in of themselves would have been an awesome gold final in a usual MGP edition
We can safely say that the winner won’t come from this semi.
Euro 2020 football in June-July is more exiting than Eurovision 2020. Eurovision is a very nice show too. The best Eurovision year was maybe 2010. I think 2013 was a bad year tho.
Ok
This has nothing to do with anything
Seriously? Football is absolutely dire.
Stem på mæ is amazing!! The only good song from this semi.
The worst semi out of them all. I can’t see any of these songs competing against ulrikke or Raylee. Tbh i think «How about Mars», «Pang» «come alive» & «talking about us» is all a lot stronger then any og these songs. I hope Tone has something amazing, if not i think this will be Ulrikke’s year. Either Ulrikke or Raylee.
Rein Or Ulrikke for me
pang is my mgp winner but alas
I totally agree with you!
We have the exact same opinion and I love it.
From this semi-final, I prefer “I Am Gay”.
But this year Melodi Grand Prix is very weak….
Ulrikke is winning. I do not see any other outcome out of this.
The ‘I Am Gay’ song by a straight girl is disturbing
yooo she’s a straight ally, don’t drag her
I think she took the ally position too far with this. Know your place girl. Stand next to us. Not in front of us.
@RoboESC summed it up perfectly.
Yeah. What was so wrong with a song called ‘I am straight’?
Not a bad semi… three outta the four really stand out, those being Elin & The Woods, Kevin, and Liza. Each for different reasons. The fourth I honestly couldn’t listen to the whole thing. Now I do rather like Liza’s song the most(me being gay has no part other than I lol’d at the title and lyrics the whole time) it’s very funny and upbeat with a good(despite overdone) message/theme. Elin & The Woods and Kevin’s song would be a better option to move on(as they aren’t really gonna alienate certain people). Haven’t heard the last automatic qualifier yet but… Read more »
I hate when people are downvoted for liking a thing
happens all the time on this website sadly. I responded to someone saying who the juries for Australia Decides were with the words ‘oh cool’ and got twice downvoted. I literally only said ‘oh cool’.
Lolz… people hate people who have different opinions… oh well. I say like what you like and hate what you hate and if people don’t like it ignore them and keep on being you.
Id choose stem på mæ, hard to see any potential in this bunch though. My only wish is: please dont choose that i am gay song..
“Although Liza is not gay herself, she wants to sing about LGBT acceptance since she wants to show solidarity and normalise the topic.”
Interesting – why, among all groups that may need her support, she opted to sing about gay people? I really cannot think of a reason.
Because she’s shamelessly pandering.
Haha I know, right? So nice of her to represent a group that’s been so unexposed in ESC previously. 😉
bc gays still face a lot of discrimination. someone with a serbian flag in his avi should know better.
You misunderstood him. What he meant is that her intention is not pure and honest, she just pretends to support gays so that she could get votes. And in order to really get the votes, singer needs to be believable… which is not the case with this singer.
i…don’t think she’s pretending to support. y’all so petty
Thanks.
Unless Tone comes with something special, this is still Ulrikke’s to lose.
I hope so too, would love to see Ulrikke at Eurovision finally!
I feel Ulrikke would be top 10 at Eurovision! Norway better send her!
Wow what a problematic semi (no pun intended!)
The indie rock song probably gets it because I couldn’t even get through 30 seconds of mr hello, I feel like it’s too soon for joiking again and the last song makes me feel really uncomfortable
still salty over pang being robbed like that
Agree?
I guess we all know now who should win the competition right?
Kristin Husoy it’s a must, the rest are really poor.
Also, this semi is awful, but incredibly and despite the title, the best is I am gay.
CB.
We are as One is actually the first one of this year’s MGP semi final song I really like and want to give a second listen. I was a fan of First step in Faith, but this is even better. I just hope Elin Kåven leave her hair jewellery at home this year;-)
Elin and the woods seem the only good one throughout
I am gay is not bad , but seems very off-putting for some reason
The other two are not very good
Ah , Elin and the woods competed in 2017 and made the final 4 despite not getting any jury support !
So they can make the final , I suppose .
Yes , they’ll win the semi without a doubt .
‘i am gay’ got me gigglingggg it’s like katy perry got even gayer yas.
Elin & the woods is the only good option here
I want Stem på mæ to win this semi but idk hearing someone sing vote for me in their language is funny tho
I can honestly say that when Elin And The Woods competed last time, I liked the idea of them more than….them. I didn’t think their song was much of a…you know…song. However, this song is pretty epic!
Wow. It got even worse. I’ll take back my semi final 1 misgivings about a certain someone. This selection could actually use more mediocre Laurell Barker songs.
I blame everyone who voted for Norway last year. They fluked the televote win with a rubbish song and now Norway will try to send rubbish again.
And the pseudo folksy song of the year is a thousand times more pseudo and lazy. Also, normalizing the ‘I am gay’ topic is still a thing in Norway? U gotta be kidding me. Besides, gays who are into good music have truly suffered enough.
“gays who are into good music have truly suffered enough”
(Comment of the month!) 😀 😀 😀
Oh yes. Trashy corny ballads not qualifying is so much better than current culture pop!
That’s a bit harsh. The expanded format means we’re hearing some songs that usually wouldn’t make the cut in a ten song final. The actual winners of the semis and the prequalified acts are overall of a slightly higher standard than we are used to in MGP- with Ulrikke’s Attention being touted by many fans as being capable to win in Rotterdam and not just Trondheim.