RTP, Portugal’s state broadcaster, has revealed the names of the 10 composers it has invited to pen songs for Festival da Canção, the Portuguese national selection. It’s invitation only, y’all.
The composers
Marc Paelinck
Emanuel
Jan van Dijk
Nuno Feist
Andréj Babic
Tozé Santo
João de Matos and Antunes Varela
Ricardo Afonso, Luis Fernando, and Rui Fingers
Tiago Pais Dias
João So
The veteran
You’ll remember Eurovision veteran Andréj Babic as the composer of “Senhora do mar (Negras águas) (Lady of the sea (Dark waters)), which Vania Fernandes sang for Portugal in 2008.
Andréj also wrote Croatia’s 2003 entry “Vise nisam tvoja”, sung by Claudia Beni; Bosnia & Herzegovina’s 2005 entry “Call Me”, sung by Feminnem; and Slovenia’s 2007 entry “Cvet z juga”, sung by Alenka Gotar, among others.
Photo: Eurovision.tv (EBU)
@Arianna: There is plenty of information, stories and commentary on old Eurovision editions all over the internet, so it’s up to you to want to find out about the “grandparents” of current Eurovision, where Gay was still not the way, transsexuals never dared to grab a mic to sing … and Ukrainians homage to pre-historic humanity was unthinkable much less monster faces from Finland … Everybody just had one goal in mind: present the best song one could honestly sing, and sing it great with dignity and respect toward themselves as artists and towards the countries they represented. Probably this… Read more »
Charlessssssss do a blog of flashback eurovision or something (Personally, I’d read it, I’m not taking the mickey out of ya!)
@Alex: Do what I have always done over the years … listen to what happened over the different years of Eurovision and judge yourself with your own ears … I don’t want to share my favourites. You have to pick up your own … away from outside comments and views so that you don’t get influenced. It’s a great journey for any Eurovision fan who loved this before Dana International joined in to … well never mind.
Charles, any particular recommendations from those songs?
@Alex: Try to find out what Portugal had given us in the years before televoting .. hopefully you will be amazed or bored.
For me, the best song Portugal’s had since 2008 is definitely the entry in 2009 from Flor-de-Lis. Since then, I’ve felt underwhelmed. 2010 was an okay ballad, but 2012 wasn’t quite as powerful as it intended to be, and 2011 was just lazy. The singers could have at least harmonized!
Portugal and Eurovision: an interesting theme for a few reasons. We’re in 2014, 15 years since televoting truly ruled this whole thing in a stronger way than ever, where orchestras vanished and music quality said goodbye massively to only come back just for a few songs every now and then … Portugal hasn’t however quite grasped all those changes and seriously realised the dramatic way Eurovision became this huge over the top show and stopped being what was supposed to be: a music contest. Portugal still lingers on to the memories of their past songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s… Read more »
He also wrote “Love Symphony” by Quartissimo feat. Martina back in 2009.
Plus a dozen song from various NFs 😀
and 2012’s “Vida Minha”