Earlier this month Belarusian broadcaster BTRC confirmed the details of their national final for 2018. Applications for entries closed on December 26, with BTRC receiving over 30 submissions — and among them are a few familiar faces and returnees.
KATTIE (2017)
Minsk singer KATTIE is hoping to make a comeback to the national final one year after entering the contest. Despite the Wiwi Jury scoring last year’s ballad “Wild Wind” a fairly respectful 5.63 out of 10, KATTIE came a disappointing second-to-last position in the actual contest.
But the girl’s got attitude and tenacity – and with a year’s experience under her belt, she’s joining forces with Swedish singer Lovisoj Hector to form KATTIE & LOVISA. Their track “Through The Wild”, which she shared on Facebook, is pure Eurobeat deliciousness with Swedish flair.
ANGELIKA PUSHNOVA (2017)
Last year Angelika entered the national contest with “We Should Be Together”, a mid-tempo europop throwback which came tenth in the national final. But it looks like Angelika really feels she and the national final should in fact be together, making a fighting return to the contest with the edgy song “Fighting for Love”. She’s fighting for her love and her dream!
KIRILL GOOD (2016)
Kirill Yermakov was our hot tip to win the Belarusian national final back in 2016 with “Running To The Sun”, unfortunately losing out to the wolf-whistler IVAN. Under the new moniker of Kirill Good, his new look and sound is not just good – it’s hot. Kirill has shaved his head, grown a topknot and gone full hipster, releasing a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it teaser for his track “Deja Vu”. Although the snippet is only a few seconds long, it sounds like Kirill’s going modern and up-tempo — and we are feeling it.
ALEN HIT (2015)
The uber-stylish Alen Hit, who auditioned for Belarus in 2015 and performed as an interval act during this year’s national final with his song “Let’s Make a Party”, is entering with the too-cool-for-school track “I Don’t Care”. The up-tempo song is modern and fresh, with a sound not too dissimilar to Canadian artist The Weeknd. No doubt Alen will juice up the performance with some slick choreography.
OTHER RETURNING ACTS
BTRC have announced that previous entrants Janet, PROvokatsiya and Alexandra Tkach will return to this year’s national final. The super-smooth and baby-faced duo of PROvokatsiya melted Belarusian hearts last year with “My Love”, coming fifth in the national final. Alexandra, who goes by ‘Lexy Weaver’ on Youtube, came ninth. Janet, who entered in 2014 and 2015 and also entered this year’s Sammarinese 1 in 360 national contest, will also enter here.
National final details
On January 11, the jury will decide which acts continue to the final stage of the selection.
A maximum of 15 acts will be selected for the final — however, in recent years this number hasn’t always been reached due to a lack of quality acts. Last year, 13 songs participated in the final; the year before that, only ten.
BTRC has yet to confirm the official date of the grand final. However, they have said that it won’t be any later than 1 March.
The voting procedure will be the same as last year: the jury will give 50% of the points, while the other 50% is determined by televoting.
Who is your favourite returnee to the Belarusian national final? Will you be watching? Let us know in the comments!
Gunesh, Alekseev, KATTIE & LOVISA, Angelika Pushnova.
I am sure that one of them will represent Belarus in Lisbon.
Idk what everyone else is hearing but these are not good wow
Déjà Vu has potential I’d have to hear the full song though
I think Belarus might make a cheeky final this year. Through The Wild was good fun, and in 2016 Kirill Good was very good too. Belarus has actually been in my final since 2013, I loved Ivan, and their staging is always top-notch, like last year.
Kirill should’ve represented Belarus in 2016′. He has to do it now!!!
I know it’s very early to judge, but with even Belarus sending out songs like this, it seems like 2018 is going to be one of the stronger years in esc.
my favorite song is KATTIE & LOVISA Through The Wild . amazing!
Fully agree. Masterpiece.Very strong song for ESC.
These songs aren’t very strong entries, but one could be enough just to qualify. I can even pick a favourite haha, I guess I’ll go with “Through the wild” just because it’s a bop.
*can’t
Angelika song sounds pretty good!
Ukrainian singer Alekseev will compete in the national preselection of Belarus for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. Earlier, the performer, recognized as the Singer of the year in Belarus, had announced his plans to participate in the Eurovision, but without specifying from which country he will submit his application. Many fans of the competition have advised the performer to enter the national final of Belarus. “Now, our team feels the strength to fight for the victory in this contest. We are used to setting new goals and overcoming them every time, “the performer said earlier. Two days ago, the singer… Read more »
Great! Now I will support him
KIRILL FOR THE WIN
This Fighting for love song is actually good !!
For some reason I was thinking about Angelika Pushnova and We Should Be Together the other day. What a weirdo I am.