With less than one week until entries close for Australia‘s brand new national final, broadcaster SBS has issued a reminder, urging Australia’s songwriters to get their entries in. The broadcaster has also confirmed details of the three shows that will make up the national final.
Entries for Eurovision: Australia Decides close this Sunday, 4 November. And from the sound of things, entries have already been coming in to SBS. Commissioning Editor of Entertainment Josh Martin said, “Hundreds of songwriters across Australia have already submitted a diverse mix of songs – from pop to country, ballad to thrash metal, novelty to opera and everything in between.”
But SBS wants even more songs!
Paul Clarke, head of production house Blink TV, explains that, “We know a lot of songwriters and producers will be working down to the wire of the deadline next week. It’s worth saying that the song doesn’t have to be finished, it can just be a demo – but it must be in by November 4.”
Deadline dilemmas
Australia hasn’t made it easy on songwriters, announcing a surprise national final and giving songwriters just three weeks to get an entry in.
Deadlines have been an issue for songwriters in other countries. At Ireland’s Eurovision forum in 2017, songwriters said that broadcaster RTÉ did not give sufficient notice, meaning that they were already booked out with paying work and could not commit to Eurovision deadlines.
Danish songwriters, however, don’t have a problem with short deadlines. Since 2017, broadcaster DR will accept Eurovision entries all year round. There is an annual cut-off for entry into the upcoming DMGP, but if a songwriter misses that, their entry will get rolled over in the following year.
Australia’s three-week submission period echoes Sweden’s short 17-day period. However, Melodifestivalen is a long-standing annual event and songwriters often begin working on their Mello contributions months in advance.
But sometimes months aren’t needed to write song. As Lea Sirk explained at a press conference in Lisbon, she wrote the first version of “Hvala, ne!” in just minutes. The song went on to place 22nd in the Eurovision grand final.
Show dates for Eurovision: Australia Decides
SBS has already confirmed the grand final for Saturday 9 February 2019. But now the broadcaster has confirmed details of the two non-broadcast shows available to the public.
On Friday 8 February, the jury show will be held, where the national jury will watch the acts and vote for their favourites. The following day, the public will also be able to watch the afternoon rehearsal before the grand final later that night.
SBS says that ticket information will be available soon.
What do you think? Should a thrash metal song be in the national final? Who would you like to see compete in Australia’s new national final? Share your thoughts below!
I really want Havana Brown to enter but I want her to go back to her Electro House beats or do something else like Tribal House of Future House.
Aside from her, next on my wish list is Cyrus, Delta Goodrem, JTR, and Sam Perry.
My mum and I are going to go to the show. It’s gonna be awesome! #LetsDoThis
I still want Delta to go to eurovision for australia!
I love how everyone in the comments now just assumes Australia is definitely sending a metal song in 2019 smh
Some trash metal in their NF would be great! Makes a good and welcome change from generic pop songs!
I’m curious as to whether the quality of the songs submitted is high?
Reminding songwriters to submit songs even in raw demo mode sounds a bit desperate.
I imagine that big artist aren’t interested in entering a national selection so it’s likely smaller less well known artist.
I wonder if either all entries or the winning artist is signed (or will be) with Sony? ;P
It’ll be interesting to know which ‘Thrash’ Metal band is up for Eurovision! I doubt if it’s actually Thrash like old school Metallica and Anthrax but more Alternative or just plain Hard Rock, one band I’d love to see try out for Australia’s national final is Karnivool, 90s music lovers out there go and search their cover of “Sleeping Satellite” it’s absolutely fab! I hope SBS leave out all the Novelty songs, bit skeptic over Opera seeing the genre appears to be running it’s course in ESC, I don’t mind many ballads but we need at least 2 club bangers… Read more »
The fact that so many songs are still coming in with the quick turnaround time makes me feel that there’s definitely a lot of thought going into their options.
I’m pretty excited about this. Guy Sebastian wrote their debut Eurovision song in just a couple of days and look where it got him. I’m sure there will be lots of gems during the national selection. There’s so much talent over there.
Maybe Anja can participate for Australia too, atleast in the NF?
With a song closer to ‘Never Alone’ than the red dress song.
“red dress song”
If you mean “Who I Am” by Anja Nissen, that was amazing! Her voice, the power, the passion of the song. I wanna sing it for my lover <3
The televote score of the song shows who is in the minority here. The song failed to chart even in Denmark.
At least she’ll be known by that instead of whatever it was she tried on during rehearsals.
Too bad Timebelle didn’t stick with “the red dress and rose petals”.
Oh yes, Apollo would have certainly qualified with that particular staging. But it’s possible they were not allowed to use real petals as they had wished , just like Belarus was not allowed this year. Now it wouldn’t have qualified even if they did.
Yeah, but the lack of genuine rose petals can be addressed with the use of LED screens.
With that said, they could have done better without the added theatrics the Swiss delegation put poor Miruna through .
So True That pink and yellow theme was horrifying and the ostrich look :p
What I take from this information is that songwriters other than DNA will indeed be in the Australian national final. Thank god.
But omg, what excuse does Denmark have for the poor songs in their NF if they literally are looking (or at least accepting) nonstop? And no offense, but you can totally hear that Lea’s song was just thrown together in a hurry during a cigarette break. I love Slovenia, I LOVE the message Lea conveyed, I like Lea BUT the song itself was still garbage and she admitted as much herself. Please, take more time than that.
What? She never said the song was bad.
Yeah , she did say she got an idea and she wrote it in 20 minutes and submitted it and that she can make better music if she put more effort.
It was still quite distinctly in the better half of the songs that we had at ESC this year. It’s not cool to ridicule and twist people’s words.
You’re making my point. If you can do better if you put more effort to it, then do it.
For any good song to happen, you need a bit of artistic inspiration to strike!Ain’t it?
What if it strikes one day before the submission?
lol if you win, you still have until mid-March to revamp it. Your arguments have no merit.
I’m saying that even if you didn’t do the best you could, you can still do good. Good is still commendable.
You didn’t really like the song , is ok but since it did qualify with no real diaspora power behind it , the song must have had some merit.
I acknowledged its merit. I wrote that I love the message it conveyed. Then, in the final, THE SONG got the result it deserved.
The people voting for the first time in the semi couldn’t have possibly known the meaning of a song sung in a completely foreign language! Its merits were more elaborate than just it’s message!
It was not anyway near the Top 5 or anything but it would have been an easy ?15th place for me if not a bit higher
Skyfall, Yesterday, Seven Nation Army, Under Pressure, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and many more were all written in less then an hour!
Written, produced, recorded, perfected? Were you there?
For a 3 minute demo without elaborate production, an experienced artist could record their song in around an hour!
Sounds boring to me. Especially with metal trash, this genre is difficult to be digested by the typical Eurovision fans. I think Australia should keep the recipy: uptempo songs, as these always do well (Mikolas Joseph, Sunstroke Project, Sergey Lazarev, Poli Genova, and many more).
Sending a generic uptempo pop song is boring.
Luna moon me up to the first NQ
Sounds good doesn’t work. If you send the same type of song year after year you’re gonna get criticized by the fans for it eventually . Sweden, Azerbaijan, netherlands with country, etc.
I love ESC, and I love metal. Much better than oridinary dull pop. Australia started great, but became boring. And songs like Russia 2016 are so unoriginal and dull…plus far too OTT on stage
I think every metal song will have the difficulty to “battle” with AWS now, it has to look not like a copy. In Australia’s case I am rooting for a variety of genres and styles in the final and also a mix of established singers and “newcomers”. It is NOT the FAME, it is the PACKAGE!
Having said this: TROYE SIVAN! 😀 😀 😀
AWS showed Europe was ready for Metal 🙂 I hope Austarlia can keep up with that