After five semi-finals, the Melodi Grand Prix 2020 circus moved from Oslo to Trondheim. After a remarkable show that celebrated 60 years of the national selection, the Norwegian public named Ulrikke Brandstorp the winner of MGP 2020 with the song “Attention”. That means Ulrikke Brandstorp will now represent Norway at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam.
Melodi Grand Prix 2020 winner:Ulrikke Brandstorp with “Attention”
Ulrikke made it to the MGP super final in 2017 with her song “Places”. There she placed fourth. Last year Ulrikke made it to the grand final of the celebrity singing show Stjernekamp. Ulrikke became the bookmakers’ favourite after her outstanding performance during the fourth semi-final. In the final, she again gave a classy performance, including pyros and fireworks.
Melodi Grand Prix 2020 Gullfinalen qualifiers
Kristin Husøy with “Pray for Me” (Runner-up)
Kristin Husøy (18) has played the piano since first grade. She took music as an elective at secondary school and started on the music course at High School. But after a year, she took a year off to take part in The Voice. Among other things, she is now back at school. She won the third semi-final in Central Norway and defended her hometown Trondheim tonight.
Liza Vassilieva with “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. Although Liza is not gay herself, she wants to sing about LGBT acceptance since she wants to show solidarity and normalise the topic.
Raylee with “Wild”
With over a million streams on Spotify, Raylee’s “Wild” has become one of the biggest hits to come out of this year’s Melodi Grand Prix. Tonight, she brought another hot performance of her song, after having won the first semi-final in Southern Norway.
NRK suffers voting problems in new Melodi Grand Prix 2020 final results format
In the final of Melodi Grand Prix 2020, each of the ten finalists performed their song. In the first round, each voter could cast up to three votes. They could send all three votes to one artist, spread the love among a mix of artists, or just vote once for one person. Keeping with the recent Melodi Grand Prix grand final format, the four artists with the most votes made it to the second round of the competition, which is dubbed “Gullfinalen” — the gold final.
Norwegians (and international viewers) voted via the special site nrk.no/stem. It was the first time the Norwegian broadcaster only relied on online voting.
However this was easier said than done. After the first voting round, the MGP presenters announced that the new online voting system had been overwhelmed by the amount of voting done. The technical problems were that prevalent that NRK had to use a back-up people’s jury to determine the four acts that would go through to Gullfinalen.
In the second round, the four acts did not perform another time. Instead, NRK showed a short clip from each performance. The presenters were happy to announce that the online voting system was functioning again. As with the previous round, each voter had up to three votes. The two acts with the highest tally of votes proceeded to the final round.
The Melodi Grand Prix 2020 final results were presented by a Melodi Grand Prix star from each region. Central Norway was represented by Margaret Berger who gave Norway a fourth-place finish in 2013 with “I Feed You My Love”. KEiiNO singer Tom Hugo represented Southern Norway.
Western Norway’s spokesperson was Bjørn Johan Muri, who made the MGP Gold Final in 2010. Glam rock legend Åge Sten Nilsen read the votes from Eastern Norway. He represented Norway as part of Wig Wam at Eurovision 2005 and came close to returning in 2017 as the MGP runner-up in the rock band Ammunition.
And representing Northern Norway was Agnete Johnsen. She sang at Eurovision 2016 with “Icebreaker”.
Melodi Grand Prix 2020 final results scoreboard
Gullduelen stage
Ulrikke Brandstorp with “Attention” — WINNER (200,345 votes)
Kristin Husøy with “Pray for Me” — Runner-up (194,667 votes)
Eliminated after Gullfinalen stage
Liza Vassilieva with “I Am Gay”
Raylee with “Wild”
Eliminated after the first round
Sondrey with “Take My Time”
Akuvi with “Som du er”
Didrik & Emil with “Out of Air”
Tone Damli with “Hurts Sometimes”
Rein Alexander with “One Last Time”
Magnus Bokn with “Over the Sea”
Are you excited that Ulrikke Brandstorp will represent Norway with “Attention”? What was your favourite performance during the show? Let us know in the comments below!
Follow all Norway Eurovision news here
Photo credit: NRK
A good modern powerbalad . We hadn’t had one like that coming from the Nordic countries so kudos for that. But for me something is missing… BTW staging is fabulous, proving once again that you don’t need LEDs for a great moment in television.
I genuinely don’t understand how people believe all ballads are dull, boring, or sound the same. This song is classic yet modern, and exhibits a unique dynamism with its switches between strong and soft vocals. Great song progression and definitely stood out as a strong contender.
Norway bringing us a powerballad.
Ulrikke is a great singer and I like the song. I am just missing a wow moment. Even though, I like it and I am sure it will do well.
Definitely Top 5 material for the Eurovision final. Surprised that the victory was so narrow.
I am waiting for Poland song
@William Lee Adams Why are my two comments from last night gone today? May I ask why you have let them disappear?
@William Lee Adams – Sorry – it was my fault, I had to click on more comments to see them. Everything ok, the comments are still there. You may delete this mistake of mine. Thank you.
I am glad you said that, because the majority here going crazy about the entry and than William in his reaction video calling it top 5 material I was doubting myself.
the only memorable thing about the winner is her dress
Great song! Love it!My favourite!
This is a Eurovision entry by the book. Balad with strings, strong vocals, powerful refrain and a grand final. Ulrikke delivers a respectable performance which will no doubt go through to the final. I suspect a left hand column ending position on Saturday. This is well done, but ultimately also doesn’t take much risks either. Not very renewing or special. Well done, Norway, but also nothing more than that. 🙂
I’ll just put all of my reactions from yesterday on one place here: – I voted for Ulrikke and I am happy she won! 🙂 – I sensed Lithuania might go for On Fire. I am confused by the song and will have 2 months to dwell on it. – Athena was the best performer in Armenia, but I don’t think that song is very good. – I predicted all of Estonia’s six qualifiers. Since Jaagup and Shira are my favs, I’m happy (actually my whole EL top 10, aside from Renate and Jennifer Cohen, on 7th and 10th spot,… Read more »
classic English song …… stuff already heard a thousand times on the radio ….. and at Eurovision ……… 5.5 / 10
I love the song. For me melodically the scale ascension in the chorus is a powerful hook. It was the right winner on the night.
It wouldn’t even be a top 10 with the previous years standards. Just fanatics. Hate or love, they take it to the extreme.
Pray for me should have won! It was robbed…
Norway will struggle to qualify and I don’t see it placing higher than the 15º place. Her voice is very powerful but the song is a bit average in my opinion. Thought these power ballads, if stage wisely, tend to receive a lot of votes from the jury. It kind of reminds me of Lucie Jones’ “Never Give Up On You” (UK 2017) which finished 15º in the Grand Final, so this one being so similar may have the same outcome, plus Norway can rely on their Scandinavian neighbours to grab more votes in the televote than the UK did.… Read more »
Exactly right.
Really bad that she is going with that boring cliche song to represent Norway, specially after all the problems with the voting, they truly should do the voting onces more because it’s insane what’s happened here in Norway last night, the people’s favorite was Rein Alexander and because of the voting problem he didn’t make it to the final round which is extremely unfair.
The overall quality of the acts don’t change much. If something sounds like it could’ve been top 5 in past years, it probably can be top 5 this year.
I see dificult to be in the final for Norway this year,and if go to the final ,is clear strong candidate to be last,
It’s the generic musical schlager that we see in about 10 countries every year.
I don’t understand the hype. It’s not unlike UK’s Lucie Jones in 2017 – and look what happened there? Although, this is Norway, they’ll get top 10.
Honestly though, this is a safe and lazy attempt by the Norwegians. It’s a good song, but way too generic and cliche for me to support it. (Of course there was a key change and pyro, why wouldn’t there be?)
I don’t think that was a key change, actually.
It’s the typical ballad at Eurovision: good song, great voice, nice performance and pyro staging … But at this point, a song like this could be praised or flop, since we have already heard and seen hundreds like this one at Eurovision. Whatever, I always like a classic, so good luck!
Honestly if the UK would send this song they would not even get to the top 10, but just because it’s Norway people say that this is amazing and that it could win lol. There were better choices imo, but still a solid act.
The point is, the UK does not send songs crafted like this.
I would agree that most of the UK’s songs recently haven’t been great but Lucie Jones had an equally good song if not better and it positioned lower than deserved
“Never Give Up On You” was better though. But Norway has their Scandineighbours to grab some televotes.
Never give up on you was not as dynamic as this. And had not the same sound at all with beat and snap souds and strings this song has.
boring but beautifully sung. something like that can only work with the esc
I really don’t understand the hype around “Attention”. I hear an average ballad and see a surly-looking singer with a narrow voice. The Norwegians, of course, didn’t have much else to choose from…
Here in the rest of Europe we find Norway’s total obsession with the European Song Contest Melodi Grand Prix) unbelievable.
You seem to spend a fortune on this once great competition which has in the past few years become a joke. Most countries deal
with the run up to the competition just a few months before the event but Norway starts the whole process almost as soon as the last one is over. Come on Norway get serious as there are far more important matters to keep your attention.
Um no. Nobody in Europe thinks about the selection process in other countries.
Norwegians vote for women, whereas Swedes vote for men, it seems.
Okay, let’s appreciate the production of this show for a moment. The best mgp production ever in my opinion, and the stage was gorgeous. The camera shots were really good in general. Unfortunately, NRK ruin a lot of the impression by trying out (for no reason) a new voting system they can’t handle, which results in an awkward selection process of four “gold finalists” based on an unnamed jury. The one who’s arguably most robbed by this is Rein Alexander (maybe Akuvi too). In the end, between the last four the results were deserved, since the voting seemed to work… Read more »
She’s going to be up against Destiny from Malta in Semi 1 and cannot come close, unfortunately.
Exactly right.
It will struggle to qualify.
I seriously doubt that.
@Ashton think again. This is a mediocre ballad in a semi final that will have tough tough competition.
yes, because you know all of the songs of Eurovision 2020 and can therefore tell me that Ulrikke will have tough tough competition, by all means share with me the secret of your clairvoyancy, or have you time travelled?
Top 10
I love Norway, last year they were one of my favourites, and I love so many songs from them… I’m not feeling “Attention” at the moment. It’s a song that I expect from Denmark, not Norway, that always choose songs that have a special touch difficult to describe. She’s really good and has a beautiful voice, but I feel the song it’s not THE song.
Disappointed. Of myself for not feeling it.
Totallyagree on all points. Norway was great last year and should have won. This is a disappointment.
*yawns too hard and dies*
“Pray for me” is leading on Itunes in Norway over Attention lol. What a crazy night in Norway.
I’ve read many comments from Norwegians on social media and they are not happy at all about the outcome. They really deserved to vote and a have say.
Not surprising. The winner song is not even catchy.
Meh. People are overhyping this song.
I knew that wanting rein alexander to win was an unrealistic fantasy, but I did think it would make it to the top 4…
the strongest national final with great staging
Well im schocked that raylee and akuvi werent the contenders to attention , but those two finalists were also so gorgeous
Not enough people here calling out the voting. The whole result is a farce, because who is to say that Rein wouldn’t have beat Ulrikke?
I hope people in Norway are doing it. It was ridiculous how they opened the voting after announcing that random Top 4.
People in Norway are not stupid
*Raises hand – I did call it out. (Just with some element of politeness.)
The first round voting was indeed a farce, and a sad one when the show and production had such a good quality overall. We never know what could have happened if Rein got through.
I don’t know. I still can’t get over with KEiiNO.
Beautiful voice and beautiful song. Very special
I’m just so happy that Ulrikke can take this home to Norway, so Dami Im can come and slay in Oslo next year!!
This is literally fai rumore with english lyrics
without the goosebumps
Without the honesty and deep emotion.
Norway last year was a home run. They should have won. They won the popular vote. We should be in Oslo this year. This year’s song is boring and bland. It will be tough to qualify.
I’m sorry, you call Attention boring and bland when Spirit In The Sky was literally THE blandest song of 2019 besides Moldova probably. It’s literally cheap pop, an ethnic element, and a pulsing electro beat. And you tell me they should have won over the masterpiece that was Arcade.
Ashton, it explains a lot of your comments if you think Arcade was a masterpiece – haha!
Wow, thanks Kosey! But it seems I’m not the only one who thought Arcade was a masterpiece, since, you know, it won. So I don’t think I’m the one in the minority here.
Arcade was a masterpiece
This opinion is quite unnpopular in the “bubble” but I support you.
as much as no one wants to say it, it’s true. we have heard spirit in the sky-ish songs so many times in Eurovision and everyone be praising it like its winner material
ok – arcade 2.0 wins it for norway – is that the right way creating something what sounds like the last year winner?
i don’t think so.
worst case is that this simple copy will have success at rotterdam.
music should be creative and this is not.
But it’s beautiful, I like it a lot.
This has nothing to do with Arcade. Not every ballad is Arcade 2. I think you should listen to more music outside of Eurovision.
Idk how you see/hear it as Arcade maybe you’re deaf lol. If anything’s Arcade 2.0 listen to that song from Eesti laul who just qualified for the grand final smh
Nothing to do with Arcade. Fai rumore is more Arcade because the feelings it gives. Attention it’s like Denmark 2017, a good ballad. And nothing else.
It doesn’t sound like Arcade at all. Make Me Human sounds like Arcade 2.0
I cannot hear a single part of Attention that is similar to Arcade. They are so different that a comparison of any kind is ridiculous.
I’m so dissapointed that the back-up jusry did not let Rein Alexander move on to gullduellen. I believe he culd have won it all if the televote decided .-.
But I’m happy for ulrikke!
Yep, i knew it. 100% online voting is risky because error can occur easily more than televoting. Anyway, congrats to Ulrikke. Her song is so great, with good staging she could do great in Rotterdam
Noruega 7/10
Would’ve liked to see either Rein or Raylee win. I do like Ulrikke’s song, it’s better than most Eurovision ballads, but I still don’t think it will stand out enough to win. It will be hard to top Italy for best ballad this year :’)
I’ve been reading a lot the comparasion with UK 2017 and it really feels that. Good vocals but song lacks real emotion which is sad coming from the guy who wrote A monster like me
Monster like me was epic!
I think this is better than UK 2017. Ulrikke is (in my opinion) straight up a better performer who knows how to deliver without being too over the top. UK 2017 was a bit too theatrical, while Ulrikke’s performance is “easier to digest”. The song is more memorable, the chorus is bigger and she sang flawlessly. The staging is also already great!
Someone please answer me, HOW DID KRISTIN BEAT RAYLEE I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW. Every poll had the top 2 being Raylee and Urlikke, what happened?!
The “People tell me I´m a fish” song is a less quality entry in comparison to Kristin.
But I don´t like both
The final was in Trondheim, Kristin`s home town (the third biggest city in Norway). Norwegians are extememe regionalistt so no wonder she was the runner-up:)
Raylee performed first, which could mean that she was forgotten a bit. Her camera angles and vocals were also not just as good as in the semi final in my opinion.
Raylee was better overall in the semi final than in the final show, both the singing and the camera shots. Kristin was a dark horse all the way and nearly won.
Raylee was nothing more than the typical eurotrash. Just the right two stood in the goldfinal