It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new podcast — and we’re feeling good! This week VICTORIA released “Ugly Cry”, a potential Eurovision 2021 song; Little Big said they will enter Russia’s Eurovision selection; Germany’s Ben Dolic and Croatia’s Damir Kedzo said they WON’T continue with or enter their national selections; Norway revealed a wildcard round for Melodi Grand Prix 2021; the EBU re-confirmed the 2020 semi-final allocation draw for 2021 and revealed that all countries will record live-on-tape performances; and Albania’s RTSH revealed all 26 of their FiK 59 songs.
Eurovision podcast (Episode 81)
For this week’s podcast, William calls Deban to discuss all the news from their flats in London. But, as ever, our contributors from around the world chime in with their insights. Calvin in Germany speculates about the reasons Ben Dolic has pulled out of Germany’s selection; Dayana in Russia gives us her take on Little Big wanting to submit songs for Eurovision 2021; Erdi in Kosovo shares more yet-to-be-announced news about FiK 59 in Albania; Lauren in Norway shares her thoughts on the Melodi Grand Prix wildcard round; Robyn in New Zealand discusses why the EBU is re-using last year’s semi-final allocation draw; and Jonathan in the UK serves his hot takes on this week in music.
Added bonus: Bulgaria’s Eurovision 2021 star VICTORIA discusses her new single “Ugly Cry”.
You can subscribe on Spotify and Apple Music. This episode was produced by Samuel in London.
Topics covered in this week’s episode, include:
Ugly Cry! VICTORIA shares shortlisted Eurovision 2021 song from Bulgaria’s internal selection
Germany: Ben Dolic says he will not participate in Eurovision 2021
Eurovision 2021 semi-finals confirmed: 2020 allocation draw will be retained
Eurovision 2021: All 41 acts to record “live-on-tape” backup performances
LISTEN: Albania’s RTSH reveals all 26 competing songs of Festivali i Këngës 59
New music this week: 21 songs from KAZKA & ALEKSEEV, Stefania, Ivi Adamou and more
unrelated, but does anybody know if Israeli songs will still be released in November or later?
ok that’s sad thank u for the answer tho! 🙂
I’m very wary of the no non-Albanian jurors in FIK. While it’s a good idea in practice to have only jurors from your country, in Albania the foreign juries had, to me and to many other fans, much better taste and less whiffs of corruption than the two Albanian jurors had. So now I’m worried that a song that isn’t in the minds of Albanian fans at all will win, rather than the song that deserves it. But even in saying that, the song that ‘deserves’ the win is very subjective, so I guess we’ll see.
But Eugent Bushpepa, Jonida Maliqi and Lindita all deserved to win, so let’s hope they will make the right decision again!
For me, I wanted Xhesika or Orgesa or Inis to win over Mall, but Mall is still a great song.
I definitely prefer this year’s system compared to last year’s where 60% of the vote was non-Albanian. Eurovision songs should be reflective of and representative of the country sending it. At least, short of having a televote, that’s what they’ll have this year in FiK.
I completely agree in principle but where I really disagree with the FiK voting is that there is no televote 90% of the time. It’s not fair to the people of Albania.
And, in turn, I agree with you. For ESC and NF selections, I’d rather go with a 100% televote over any sort of jury involvement, every time.
However, in the case of certain selection processes such as Sanremo, FiK and others…the selection of a Eurovision act is secondary and winning a national festival is considered more important. Part of that importance is the fact that your entry has won over music professionals or your peers. Due to the history, longevity and prestige of these competitions, it makes things a bit less black and white.