Last week Belgium’s VRT shared 20-second snippets of the 14 songs — that’s two per artist — still in the running for Eurovision 2023.
Now, as Belgium Eurosong 2023 approaches, producers have revealed more about the format and how they’ll get from 14 songs to just seven for the January 14 final.
Five episodes will air the week before the final. These have been pre-recorded and essentially constitute a songwriter camp where the contestants give each other advice on their songs. During this journey, each of the acts will choose which of the two songs they’ll compete with in the final.
Each show will air just after the VRT NWS Journaal from 7 pm.
Peter Van de Veire, the show’s presenter, described it this way.
“We have made a song club of all candidates; candidates perform with their two songs for the other candidates. The rest of the song club then advises which of the two songs they think would be most suitable for the grand final. A candidate can follow that advice or still do what they like.”
Filming took place in a remote location in Tournai.
“There, the candidates realised that they give each other the win. That is never obvious in such a competition,” he said.
But which songs do you want them to sing? You can listen to the 14 snippets on the VRT web site. Then vote in our polls below.
With the weak NF’s I have heard so far, this is a very strong one. I see Gala winning it all.
Ameerah Armageddon sounds good tho wish I can hear full maybe it’s not what I expecting.
This is bad move from Belgium by giving people sneak peak and ask to vote. Like how people know which one is good by listening like 30 secs of it. It might sounds catchy, but once we listen the full song we might change our perception about the song.
OMG finally someone who doesn’t underrate armageddon. But what do you mean with that they ask the people the vote? It’s the artist that will choose the song themselves.
Why is Home is so underrated? We must listen to the whole song, but I like Home much more than the other song.
Today I’ve listened to the snippets and Ca M’ennuie Pas is probably the best option for Eurovision. I think the chorus is very cute and she performs it quite well.
Maybe the VRT should start with selecting better songs…
i think it’s kinda weird to give us snippets of songs that will never make it to the final, why not letting the public choose ? or why not choosing before ? I don’t know I feel like we’d need to listen to the full songs to really judge which choice is best…
I think the most use Belgium could get out of this NF is potential staging for whatever song ends up winning. Belgium’s really had some weird and unfitting staging ideas in recent years, and I think having a performance of your song on an actual stage as something to draw feedback from… Could be useful. Of course… the song itself needs to be good, but in my eyes, almost all songs in this selection sound relatively average. Nothing that’s crazy good, nothing that’s Hatari level terrible.
This is pretty goofy anyway, so just go all the way and give us reality program Song House, with odd-couple roommate pairings like gala and Chérine
Seems rather pointless TBH. Could have just had each of the artist submit one song. That being said I am really looking forward to two here in particular; Ca M’ennuie Pas And The Carnival.
This is silly and unnecessarily complicated, I already got lost and the show hasn’t even started
What was the point of them presenting their two songs if one each is gonna be irrelevant for the win anyways…
Rollercoaster by The Startlings sound like Ed Sheeren (I see fire) 🙁
The performers at Sanremo 2013 all had two songs, losing one on the first night. At least Marco won’t need to do that for 2023.
Oh. Yeah, that’s not good, and yes, Marco is back.
Mengoni. The winner of Sanremo 2013, and maybe 2023 too.
We are on first name terms, sorry…
Why would they want to be influenced by the competition?! Shouldn’t they be getting feedback from the fan community. When broadcasters overcomplicate national finals, it never goes over well. Most of these songs seem borderline qualifiers with so many clicheed titles and lyrics. And they need to appeal to televoters to get out of the semi this year. So I would focus on that and the staging to elevate many of these entries.
Fine: T’inquiete, Ca m’ennuie pas, Oceanside, Ooh La La, You Lift Me Up, The Nail, probably The Carnival, but both sound promising. There!
They should just pick the one they love the most, and not care about the result. What will be will be.
I really don’t understand this move, other than to promote the final more. Having artists perform a song they’re fully behind is extremely important but why then present the audience with two songs? Why imply we would have a say out of all songs?
They know already a long time which song they will pick as they have already prepared the act and staging. And it wasn’t up to the artists, it was VRT who picked the song. The two songs are just to fill a show and promote the artists.