Swiss-German broadcaster SRF has opened the song submission period for singers and songwriters hoping to be the Swiss pick for 2016.
National selection season is finally kicking off! SRF’s submission period runs for four weeks, closing at 8am on Monday, 26 October. All the songs will be available to listen to on SRF’s website, which will give us the first clues as to what’s coming to Stockholm.
At the end of the submission period, the songs will be voted on by the public (50%) and an expert jury (50%).
The top 10 songs will then join the six songs selected by Swiss-French broadcaster RTS and the three songs from Swiss-Italian broadcaster RSI. These 19 songs will be performed in front of a panel of experts at the appropriately named Expert Check step. The performers will be assessed on “live performance skills, voice quality and stage presence.”
From there, the six top acts will be decided (three from SRF, two from RTS, one from RSI) and they will progress to the live national final, Die Entscheidungsshow on 13 February 2016. Yes, it’s complicated but it’s Switzerland and that’s how they roll.
Technically anyone can enter, but in the past, the successful acts have tended to be ones with a strong Swiss connection. Last year UK X Factor alum Kitty Brucknell entered her song “Yearning”. When it didn’t progress, she later entered it in the Moldovan national selection.
Is it time for a Swiss-German act to make it to Eurovision this year? Should Kitty give Switzerland another shot (or maybe Moldova)? Are you planning to enter? Leave your comments below!
And after that be sure to head over to our Instagram page. We’re currently inside the house of Eurovision 2012 act Sinplus. More Switzerland footage coming soon…
OMG I love “HEARTLESS DANCER” by ANNE MARIE SUNSHINE http://esc.srf.ch/en-ch/anne-marie-sunshine-0
also, ‘My Sole’ has vanished!
VERAH and the Swiss Army have filled the void I guess
I thought one had massively butchered french at the end, and the other was all in english–but on second listen… you’re totally right @Robyn
From what I’m seeing so far: “My Sole” is seriously boring and goes nowhere, but has the best production of all of them and obviously is the best in the pack so far The song by Hector Bubblestone (lol) is fantastic, but needs to be sung by someone different or have it mixed better (the instrumental and vocals sound entirely disjointed) The opening of ‘We Are, We’ll Be’ was gorgeous, but it got cheesy fast after the first thirty seconds ‘Keine Angst’ has some good elements to it, but the video completely ruins it ‘Reech Beech Nevar Pay’ was something… Read more »
@Kitty I hear you, and unfortunately costume changes/dancers/sound problems can make or break it. You only get one take. The Yearning audition was great and would have done better I think. I guess the judges had to base it on the fact this could happen on the final night (even tho I am sure had it won it would have undergone some changes). It wasnt as bad as Croatia 2011 in terms of costume changes tho lol. I also think Moldova were a bit biased against a UK act . I dont mean they don’t like the UK, just that… Read more »
@james
Oh I totally agree. It’s difficult to hit notes when you are being pulled from side to side. The song itself is great, it just didn’t work live. No matter of explaining this to the panel made a difference though, which kind of sucked.
Actually, it was just really bad luck, the material got caught in the zip and got stuck. Big 🙁
@Robyn, lol it could have at least been a deep and meaning visual! I haven’t seen any of them yet – I’ll watch them at the weekend, now I am excited for meatballs. lol! I love this selection process, . Most of the time they dont even choose a song from this platform anyway, so you can listen to 300 songs on here and not hear the winner lol. Its’ completely ridiculous and has never really worked, but I hope they never take it away. It’s a guilty pleasure to watch all these videos. Most of them are truly awful… Read more »
@Kitty
I agree , Yearning was a good song. I didn’t dislike Remix either, it just didn’t work in that performance. Yes things go wrong live, but unfortunately the vocals were really poor on this occasion and the costume change was a struggle. Whoever’s fault it was (the costume change is more the fault of the dancers as they couldn’t pull the dress) when they started wrenching at the dress the vocals went completely out of tune as well and the whole thing just fell apart. Better luck next time.
James – I don’t think it was the worst by far! But that song was incredibly difficult to sing live. I begged them to change it to Yearning which was a much much better song, and was much more dynamic on stage. We had to come up with something for Remix and I tried my best, the only other option was to pull out. That costume worked perfectly in every rehearsal but at the end of the day there are some things you just can’t control.
Try to make contact to artists in Europe that are willing to go to Eurovision and tell them that the submissions are open in Switzerland for everybody. How many more people say the artist makes a good chance, how more change a really stunning artist will upload their song. Because normally not very talented artist upload, we need more good quality in the submissions, i really stand for that! Who’s in?
@Robyn
I didn’t get to see No Voices, was there a video with the silence?
I’m intrigued to “hear” it lol. I wonder if I can track it down on YouTube or if its been taken down completely.
Kitty Brucknell’s Moldovan final performance (the final night not the audition here) was possibly the worst national final performance of them all in 2014-15 season. I don’t think she is ready to go to Eurovision, it was totally embarrassing. Costume changes are so cliché anyway, but she couldn’t even pull that off properly as she got stuck in her dress, and her vocals went all over the place lol. She was so shocked when she came nearly last, but it was truly terrible.
#BringBackBrucknell! We’re Yeaaaaarrrrningggg for you! Come back! 🙂
That Kötbullar song is too weird and there’s no way a completely silent song would be allowed to participate. The ones I like so far are:
Ylva and Linda – Closer to My Heart
Sarah Tyler – It’s Your Time
I hope these two acts submit their songs for Sweden and United Kingdom if they don’t get far here.
Omg I’m dying of laughter because of that Köttbullar song!! But it is actually in Swedish, so it’s a Swedish choir I think!
@Robyn Gallagher Completly agree, they stand out much more then all the other typical pop-esc songs, we need something new nd fresh, and “Köttbullar” and no voices has what we need
It is a mess and i love it
Really kinda complicated that Switzerland has 3 different separate sections broadcasters to chose its esc entry from..{German,French,Italian}
Melanie Rene was from the Swiss French department 4 the record..
Not bad at all for the French sector as *Time To Shine* was my 3rd most favorite song out of the 40 of Vienna’s Vision <3 🙂