Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The annual Marcel Bezençon awards have been voted once again and here are the winners: The Composer award goes to Norway and Kjetil Mørland . The Press award goes to Italy's Il Volo and The Artistic award , voted by the commentators in Vienna goes to Sweden and Måns Zelmerlöw Here's a video

Just kidding. The Norwegian entrants Mørland & Debrah Scarlett are the most wonderful ones, far from monsters even if they transform as such on stage in a magnificient way. Just check out their performance tonight (and vote, vote, vote!) Meanwhile here they are speaking words of wishdom and sending their greetings to you. Enjoy!

They have kept their minimalistic, literally, staging the same. Apparently there are some camera angles finetuned and such but otherwise it's very simple with all the focus on the song. Scarlett lets her gorgeous locks down today with a hairpiece and looks much better. There seem to be a lot of close ups and walking around in various directions. I'm sure it will look good on screen. It will be curious to see how far this goes, and should it go very far what kind of effect it will have in 2016's stagings, a bit like last year's Common Linnets effect is visible here, as is Conchita's. I hope Norway proves props, pyros and overdone choreographies are not needed if the song is good enough. Anyways, it seems that's the direction we are going anyways luckily, as only Moldova seems to be having any major props on stage.... 

The Nordic Party took place tonight in Vienna and the entrants from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland were present along with Estonia. My flying reporter Robert was present. Here are a couple of videos: Måns Zelmerlöw doing Heroes and Mørland & Scarlett doing Monster like me . Also Iceland and Denmark performed, Finland didn't and everyone was happy for that. Instead Estonia did. Here are some pics:

Sometimes less is more, even in Eurovision. Norway does not need special gimmicks, is mostly shot on steady cam only, the backdrop has only colors from warm copper to bright white towards the end. The focus is on the song and tthe singers who deliver. He's in white and black, she's in a white dress. Keep it simple. Norway is again heading for a top-10 finish easily.

Here we go. Tomorrow the things start in Vienna for real and it's time to have a little round up. The past weeks I have been presenting my favorites from this year's Eurovision song contest and it's a weird year; the favorites stand out easily, so do the bottom ones and then there are awful many entries that are totally forgettable, uninteresting and .... well, forgettable.  Bubbling under on the list below these favorites I have in random order Portugal, Ireland, Georgia, Austria, Romania, Lithuania, Macedonia and United Kingdom. I want to see them live on stage before giving any further judgement. As usual I will post my rankings before each semifinal with the ones I want to qualify and the ones I think will qualify. Only that at this point it feels harder than ever.... Let's see how it goes :-) Here are direct links to my favorites and the joker San Marino, always close to my heart.  Italy - Il Volo - Grande amore Azerbaijan - Elnur Huseynov - Ho...

Finland sent monsters back in 2006 and won, Norway sings about monsters and is one of the favorites, mainly thanks to a very fabulously memorable Ibsen inspired video for A monster like me .. Can they win? All depends if they can create that magical atmosphere on stage, too.  Kjetil Mørland and Debrah Scarlett created the duo for this song and ended up in Vienna and have not worked together before. Both have though a lot of experience on their own. Both have also recently moved back to Norway after having been living and working abroad, so this is particular act in many ways.

Norway has its final this Saturday as well. No semis but only one final, with live orchestra. The songs have been out for ages by now and there are favorites, Mørland & Scarlett mostly by the foreign fans while Norwegians seem to go crazy for the pizza song.  Erlend opens the show looking like male version of Conchita. The song must have looked perfect on paper but in reality it's not going anywhere. Raylee goes all American and in the genre I can't stand. Veterans Tor & Bettan mix schlager with the Disney sugary power ballad. This could have been nominated for Oscar some 20-30 years ago. Jenny offers us the Norwegian take on the female sung midtempo screamy song with heavy beats. Enough! Ira is just annoying noise mostly, the song never gets going. Contrazt gives us good old schlager. This could have been a favorite back in 1990 or so. Perfection in its genre. Marie sounds very Norwegian with her crystal clear voice. The song is nice. I like it. Staysman ...