National final season has already started but the pace begins to pick up now with the first semi-final of the French national selection, Destination Eurovision, taking place this evening (Saturday 12 January). I thought I might do a quick run through of some of the more promising songs and overall quality of selection. Live shows do change everything of course so this is just based on what’s been released so far. Don’t forget you can find out details of every country’s selection route, links to songs etc on my national selections 2019 page.
Czech Republic
While the Czechs have increased the number of songs in their selection from last year, the overall quality is not improved from what I have seen (though following up on the huge success of last year was always going to prove difficult). Best of the bunch is the Lana del Rey-esque offering from Barbora Mochova “True Colours”:
Estonia
A solid offering from Eesti Laul (as is often the case) and while there are a couple of oddities in the two dozen songs, overall, these are radio friendly with several that could perform competently at Eurovision, though probably not a Eurovision winner. The current favourite is probably the
Stig Rästa-written “Storm”, performed by Swede Victor Crone. It’s a fusion of the style and lyrics we’ve come to know from Stig, as well as a Swedish/Avici sound. It’s far from guaranteed to win Eesti Laul as there are a good number of other contenders.
France
Looking through all the national selections and songs released, Destination Eurovision presents the overall strongest field with a lot of good songs, and several I think will do well (once again) for France at Eurovision. I’m less convinced there is a Eurovision winner in there, but definitely Top 10 potential. We’ll soon see how well these are performed live, but I’ve picked out two of the best (in my view) that both could do well at Eurovision.
Hungary
I’ve not really had the time to go through all the A Dal entries (all 30 of them) so I checked with my Hungarian friend Zoltan on his favourite:
As for the others, Joci Pápai’s song may take him back to Eurovision, but the other returning Eurovision veteran, András Kállay-Saunders has perhaps the more interesting offer, though not sure it’s quite to my taste – he’s one half of The Middletonz:
Latvia
Supernova 2019 has not given many new classics I have to say, and consequently, with a half decent, upbeat song, this could be perennial Supernova contestant Markus Riva’s best chance to finally get to Eurovision:
Lithuania
I will be honest, I don’t know any of the songs in the Lithuanian national selection yet! Eurovizija 2019 has already held its first heat but it will be several shows before we get to the final – I will try to get a grip of them before then!
Romania
It’s already clear that the standard for this year’s Selecţia Naţională is much higher than last year’s mediocre offering and it’s the first national selection where I have seen a potential winner coming from in the shape of Laura Beltran and “Dear Father”. She’s a finalist of America’s Got Talent and winner of Romania’s Got Talent and she sure can sing. It’s got that “Eurovision moment” within it (around the 2min mark in the song) that with the right staging, lighting, and performance could stand out on TV. Of course, she might not win the national selection but keep an eye out for this one if she does get to Tel Aviv:
Spain
I have to say the 1 minute snippets we got of the (demo version) of the songs were not on the whole inspiring. The shortlisted final 10 will perform live in the national final soon. Among the fandom, Muérdeme seems to be the favourite, and I can see why, it’s a sort of Spanish Fuego or Asanda’s Legends but I just can’t see it doing that well in Eurovision itself. I’d rather see Miki make it with the very Spanish, bouncy, holiday anthem “La Venda”.
So that’s a quick canter through, do let me know if you have any thoughts or comments. This post will go out of date very quickly I am sure but will be interesting to look back on this a bit later on in the season (or even after Eurovison).