The 15 hopefuls of Belarus

Today, the Belarussian broadcaster BRTC announced the 15 songs that will take part in their national final. It gets a bit complicated in Belarus – these 15 songs will take part in a national final in December, and the top three will then go to an internal jury where the winner will be picked. No wonder, they’ve never qualified from the semi-final. What a stupid way to pick your song. The biggest travesty was last year when the attitude-rock of Gunesh Abasova’s Connect The Hearts didn’t even make the final three. Instead, the song Mum was picked, which included the lyric ‘he’s an arrant liar’. God bless the free language rule – you don’t hear words like ‘arrant’ in songs normally do you? Anyway, it was stupid word to use and a rubbish song and it came second bottom in the semi-final.

This year, Belarus are hoping for 4th time lucky. Indeed, as presumed before, Angelica Agurbash was disqualified from the final 15, and she then withdrew two other songs it turned out she’d entered. Sulky cow.

Anyway, these are the final 15, which will be whittled down to 3 before the winner is decided:

Borneo – Fingertips
New Generation – Belarus
Diana Gurtskaya – How Long
Dimitry Koldun – Angel Mechty
Lena – Call Me (September 11th)
Natalia Tomelo – So Badly High
The Project – S.U.P.E.R.S.T.A.R.
Irina Yarina – Krotkiy Dozhd
Victor Pshenichniy – Sooner Or Later
Oleg Karpenko – I Feel Good Tonight
Dali – Mechtai So Mnoy
Svayaki – Saldoki Myodzik
Anna Sharkunova – Sorvatsa I Viniz
Litesound Band – Summer Trip
Natalia Lapteva – Tears

It’s always fun to make assumptions on Eurovision songs before you’ve even heard them, and here are some judgements of mine.

The song entitled ‘Belarus’ could well be a lovely slice of nationalist mockery, in which case, great. If not, it’s going to be awful. Equally, the song Call Me (September 11th) sounds so insensitive, it hurts. The Project’s S.U.P.E.R.S.T.A.R is obviously building upon Turkey’s success in 2006 with their super Superstar – the individual letters though would suggest a chant in the style of Har Mar Superstar. Great.

I like Irina Yarina ‘cos her name rhymes.

Litesound, Dali and Dimitry Koldun have all taken part in the Belarussian national finals before. What their songs must have been like, I don’t know.

So, the final three songs will be announced soon – lets hope Belarus are on to their first qualifier. I love them really. Despite their now assumed 12 points to Russia every year.