Gerli Power

Last night, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia and Malta all chose their entries for Helsinki. In a mammoth Eurovision evening where THIRTEEN countries were holding national finals of some sort (they say that’s unlucky y’know), four entries were picked last night, and they were…


ESTONIA
“Partners In Crime” / Gerli Padar

Good choice I say here, it was my third favourite out of the ten potential Estonian entries. It’s a Pink-like rock number performed by the very able Gerli Padar, brother of Eurovision 2001 winner Tanel. Talk about keeping it in the family. She’ll be pleased cos if she doesn’t win these things she can get quite bitter (see the 2002 Sahlene-gate lower down the blog).


SLOVENIA
“Cvet Z Juga” / Alenka Gotar

Fourteen potential songs were shown in Slovenia, and this was the winner, a sort of opera meets pop type dance song which I’m not convinced about yet. Nice soprano voice, nice idea, but it lacks a certain something – it feels like it should have more “oomph” than it actually does! I don’t think this will be seeing Slovenia through to the grand final, although there seem to be mixed feelings about this one.


POLAND
“Time To Party” / The Jet Set

Well I was a big fan of Moleda at the Polish National Final, but it was the contemporary R&B sounds of “Time To Party” that won in the end. Like Estonia, this was my third favourite from Poland to qualify, so not bad at all. Still not convinced it’s going to qualify from the semi-final though.


MALTA
“Vertigo” / Olivia Lewis

Thank GOD that Olivia Lewis won! After 10 years of hurt, she will finally grace the Eurovision stage in May with a song that has the potential to qualify. Fingers crossed anyway, cos it’s a great flamenco belter that deserves a good result in Helsinki.


Elsewhere in Europe last night, nine countries held national finals including Norway and Iceland (updates later this week!), and Sweden where the Melodifestivalen kicked off in, apparently, predictable Schlager-style.

But after last night, we now have seven entries chosen, one sixth of the total songs, and one quarter of the semi-final! It would be silly if I didn’t do a ranking list, so this is how things stand with me so far…

1 MALTA – “Vertigo”
2 BELARUS – “Work Your Magic”
3 ESTONIA – “Partners In Crime”
4 MOLDOVA – “Fight”
5 POLAND – “Time To Party”
6 SLOVENIA – “Cvet Z Juga”
7 ALBANIA – “Balada E Gurit”

I don’t think we’ve heard the winner yet, and I’m only sure about one of these songs being a potential qualifier! Still, we’ve got 35 songs left to be chosen yet with, I believe, Denmark, Romania, Norway and Georgia all picking their entries next weekend! Roll on next week already I say!