ESC 2013 - Reviewing the countries beginning with "S"

San Marino sends Valentina Monetta with the song "Crisalide" written by Ralph Siegel and Mauro Balestri.
Once again, Valentina. Once again, Ralph Siegel. But this time with a great song! Such a huge change! I bet most of the viewers won't be able to tell that Valentina is the same artist as last year! Big chance that San Marino makes it to the final this time!
San Marino competes in the 2nd semi-final with running order #2.

7pts from me and good luck to San Marino!

Serbia sends Moje 3 with the song "Ljubav Je Svuda" written by  Saša Milošević Mare and Marina Tucaković.

Love it! :D They really need to work on a new choreo (I think they do). I don't really like the way it ends. It's too abrupt. Ah, tiny detail! They're so in the final!!!

Serbia competes in the 1st semi-final with running order #16.

10pts from me and good luck to Serbia!

Slovenia sends Hannah with the song "Straight Into Love" written by  Hannah Mancini, Gregor Zemljic, Erik Margan, Matija Rodic and Marko Primuzak.

When I listened to the song for the first time I wanted the first 15 seconds out! Now I don't mind them. So we had the first version then we got the final one and originally I liked the final more. But now I changed my mind. I prefer the first version! There are some new lyrics added in the final version but I miss some parts of the original. But ok, I love it no matter what! That's my sLOVEnia!

Slovenia competes in the 1st semi-final with running order #3.

10pts from me and good luck to Slovenia!

Spain sends El Sueño de Morfeo with the song "Contigo Hasta El Final" written by  Raquel del Rosario, David Feito and Juan Suárez.

One thing was for sure this year. No matter what Spain sent, it would never top last year's entry. Unless it was Pastora with a better song (kinda difficult to do this though). I said from the beginning that I wasn't a fan of ESDM. I also said that despite this they might make it to my top 10. They did. For a while at least coz Finland kicked them out. Now I want to put this back to my top 10 but there's no place... And yes, I like the song but I predict a bottom 5 placing. It just screams last place... :/

Spain competes in the final. Running order TBA.

8pts from me and good luck to Spain!

Sweden sends Robin Stjernberg with the song "You" written by Robin Stjernberg, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb and Joakim Harestad Haukaas.

I think this is the grower of the year for me. It started by being really annoying, not so annoying, bearable, ok, great! It turned out to be the best choice for Sweden! A great entry for the hosts. Decent and really nice! A top 10 isn't impossible.

Sweden competes in the final. Running order TBA.

10pts from me and good luck to Sweden!

Switzerland sends Takasa with the song "You And Me" written by Georg Schlunegger, Roman Camenzind and Fred Herrmann.

Another one that I really really like!! Especially the chorus! That "aaaaah aaah ah"! I really hope they make it to the final! They deserved it last year and they stayed out. I don't want the history to be repeated!

Switzerland competes in the 2nd semi-final with running order #16.

10pts from me and good luck to Switzerland!

ESC 2013 - Switzerland picked its song

I'm so late for everything! I'm back in Greece and I had to stay for a couple of days in Thessaloniki (no internet there) until my luggage arrived (yeah, long story). Anyway! There's a lot of euronews!

I watched the swiss NF on Saturday night. My ultimate favourite, Melissa, disappointed me that night. I adore the song (yeah I still do!) and I will keep listening to it but that live performance was really really weak! What was with that "Rebeka Dremelj" at the beginning? No choreo for Melissa. Obviously because she wanted to focus on the vocals. But then again her vocals were so weak. I was expecting a really powerful performance but I never got it. Such a shame. :( 12 points to the studio version, 4 to that live performance.

Apart from Melissa and the winners I didn't really care for the rest. Heilsarmee won with "You And Me". I'm totally fine with it and I give them an 8 (for now at least!)! I just don't get why they have that old man with them... Poor grandpa... He had no idea of what was going on! Especially at the part where they were announcing the top 3.

I've also read that Heilsarmee need to drop their name and clothes if they want to enter the contest. I don't know what's the latest news on that. But I don't really get why EBU has a problem with that. It's not like everyone knows that Heilsarmee means The Army of Salvation or what they do. Anyway...

ESC 2013 - The Swiss final line-up

Ok the first part is over. We know the 9 finalists of the Swiss NF. Lys Assia is not one of them! :( Damn! I liked the song. It's fun and that "Hello, how is the flow?" is epic! xD Oh well, there's always next year Lys!

I'm gonna make some comments on all songs. You can listen to all of them here.

Anthony Bighead: «Do The Monkey»

Do the monkey? Seriously? This sucks! I can't find anything positive!

Heilsarmee: «You and Me»

Ok I like this! I really like the chorus. It reminds me of something but I can't tell what... hm... 

Jesse Ritch: «Forever & a day»

I like this one too but it's nothing special. A nice song for the radio but not for ESC IMO.

Melissa: «The Point Of No Return»

Ok I think I found my winner. I know I have 5 more songs to listen to but I love this! And I love Melissa! She was my winner in the spanish NF in 2011 with "Eos"! Even though Lucia was in my top 3 in ESC, at first I didn't like her song. Anyway, vamos Melissa!

Carrousel: «J’avais Rendez-vous»

No, no, no! I don't like it and french is a big minus for me! I really dislike french (of course some songs are the exceptions!). Not a single thing I like in this song!

Nicolas Fraissinet: «Lève-toi»

Nothing special here either and totally forgetable. Next!

Nicolas Fraissinet: «Lève-toi»

Hm... ok-ish song. Same comments as "Forever and a day".

Ally: «Catch me»

Boring and quite repetitive. Too much noise in the chorus. I don't like it.

Chiara Dubey: «Bella Sera»

Sleeping pill! I saw the italian title and I was expecting something else but that's über-boring!

So I was right about Melissa! She's totally my winner! It's either her or Heilsarmee!