Yay! After watching several countries trying to come up with someone who could outrule us all in Eurovision. After trying to ignore boring episode number 115 of Sweden’s ridiculously long selection process. After surviving through Ukraine’s death by politics. Finally, we are ready for our own national final, the one and only Melodi Grand Prix.
We are watching, of course, and we will give you our comments as we go along. Read our live blog below.
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Ah, finally. Our Norwegian selection MGP is coming up! And even though we weren’t there to assist this year, our national broadcaster NRK did a fine job on their own picking out artists and songs that together will make a great show. But how will they do on their own in Tel Aviv? Read our reviews and verdicts below!
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Hooray, our national final is soon ready to blow the roof off Oslo Spektrum. We think. Must admit we are not always super happy with Norway’s finals, but we actually think it is pretty good this year. And we’re not only saying that because we desperately want NRK to give us an accreditation for Lisbon. True story. We swear.
In fact, we’re mostly saying that because we were in the listening group that helped picked the songs for MGP this year, and if the result wasn’t good, who else to blame but…ourselves? NOT a blame game we like playing in GEE HQ. Also the listening group looked a bit like this:
Yeah, MGP went as expected. Norway gathered a lot of hobgoblins onstage, let the only good artist down and voted for a rubbish song. We are utterly disappointed we won’t be packing our sami flags and sølje jewellery in May. But at least we had a great party with Elin and her wood, got rid of Kristian Valen early and can still count of Hungary’s Joci for some ethnic vibe in Kyiv (that is if he is not bullied to silence first, shame on you, Hungarians).
Nonetheless. We have some awards to hand out:
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It is that time of the year again. Whilst most people are busy enjoying that Stockholm sun and figuring out who is going to win Melodifestivalen in Sweden, Norway is desperately seeking attention for our national final and our “MGP general” Jan Fredrik Karlsen is running around in the media telling everyone who he wants to win so he himself can have someone to drink vodka with in his hotel room in Kyiv.
Just like last year, it’s mostly a sob story for two Norwegian Eurovision fans, really. But we stand by our country in good times and in bad. So we’ll bring our 9 year old associated jury member and show up in Oslo spektrum. And if you are stil wondering who WE would like to shot vodka with in Kyiv’s Euro club, here’s our quick run-through in order of appearance:
So, we already told you we had a great time in Estonia’s Eesti Laul. But did we tell you we also brought Elin and Robin, aka Elin and the Woods, aka our absolute favorites to win MGP this year? We needed to introduce them to the Estonians, of course.
Robin was so excited he decided to take a tour on his own. Here’s what he stopped to look at along his way:
Don’t get us wrong. While we might occassionaly hit a few sarcastic notes when covering our home country on this site, we love Norway. It is a glorious country. So glorious. Chuck-full of fiords and mountains and carefully farmed salmon and clean water and at least a little bit of clean air outside of Oslo and an opera house and great drip coffee and more than one good bar and an endless supply of aquavit and moonshine on every street corner. Oh, and Alexander Rybak. There is a lot to be proud of. And we are the proudest. So why this lack of enthusiasm when it comes to MGP?
Let’s do an analysis. We see three possible explanations:
A) We are so afraid of being labeled nationalistic that we positively discriminate anything related to our own country. Harshly.
B) There is no good music in Norway, hence no potential for good music in MGP.
C) The entire group of songwriters in Norway are prohibited from using any tricks related to Sweden, such as bridges, catchy choruses, pre-choruses to catchy choruses, key changes, good lyrics, structure, a proper melody…and so on and so forth.
Holy cannoli, what just happened last night? That’s it then, after a string of fine entries placing us nicely on the left-handside of the ESC scoreboard, Norway officially lost the plot when selecting Agnete and her rather gloomy mash-up. Don’t blame us, we sent our televotes elsewhere, which was of course a waste of money. Can we please send Åse Kleveland instead? So while mentally preparing for what it will be like not to proceed from the semi-final in Stockholm, let’s take stock of the shenanigans that went down in Oslo Spectrum.
Most obvious wasted opportunity:
The very year Europe was ready to embrace a lesbian art collective singing about a dog in space, Norway decided NOT to send Laika to Stockholm. Continue reading
So, tonight is the big night in our country, AKA the national finals for Eurovision, AKA Melodi Grand Prix. Who will we send to Stockholm? We haven’t got the faintest. But we’re opinionated, all right. So here’s what WE think you’ll see tonight:
Agnete – «Icebreaker»
The average Eurovision fan sure knows to appreciate a familiar face, and Agnete already earned her fame as MGPjr winner and MGP runner up long before she never finished high school. Lately she has claimed her fair share of primetime TV exposure and proved that she can carry a tune live without caving under the pressure of knowing half the country is watching. Her dancing skills are not too shabby either it turns out, all of which is of course nice to know in case we accidentally manage to vote her all the way to Stockholm in May. Continue reading