This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
I’m trying to fit two gallons of good into a pint glass here. I think there’s 7 that I’m prepared to rule out, some of which will be rather controversial…
POLAND, NORWAY, ALBANIA – the only thing these three have in common is that they’ve got a mighty tough draw disadvantage to overcome, and I don’t think any of them have the right song or the right friends present to help them do it.
MALTA, CROATIA – don’t think either of these is quite as bad as collective wisdom suggests, but neither looks right for making it into the top 10 of a tough year.
SAN MARINO – competent song, competently sung by a competent singer, nuff said.
ICELAND – it breaks my heart to rule this out, but there are various reasons for it not to.
That leaves me 12 possibles. In draw order:
ARMENIA – cheap, cheesy, a silly but effective staging, and those are POSITIVE attributes.
TURKEY – because it’s Turkey, and their rockish songs usually do well enough.
SERBIA – good song, feel-good, should be through no problems at all.
RUSSIA – ought to be top 3 in the semi, it’s still in the running to win the whole thing.
SWITZERLAND – finally a Swiss entry that actually gains some traction on an ESC stage.
GEORGIA – it’s not great, but it’s not THAT bad, and it could be the spoiler for Turkey.
FINLAND – if he can broadcast an innocent charm to Europe it could do a Dice.
HUNGARY – Kati’s not getting the best out of the song, but the song’s too good for that to matter.
PORTUGAL – comedy either dies horribly or ignites. Still not sure which way this one’s going to go.
LITHUANIA – not a great song, but a pure contrast to what precedes it in Ha Dias Assim stylee.
AZERBAIJAN – surely a no-brainer.
GREECE – Stereo Mike fails to kill it, and the draw and staging are outstanding.
It’s going to need some more thought and angst before I squeeze a final 10 out from that lot, though I’m sure some of you will be thinking that it’s a no-brainer to remove some or all of Portugal/Georgia/Switzerland and/or Lithuania from the candidate list or that I’ve got it just plain wrong about some of my 7 rule-outs. It’s a tough call!
