Eurovision 2011

Okay, so it’s time for my traditional rundown of this year’s Eurovision entries. 

The Grand Final of Eurovision 2011 is due to be staged in Düsseldorf, Germany on the 14^th of May, and there are a whopping 43 entrants this year, with the return of San Marino, Austria, Hungary and Italy (who return after a 14 year gap).

As the biggest funders of the contest, the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany automatically qualify for the Final, leaving twenty places for the remaining 38 countries, who’ll be decided from two semi-finals in the preceding week. One of my biggest sadnesses about Eurovision is that some gems, both musical and comedy, are often confined to these semi-finals, so do take a look.

I’ve gone with my gut and reviewed these songs after just one listen to try and get an idea of how they’ll stand up on the actual night.

In the past I’ve gone for the chronological or alphabetical approach; this time I’ve decided to group the songs of a similar style together, and I’ll blog each “category” together. Hopefully, I’ll finish not feeling too shell-shocked, and we’ll round off with a blog about which songs I came back to listen to.

The BBC site is great if you find yourself getting sucked into Eurovision world, and if you totally fall in, ESC Today has all the latest news, as well as unintentionally hilarious interviews conducted in awkward English.