At a press conference today Danish broadcaster, DR, presented the 10 acts that will be fighting to win the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix and later represent Denmark at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. The list of participants reveal a mix between well known songwriters and a few singers heard of before – a new format has been presented as well.
Many Danish fans have been looking forward to this day for quite a while. The past two years the country have accieved two top 5 placements at the Eurovision Song Contest. On the 21st of January we will find out who will be lifting the pressure of managing at least that – and maybe even bring the international contest back to the small windy Nordic country. The 10 acts who will be competing in the national selection, the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, were presented today.
The 10 songs were chosen by an internal group at DR via the 678 publicly submitted entries and DR’s wildcard invitations and not much had leaked in advance. Former participants like DQ from 2007 and Brinck from 2009 had expressed an interest in participating again – and then NRK, Norwegian broadcaster, had published one of the names for the Danish final when they wrote about one of their semi-finalists, Philip Halloun, that he would also be participating in the Danish final, but aside from that the Danish fans were still dreaming of stars like Rasmus Seebach and Alphabeat. A present of that caliber was not presented today, but maybe less can do it? It at least looks like quite an open competition where several will have a good chance of making it.
The 10 participants are (In the same order as it will be at the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix):
1. Take Our Hearts – Jesper Nohrstedt (The songwriters describe the song as an international club hit – the singer has been participating in X-Factor, but has never released anything) – Wildcard
2. Nowhere – Valen:tine (Aka Tine Lynggaard (The song is being described as a song with a lot of guitar on – one of the songwriters has participated before as a guitar player for Johnny Deluxe)
3. Best thing I got – Aya (This song is written by John Gordon and Julie Frost, the same Danish songwriters who wrote the 2010 German Eurovision Song Contest winner, Satelite.
4. Reach For The Sky – Kenneth Potempa
5. Overflow – Ditte Marie (Ditte Marie participated last year as front figur for the band Le Freak singing 25 Hours A Day)
6. Baby Love Me – Philip Halloun & Emelia (Emelia is Finnish and has before participated as choir singer in the Finnish national final).
7. Forever I B Young – Suryia (This song is being described as electronic music – the singer was one half of the duo Soap, where the other part was her sister, who reached top 10 positions around the world) – Wildcard
8. Universe – Karen Viuff (This song is written partly by Lise Cabble who also wrote the Danish Eurovision Song Contest entries from 1995 and 2011, Fra Mols Til Skagen and New Tomorrow)
9. Should Have Known Better – Soluna Samya (This song is written by Cheif 1, who wrote the 1997 entry Stemmen I Mit Liv, and Remée, who wrote the 2008 German entry Disappear) – Wildcard
10. Venter – Christian Brøns & Patrik Isaksson (Christian and Swedish Patrik has worked together before when they worked together 10 years ago. That album came out just after Christian had been participating in Big Brother) – Wildcard
The format:
The 2012 Dansk Melodi Grand Prix will take place in Aalborg, North Jutland, on Saturday the 21st of January. Yesterday DR revealed a new format for the selection, which involves the use of an international jury as well. In previous years we have seen three rounds before a winner was found. Now there will only be two as three of the 10 songs will go through to the superfinal where the winner will be picked.
At first it will be a pure Danish decision as the Danish TV viewers and the Danish expert jury will decide 50 percent each. In the next round the international juries from Norway, Germany, Russia and Azerbaijan will get their say as they will also be deciding half together with the Danish jury – the other half will be the TV viewers votes. It will later be announced who will be in those international juries.
