After three exciting duels, the Norwegian result was clear: Blåsemafian feat. Hazel is heading to the Norwegian final where they will join the six pre-qualified acts.

The Norwegian is what some could call unnecessary complicated. 12 acts will compete in the final on the 20th of February. There are three ways an act can reach the Melodi Grand Prix final:

• Be directly qualified. Six acts have been guaranteed a place in the final.
• Win one of the preliminary heats. Five preliminary heats will feature four acts each. The winner of each go to the final.
• Get a Wild Card. One of the none winners from the preliminary heats will be awarded a wildcard for the final.

Tonights heat featured a young influencer, a League of Legend voice, three wind players and a jazz singer with international success. To read more about them, check out our Get To Know article.

Result of the first heat

Four acts took part in this first preliminary heat. Just like last year, the voting was done online with NRK login. Back then it was criticised for not being strong enough, and finally it broke down completely in the final. This year, the broadcaster promise that it can cope. Let’s hope, they are right.

After each duel, voting was open for three minutes.

• Duel 1: Stina Talling – Elevate vs Beady Belle – Playing With Fire
  Winner is Stina Talling.
• Duel 2: Jorn – Fate Bloody Faith vs Blåsemafian feat. Hazel – Let Loose
  Winner is Blåsemafian feat. Hazel.

The winners of the two duels then met each other in the third and last round; a guld duel (Gold duel). Finally, the result was clear: Blåsemafian feat. Hazel is qualified for the final of Melodi Grand Prix 2021 on the 20th of February.

The show

The show kicked off at 19:50 CET, and was hosted by Kåre Magnus Bergh, Ingrid Gjessing Linhave and Ronny Brede Aase. All three also hosted the Norwegian shows last year. Through the 1 hours and 15 minutes long show, all acts competed in duels. To secure fairness, the two first duels were decided via a draw that took place in the beginning of the show.

As start of the show, we saw a clip of a host waking up from a nightmare about last year’s voting scandal. Nice to see that the broadcaster is able to make jokes about it. Afterwards, we saw the Abid Jaja, Norway’s Ministry of Culture and Media assuring the hosts that the Melodi Grand Prix 2021 would take place as Norway needed a party – and then he performed a little dance. That man has swag!

After the result of the first duel; the first of the pre-qualfied acts took the stage. This was their 2019 Eurovision participants KEiiNO. They are back for the 2021 contest with the song Monument. Their performance tonight was extremely strong, though vocally it wasn’t the best we heard from them (don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad and her high note was strong). But there’s time to fix that. Let’s just be honest, they are a strong contender to win the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix final this year.

When the result of the second duel was clear, it was time for the second pre-qualfied act TIX to perform his entry Ut Av Mørket (Out of the darkness). He performed with what was called ‘the world’s largest angel wings’. Vocally, he was very strong tonight, probably the best we heard all night, but the stage show can be improved.

Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest

With three Eurovision victories, Norway is on track with fellow Scandinavian neighbour Denmark, although both countries are three behind Sweden. Norway first won in 1985, the year after Sweden’s second win. Bobbysocks’ La Det Swinge has since become a classic hit, which most fans can sing a long to. Ten years later, Secret Garden gave Norway their second win with the song Nocturne, which only contained 24 words, and the rest was instrumental, mainly violin. In 2009, Norway would once again bring the violin to Eurovision – and win by no other than Rybak.

Since the last Norwegian victory, by Alexander Rybak in 2009, Norway have scored rather decent in Eurovision. Stella Mwangi (2011) and Agnete (2016) both failed to reach the final, but of the remaining six entries that did make it, four of them ended in top 10.