There’s always at least one “Super Saturday” in every national final season, and even this more streamlined 2021 variant was no exception. Last night, fans were able to juggle streams for a good six hours as Finland, Norway and Spain selected their entries for Rotterdam and semi-finals took place in Estonia, Sweden and Portugal.

In Finland, a high-quality line-up in Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2021 was no obstacle to rockers Blind Channel, whose “Dark Side” won the international jury vote before absolutely obliterating the competition by receiving more than 50% of the televotes – a more than convincing victory!

In Norway, several rounds of voting whittled down the 12 contenders to two superfinalists – returning fan favourites KEiiNO, who famously won the televote when they represented the country in ESC 2019, and popular local artist TIX, whose songwriting credits include international hits like Ava Max’s “Sweet But Psycho”. In our chat, KEiiNO was our #1 of the night and TIX was our #12 – but the Norwegian public saw things differently and duly selected TIX’s “Fallen Angel” to represent them in Rotterdam!

Finally, we already knew that Spain would be represented by Blas Cantó as would have been the case in ESC 2020, but the question was which of his two songs would get the ticket. The answer is “Voy a quedarme”, and you can listen to it here:

The non-winning finalists from these shows get to participate in SongHunt 2021, our annual quest to find the best song of the season which begins tonight. You can read all about it right here – make sure you get involved!

One of the good things about not being a leading Eurovision fan site is you don’t have to claim to be impartial. That’s not to say that escgo! would ever take a biased editorial line, but the fact is that we – this site’s authors and the #esc chat community that lies at our heart – do have certain favourites among the national final process. We’re suckers for Festivali i Këngës, we’ll religiously watch Romanian semi-finals (especially if they’re held in a salt mine)… and we are still delighted about Croatia’s decision a few years ago to revive Dora, the preselection format that gave us so many classics around the turn of the century in particular.

Songs from Dora 2019 and 2020 have reached the latter stages of our SongHunt competition – and we expect the same to be true this year, because some great entries were left in the dust as Albina Grčić stormed to victory in Dora 2021 this evening.

The votes of ten regional juries were combined 50-50 with a public vote to form the final result, and Albina’s “Tick-Tock” was a fairly comfortable winner in both. Our chat favourite, “Rijeka” by Nina Kraljić a.k.a. Alkonost of Balkan, had to settle for second place but will surely make a strong SongHunt showing this season. We’ll drink to that.

Congratulations to Albina, who will perform “Tick-Tock” in the second half of the first semi-final on 18 May. And the good news is that our SongHunt 2021 launches shortly, so those losing songs we enjoyed so much in the chat tonight will soon have their shot at redemption!

In an ESC week that also saw the first heat of Melodifestivalen in Sweden and further Norwegian action as part of Melodi Grand Prix, two new additions were made to the ESC 2021 line-up. To almost nobody’s surprise, The Roop, who would have represented Lithuania at the 2020 contest had it taken place, won the ticket to this year’s event with their song “Discoteque”.

As the defending champions, The Roop were granted a free pass to the final of Pabandom iš naujo 2021, where they comfortably saw off all opposition by winning both the jury vote and (especially) the public vote. Like “On Fire” last year, “Discoteque” and its accompanying stage routine are sure to be among the most talked-about packages as the 2021 season continues.

Having already been internally selected to represent Ukraine again, electro-folk group Go_A had submitted three songs for internal selection. Clips of those candidates were revealed a few days ago, and we now know the identity of the Ukrainian song for ESC 2021: “Shum” (“Noise”).

Earlier in the week, another bit of largely unsurprising news was revealed: The most optimistic scenario for the organisation of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest, namely “ESC as usual” with a full arena, was ruled out in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and against the backdrop of restrictions and public opinion in the host country, the Netherlands.

The parameters of the remaining potential scenarios were also shifted and now read as follows:

While it’s easy to be cynical after almost a year of bad news, the fact that the powers-that-be are willing to entertain various scenarios and wait a little longer to see what happens is certainly to be welcomed. Realistically, though, it seems almost inevitable that ESC 2021 will have something of a “virtual” feel and it’s hard to imagine all of the delegations performing in Rotterdam in person. However, the prospect of some kind of audience – even if just local residents – to provide real cheers after each song is something that will be welcomed by those of us who are still scarred by the “canned applause” used so prominently in Vienna in 2015!

“Voilà” by Barbara Pravi won last night’s French national final, Eurovision France, c’est vous qui décidez!, and will represent the Big Five country in the grand final of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.

As well as the honour of being the favourite in our chatroom, Pravi won the expert jury vote and the public vote in France to seal a comfortable victory in the actual competition. Followers of Junior Eurovision will be familiar with Pravi’s work, even if they didn’t realise it before – she co-composed the last two French JESC entries, including the reigning champion “J’imagine” by Valentina.

Earlier in the week, Eden Alene became the first of several re-selected 2020 performers to have her own single-artist national final as Israel chose its entry. Three entries were in the running, and “Set Me Free” came out on top in what turned out to be a dominant public vote victory. Israel will perform in the second half of the first semi-final in Rotterdam (or the virtual equivalent thereof).

The non-winning songs from the French and Israeli finals, together with all of the other losing national finalists so far, will get their chance for revenge when we launch SongHunt 2021 in the second half of February!

Using a shorter format to reflect the scaled-back national final season this year, SongHunt is our annual competition to find the song that our chatters and website readers think was the most “robbed” and that really should have made it through to ESC proper. So stay tuned for that!

We are always grateful for Albania’s Festivali i Këngës, the traditional music event that also serves as the country’s selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Even in an ordinary year, it serves as the kick-off for the new Eurovision on-season and a nice bit of light in the winter darkness.

But this year more than ever, FiK 59 marked the moment at which we turn our back on the horror year of 2020 – in terms of world events above all, of course, but also as ESC fans with the cancellation of our beloved event for the first time ever – and look to the better times ahead in 2021.

ESC 2021 in Rotterdam might still look quite different to what we’re used to, of course, but at least it will happen. And that “the show must go on” mentality was present in Albania too, right from the moment it was announced that the national final would be held outdoors in order to prevent health risks and allow for social distancing. Even with pre-recorded performances, an outdoor national final in December was a brave choice, but it all worked well enough and served as a timely illustration of how a bit of imagination can help the Eurovision train to keep rolling.

And the winner? Well, in many quarters it was perceived as a two-way battle between Inis Neziri’s “Pendesë” (our chat’s favourite both on the semi-final night and tonight) and “Karma” by Anxhela Peristeri. In the end, Inis didn’t even make the podium – whereas “Karma” did indeed take the crown and will represent Albania in Amsterdam! Let the revamping begin.

So here you have it – officially the first ESC 2021 entry we know, and what a lovely Christmas present it is to now be thinking about 2021 and positive things to come. To each and every one of our readers, we wish you: Gëzuar festat!