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!

France is the winner of the 2020 Junior Eurovision Song Contest!

“J’imagine” by Valentina took a clear victory in the 18th running of the EBU’s song competition for under-16s, as its narrow lead after the jury phase was amplified by a huge win in the public online vote. Just like in the 2019 edition, the podium was completed by Kazakhstan in second place and Spain in third place.

JESC 2020 was something of a dry run for how the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam might look: Most (though not all) of the performances were recorded in the performers’ home countries on a predefined stage setup, and the “green room” was also virtual. While it obviously wasn’t a perfect situation and there remain some concerns about ensuring a level playing field in terms of vocals being performed live, it’s to the credit of the EBU and the broadcasters involved that the show had a remarkably seamless feel to it. Although the recent vaccine news gives rise to hopes that ESC 2021 can take place as close to “normal” as possible, at least we now have evidence that the various backup options outlined by the EBU – read about them here and here – can still result in a decent show, and that’s good news for all of us.

JESC 2020 also served as a warm-up for the new season for our #esc chat, and of course we voted along with the show. Not for the first time, our taste was a little out of touch with everyone else’s: Our chat favourite was Russia with an average score of 7.91 out of 10, followed by Belarus with 7.44 and the Netherlands with 7.22 (although the French winner was our fourth favourite, at least!).

The next major chat event will, of course, be the Albanian national final in the second half of December, so make sure to join us for the multiple night extravaganza that is Festivali i Këngës 59 – this year apparently taking place in the open air!

In the meantime, here’s the French JESC winner for you one more time. Félicitations!

It’s not every day a movie about the Eurovision Song Contest gets released – so we took the opportunity to simultaneously have our first viewing of Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga live in our #esc chat and share our thoughts with each other as we watched. And now we’re sharing some of those thoughts with you!

Even before we started, reality was biting hard.

haha my boyfriend just moaned “two HOURS” and i said look bitch actual eurovision lasts 4 these days

Being nerds, we naturally didn’t hesitate to pick holes in the accuracy.

iceland didn’t enter in 74. WRONGNESS AT THE FIRST SECOND
English commentary too, muy autentico

so ESC is meant to be in UK? that’s a whole new level of unlikely…
it means independent Scotland won. that I could believe

We appreciated some of the styling choices early on.

is anyone else seeing Ilse and Waylon here

Lars rocking the early 90s outfits honestly

I’m liking Rasmussen’s change of direction

And then we realised we were… actually starting to enjoy some of the wackier plot points?

i like the idea that if everyone died in a disaster they’d just send the ones that didn’t die, rather than just pull out
surely according to the real rules they’d be sending Katiana’s Friends

i love the idea that the performers dont know the routine before they get there
feels like something the UK might do

i do love the idea that if the performance went badly, an act would just fuck off home

We kept on nitpicking too – in the best possible spirit, of course…

“we love club dancing”
said no one ever
and i’d love to know where a club in edinburgh looks like that too 😀

Sometimes Edinburgh is in Glasgow
edinburgh is in Chisinau apprently with these “hosts” 😀

Greece is totally unrealistic… she’d never be this much clothed… plus no male dancers

I like the idea that the commentator wouldn’t mention “oh, and their national final exploded”

But we were also won over by some of the more well-observed moments.

this is an accurate reflection of modern ESC in that most of the songs have the same beat

British commentator talking in the middle of the songs – most authentic thing yet

Iceland read out last is very realistic, nice touch

And the script gave us some proper laughs, too!

that Icelandic watching party looks like a social distance party

HAHAHA BEST LINE “Are you gay?” “of course not i am from Russia”

haha, unhelpful ghost

everything involving Katiana has been 10/10

In the end, we all broadly agreed with this assessment:

i’m mostly quite enjoying the Eurovision-related stuff
the rest of it is a bit… average
kinda the other way round to how i expected

But all in all, it was a fun night in the chat and a diverting enough two hours of light entertainment. In that spirit, we’ll leave the last word to an Icelandic chatter:

I can not believe our only chance of winning eurovision and they mess it up

Be sure to check out Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga on Netflix and make up your own mind!