5 acts and their mentors have been announced for Eurosong 2012, so who will be Ireland’s representative in Baku?

1: Act: Maria McCool

Donegal singer Maria McCool, from Enya’s hometown of Gweedore, is believed to be singing a Celtic-style melody similar to “The Voice” by Eimear Quinn. It may even be in Irish – only rumours so far. She will be mentored by Edele Lynch.

Mentor: Edele Lynch is a successful singer and songwriter. She made her name as member of Bewitched, their album, which Lynch wrote, sold 6 million copies worldwide. Lynch has also written songs for Girls Aloud, Sugababes and more recently has been in the band Barbarellas and has written their album NightMode.

2: Act: Donna MacCaul

in 2005, Donna and her brother Joe threw themselves into the somewhat daunting but very exciting and in many cases, enviable task of representing Ireland with their song “Love?”. Written by Lina and Marten Eriksson who also wrote Niamh Kavanagh’s song back in 2010, this time around it is a A “Katy Perry-esque” pop song

Mentor: Bill Hughes has been an independent television professional for 26 years with over 1000 hours of music, entertainment and documentary programmes to his credit. Hughes, alongside Louis Walsh and Linda Martin, was a judge on Irish television sensation Popstars and has also done jury duty on a number of shows including RTÉ’s You’re A Star.

3: Act: Una Gibney and David Shannon “Language of Love”

A duet between Una Gibney and David Shannon is the third performing act for Eurosong so far. Una performed in Michael Flatley’s “Celtic Tiger” whilst David took the lead roles in a few west end musicals.

Mentor: Show business agent Julian Benson is mentoring Una Gibney and David Shannon. Benson is a show business agent and choreographer. He has a keen interest in the ESC and has served RTÉ’s song selection committee several times in the past.  He has also co-written their song with composer Éanán Patterson.

4 Act: Andrew Mann, “Here I Am“

Andrew Mann is an extraordinary and gifted Irish singer and writer who has been performing professionally around Ireland and Europe for the last six years. After writing literally hundreds of songs over the last ten years he has been lucky enough to perform nationwide tours in Ireland, Austria, France and Spain and has also had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with New York’s industry glitterati, doing many show case gigs in the big apple.

Mentor: Greg French is a member of The Brilliant Things and works as a music producer/songwriter and for television.

5 Act: Jedward

Really? Do we need to write anything in here? Ok Jedward were in the UK X-Factor in 2009 where they shot to fame, last year they represented Ireland with the infamous ”Lipstick”.

Mentor: Linda Martin needs no introduction to ESC matters, having, as a performer, won the contest in 1992 and come 2nd in 1984. Linda also chaired the RTÉ Eurovision Song Selection Committee in 2009 to 2010. And also makes the most fabulous drag queen.

All five entries will be performed for the first time on The Late Late Show Eurosong 2012 on the 24th of February, 2012. Once again the winner will be decided by a combination of public vote and regional jury.

Thanks to Keith Mills Eurovision Maestro over in AKOE for the headsup

Jedward’s tour dates mysteriously stop on the 18th of Feb and start again in June. Wonder if they have anything in mind for May?

This is the most modern entry that France has sent in – in my opinion. For the vast majority of the song it is a great song, but there are bits like the start and once or twice in the song when it sounds like reversing that put me off it. But this is by far my favorite so far – yes there are only 5 entries, but unlike every other year most of these are good songs before the ‘tweaking’ happens. I have a feeling that there will be a slightly revised version, plus it may look and work perfectly live on stage – which we have yet to see. Anggun will be doing a lot of touring through the various national finals around Europe to promote the song.

Also smart move on their part for putting part of it in English, it’ll have people singing it remembering it  And at the end of the day, as a French friend said to me – “At least we have a song to dance to  ”

Performed in the Danish national final this year, here is a list fo the songs that he did.

“Fly on the Wings of Love” Olsen Brothers, Denmark 2000
“Hold Me Now” Johnny Logan, Ireland 1987
“Fångad av en Stormvind” Carola, Sweden 1991
“Satellite” Lena Meyer-Landrut, Germany 2010
“A-Ba-Ni-Bi” – Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta, Israel 1978
“Hard Rock Hallelujah” Lordi , Finland 2006
“Fairytale” Alexander Rybak, Norway 2009

A lot, that’s how much. La La Love was chosen to be Ivi Adamou’s song for Baku. Bravo Cyprus, bravo

It’s catchy yet its not. But we will form a better opinion when the song is released in full soon.

Edit: After listening to it on a few (dozen loops) it works, something we will be dancing to later on in the year

Hands up here who was surprised with the “Land of Fire” reference?

“Should’ve known better” by Soluna Samay will represt Denmark this year. Otherwise known as Anna Bergehdahl 2.0.

It’s a decent song but I do not seeing doing any well in final though.

We did love Ditte Marie - Overflow, she was fabulous and at least in tune this year

12 acts will compete to represent Bulgaria on February 29th.

1. Tsvetelin Atanasov-Elvisa ft. DZ – Love goes around (Popout)
2. New 5 – Change for a better life
3. Rene Ranev – Alone (Popout)
4. Go Week – The way you see the world (Popout)
5. Simona Sivanio – Eternal
6. Svetozar Hristov – Kick me down (Popout)
7. Vyara Pantaleeva - Vyara
8. Ivailo Kolev ft. Hipnotik - Searching for the words (Popout)
9. Steliyana Hristova - Putyat (Popout)
10. Todor Gadzhalov –  Still love you (Popout)
11. Dess – Love is alive (Popout)
12. Sofi Marinova – Prosto lyubov (Popout)

So here is the obligatory post about all the countries now

43 in total:

• Albania (RTVSH)
• Armenia (AMPTV)
• Austria (ORF)
• Azerbaijan (Ictimai TV) (Host Broadcaster)
• Belarus (BTRC)
• Belgium (VRT)
• Bosnia & Herzegovina (BHRT)
• Bulgaria (BNT)
• Croatia (HRT)
• Cyprus (CyBC)
• Denmark (DR)
• Estonia (ERR)
• Finland (YLE)
• France (France TV)
• FYR Macedonia (MKRTV)
• Georgia (GTVR)
• Germany (NDR/ARD)
• Greece (ERT)
• Hungary (MTV)
• Iceland (RÚV)
• Ireland (RTÉ)
• Israel (IBA)
• Italy (RAI)
• Latvia (LTV)
• Lithuania (LRT)
• Malta (PBS)
• Moldova (TRM)
• Montenegro (RTCG)
• The Netherlands (TROS)
• Norway (NRK)
• Portugal (RTP)
• Romania (TVR)
• Russia (RTR)
• San Marino (SMRTV)
• Serbia (RTS)
• Slovakia (STV)
• Slovenia (RTVSLO)
• Spain (RTVE)
• Sweden (SVT)
• Switzerland (SRG/SSR)
• Turkey (TRT)
• Ukraine (NTU)
• United Kingdom (BBC)