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?

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

“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)

Ivi Adamou was chosen internally to represent Cyprus in Baku, and recently 3 songs have been released that she will sing, and it is up to Cyprus to choose. Personally we love La, La, Love. I have a great feeling for Cyprus this year – lets hope she can sing live

La La Love

Call The Police

You Don’t Belong Here

February 24th will see the Austrians select their entrant for Baku, and they have some lovely contestants including a drag queen called Conchita Wurst, looks to be a good show. You can listen to most of the songs by click on this link or on the title of the song.

	Arstist: !Deladap Song: Swing Crazy
	Artist: Blockstars
	Artist: James Cottriall  Song: Stand up
	Artist: Krautschädl  Song: EINSTURZGFOHR
	Artist: Mary Broadcast Band   Song: How can you ask me
	Artist: PapermoonSong: Father, father, mon père
	Artist: Norbert Scheneider Song: Medicate my blues away
	Artist: Trackshittaz   Song: Woki mit deim popo
	Artist: Valerie Song : Comme ça
	Artist: Conchita Wurst   Song: That’s what I am

Earlier than normal Dansk MGP takes place on Saturday 21st of January – only 2 weeks away and already has been shrouded in controversy as many of ye already know, Tine Lynggard’s ‘Nowhere’ was disqualified for being released on the interwebs earlier last year so now the usual line up of 10 is now 9.

The line-up for Dansk MGP will be :

1. Jesper Norshtedt - Take out hearts
2. Aya - Best thing I got
3. Kenneth Potempa - Reach the sky
4. Ditte Marie - Overflow
5. Phillip Hallou & Emilia - Baby love me
6. Suriya - Forever I be young 
7. Karen Viuff - Universe
8. Soluna Samaay - Should have known better
9. Chris Brons and Patrick Isaksson - Venter 

The Danes have also livened things up a little with new voting rules – basically as well as public voting they now have international jury voting for the final selection – once they get to 3 entries – it’s all public until that point. Germany, Norway, Russia and Azerbaijan each have 10 percent of the vote as well as the native Danish jury with the other 10% and the public making up the remaining 50%. As you may notice this is the previous 4 winning countries.

Edit: You can now listen to the songs here: http://www.dr.dk/melodigrandprix/Artikler/2012/smuglyt.htm

For entertainment in the final Alexander Rybak continues his tour of national finals as well as last years winners for Denmark – A friend in London.

Former Eurovision entrant Donna McCaul announced just a few moments ago that she is returning to Eurosong 2012.

The Eurovision Song Contest, taking place in Kiev for the first time in 2005, saw Donna and her brother Joe throw themselves into the somewhat daunting but very exciting and in many cases, enviable task of representing Ireland with their song “Love?”. 

Donna and Joe participated in a Semi Final which was only the second year this was used in the Eurovision Song Contest. 

Although they gave a very enthusiastic performance and sung their hearts out, it was not to be when they placed 14th in the Semi Final with 53 points.

This time though, Donna is coming back all guns blazing, determined to make a new stand for herself as a solo artist in Eurosong and hopefully onwards to Baku in May,  Donna will be hoping to top the bill for a place in that wonderful circus which we love, the Eurovision Song Contest, which has certainly opened a very special place in her heart for many years! 

We wish you all the best Donna! 

We have yet to be informed who is to be Donna’s mentor on the forthcoming Eurosong show in February but as ever, we will keep you informed once we know! 

See the video below for Donna’s previous entry to Eurovision in 2005 with “Love?” and below the video is the full promotional shot of Donna.