BETTING ODDS

UPDATES ON MONTENEGRO, LATVIA, FRANCE, MOLDOVA

POGDORICA, MONTENEGRO – The Montenegrin representative at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, Sergej Ćetković, has begun recording his entry for Copenhagen. The song will be revealed to the public in mid February. Sergej says he is pleased with the work done so far. Montenegro hopes to make it to the final for the first time. It will compete in the second half of the first semi final on May 6. (by Luka Popovic)

PARIS, FRANCE – This year’s first accusation of plagiarism is coming from France. Since the release of the 3 French bidding entries, « Moustache » by TWINTWIN have made a lot of people sceptical. The 2013 number 1 hit in France was Belgian artist Stomae’s « Papaoutai » and indeed, the intro of both songs can easily be confused. Moreover, the chorus of « Moustache » also seem for some listeners to be inspired by Jordy’s « Dur Due D’Être Bébé » (remember the baby singer who conquered Europe in the early 1990’s). In order to underline the possible plagiarism, popular Virgin radio published a mashup of the three songs and… yes, there are similarities…

The band, in an interview on Purecharts.com, have tried to defend themselves from the accusations, declaring: “We have our own style, a mix of electro, hip-hop, rock songs. The resemblance with Stromae’s song is apparently because of the intro [of the song] but be aware that the song was written a year before the release of his album! Therefore, there is no debate. This intro has a common pattern for an electro song. We are rather flattered to be compared to Stromae because he is a great artist but the word “plagiarism” is not right! “

Let’s bet that the story hasn’t come to an end yet. Meanwhile, you can compare the two tracks or just listen to Virgin radio’s mash up(by Olivier Rocher)

RIGA, LATVIA – It is a common thing that past Eurovision performers come as guests at other country’s national finals. So as you all already know, this weekend in Latvia semifinals will be held and two former Eurovision performers have been announced as guests. One of them is Aisha, who represented the country back in 2010, when the contest was held in Oslo. She will perform in second semifinal.

But the day before, in the first semifinal, on the same day when the Swiss national final is on, Sinplus will perform. A bit surprising, isn’t it? You must be asking yourself why they are not performing at the home. If we knew, we would certainly tell you, but all what we can do is speculate in our own minds about it.

Beside them as guests in both semis LTV announced several stars from there. Important thing is that in each of the 12 contestants will perform and half of them will be proceeding to the Grand final that is scheduled for 22nd of February. (by Stefan Resimic)

CHISINAU, MOLDOVA – What a NF season be without some scandals? You’re right – nothing! It was announced that TRM got 61 songs that were in the game for the Eurovision. They first cutted of the list to 40 and after that it was suppose to be shortened to 24. But in every competition there are some who are not satisfied with the results. This time there were three of them and they sent an appeal to TRM regarding choice of the jury.

Surprisingly they’ve accept it all the artists who submitted a song for the competition (some of them sent more than one) will perform in front of the jury. To make it more interesting “auditions” will be broadcasted live on TRM’s website this Saturday from 10am CET. Even with this decision some were not so happy, so they decided to withdrew and try their luck in Lithuania and they are Ray Gligor and Nicollette.

You can listen to the songs that previously didn’t qualify here. Now everybody will have chance, and let’s wait for Saturday to see who are the final 24 artists. (by Stefan Resimic)