Last night, the first heat of Norway’s annual national song contest, Melodi Grand Prix, took place. Readers of this site will know that we were rooting for the song ‘Primadonna’ by the delectable Lene Alexandra. And readers who already know last night’s result will be aware of how disappointed we are! How thoroughly unfair! For some odd reason, Norway decided that the below performance simply wasn’t good enough to progress any further from its heat, and as a result, Lene didn’t qualify for the final or even the second chance round. How could they?!
Instead, the below two songs were chosen as the best two, and thus progressed straight to the final, which takes place on the first Saturday of February. We weren’t surprised by Keep of Kalessin’s ‘The Dragontower’ – it’s a good song, was totally unique amongst all of the others, and of course Norwegians love a bit of trash metal! Maria Haukaas Storeng’s qualification was another non surprise too. A big enough name, a big enough personality, and a nice enough song.
The two places in the second chance round were grasped by the two young gents in the contest, Bjørn Johan Muri with the really very good ‘Yes Man’ and Gaute Ormåsen with his semi rip of of last year’s MGP winner, ‘Synk Eller Svom’.
And finally, the two below songs shared the same fate as poor Lene – they weren’t voted to progress any further in the competition and so exited last night. Although we didn’t particularly care for either of them.
When we first heard the songs last week, we weren’t overly impressed. However, upon getting used to them and then seeing last night’s performances, we reckon that last night’s show was actual quite a strong heat. And we wouldn’t be surprised if the two songs that ended up in the second chance round from this heat, end up progressing to the final. Bjørn in particular is currently selling very well on Norwegian iTunes (all of the songs were added after last night’s show), outselling the two songs that qualified above him!
