The Danish Melodi Grand Prix takes place this Saturday evening. DR1 have uploaded clips of all ten songs to their website for everyone to listen to – and we’re very pleasantly surprised at how good so many of them are! We were hoping to like a few of them, but we’re actually really looking forward to hearing most of them in full. You can listen to them all here, but below is our full review of all ten.
Silas & Kat – Come Come Run Away (t&m: Lise Cabble og Simon Munk)
This is an anthemic, soft rock number that evokes the melodies of cheesy eighties rock songs – no bad thing of course! The performance should be interesting, given that it’s a male/female duo. Usually it’s just men singing this type of song into a microphone, but with a woman sharing the lead, there’ll probably be a lot more going on visually in the performance.
Sukkerchok – Kæmper For Kærlighed (t&m: Lasse Lindorff, Martin Michael Larsson og Lise Cabble)
Hooray! The Sukkerchok girls are back! We loved their entry from last year, and adored their album so much, that we named it ‘Best album from a new artist’ in the 2010 scandipop awards! The song they’re competing with this Saturday sounds like they’ve injected their previous musical output, with a huge dance beat and a lot of disco. There are disco strings in there now, and it’s even got bells on it! We can just tell that the full version is going to be immense, and at this stage, it’s our favourite of the ten.
Thomas Barsøe – Just Like Rain (t&m: Patrick Jonsson, Joakim Övrenius, Thomas Karlsson og Thomas Barsøe)
Wishy washy, MOR pop/rock – and we really like it, it’s very catchy! This is the kind of song that a1 really should have entered with in Norway, to have any chance of competing with Didrik this weekend. All we can hear from the clip is the chorus though, so hopefully the verses will be just as impressive. And Thomas does look adorably cute too!
Kaya Brüel – Only Tonight (t&m: Kaya Brüel)
We love this! It’s a semi balearic style dance number, that also sounds like it wants to be on Kylie’s ‘Lightyears’ album. It doesn’t quite achieve either of the styles it’s going for, but that doesn’t prevent it from sounding very good! We don’t think it stands a very good chance against some of the other songs in here though, but we’re looking forward to having the studio version in full, and this song is one of the peformances we’re looking forward to most.
Chanée & N’evergreen – In A Moment Like This (t&m: Thomas G:son, Henrik Sethsson og Erik Bernholm)
Another song that channels cheesy eighties rock choruses, and another song that we really really like! This is a lot softer than ‘Come Come Run Away’ though. It sounds like it could have been lifted from Sanna Nielsen’s second album. And it’s got Thomas G:Son down as a composer, which explains some of its mightiness! This could do very well this weekend. And you can just tell that there’s gonna be a key change.
Jens Marni – Gloria (t&m: Svend Gudiksen, Johannes Jørgensen og Noam Halby)
This is about as hard as the rock gets in this competition, but even then, a pop melody is still intact. He’ll still manage to stand out though, and in a line up of songs where pure pop is so dominant, he might get a lot of votes, simply for just having a bit of a darker sound.
Simone – How Will I Know (m: Jacob Launbjerg, t: Andreas Mørck)
This sounds like a Steps ballad. And of course, a ballad can have no greater praise heaped on it than that! This is a contender for being the winning song – it’s the only ballad in the competition, and a beautiful one at that. So long as she can pull off the live vocal, there is no reason why this shouldn’t finish in the top three.
MariaMatilde Band – Panik! (t&m: Maria Sejer, Matilde Kühl, Mads Haugaard, Marcus Winther-John)
Funnily enough, this song sounds exactly like the kind of music that Sukkerchok were making last year! So we love it obviously. But we’re not sure how they’re going to perform, competing with the Sukkerchok girls themselves. Either way, this is another performance that we’re really looking forward to, and can tell that it’ll be a song we keep coming back to on the Melodi Grand Prix album.
Joakim Tranberg – All About A Girl (t&m: Lars Halvor Jensen, Martin Michael Larsson og Ronan Keating)
This track is a sixties, motown pastiche. Co-composed by the writer of last year’s winning entry, this is actually our least favourite of the ten. It’s just a song that we’ve heard so many times before now, in these competitions and out of them – and it’s been done a lot better before now too.
Bryan Rice – Breathing (t&m: Peter Bjørnskov)
This guy is just too cute for word isn’t he?! And the song isn’t bad either. It’s in the same vein as ‘Just Like Rain’, above – catchy, anthemic, pop/rock. We reckon this will do quite well on Saturday, at the very least a top five placing.
So, nine out of ten songs that we really like. Good show!
