2023 NF Review & Preview: March, Week 3

So I'm doing a series called Review & Preview, where I'll look at the national finals that happened the week gone by, and also check out the national finals that will take place the next week. It will end on the week of the Melodifestivalen grand final, and possibly return next year if I can be bothered.

Review

Portugal

The final of Festival Da Canção took place on the 11th of March. Favourites included Claudia Pascoal, Mimicat, Barbara Tinoco, Ivandro, and Edmundo Inacio. David Fonseca, Salvador Sobral, Maro and Jesus Quisto performed as interval acts, with Maro being joined by all FdC 2022 finalists in singing "Saudade, Saudade".

Mimicat had been gaining quite a bit of local popularity with her track "Ai Coração", so it was not a big surprise that she eventually came to win both the televote and the jury vote, after an intense voting sequence with jurors calling in from all over Portugal. Edmundo Inacio came second, while Claudia Pascoal, Barbara Tinoco and Ivandro completed the top 5. Therefore Mimicat will perform Ai Coração in Liverpool and represent Portugal in Eurovision 2023, with the first Portuguese-language track from Portugal since 2020. She will take part in the first half of the first semi-final.

Sweden

The final of Melodifestivalen also took place on the 11th of March, in the Friends Arena in Stockholm. Nominally, Marcus & Martinus with "Air" and Maria Sur with "Never Give Up" were favourites, but really the only one that people are talking about was Loreen with "Tattoo". Sweden is and has been for a while at first place in the *Eurovision* winning odds because of her.

Shortly after the semi-final, SVT released the running order for the final. Jon Henrik Fjällgrenopened the show, while Paul Rey closed it. Marcus & Martinus performed 4th, Maria Sur 6th, and Loreen 10th, which was also the position Cornelia Jakobs performed at last year. Theoz followed Loreen. Danny Saucedo, who had been the runner-up in Melodifestivalen 2012 after Loreen, performed as an interval act.

And to nobody's surprise, Loreen won the national final with ease, with 39 *more* points than the runner-up, which was Marcus and Martinus. Maria Sur meanwhile, despite winning her heat several weeks prior, only got a measly 10 points from the jury and 37 points total from the televote, placing 10th overall. So 11 years on from her victory in Baku, Loreen will once again be representing Sweden in Eurovision, with many bookmakers tipping her to take yet another victory.

Preview

There's nothing more that you need to know for the third week of March in national finals! That's all national finals done and dusted. I will however give a bit of an update on the internal selections, since we've still got a few to go:

Armenia

Armenia have selected the artist Brunette to represent them in Liverpool. As of writing this, Armenia is the only country for which we have a solid release date, and that is the 15th. Brunette's song, "Future Lover", will be released on that day.

There had previously been rumours that the song would be released on the 17th and be named "Heru" (meaning 'far' or 'distance' in Armenian), but a post on the 10th refuted this. Other as yet unconfirmed rumours also state that the chorus of the song is in the Armenian language.

What we do know for sure is that the song went through many iterations, as many Instagram stories showed Brunette and the production team repeatedly returning to the studio to improve the track, even as recently as the 10th. On the 10th however, a green tick emoji was added to the Instagram story, possibly implying that the track is finally complete. The track is set to be in the R&B and pop genres.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan have selected the duo TuvalTuvanX to represent them in Eurovision 2023. Tuval and Tuvan Bagmanovlar are a pair of twins, who will be singing "Tell Me More" in Liverpool, a track that they created by themselves, and arranged by Nihad Aliyev. The music video was filmed on the 10th, all in one day. The song will be released soon, reportedly on the 13th.

Georgia

Georgia, after a long process of using The Voice Georgia as a de facto selection, have chosen Iru Khechanovi to represent the Caucasian country. Iru was part of the winning group Candy in Junior Eurovision 2011, who sang "Candy Music" in Yerevan which brought them to their then-second victory. Iru is incidentally also of Armenian origin, with Khechanov being a Sovietized variety of the Armenian surname Khachanyan.

For Eurovision 2023, she is working with Giga Kukhianidze for her song, which she started right after winning The Voice Georgia. Giga is known primarily for his work in Junior Eurovision, and has composed every single JESC-winning Georgian song, as well as several of the higher-placing ones. Notably, he composed "I Believe" for Mariam Bigvava, whose lyrics were actually written by, wait for it, Iru Khechanovi.

For a more recent update, we don't know the genre of Iru's song for ESC2023, but it seems unlikely to be a ballad (despite earlier rumours) as Iru was seen bopping along to the beat in an Instagram story. The song is now complete and the music video filmed, but its release was curtailed by large anti-government protests that happened over the second week of March. Those protests have now seemed to reach their desired result, and Iru may soon release the song. On the Eurovision website, we can see new press photos of Iru in various outfits, which suggests that the song and music video have been ready for release since at least the 9th.

We still don't know the song title or exact release date yet, although on an Instagram livestream, Iru revealed that the song will be fully in English, and the lyrics were co-written with a producer (apparently) named Benny.

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So that's a round-up of the national finals that happened this week. And this is the end of the series, wow! National final season flew by like it was nothing. I'll see whether I'll have the time to do this again next year. Also don't know whether I can get a video out quickly, but I suppose it doesn't matter.