The Internationalist Eurovision Blog

I was planning to write a piece on the United Kingdom and Eurovision. However, that was before the gift came into our lives that is the official announcements of the Melodifestivalen 2018 artists. For anybody who isn't a Eurovision super fan or a Swede, Melodifestivalen is the Swedish national final that decides the Swedish Eurovision act each year. When I first started getting into national finals, I was very hesitant about drinking the cool-ade on the contest, but have ended up giving into how bonkers, brilliant and infectious the Melodifestivalen bug is. The contest is six shows (4 semi finals, a "second chance" round known as "andra chansen" and a grand final). The shows take place in different arenas around the country with the final always taking place in Stockholm. The acts chosen are a combination of comedy, folk, schlager, pop, rock and many others whilst the production values are one step off the production values of the actual Eurovision finals. I hav...

Hello! So yesterday I went down my all-time Eurovision rankings done both ways and with that in mind, I am going to start looking ahead to the 2018 contest by looking at the countries who are due a win and why I believe they're due a win. Russia I'm sure I'm not the only Eurovision fan who struggles to "believe" that of all the Eurovision hits that Russia have given us that their only win has come from Dima Bilan's 2008 hit (let's see if anybody gets that joke). In seriousness, Russia have placed excellently in the previous rounds in 2016 with Sergey Lazarev and 2015 with Polina Gagarina. It seems to all of us that they are ramping up their efforts more and more and we can't be that far off a second Russian win and a return to Moscow (or as my guess would be a trip to Sochi). They are further boosted this year by their absence last year (which seems like a ridiculous argument until you realise that Ukraine didn't compete in 2015 and Portugal di...

Hello Europe or hello world or hello United Kingdom or to be more realistic, hello friends and family of me, Fin Ross Russell. If you have been invited to delve into the depths of this blog and all that it contains, then I have probably trusted you with my worst kept secret. I am a massive Eurovision fan! How massive? Well, to the extent that I have a) flown to the 2016 contest in Stockholm and watched the grand final live in the Globen off UK student loan money, b) watched back every contest since it was started and c) made the decision to be one of those guys who sets up ANOTHER Eurovision blog! So why a blog? why now? For one, I have actually been surprised at the amount of media on Eurovision which I feel suitably reflects who I am and what I stand for as a Eurovision fan. At present, I consume the majority of my Eurovision news from Wiwiblogs and ESC Insight (which are both fantastic and informative websites). However, I feel that so often, two incredibly vital and important thi...