CROATIA 🇭🇷
Doris Dragović was known in the early 80s for her work with bands from Split. One of her best known singles “Hajde da se mazimo” was one of the most interesting pop songs of the decade called the “golden eighties”. She is a known supporter of Torcida, fans of Hajduk Split football club. In 2001, Dragović was threatened by Torcida supporters as she sang to Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Đukanović at the 2000 New Year’s Eve. In 1999, Dragović was chosen to represent Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999, after she won national election HRT Dora with her dramatic song “Marija Magdalena”, written by prominent Croatian songwriter Tonči Huljić. Dragović placed a respectable fourth in Jerusalem, despite having been drawn early in the singing order, sometimes cited as a disadvantage. Her performance also included the removal of some of her clothing — seen jocularly as a staple of Eurovision performances — and was well received in the first contest in which most countries allocated their points after a public telephone vote. This remains one of Croatia’s best results at the contest. “Marija Magdalena” was also a radio hit on Greek radio station FLY FM 89,7 and reached number one on its airplay. Croatia’s entry attracted objections from the Norwegian delegation, due to synthesised male vocals being used on the backing track of Doris Dragović’s entry. The EBU decided to reduce the country’s score by a third for the purpose of calculating its five-year average to determine participation in future contests, though it was decided to leave its placement in the 1999 result unaffected.
MALTA 🇲🇹
The year 2006 was the year when Claudia Faniello started her experience in the Malta Song For Europe Festival with the song “High Alert!” – a song composed by Ray Agius. At the same contest she won the award for best newcomer. She won the Festival Kanzunetta Indipendenza 2006 with the song “Ma Nafx” – a song composed by Ray Agius. In 2007, despite qualifying for the Malta Song for Europe 2007 Semi-Final with the song “L-Imħabba Għamja” (Love is Blind), she wasn’t part of the six songs that gained the right to compete for the final round. She finished 7th. In summer 2007, Claudia Faniello launched “Wild Flower”, a song composed by Aldo Spiteri and written by Deo Grech. In 2008, she passed for the Go Malta Song for Europe Semi-Final Festival with two songs “Caravaggio” and “Sunrise”. Both songs passed into the final eight songs. In the final of this festival she finished 2nd with the song “Caravaggio”, a song about the Italian artist with the same name and 3rd with the song “Sunrise”. The successive year, she made her fourth appearance in this Maltese festival, but still wasn’t part of the last three songs that fought to book a place in Moscow 2009. She finished fourth with her song entitled “Blue Sonata”, composed and written by Ray Agius. She qualified to the final in the Go Malta Eurosong 2010 with the song “Samsara” composed by Philip Vella and written Gerard James Borg. She finished eighth with 31 points. She released her first album entitled Convincingly Better in August 2010. In the Go Malta Eurosong 2011 final Faniello ended in ninth place with her entry “Movie in my Mind”. In the Go Malta Eurosong 2012 final Faniello reached second place with her entry “Pure”.
LITHUANIA 🇱🇹
Donatas Montvydas, better known by his stage name Donny Montell, is a Lithuanian singer-songwriter who represented Lithuania at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, held in Baku, Azerbaijan. He did so for a second time in 2016, when he represented his country in Stockholm, Sweden.
SWEDEN 🇸🇪
Arvingarna is a Swedish dansband, which was formed in 1989 and which competed in the Swedish Melodifestivalen in 1993, 1995, 1999, 2002 and 2019. In 1993 they won with the song ‘”Eloise” and represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1993, where the song finished 7th. The band’s name (“The heirs”) refers to the group member’s parents, who also were active in “dansbands”. Arvingarna plays a form of dansband music that is it inspired by pop music and rock music, and has also being described as a boyband. Janebrink participated in Stjärnornas stjärna which will be broadcast on TV4. They participated in Melodifestivalen 2019 with the song “I do”.
ROMANIA 🇷🇴
Elena Gheorghe is a Romanian singer. In the first half of the 2000s, she joined the Romanian pop group Mandinga, with whom she released two albums with. In 2006 she separated from the group and pursued her solo career. She has released three studio albums and one compilation album. She scored a top ten in the Romanian Top 100 with the debut single “Vocea Ta”.
ESTONIA 🇪🇪
In 2015, Victor released his debut single “Burning Man”. He participated in Melodifestivalen 2015, featuring in the Behrang Miri song “Det rår vi inte för”, which failed to qualify from the Andra Chansen round, losing to Samir & Viktor. On 16 February 2019, Crone won the Estonian national selection Eesti Laul with the song “Storm” and he received the right to represent Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, held in Tel Aviv, Israel. On 15 May, he qualified to the final. In the final Crone placed 20th.
POLAND 🇵🇱
Blue Café submitted “You May Be in Love”, a track from Fanaberia, to the 2003 Polish Eurovision Song Contest selection, where it made the final, finishing in third place. It subsequently topped the Polish chart when released as a single. The following year, the band took part in the Eurovision selection again with “Love Song”, a Latin-flavoured track from their second album Demi-sec. In a close televoting and SMS result, “Love Song” emerged the winner, earning Blue Café the Polish ticket for the 49th Eurovision Song Contest. 2004 was the year in which a pre-qualifying semi-final was introduced to Eurovision; however, Ich Troje’s top 10 finish for Poland the previous year meant that Blue Café gained automatic entry to the final, which was held in Istanbul on 15 May. Five members – Okupnik, Rurak-Sokal, Sławiński, Niewiadomski and newcomer Piotr Grąbkowski – appeared on stage on the night of the contest, when “Love Song” finished in 17th place of 24 entries. Okupnik decided to leave the band in 2005, and was replaced as lead singer by Dominika Gawęda. The band’s fourth and most recent album, Four Seasons, was released in 2008.
FRANCE 🇫🇷
Twin Twin is a French music group from Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis. The group consists of Lorent Idir, François Djemel and Patrick Biyik, and is characterised by a mixture of electro sounds, rock, and slam. Twin Twin also represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the song “Moustache”. They finished in last position in the grand final, a first for the history of France in the Eurovision, with two points.
artists’ information extracted from http://www.wikipedia.org
