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Newsletter: Ben’s Pick Of The Nationals! Written by on January 19, 2016

The latest edition of ESC Insight’s Email Newsletter has been sent out. Highlights as always are below, you can read the full version online, and don’t forget to sign up if you’d like it sent directly to your inbox.

Our weekly column, Robertson’s Reflection, takes a listen to all the tracks revealed this week to pick out three favourites. One of them is below, can you guess the other two?

Iceland’s going big this year, with the 5,000 seater Handball arena hosting and Loreen and Sandra Kim attending the National Final with tickets available this coming Tuesday starting at €15. Greta Salome, of course Jonsi’s partner in crime in 2012, is perhaps the biggest name with ‘Raddirnar’ alongside The Voice winner Alda Dis’ ‘Augnablik’ which feeds off the Yohanna vibes from 2009. However it’s ‘Kreisi’ grabbing my attention, from the same singer and songwriter combination that finished 2nd to Pollapönk in 2014.

Retro gamers will appreciate the well-used effects as the song kicks off, with the overall flavour spiralling deeper and darker as the song progresses. The structure, an ABABCABCC, is bafflingly odd. The B is very musical theatre yet when the C chorus eventually hits in the second minute it jumps to a very unique groove. This is understated with huge potential for bizarre staging concepts, and if Sigga wasn’t a previous Superfinalist I’d be ruling it out. But I think it’ll have a home in Stockholm this May, whether it be on stage or remixed in DJ Orhmeister’s National Final night.

Read more of Ben’s favourites as well as Eurovision news from the UK, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, San Marino, Belarus, Malta, Lithuania, Hungary and Sweden in this one place each week. Don’t miss the action, subscribe today!

About The Author: Ben Robertson

Ben Robertson has attended 27 National Finals in the world of Eurovision. With that experience behind him he writes for ESC Insight with his analysis and opinions about anything and everything Eurovision Song Contest that is worth telling.

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