Austria AUSTRIA 2015 - The Makemakes - I Am Yours

[anselm]

Keep the predictions coming

 

[SRBIJA]

Dawa would be great Loved this song:

 

[ronny1988]

C'mon Ronny....tell us

ok...prediction

Royal Kombo
The Makemakes
Zoe
Renato Unterberg

Johann Sebastian Bass
Kathi Kallauch

bold = certain

3 of them are right.

 

[Sean]

Spoiler alert Ronny :?

 

[ronny1988]

It's just 50% and you don't know who of them.

 

[sigi]

Danke Ronny..

I think ZOE is out....she released a video for Adieu yesterday!!!

 

[EscTombo]

Kathi and the Makemakes are my favorites. I'd REALLY REALLY like to know if they made it to the final

 

[Mlyn]

I guess Zoe is a finalist. She's an actress in the ORF version of Desperate Housewives, which is a huge success, and she stated in a very recent interview how nervous she is because of the Song Contest.

The Makemakes ended up in the year end charts of 2014, so they are the most successful act in the line-up and it would be strange if they would not be in the final.

I'd also say that Johann Sebastian Bass, which seem to have gotten the biggest reaction from the audience, and Renato Unterberg are sure bets.

 

[marty]

oh i love predictions! here is mine:

the makemakes
renato unterberg
celine ann
royal kombo
zoe
johann sebastian bass

my favourites would be renato unterberg and dawa. but i doubt that dawa have been chosen.

 

[anselm]

Here's another promo video with very short snippets of the first performances

 

[marty]

austrian selection will be starting this week.... there should be more action in this thread ;-)

i will redo my speculations about who will be the six finalists:
renato unterberg
johann sebastian bass
royal kombo
lemo
celine ann
clara blume

 

[anselm]

According to this there will be an international jury in the final. And some kind of speed voting if 2 or more favourites emerge after the combined televoting/jury result... I don't quite get how that's going to work but it already sounds scary

Österreich sucht den Song-Contest-Star - Eurovision Song Contest Vienna 2015

 

[Mlyn]

I hope they find an act that is energetic and attainable, but I think all this "alternativeness" surrounding this selection makes that unlikely. Whenever ORF has too many ideas, they find a spectacular flop. Last year ORF did nothing, and it worked the best.

 

[Mlyn]

The coaches find the line-up utterly boring, the line-up is made of acts which were invited and not of acts who really want to go to Eurovision and therefore would have applied for it, Nazar and Anna F. don't know anything about Eurovision either and don't even like it......

This NF is going to be a bloated mess and apparently lacks one thing already: Eurovision lovers.

 

[anselm]

The coaches find the line-up utterly boring

Ah, the usual Mlynean generalisations are back. Nazar made that statement after the first half of the first show and even retracted if after the second half.

 

[marty]

The coaches find the line-up utterly boring, the line-up is made of acts which were invited and not of acts who really want to go to Eurovision and therefore would have applied for it, Nazar and Anna F. don't know anything about Eurovision either and don't even like it......

This NF is going to be a bloated mess and apparently lacks one thing already: Eurovision lovers.

thats not true. there was a team around anna f. including music journalists and managers who where actively approaching artists but there were also castings and around 300 musicians and bands who submitted their entrys without personally beeing approached.
the aim of all this is to give austrian musicians a platform to present themselves. and the line up consists of a quite wide variety of different kinds of music.
its obvious that the coaches (except anna f.) are there for marketing reasons. they dont have much influence on anything.

if the show would have made for eurovision lovers or even from eurovision lovers not many would watch, eurovision lovers are well known for bad taste. thats the reason esc is not very popular in most countries.

 

[Mlyn]

Conchita was the biggest Eurovision lover ever to represent Austria. I would not argue her taste.

I want someone who burns for Eurovision and not someone who just wants to have a career and thus takes anything, whatever it is.

 

[anselm]

AUSTRIA 2016 - Anselm - ???

Okay, so who has Fredrik Kempe's phone number?

 

[Mlyn]

I guess it's 69 69 69

 

[anselm]

Here's an interesting article written by one of the people that picked the NF participants.
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2015 - freizeit.at

My quick translation:

Music nation Austria. For the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, ORF is indeed doing everything to live up to that often carelessly used catchphrase.

The time has come. On the coming Friday, February 20th, the first big show in terms of Eurovision will take place. In "Wer singt für Österreich?" 16 acts will take part - and I can promise it will be one of the most colourful, coolest, most entertaining and simply the greatest music shows we've ever seen on Austrian television.

Why am I so sure about that? Because I picked the bands. Most of them at least.

Really? Yes, seriously. That's how it came about: The wonderful Anna F. managed to convince ORF to approach the Song Contest mission in a new way. Why not use the unique opportunity of a "home game" to showcase the diverse music scene we can be so proud of?

That means: No casting shows with the usual suspects. No karaoke-singing fitness instructors or schoolgirls that desperately want to make it to television - instead there will be real musicians which this country can definitely offer.

One phone call later I was part of a five-member team that was supposed to accomplish this task. Exciting. And very exhausting. We thoroughly went through over 300 sound files and checked out 50 bands within the scope of three shows throughout Austria - and there was a lot of convincing to do as well. Because, to be perfectly honest, for proper musicians ESC has about the same appeal as a root canal therapy: "To the Song Contest? Are you mad?"

But the idea behind it convinced many musicians after all. The most relevant aspect is not who makes it to the final round and eventually wins but rather collaboratively presenting the incredible bandwidth and quality of the artists. The reason why currently successful bands like Wanda, Bilderbuch and 5/8erl in Ehr'n declined is probably that the fear of losing is too big. For no reason. Because even established artists like the fantastic jazz artist Marina Zettl were eliminated in the pre-castings - and she didn't lose her face either. Songwriter queen Mika Vember failed with a daring version of one of her hits, Le Toy couldn't win over other electronic bands like Johann Sebastian Bass or Kommando Elefant.

But one thing was clear as well: When you advertise "bandwidth" you can't just pick your 16 favourite Indie bands for the show. In the same manner you need mainstream pop, soul divas, hip hop, folk music and ballads. We did our best. So did the bands. Have fun!