Can Bonomo for Turkey
After months of speculation, and dozens of rumors regarding artists from all over the Turkish musical spectrum, we finally have some clarity from Turkish broadcaster TRT. After throwing us a red-herring a few weeks ago and releasing a list of five candidate artists (Duman, Şebnem Ferah, Atiye, Murat Boz, and Hande Yener), it’s alternative-indie rocker Can Bonomo who gets the golden ticket to Baku. (For those of you who understand Turkish, here’s a clip of the announcement on tonight’s news.)
Can, a 24-year old member of Izmir’s Jewish community, is a relative newcomer on the scene, having released his first album, “Meczup”, in early 2011. Since then, he’s been lauded with local praise, including winning the Altin Kelebek (Golden Butterfly) award for Best Newcomer. Soon after the announcement, Can tweeted: “This is an exciting process, and I thank everyone for their support and well wishes. I have my own style of music and will try to represent my country in the best possible way with an appropriate song.”
We should know more about Can’s song for Baku within the next month or so, but to tide us over until then, here are a few of his recent singles:
What do you think of Turkey’s choice? Let me know in the comments!
(Special thanks to Dan from EscXtra.com for the help translating!)
Posted on January 9, '12, in 2012, Turkey. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
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This is a fantastic and very brave choice imo. With Rona for Albiania, Zeljko for Serbia, Kaliopi for Macedonia, Pastora for Spain and now Can for Turkey we might actually return to a song festival after 10 years of EGC (Eurovision Gimmick Contest). Will 2012 become my favourite contest since 1996? The only disappointment so far is Cyprus which is a nice irony because Cyprus is among my favourite ESC countries …
I completely agree with you, Toggie…Can isn’t just a cookie-cutter pop or rock singer! It looks like so many of these countries are bringing out the big guns this year…I hope we don’t take a step back if the EBU enacts a “no-internal-selection” policy for 2013 and beyond…
A no-internal selection does not necessarily mean that the audience will decide on everything. I am not sure at all about this issue, but the channel could still choose the singer and let the choice of the song to the audience. In that case, I don’t think anyone could say the selection is internal, I guess.
I understand, but I feel like so many great songs from recent years have been complete internal selections (“What About My Dreams”, for example, or any number of great songs from Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc)…I feel like it should be left up to the choice of the broadcaster, as they know what might work best for each individual country’s situation. A public vote might be difficult for San Marino, that’s for sure!
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