Following on the heels of their neighbor to the north bringing Anouk to Eurovision, today brought word of Belgium’s choice for Malmo (well, technically, Walloonia, but that’s neither here nor there).  Fresh off of his victory on The Voice Belgique this past spring, and the release of his first album Ma voie in September, Roberto Bellarosa has been given the challenge to bring Belgium back to the Finals for the first time since Tom Dice’s 6th place in Oslo, and to possibly be the first Walloon performer to break into the Finals at all.  Since his victory on The Voice, Roberto has released the hit single “Je Crois”, which might be an insight into the style of entry we might get to hear from him. 

A modest National Final on December 16th (the day after the Swiss Selection, for those of you keeping track) will determine what he’ll bring to Sweden.  Walloon broadcaster RTBF have been experimenting with selection styles over the past few years, with middling levels of success.  Their previous entry, “With Love Baby” by acapella group Witloof Bay, was chosen by a full National Final system, but just missed out on the final.  Before that, RTBF went for a completely internal selection, picking the awkward Elvis impersonator Patrick Ouchène and his appropriately-titled “Copycat”, which ended up near the bottom of the table on Semifinal night in Moscow.  Also internally selected, the same fate befell 2007’s representative, the KMGs, with their funk-inspired “Love Power”.  Fortunately, Roberto has already been “selected” by the people of French-speaking Belgium by emerging victorious from one of their biggest televised talent shows, and the Belgian people (or, at least, half of them) will get to have their say in the song he sings in May. 

Stay tuned for more updates on Roberto, as well as all of the other news coming down the pipeline as National Finals approach and broadcasters make their announcements.

The penultimate song for this year’s Eurovision has been decided by voters in Belgium today, and it seems that after a short-and-sweet 2-song National Final spanning all of fifteen minutes, followed up by an appearance on an evening talk show, we know that 17-year-old Iris (birth name: Laura van den Bruel) will be performing the ballad “Would You?” in Baku this May. Read the rest of this entry →

Fresh on the heels of Wednesday’s announcement form Slovakia, we have news from Belgium that Flemish broadcaster VRT has also made their internal selection for Azerbaijan.  Sixteen-year-old Iris (also known as Airis, real name Laura van den Bruel) will represent her nation this year, with a song to be determined later (VRT will soon hold an open call for songs, but it is unclear whether this means a second internal selection will occur or a small national final).  Iris is managed by SonicAngel, the same group that works with Tom Dice, who sang for Belgium in 2010, bringing the country their best result in years (and the Flemish their best result ever).  Will Iris have the same success?

Here’s a little taste of what she serves up:

(So, looking over my notes, we’ve only got three names so far, but two of them are sixteen-year-old brunettes (the other being Ivi Adamou from Cyprus).  Quite a contrast if Lys Assia ends up representing Switzerland…)

Belgium was the next nation to pick their representative this weekend, and after a 14-song final, both the professional jury and the public audience gave their maximum points to acapella group Witloof Bay and their song “With Love Baby”.

While Witloof Bay’s performance is strong, considering they’re depending purely on their voices and have no musical backing track to fall back on, acapella has traditionally been a risky move at Eurovision.  I can only think of one other acapella song that has been performed at the ESC (2006’s “I Hear Your Heart” by Latvian group Cosmos), and it only reached the finals that year because of automatic qualification.  Granted, I think “With Love Baby” is a better song than “I Hear Your Heart” (and you know that people will be comparing the two over the next few months!), and Wallonia has definitely taken some risks at the ESC over the past few years.  (Remember, this is the network that sent an Elvis impersonator, a song in an imaginary language, and one of the first Eurovision songs to actually sing about Eurovision (how very meta!). 

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Belgium’s lone win in Eurovision, with Sandra Kim’s “J’aime a la Vie (I Love Life)“.  I don’t think that this silver anniversary portends a victory for the Belgians, but at the very least, you’ve got to give them credit for creativity!

Oh, and for the record, my favorite entry in this year’s Belgian selection was “Elle Merveille (She Wonders)” by Alexandre Deschamps, which came in 4th place.

Unlike the other entries I’ve written about so far, Belgium is one of Eurovision’s original participants. They took part in the ESC’s inaugural contest in 1956, and have only been absent three times since then (1994, 1997, and 2001, due to low cumulative scores from earlier years). Despite such a long history in the contest, Belgium has only won the thing once, back in 1986, with 13-year old Sandra Kim’s “J’aime la vie” (if you want a bit of a laugh at how far the world has come in terms of fashion since 1986, check out her performance here…and I though Belarus had a lock on the mullet?!).

One of the cool things about how Belgium manages their participation in the contest is that because of the division between the French-speaking (Walloon) and Flemish-speaking populations of the country, they have two broadcasters picking the nation’s songs, alternating year by year. The entries from French-speaking broadcaster RTBF tend to fare better in the competition than their Flemish counterpart, VRT. Belgium’s lone victory and two second-place finishes were all from RTBF, but VRT’s entries have never done any better than 6th, and that was back in 1959! (Granted, the Walloons haven’t been doing too fantastically in recent years, either. They sent an Elvis impersonator last year. Seriously.)

Trying to change VRT’s luck this year is Tom Dice (real name: Tom Eeckholut), the runner up in the Flemish version of “X Factor”. He was selected internally by the network with the hopes of bringing Belgium back into the finals for the first time since 2005. His song, “Me and My Guitar”, is a simple, yet enjoyable track that I could imagine someone singing while sitting in the lounge at my old college dorm.

Tom’s voice isn’t perfect, and he isn’t as drop-dead gorgeous as some of the other participants in this year’s competition, but Tom has the sort of sweet, earnest, and genuine “everyman” quality that appeals to me. We’ve all known a Tom Dice or two. He’s the acquaintance you sat next to in High School Trigonometry, or the dude you sometimes see at the coffee shop you always go to, or the quiet guy four cubicles down from your desk at work. You might not know much about him, and you might have walked by him a thousand times without even realizing it, but you still want him to succeed at whatever he’s going for. That’s why I’m pulling for Tom to at least break into the finals.

And let’s face it…any nation that can give us this deserves a break, don’t you think?