Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Quick Breaking News from Bosnia-Herzegovina!

Within the last half-hour, Bosnian broadcaster BHT-1 announced that this year's representative for Eurovision will be:

Dino Merlin!

It looks like Germany's Lena won't be the only ESC veteran on stage in Düsseldorf; Dino was the composer and co-lyricist for BiH's debut entry, "Sva Bol Svieta (The Whole World's Pain)", back in 1993, and he performed onstage in Jerusalem in 1999 with the beautiful ethnic-infused "Putnici (Travelers)", a bilingual R&B song sung with French singer Béatrice Poulot.  "Putnici" gave Bosnia and Herzegovina their second-highest result ever, a very respectable 7th place out of 23 entrants.  Here's their performance (with a bit of German commentary).



Over the past few years, Bosnia has become one of my personal favorite ESC contributors.  The song will be revealed at a later date, but with the recruitment of Dino Merlin to the fray once again, we might see echoes of Bosnia's best-ranked song, 2006's stunning "Lejla".  By bringing back a veteran of the local music scene (and of the ESC), and the hope of reviving the ethnic flavors that nearly brought the country victory, it seems that Bosnia-Herzegovina is more serious than ever about taking the trophy to Sarajevo in 2012.  I can't wait to see what Dino serves up!

(EDIT:  The plot thickens...Hari Mata Hari, who sung "Lejla" in Athens, was originally supposed to have sung for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999.  However, because their entry had been released to the public too early, they were disqualified, giving Dino and Béatrice their ticket to Jerusalem with "Putnici".  Furthermore, Dino has worked with and produced songs for Hari Mata Hari.  Even more, he has collaborated with Željko Joksimović, who was the Serbian & Montenegrin representative to the 2004 ESC with "Lane Moje", host of the 2008 contest, composer of Serbia's entry that same year...and the author of "Lejla"!  If things keep connecting like this, we might end up seeing Kevin Bacon as a backing singer...) 

3 comments:

  1. I hope its something like Lejla, that still is on my ipod, and the first Eurovision song you played for me (after Hard Rock Hallelujah). Yay Bosnia-Herzegovina!

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  2. As much as I loved "Hard Rock Hallelujah", "Lejla" has been more enduring over the years. As the gimmick from Lordi has faded with time, Hari Mata Hari's song has continued to strike me as moving and beautiful, just as much today as it did when I first heard it in 2006.

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  3. YEEY! Bosnia & Herzegovina!!! :)
    Sure hope he does not decide to do stuff like he did in his last album - they were quite ridiculous. We do need something serious like Lejla.. something moving again. We'll see if he manages! I sure hope he does!!

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