I don't know if this is what it seems

Well, I never would have seen this coming...

The composers and song titles for the Norwegian national final, the Melodi Grand Prix, were announced today. All of the composers are Norwegian, and I have to admit I'm not all that up on my Norwegian songwriters, but a few names jumped out at me.

The one I'm kind of most surprised at? Fred Ball and Hannah Robinson have a song called "Baby, Don't Stop The Music." You might have heard of Fred Ball through his Pleasure project--the song "Out Of Love" got some blog buzz for a while. He's also worked with Bertine Zetlitz. Hannah Robinson has done stuff with Rachel Stevens ("Some Girls"!), Annie ("Chewing Gum"!), and Sophie Ellis-Bextor ("Me And My Imagination"!), among others; for the sake of my continued attempts to promote Lorie's new album 2Lor En Moi?, it's also worth mentioning that she (along with Richard X and a bunch of others) co-wrote the fantastic "Le Bonheur À Tout Prix !" (though interestingly, she and Richard X [as well as Thierry Sforza] are only credited as "auteur," not "compositeur"--that's Paul Harris and Ian Masterson--which is the opposite of what I would have expected; I kind of think that can't be right...I must be misunderstanding it or something). "Baby, Don't Stop The Music" will definitely be a song to look out for, even if you don't usually pay any attention to the whole Eurovision thing.

Other names I recognize? Anne Hvidsten has written a song ("A Little More") for the contest--she released a solo album some years ago and has written songs outside of that, too. The songs I know her from are pretty much ballads, but she has a great way with ballads.

Paul should be pleased to see that Christian Ingebrigtsen has co-written a song for the MGP; it's called "Eastern Wind" and was written with Eivind Rølles.

I've heard of Mira Craig, but never gone out of my way to listen to her. Anyway, she's got a song called "Hold On, Be Strong" in it; she's definitely got her own very...distinct style.

At least two guys from 70's/'80's-sounding rock band Wig Wam have songs in the competition; guitarist Trond Holter has a song in it called "Get Up" (he wrote last year's "Wannabe," performed by Crash) and singer Åge Sten Nilsen has a song called "Would You Spend The Night With Me."

Moving beyond songwriters, it looks like Lene Alexandra must really be in the MGP--really, "Sillycone Valley," which I remember reading about (can't remember whether it was rumor or confirmed at the time), can't be for anyone else. There's been some talk about who's performing what, but there's been no big announcement of all the performers as of yet.

I've been through hell, got up when I fell

Much as I love Sweden and watch American Idol pretty faithfully, if I had to choose which country has the best songs connected directly to Idol, I think I'd go with Norway. I'm not referring here to post-Idol output, but the songs actually on Idol itself--the winner's song and, in Norway's case, the group song its finalists do. Aleksander Denstad With's "A Little Too Perfect" was one of the first songs I posted on this blog and it's still probably my favorite Idol winner song of all time, I think. I've also shared 2005's group song, "Dreaming," and I think I'll be posting 2006's song, "This Is Life," tomorrow--it's really good (so much so that mentioning it here almost made me swap posts and share it today). Norwegian Idol winner 2004 Kjartan Salvesen's winner's single certainly fits right in with this trend of good songs. Kjartan has released two albums so far, one back in 2004 and another this year.

Standing Tall--written by Espen Lind, this song does still have the "look how far I've come" message that most Idol songs do, but it's far less treacly than anything we get from American Idol, and it's much more focused on past difficulties the singer has faced--that is, it's more, "look at me, I survived" than "look at me, I'm a winner." It's also more mid-tempo than power ballad, and its strong chorus has far more impact than, say, that of "This Is My Now" or anything like that. It probably wouldn't be very difficult at all to turn this into a rock song, but as is, it feels pop--though not "poppy"--through and through, which is a good thing--much as I think guitars can be a great thing, here I think they'd take away from the song's strength.

To buy Kjartan Salvesen's debut album, Kjartan Salvesen, go here (physical) or here (digital), though that physical link will only work until the beginning of November--another of my Norwegian music stores is closing down! Where am I supposed to buy Norwegian music from after that? CDON needs to ship internationally. Edit: oh, it looks like Zailor has their CD section back; hopefully they still ship to the U.S..

Speaking of Norway, a mini-update on some Norwegian artists:

Venke Knutson has another new single out. It's called "Walk The Walk" and, sadly, it's not doing much for me at the moment. You can watch the video on YouTube and make your mind up for yourself, though. The album "Holiday" and "Walk The Walk" come from will be called Crush and I think it's out November 5.

Jorun Stiansen, who won Idol the year after Kjartan, has a new single out. Called "Sticky Hands," the song is of the sort that seems like it's deliberately trying to be unusual. That said, I think I like it, though I don't think I love it and feel very iffy about it. You can listen to it here. Reminds me a tiny bit of Tasha Baxter's "Fade To Black" in parts, though maybe that's just because of a couple of words.

After releasing the single "Adorable" earlier this year, former a1 member Christian Ingebrigtsen has a second solo album out, The Truth About Lies. I guess "Adorable" was OK in a very cheesy pop-rock way, but I don't think it was good enough to compel me to buy the album. There are preview clips of it here. "Wonder Years" sounds OK. The album is available for purchase from most digital music stores, including iTunes stores around the world.

Next up: as mentioned, Norwegian Idol 2006's group song.