United Kingdom 2010

Former Big Brother contestant Angel McKenzie is bidding to represent the UK in Eurovision in 2010:


Big Brother singing sensation Angel may be from Russia but she's desperate to represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo in 2010. She's even penned her very own entry.
But she can't do it without YOUR HELP.
The more people that back her bid, the more chance Angel has of making it to Oslo. So do your bit by downloading the Angel For Eurovision petition and cramming it with the names and signatures of all your friends and family. Then simply pop it in the post to BBLB, Elstree Film Studios, Borehamwood, WD6 1JG
All completed petition forms will be delivered to the Eurovision event organisers at the BBC and the total number of supporters will be announced on the final BBLB show of the series.
We've also set up a facebook group in support of Angel's quest. Join today spread the word!
Together, we can make Angel's dream come true.

> From Channel 4 website: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

why would we want this freak representing us

I don't get why she doesn't go and represent Russia or atleast try to.

Do you think they'd want her

Can't BBC just pay a big songwriter from the UK to do a great song(like last year) and then get someone with a good voice?? It's easier because the UK has loads of songwriters and good singersnot yet famous

She probably won't even get entered. The BBC might do similar to last year but Andrew Lloyd Webber only took part last year because it was his idea, otherwise we could have ended up with Scooch again.

They could do it with another songwriter and write an up-tempo for example.

zore_riot wrote:Can't BBC just pay a big songwriter from the UK to do a great song(like last year) and then get someone with a good voice?? It's easier because the UK has loads of songwriters and good singersnot yet famous

How about Rick Astley? Let's rickroll Europe!

Pete Waterman Writing For UK 2010:
thta's us coming last again then....

Legendary hit maker Pete Waterman will produce this year's UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The multi award-winning music maestro has been responsible for producing and writing over 200 hits throughout the last 25 years, and has worked with pop sensations from Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer, Geri Halliwell, Westlife and Bananarama to Steps, Rick Astley and Dead Or Alive.

The song will be performed at Eurovision 2010 which takes place in Oslo in May. Details for the selection process for the act that will perform the song will be announced at a later date.

Pete Waterman said: "Eurovision is one of those iconic competitions that has stood the test of time and keeps coming up with great acts, great tunes and great performances. Life's full of challenges and I'm relishing the opportunity to put my own stamp on this one."

One of the highest grossing producers of all time, Pete Waterman's music career spans over three decades - as songwriter, manager, producer, radio and television presenter and DJ. This is the first time Pete has been directly involved in the Eurovision Song Contest.

During the 1980s, Coventry-born Pete was also a member of the highly successful recording trio Stock Aitken Waterman. Their first number one hit was Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round". He holds numerous awards including several Ivor Novellos and in 2004 was honoured with an OBE for his services to music.

Executive Producer Phil Parsons said: "This year, with an extremely successful pop writer, the aim is to build on the UK's success while moving on in style and doing something different. Pete Waterman has an incredible track record of hits that are known all around Europe so we're thrilled that he has taken on Eurovision."

Last year, the UK signalled a change of direction in its approach to the Contest when Andrew Lloyd Webber and American songwriter Diane Warren collaborated to produce "It's My Time", performed by Jade Ewen (now a member of the Sugababes). The aim was to restore some much needed national pride in the competition after the UK had fared so poorly in recent years.

The strategy was successful as the UK came a very respectable fifth place with, by common consent, a vastly improved entry. There were also changes to the Song Contest itself with voting split in each country between the public and a panel of industry experts.

Eurovison 2010
The grand final of this year's contest is due to take place on Saturday 29th May in Oslo, Norway - following the runaway victory last year by Alexander Rybak performing the memorable ditty "Fairytale".

As we get closer to the night when the United Kingdom will select the artist to represent us in Oslo, this website will be updated and refreshed. We'll also keep you up to speed on the very latest news from all 38 other competing countries. So add [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to your favourites right now!

You can also keep up with the very latest news and information about the UK's 2010 Eurovision Song Contest entry by following us on Twitter - @bbceurovision.

The UK will decide their entry on Saturday 12th March .. The Sugababes will perform their new single on the final!

jantzen wrote:The UK will decide their entry on Saturday 12th March .. The Sugababes will perform their new single on the final!

Well then one of my brothers will be happy, he's totally in love with Heidi
I don't think ppl in Russia knows who Angel is

jantzen wrote:Pete Waterman Writing For UK 2010:
thta's us coming last again then....

Legendary hit maker Pete Waterman will produce this year's UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The multi award-winning music maestro has been responsible for producing and writing over 200 hits throughout the last 25 years, and has worked with pop sensations from Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer, Geri Halliwell, Westlife and Bananarama to Steps, Rick Astley and Dead Or Alive.

Better he never gonna give you up, or you`ll end spinning round like a record

UK Press Release:



To win the Eurovision Song Contest, you need a classic simple pop song with universal appeal. Who better to turn to than Pete Waterman? Programme Information's Tony Matthews talks to him about his plans to make the UK No. 1 once again.



Simple and easy are not the same thing, as anyone who has ever tried writing a No. 1 song will doubtless have discovered.



"It's hard enough writing a hit song in the first place, let alone a Eurovision winner," says Pete Waterman who, with more than 200 hits to his name, including 22 No. 1s, has come as close as anyone to mastering the art. "You need to come up with something simple and catchy, people think it's easy but it's not." That's why the BBC has turned to the legendary pop writer to compose the UK's entry for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest.



With nearly five decades in the entertainment business, and a track record of success that has earned him countless industry awards and an OBE, if anyone can put the UK back at the top of the Eurovision tree, surely Pete can. But with his very name raising expectations, isn't he on a hiding to nothing? "I've been on a hiding to nothing all my life," says the man who rose from a working-class background in Coventry to found a pop dynasty as part of the Stock Aitken Waterman production team, helping make stars of Kylie Minogue, Steps, Rick Astley, Mel And Kim and many more.



"When the BBC called to ask if I would do it, I had two questions," he says. "The first was to ensure that I had a free hand musically and the second was to ask my old partner Mike Stock to help me. We haven't worked together recently, but we've remained friends and there was no question that I would be willing as long as he was prepared to do it with me. Mike is the musician and he interprets my ideas – a trouble shared is a trouble halved, as they say."



For the last three weeks or so, Pete and Mike have locked themselves into the process of coming up with something that will work for the UK, and hopefully impress people from Sheffield to Sarajevo, but Pete isn't too worried about that. "The song has to appeal to one person only, and that's me," he says, "others will have their views on whether it's a good song or not, but I have to be in charge as ultimately I have to deliver it. If people don't like it, I can't do anything about that. We have the same starting point with all our songs and we know what the limitations are."



Although he has a free hand, Pete understands that a Eurovision song needs to conform to some very basic pop rules. "We know it needs to work as part of a television spectacular, it must be dynamic and hit everyone in the first few bars, and we know it has to last less than three minutes," he says. "You have to have a formula; it will have to have an intro, at least two verses, a bridge and a chorus, nothing superfluous.



"If you try to go against that it won't work," he adds. "Most of our No. 1s have been very standard songs. A song like Yesterday by The Beatles only comes along very occasionally to break that pattern, but even they didn't know they were breaking the rules until they'd written it. It's a fantastic song, but it's a rarity, even My Way follows a basic verse-chorus-verse-chorus progression."



Complicating things slightly is the fact that Pete doesn't yet know the identity of the singer or group who will perform his composition. That will be decided in the coming weeks as six hopefuls compete in BBC One's Eurovision – Your Country Needs You in which each will perform live before a panel of judges before three acts are selected to sing Pete's song in the final, with the public deciding who will go on to represent the UK in Oslo in May.



So has he studied the form, so to speak, to trace back a pattern of what makes a Eurovision song a winner? "I haven't thought about it like that," he says. "When I think of Eurovision I go back to the black and white years with Katie Boyle and the Eurovision logo, which was great. I loved Sandie Shaw's Puppet On A String, but you can't write songs like that any more. The audience today is highly educated and sophisticated and if you wrote Boom Bang A Bang or whatever they'd throw their arms up in the air."



Last year's runaway winner, Fairytale by Norway's Alexander Rybak, is the perfect example of what to look for, Pete says: "People liked it even before the competition opened; it was favourite to win because it was a good, simple catchy song."



Pete's success has been built on understanding both what audiences like and an ability to spot and develop talent, and he was fortunate enough to witness perhaps the greatest performance in the history of the competition in person. "I was there at Brighton in 1974 when ABBA came out with Waterloo," he recalls. "I was a young producer doing some promotional work and I was really impressed by them. I'd worked as a DJ in Denmark, so I knew of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus long before the Eurovision Song Contest. They were great writers and were highly successful in Scandinavia, but they couldn't get arrested outside their own country. Their manager Stig Anderson had the inspired idea of getting them to do Eurovision, and putting them with the two girls, Agnetha and Anni-Frid, was a stroke of genius. Benny and Bjorn were already consummate performers and musicians and, to be honest, at that time a lot of the competition was pretty amateurish, so when they came out with Waterloo it was just 'whap... got you'. The impact was amazing and the whole history changed because one man saw the opportunity to put them out there."



Abba were truly exceptional but times have changed and most countries now are wise to what works. Pete notes from a BBC contact that one writer is providing songs for no fewer than six different countries. "Some entries are intensely local and probably won't transcend the barriers, even though they might be quite good tunes, but in my opinion everybody's got a chance," he says.



Until Jade Ewen's It's My Time, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren, restored some credibility in 2009, the UK had endured a pretty miserable decade at Eurovision including an abject "nul points" in 2003, a bitter humiliation for a nation with such a proud pop history. Why does Pete feel that the UK has fared so badly in recent years?



"I think it's because, for a long time, top songwriters didn't want to do it," he says. "Last year Andrew Lloyd Webber broke the mould really as the first real writer to put himself in the firing line. Going back as far as Bill [Martin] and Phil [Coulter] writing Congratulations for Cliff Richard in 1968, you haven't really had established writers and, even when the UK last won in 1997, the record wasn't British – it was Katrina And The Waves. We've put some pretty strange songs out there in recent years, I think we've tried to be too trendy – it's about getting a great song."



Not just at Eurovision but more widely, British music, Pete feels, has rather lost sight of that. "We treat music like jelly beans, it's become not so much about the songs as how it's delivered. To me it doesn't matter if it's a download or on an iPod or whatever, what matters is the song. For me people should watch Eurovision to pick a winner. You might laugh about a particular act or something strange, but you also want to say to your family 'that one will win'. As a youngster I used to watch with my mum and dad, even my grandad, all offering their opinion on what the best song was and everyone in the family would be involved. We've forgotten that and the media underestimates the power of music.



"Ultimately," he says, "it doesn't matter too much, but I'd like the country to feel proud, and I want people to say at least we gave it a bloody good shot."

the selection show is on friday on bbc1 i think 8:30 - !0:00

The UK National Final is tonight on BBC1, I'm going out so I'm going to miss it but I'll catch up on iPlayer

Josh Dubovie will represent the United Kingdom in Oslo with the song "That Sounds Good To Me".


To be honest .. This is a pile of sh*t, it's worse that The Toppers last year for Netherlands with "Shine" and a major step down from Jade. Looks like we'll be at the bottom of the scoreboard with Greece & Netherlands.

so many bad entries this year..

The 'Babes performed in that show. That's all that matters. lol

Radiowave wrote:so many bad entries this year..

AGREE

Mr. Dolce wrote:The 'Babes performed in that show. That's all that matters. lol

Yeah and Jade was a guest "panelist". They weren't that good to be honest, they've not been very good in any live performances of WMK!

jantzen wrote:

Mr. Dolce wrote:The 'Babes performed in that show. That's all that matters. lol

Yeah and Jade was a guest "panelist". They weren't that good to be honest, they've not been very good in any live performances of WMK!

Yeah, they were just ok. They looked HOT though. They should've promoted "About a Girl" way more. The song is the best "Sugababes" song for sure.

I think Jade's trying to hard to be "heard" so her vocsals sound like they don't fit properly, plus they've been using some dodgy instrumental for the live performances, like they did with AAG. They didn't promote AAG that much because Amelle was in a loony bin for a bit. The album is out tomorrow

The song is really bad!

worst song ever. the singer is preety good though!