 Slovakia entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994. Despite of other new countries which regularly participate, Slovakia is only showing up from time to time. Since 1994, Slovakia participated five times only. Even this year‘s participation was not confirmed until the end, it may due to different reasons like a lack of interest and budget issues. The neighbor country Czech Republic joined even 13 years later and only took part three times, not even this year. Some countries may underestimate the effect of the ESC in general, good ESC songs do enter the European charts and that means money as well. Hosting the event costs a lot of money, but with good sponsors and good promotions the money will return, furthermore it will have a very positive image for the country and city in Europe and even beyond, like last year’s event in Oslo. For many people that was the show of the year. Even though there were quite nice songs from Slovakia so far: “Molidba” by Katarína Hasprová (#21) in 1998 and “Horehronie” by Kristina (#16 in the semi final) in 2010. The Slovakian TV has announced TWiiNS to represent Slovakia in the Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf with the song “I am still alive”. This year may be the year of twins, the Irish representatives Jedward are twin brothers, both Ireland and Slovakia will start in Semi Final 2. The song “I am still alive” is a very contemporary pop ballad, sounds a bit like Wilson Philips. In the draw of the running order, Slovakia picked the wild card, with that it was possible to chose the starting position, they chose #5, which is probably not the best choice. Last year’s entry “Horehronie” has been one of the early starters and failed. This nice song is an enrichment indeed, but in comparison to the other songs it may sounds a bit too standard like, nothing striking, unless the stage performance will pull out everything |
Participant(s): TWiiNS
