Introduction

The general high expectations in Georgian entries will probably not be met this year. There has been a national selection, but only 13 songs have been submitted. The majority of the songs have been rock songs. Generally rock songs can be a great supplement in the ESC, and there have been very good once in history, even some hard rock songs. Unfortunately, the Georgian organizers have missed to choose music with an international standard. None of the presented songs will qualify for the final in Baku.

The winning song “I’m a joker” by Anri Jokhadze is a rap kind of song with the attitude of a gimmick song. The time of gimmick songs in the ESC belongs to history, as those songs only attract a small number of fans. Dear Georgia, this song will fail with the international juries and televoters. Having the choice of loving or hating this song, the people will probably tend to hate it. The competition is enormously high, so this song is something like a bad joke, sorry Georgia 0 points!

History

In 2007 the biggest surprise of the year has been that Georgia is going to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki for the first time. This year it’s going to be the 5^th participation already. The neighbour country Armenia joined one year before in Athens and in 2008 Azerbaijan joined as well. The Caucasian countries are located in the very south east corner of Europe, at the Caspian Sea where the neighbour countries like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran contribute cultural influences in that region, also in musical matters. Therefore it’s a delight to watch songs and performances from these countries in the ESC, as this kind of music is not that well known in Western Europe.

Georgia has tried to combine traditional Georgian music with contemporary sounds which can be seen in the Georgian entries. The most outstanding song was the debut entry “My story” by Sopho in 2007, which reached a remarkable 12^th rank in the final. Georgia has always qualified for the final. Due to the high level of qualitative music from Georgia, the country can be happy to get fans from all over Europe plus a great international attention.