Introduction

This year the Icelandic national final “Söngvakeppnin” was held in the auditorium of Reykjavik’s university – a smaller scale than last year. After two interesting semi finals the big final consisted of six songs to choose from. The level of quality was probably not as high as last year, but the Icelandic broadcaster has put a lot of effort to keep the excitement until the last minute. At the end the band Pollapönk could win with the majority of televotes. This has been the most striking entry of the Icelandic final this year.

The band Pollapönk was founded in 2006 and consists of five members. Pollapönk has already released three albums in Iceland. Some of the band members have formerly appeared in band called “Botnleðju”, which already made a second place in the Icelandic final in 2003.

The song is called “Enga Fordóma” which means “no prejudices”. It’s a very energetic and polarizing song with cool funk elements. The style of the band is a bit unusual with coloured leisure suits and long beards. The will certainly get a lot of attention in Copenhagen. The style of the song is maybe comparable with the Lithuanian band Inculto which has made a 12th place in the semi final in Oslo 2010 only. The song will be performed half Icelandic and half English.

History

Participations: 27

Debut: 1986

Biggest success: 2x 2nd place 1999 “All Out Of Luck” by Selma, 2009 “Is It True?” by Yohanna, 1x 4th place, 1x 7th place, 1x 8th place

For Iceland, it is the 27th participation in the Eurovision Song Contest this year in Copenhagen. With the debut song "Gledinbankin" from the group Icy in 1986 the Icelandic participants could only reach the 16th place. But Iceland has achieved some good results over the years. Overall, there were two times a second place with "All out of luck" by Selma in 1999 in Jerusalem and "Is it true?" by Yohanna in 2009 in Moscow. In addition, there were also some top 10 places. Over the years there have been truly outstanding contributions from Iceland like "Sjúbídú" by Anna Mjöll in 1996 (13th), "Minn Hinsti Dans" by Paul Oscar in 1997 (20th place) "This Is My Life" by Euroband in 2008 (14th) or lately “Ég á líf” by Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson last year in Malmö (17th place). Due to the large international competition it has become more important to stand out of the others. With only 320.000 inhabitants the creativity and enthusiasm in Iceland the music scene is unbelievably high. The most popular singers/bands from Iceland are Björk, Sigur Rós and Mezzoforte.

Therefore the Icelandic have developed a special view in particular at a perfect stage performance. In the last six years, Iceland has been very successful; it has always qualified for the grand final. The Icelandic entries have been sung in the Icelandic language until 1997 when it was only allowed to sing in the native language beside of last year in Malmö.