Introduction

• Participant(s): ManuElla
• Song: Blue And Red
• Writer(s): Leon Oblak
• Composer(s): Manuella Brechko & Marjan Hvala
• Broadcaster: RTVSLO
• Social media: 
• Team review: 

The Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has held a national final called EMA like almost every year. Many people thought that “Here For You” by Maaraya could have been the first victory for Slovenia, so there has been a lot of disappointment about the 14th rank, which was mainly due to the weird state performance with the air violin. In this year’s EMA show there have been two former representatives Regina (1996) with “Alive In Every Way” and Nusa Derenda (2001) with “Tip Top” , both did not make it into end round. Therefore ManuElla could win with a margin of 127 votes from the televoters. Her song is called “Blue And Red”.

Manuella Brečko was born in Celje (east of Ljubljana) in 1989. Since the age of six music has played an important role in ManuElla’s life. She played the accordion and the bass guitar but singing is her most important talent. With 16 years she entered the German show “Das Supertalent” and in 2012 she participated at the Slovenian national semi-final 2012 singing the cover version of e.g. “Take Me To Your Heaven”.

The Slovenian song “Blue And Red” sounds like a country song with a yodel-like part before the chorus. The song has a modern approach and the atmosphere of an American road song. Unfortunately, there are a lot of young women this year, and they all have nice mid-tempo songs so there is a risk that this entry will be overheard. Let’s hope that the stage design and her performance will be extraordinary to stand out of the others.

History

• Debut: 1993
• Participations: 22
• Victories: 0
• Finals: 13
• Top 10: 3
• Chance for Top 10: 14 %

This year in Stockholm Slovenia will have its 22nd entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. In the year 1993 there has been the first only pre-ESC, which was held in Ljubljana. The participating countries in this pre-selection were Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia. Only three songs could qualify for the Millstreet ESC those were Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. The debut song “Tih Dezeven Dan” by 1X Band only reached the 22nd place in Millstreet. Nevertheless the participation of Slovenia brought a huge public interest. Slovenia was among the top 3 countries, when the Eurovision Song Contest has opened to a wider scale of participating countries.

As one of the former ex-Yugoslav countries, Slovenia can look back to an additional 27-years-old history of Yugoslavian entries, where one victory with “Rock me” by Riva in 1989 could be celebrated. The Slovenes have participated since then with great enthusiasm and put every effort in well-chosen songs of high quality with an international standard.

Slovenia is the only country from the ex-Yugoslav countries which does not benefit from the “Balkan Block Voting” like Croatia, Serbia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Since the Semi Finals have been introduced in 2004, Slovenia could only qualify four times out of twelve. Last year the Slovenian entry “Here For You” by Maraaya was a very strong entry, but could only make a good 14th place in the Grand Final.