Tonight we put an end to the selection of last year’s host country, Azerbaijan. The final show of Milli Seçim Turu was in the concept of a concert entitled Milli Final 2013 where the participants sang original songs where Fərid Məmmədov got the ticket for Malmö. The winning song will be decided later.
A short brief to Milli Seçim Turu 2013
We started the selection process with more than eighty participants in the preliminary rounds divided to eight heats in December 2012. Each heat was broadcasted each night from Monday to Friday with the same procedure giving the participants the ability to test themselves in different genres.
The televotings were counted every night; at the last show of the week jury votes and televoting results combined 50/50. The procedure of a week as it follows:
- Monday: Eurovision Hits
- Tuesday: Azeri Music
- Wednesday: World Hits
- Thursday: Stage Performance
- Friday: Free Style (Participants will re-perform some of their previous song selections)
Only one lucky name were able to get the ticket for Milli Final each week, however the jury decided to choose two names in last two weeks, which made a total of 10 names able to participate in the final.
The show
Today’s show started at 18.00 CET in Buta Palace, Baku with the presentation of Leyla Əliyeva and Tural Əsədov. The show was broadcasted by official channel, İçtimai TV via web and satellite, but viewers were also able to follow it via TRT Müzik and eurovision.tv.
Our ten participants performed different songs which were written by various artists world-wide (You can also read more about that in our get to know article):
Leyla Qafari – Pride
Vüqar Muradov – Baby baby
Valeriya Hüseynzadə – If this is love
Leyla Əliyeva – Welcome to the sun
Fərəh Hadıyeva – We are one
Nigar Hüseynova – I still believe
Vlada Axundova – Big Time
Rəvanə Əliyeva – Lovely King
Fərid Məmmədov – Hold Me
Aysel Babayeva – Sleazy Mo
We were able to see previous participants and some famous guests at today’s show. 2011 Eurovision Song Contest winner, Eldar Qasımov (Ell) and last year’s home defender Sabina Babayeva performed the songs from their latest workouts where Azerbaijani classic Tynzalia Agaeva joined them.
The voting
Differently than other Milli Seçim Turu finals, this year the public opinion were able to impact to half of the results. The televoting results combined 50/50 with the jury where Fərid Məmmədov got the honour of waving the Azeri flag in Malmö.
21 years old handsome Fərid fascinated the audience at the first sight in heat 6, singing Danny Montell‘s Love is Blind. His popularity spread over the country with the participation in idol show Böyük Sehne though Fərid performed the same acts he did at Milli Seçim Turu 2013.
Tonight’s song Hold Me was a very dramatic ballad which performed strong and emotinonally by the winner. The song was composed by Dimitrios Kontopoulos who has contributed with several songs to some well-known names, also including former Eurovision Song Contest participants such as Sakis Rouvas and Ani Lorak.
Please note that the song Hold Me haven’t yet confirmed by the broadcaster as the representative song as we only know for a fact that the Azeri selection was won by Fərid Məmmədov. İçtimai Tv will make its final decision on the song in the coming days.
Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Song Contest
The small, eastermost country in Europe that is Azerbaijan has a relatively short history at the contest, joining the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008 for the first time. Last year Baku was host to the contest as Ell & Nikki had brought Azerbaijan their very first victory the previous year. Since their debut, they have managed to qualify to the final every single year so far, finishing inside the top ten on each occasion.
Below you can see tonight’s winner and his act Hold Me.
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