By Aline Mahrud
WHEN/WHERE?: Saturday 19 February 2022, H3 Arena, Fornebu
HOW DO I WATCH?: NRK
Last year’s Melodi Grand Prix was very much a 2-horse race between TIX and KEIINO but 2022’s line-up is much more open with any number of possible winners.
- Read on for reasons including who our favourite is and why we don’t want Subwoolfer to win
Having seen Aminata’s brilliant, Adele-style, misery ballad I’m Letting You Go be beaten by something far more immediate and novelty in Latvia’s Supernova final this weekend, we’re hoping the same doesn’t happen in Norway.
Before seeing the live performances and after hearing the entries we thought it would be between A1’s Christian Ingebrigtsen’s beautiful piano ballad Wonder Of The World and the song co-written by his former bandmate Ben Adams, Titans sung by Vilde.
However, the live performances have completely changed our minds and below, in true Eurovision-style, is where our big points would be heading.
12 points: Anna-Lisa Kumoji Queen Bees (Olli Äkräs, Alan Roy Scott, Elsbeth Rehder, Anna-Lisa Kumoji)
What to do when your big competition is 2 men in wolf masks with a song inspired by Little Red Riding Hood? Stinging musically by drawing on ’20s doo-wap, but not too heavily, Kumoji and crew have incorporated yellow and black into their wardrobe without getting too carried away. They sing: ‘We don’t hide inside our hive, don’t you kill our vibe or we might sting’ and we’re buzzing with how this slows down and then speeds up. More fun than Subwoolfer and more infectious.
10 points: Elsie Bay Death Of Us (Elsa Søllesvik, Jonas Holteberg Jensen, Andreas Stone Johansson)
A Bond-style ballad, Billie Eilish-style. Elsie co-wrote the frankly bonkers Witch Woods in last year’s Melodi Grand Prix final. It’s competently performed and written classily but perhaps a little too beige to win the popular vote against this competition.
8 points: Oda Gondrosen Hammer Of Thor (Morten Franck, Elsa Søllesvik, Torgeir Ryssevik, Oda Kristine Gondrosen)
With a title straight out of Eurovision parody musical Eurobeat, this does however boast a feminist twist with chorus of: ‘I stole the Hammer Of Thor.’ It’s performed brilliantly and while the staging is every bit as Viking as you might be expecting, it feels more like the sort of entry people outside of Norway might associate with the country rather than the sort of thing people who live there might actually enjoy. Traditional perhaps, dated even.
7 points: Sofie Fjellvang Made Of Glass (Sofie Fjellvang, Kjetil Mørland)
Co-author Mørland is in part responsible for the title of this blog thanks to his 2015 Eurovision entry A Monster Like Me. Fjellvang’s hitting all the notes but we’re a little underwhelmed by the precision yet coldness of the performance although it’s a song with the darkness and depth you might associate with its co-writer.
6 points: Subwoolfer Give That Wolf A Banana (Keith, Jim)
In a straight televote we could see this win Eurovision in Turin let alone Saturday’s Melodi Grand Prix. It’s catchy, has a relatable fairytale narrative and presses many Masked Singer buttons. And yet we think it’s just too novelty and there are far more deserving songs here to win the Eurovision ticket (see the 4 suggested songs above this 1 in our rankings).
5 points: Christian Ingebrigtsen Wonder Of The World (Christian Ingebrigtsen, Michael Hunter Ochs, Henrik Tala)
The entry we most liked when 1st hearing the songs has rather paled on repeat listens. The performance is polite enough with Christian at the piano but the lyrics listing places around the world just seems a little lazy. Ingebrigtsen has co-written many MGP highlights over the years and we loved A1 but we would have hoped he would have come back to perform something a little less lyrically beige for the final.
4 points: NorthKid Someone (Helge Moen, Alex Charles, Sandra Lyng, Jim Bergsted)
This is the song that has most grown on us in its studio version and we think it has strong hit potential probably behind only Subwoolfer. However, it’s really let down by its stiff performance not helped by the worst curtain reveal in Eurovision history (see below at 1m 15s).
It wasn’t the biggest staging gaffe so far this Eurovision, see below for a surely too heavy performer drop at 2m 30s.
monstagigz 
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