The Race Is On, Don't All Rush At Once

While the Gazette was drafting its first post of the year about the Croatian pre-selection for Eurovision yesterday, the thought occurred to it that if Morrissey was really talking about Eurovision with the BBC (as if it hadn't all got improbable enough when Lordi entered), then anything's possible. Gibonni? Darko Rundek? Goran Bare?

Now it seems that Večernji list has got there first as far as Goran Bare is concerned. And one can safely say the concept of Goran Bare showing up at Eurovision is every bit as improbable as Morrissey doing the same thing.

All in all, the potential names being mentioned for this year's Dora so far include Tina Vukov, Luka Nižetić, Vanna, Feminnem, Raspashow, Emina Arapović, Ivana Radovniković, Damir Kedžo, a trio of Mladen Burnać-Davorin Bogović-Ivanka Bolkjovac (two rockers and an opera singer), and Kraljevi ulice (the 2006 runners-up) in the company of Sandra Bagarić. Respectable pop or rock musicians (or at least internationalised-talent-show graduates) the lot of them, without a trace of what one might call 'localised musical content' but would probably call either 'ethno' or 'turbofolk': suggesting that Lordi have had just as much of an impact on HTV's thoughts as, two years ago, did Željko Joksimović's second place for Serbia-Montenegro did. (One suspects that whatever the final Dora line-up is, it might as well be titled 'People the Jury Thought All Sound the Least Like 'Moja štikla'.)

Wait till Eurovision itself, and it may well turn out that Lordi's victory owed less to their position as a credible metal alternative and more to their rocking up on stage with monster costumes, battle-azes, pyrotechnics and expanding wings - a level of stagecraft which would even outdo Darko Rundek.

Who might count as too 'ethno' these days, anyway...?