Eurovision 2013

As a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, I, of course, enjoy picking out my favorite songs and acts each year. It's been over a year since I was able to keep up with Eurovision. I was absolutely shocked when I went through the contestants this year and saw that Turkey is not competing in this year's Eurovision. Turkey released a statement, which was reported by esctoday, that they will not be competing because of the change in voting (the voting will be 50% jury vote and 50% fan vote) and since the Big Four (Germany, Spain, Great Britain, and France) were changed to the Big Five (Germany, Spain, Great Britain, France, and Italy).

The Big Five get pushed through into the final round without having to compete against the other songs. Usually, five songs were automatically pushed to the final round: the Big Four and the host country's song. So the countries already in the final round of this year's contest are Germany, Spain, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Sweden.

As I said previously, every year I pick my top ten (sometimes more) favorite songs. Again this year I picked my ten favorites:

1. Germany - Cascada  I have been a huge fan of Cascada since their first single, so I'm super excited about them competing this year.
2. Denmark - Emmelie de Forest  & Norway - Margaret Berger  I honestly love both of these songs and both performers are stellar so I can't decide. 
3. Netherlands - Anouk at first I was a little skeptical, then I heard her sing. She has a lovely voice and I think she is awesome. 
4. Greece - Koza Mostra & Agathon Iakovidis This song and video are so much fun and the band is really good. 
5. France - Amandine Bourgeois A really good song, love the whole dark spooky vibe. 
6. Finland - Krista Siegfrids This is so much fun and a little creepy stalker. Very befitting of a Finnish Ke$ha. 
7. Iceland - Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson Such a beautiful video, song, and voice. Thank you, Iceland for just being plain awesome.
8. Israel - Moran Mazor I always look forward to Israel's entry and this years' is quite excellent. 
9. Ireland - Ryan Dolan  Finally! Ireland sends someone besides Jedward. I'm so happy about Ryan being in the contest: good song good voice - I think he will definitely be one to watch. 
10. Slovenia - Hannah A really good song. I always watch Slovenia's contestants and am always underwhelmed. This year, they finally delivered. Though not the strongest song in the competition, it is a very good entry and I think she'll go very far. 

So here are some other songs I really liked just don't feel like ranking:

Estonia - Birgit, Russia - Dina Garipova, Montenegro - Who See, Cyprus - Despina Olympiou,  Belgium - Roberto Bellarosa, Malta - Gianluca Bezzina, Hungary - ByeAlex, Switzerland - Takasa, & Spain - ESDM  

I hope you enjoy my list. Here, is a list of all the entries in this year's Eurovision. It is a really fun contest and experience, so my suggestion is to make a list maybe make one with your friends and follow the contest.