World Song Contest

Semi finals were back in December 2006, with the 21st edition of the World Song Contest. A new format was chosen, and it led to the qualification of 26 countries which joined four direct qualified in the final. After the surprising choice of the previous edition, it was time to see if it was only a one shot or if players of the contest wanted to show they could be open-minded, and not only stuck to Eurovision Pop Song. This time, they had the opportunity to choose between so many different kind of music. And they voted for the only one without lyrics.

It's not the first time that we have an instrumental "song" in the contest. If they reached some good positions, they were not closed to win. So Finland tried something else, even if the song had some rock elements in it, which from Finland is so natural. But if there were no lyrics here, Belgium decided to be represented by 2 songs... Well in fact it was the same one, but in two different languages: English and French. The first time this happened in the contest.

Even if the record of participants wasn't broken, news countries joined the contest, or were back, and for the first time we had at least two songs from each continents. Even Oceania was represented by two countries, Australia was joined by Fiji while South Africa was back and represented Africa with Algeria, which made its first appearance in the contest. A really good first try as it became the first African country to reach the top 10, and even more to be the runner up.

The live coverage was really interesting once again. And Finland had to battle against Algeria and Turkey for victory. Finally, Apocalyptica's anthem, Farewell, gave its first victory to Finland with a total score of 137 points.

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THE WINNER

Country: Finland
Artist(s): Apocalyptica
Song: Farewell

The Helsinki, Finland, quartet Apocalyptica comprised classically trained cellists Eicca Toppinen, Max Lilja, Antero Manninen, and Paavo Lotjonen; formed in 1993, the group made waves internationally in 1996 with Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, which combined their formal background with their love of heavy metal. The album found favor with both classical buffs and metal heads alike, and two years later Apocalyptica resurfaced with Inquisition Symphony, which featured covers of material by Faith No More and Pantera. Manninen soon left the band and was replaced by Perttu Kivilaanso. They added double bass and percussion to the mix for 2001's Cult, a collection of all-original material, and again on 2003's Reflections which featured guest drummer Dave Lombardo from Slayer. Max Lilja had left the band and Mikko Sirén joined as the band's permanent drummer. After Reflections was reissued as Reflections Revised, featuring a bonus track with new wave diva Nina Hagen, 2005 saw the release of the eponymous Apocalyptica, followed in 2006 by the collection Amplified: A Decade of Reinventing the Cello. The band returned to the studio the following year for Worlds Collide. Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann appeared on the album performing the German-language version of David Bowie's "Helden." The band came back in 2010 with their seventh studio album entitled "7th Symphony".