World Song Contest

50 is a number that matters. First of all, when the World Song Contest started, noone could predict it would last more than one year. Not only it did, but it also reached the symbol that this number represent. So for the 50th edition of the World Song Contest, we had 57 songs from 57 countries from all over the world.

For this special moment in the history of the contest, a special request was asked to the players: no ESC related artists, no International Big Stars, and even no Pop Idol participants... Most of the players gave a positive answer to this request, but some ignored it. So once again, and as usual, we had all this names we are familiar to. But hey, except for the USA, and Green Day, none of them really managed to achieve a good result. Was it a sign ?

For once some countries we've hardly seen in a final, when semi finals were organized, did qualify. FYR of Macedonia, for instance, or Montenegro, or Saint Kitts & Nevis. This showed that when you have the song, you can really do something. And this is what Montenegro did. Not only they reached their best result in WSC, but they managed to win their heat in the semi finals and found a place in the top 5 of the final.

The winner of this 50th edition had to be decided between four songs, from Iceland, with the hit "Jungle Drum", to Brazil, and the two representatives of Oceania, Australia and New Zealand. It is the first time that Brazil collected most of its points from several of our Brazilian players to reach the top (66 points out of 117) but it was not enough against Iceland, which took the second place with a total of 22 votes received (the record of this edition) with the same amount of points. The victory surprisingly went to New Zealand, with the song "Her Hairagami Set" performed by The Brunettes. This was New Zealand's second victory in WSC.

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THE WINNER

Country: New Zealand
Artist(s): The Brunettes
Song: Her Hairagami Set

Breezy New Zealand indie pop group the Brunettes feature the core duo of multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and producer Jonathan Bree and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Heather Mansfield, along with as many as eight auxiliary members who help create the group's Phil Spector-esque wall of sound. The band's rotating membership includes Lil' Chief labelmates Harry Cundy and the Reduction Agents' James Milne and Ryan McPhun, and the Lil' Chief Orchestrette add banjo, marimba, saxophone, cello, and clarinet to the band's sonic palette.In 1998, Bree and Mansfield were playing in different bands and met when they played a show together; the Brunettes were born when the pair decided they'd like to collaborate on sweet but smart pop inspired by '60s girl groups and '70s punk. Later that year, the Brunettes' debut EP, Mars Loves Venus, arrived. Though the band's first release arrived relatively quickly, it took another four years for the band's first full-length, Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks, to appear on Lil' Chief Records. The charm of this album and the Boyracer EP, also released in 2002, won the Brunettes a devoted following in their homeland. The group spent 2003 and 2004 touring Australia and the U.K., supporting other pop-minded bands such as Architecture in Helsinki and the Futureheads. Summer 2004 saw the release of their second album, which was also named Mars Loves Venus (the EP and the album only have the title track in common), and reflected the Brunettes' increasing skill in the studio and influences from Gram Parsons to Prince.The band made it to the U.S. as a septet in 2005 as support for the Shins, and released the When Ice Met Cream EP to commemorate the occasion. That fall, they signed to Sub Pop and then toured as a five-piece with Rilo Kiley. The group's most sophisticated album yet, 2007's Structure and Cosmetics became the first Brunettes album to be released domestically in the U.S. The Brunettes handled the distribution of 2009's Paper Dolls on their own, releasing it in the U.S. and New Zealand on Lil' Chief.