There has been a lot of fuss in recent years over the participation of the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest especially due to the fact that one of the largest music markets cannot manage to achieve consistent results. The British Broadcasting Corporation has been said to be making quite an extra amount of effort although it seems that they are not really meeting the budgetary spending that they should paying much more for a series of other things and therefore putting the competition on the backbone of their strategy. This morning, the British media has gone all negative and sour about this years' participation noting that Engelbert Humperdinck only managed to garner twelve points from four countries putting him in twenty-fifth position.

The history of the United Kingdom as the prestigious event is definitely not worth retiring upon with five victories and fifteen runner-up finishes to their name although the last time they did finish in the top three was way back in 2002 with Jessica Garlick and her track Come Back although one has to note that they also finished in fifth place in 2009 when Jade Ewen performed the song It's My Time penned by Diane Warren and Andrew Lloyd Webber. British viewers took to social networking websites and also message boards calling for the broadcaster to withdraw from the event with the well known Philip Schofield also going about saying 'It’s time to pull out. Not even Robbie Williams could win it for us, it's too political'.

Nevertheless, it seems that the general consensus is that Engelbert was not the right choice to represent the United Kingdom because it showed that the country was somewhat old fashioned instead of promoting a new array of perfomers which somewhat dominate the British music scene at the moment including acts such as Hurts, Pixie Lott, Leona Lewis, Jessie J and of course Adele who has taken over most of the charts with a huge number of hit tracks. The very fact of the matter is that some people like to say it was political voting but the top five was relatively strange and whilst there might have been an interesting element of this kind of voting this time round, it has been acknowledged by a British Broadcasting Corporation spokesman that the affect was only on 'mid-table positions'. 

One of the most influential men in the world of Eurovision is surely Paul Gambaccini who despite being an author of a book about the competition, is also a presenter on BBC Radio 2. He speaks about the possibility of a world class singer and songwriter chosen to represent the United Kingdom adding that while he does not expect starts like 'Adele to sign up', he believes that there is the possibility of finding the 'modern equivalent of Cliff Richard and the songwriter team behind Congratulationrs, Bill Martin and Phil Coulte'. His idea was backed by none other than 1997 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest;  Katrina Leskanich who would love to see songwriter Cathy Dennis write the song for the United Kingdom having written hits such as Toxic for Britney Spears and Can't Get You Out of My Head for Kylie Minogue. 

Source: The Telegraph

The most noteworthy participant in this years' Eurovision Song Contest taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan is surely Engelbert Humperdinck, one of the biggest stars of the olden days with a large number of hits including tracks such as Release Me, The Last Waltz, A Man Without Love, and After the Lovin' amongst others. The selection of the British Broadcasting Corporation did not go without any criticism from the British and the foreign press actually but nevertheless, he has somewhat been tipped as one of the favourites with the United Kingdom being almost at the top of the list in terms of the Betting Odds ranking in position number #4 at the current moment. It will be quite interesting to see how the performance of the track Love Will Set You Free will go down with the rest of the continent.

Engelbert is currently signed to Conehead Records which is an independent recording label to which stars such as Peter Andre, Stacey Solomon and Rhydian Roberts are also signed. The single was released last Monday and it seems that Engelbert was out to promote the track prior to leaving to the Eurovision Song Contest making appearances on the Graham Norton Show on BBC1 in the United Kingdom and also on the Late Late Show on RTE in Ireland where Jedward where also guests. In both shows, the legendary performer decided to perform his track LIVE for the very first time and despite the age, his performances were still above average yet not perfect and might require some work before going to Baku, Azerbaijan. Stay tuned to all of the latest news from the Eurovision Song Contest with our live coverage on escflashmalta.com thanks to our team on location including Juergen Boernig, Garrett Mulhall, Patrick Strouk, Šira Carolyn Bezalel and Lilian Brunell along with our collaborators including Luke Fisher of escXtra and Keith Mills of All Kinds of Everything.

Source: BBC, RTE

The British Broadcasting Corporation has been on a number of occasions that they do not take their annual participation in the Eurovision Song Contest seriously and hence, have been trying to take up a new approach and that is to send acts who have already gained credibility over the course of time such as Blue last year whose song I Can managed to reach eleventh place, the best result this decade considering that they had finished in last place in the previous year thanks to Josh Dubovie whose song That Sounds Good to Me was written by Pete Waterman, the same person behind hits written for Steps and Kylie Minogue amongst others. This year, they have decided to send a legend in the form of Engelbert Humperdinck.

The chosen artist does not require a lot of introduction known by many to be the British version of the great Elvis Presley. Engelbert has managed to do what many artists aspire to do and that is sell millions of records apart from obtaining stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and last but not least, a nod for a Grammy. He has won a number of awards and is mostly known for his song Release Me released way back in 1966. It peaks across the boards and gave the artist his fame. He has gone onto release a multitude of singles and albums and continues to perform sold out concerts including one in Malta just a couple of months ago. The song that he will be performing at the Eurovision Song Contest is entitled Love Will Set You Free and will be released as a physical and digital single on the 30th April 2012 under the Conehead Label.

The Conehead Label has been steadily rising as one of the leading labels in the United Kingdom having managed to attract a number of artists including X Factor stars Rhydian and Stacey Solomon but then again, one could also notice more famous artists such as Peter Andre and Bodies Without Organs who tried to represent Sweden on a number of occasions, failing to grab that ticket. Engelbert is one of their most recent signings actually and apart from releasing his Eurovision single on this label, he will also be releasing an album, one which will surely be entertaining for his fans as it will celebrate his 75th birthday. Stay tuned to www.escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news about the United Kingdom.

Source: Conehead Records