Eurovision via londonist.

Here's my more official, less giddy and excitable preview from Londonist.

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Semi-final

Bulgaria send an ethnic rave song with vocals that are mere sound effects built into the heavily drummed mix. It's quite amazing.

Israel's controversial entry sounds like 5 songs in one. Sounding like a bargain bin Gogol Bordello, Push The Button by Teapacks mixes rap, rock, drum and bass, jaunty pop, klezmer with social messages about nuclear annihilation.

The entry from Cyprus is sung by Evridiki who's been taking lessons from Madonna and Anna Vissi. Comme Ci, Comme Ca is a electropop song with vocals in French and full of synths and electric guitar. Has a false-ending middle eight, and should be performed well.

The Belarus entry is a Bond theme tune that never was. Fantastic strings and chorus make this a catchy number, and one that should be in with a good chance.

Iceland's performer is Eurovision veteran who sings a melodramatic rock ballad called Valentine Lost. The fans will love him, but will all that melodrama be too much for him?

Debut nation Georgia send a performer called Sopho with a song Bjork would be proud of. Visionary Dream mixes an ethnic tune with thumping dance beats, and floaty string sections all accompanied by shrieky Kate Bush vocals. In the national final, she performed the song wearing a massive floating blob pink dress. Amazing.

Montenegro send a dull, uninspired electric rock song with very little to redeem it.

Switzerland send the improbably named DJ Bobo performing the reminiscent-of-Aqua dance-pop songVampires Are Alive. The stage show for this should be ace, so watch out for the Bobo.

Moldova's entry, Fight, soars and grinds, with angry guitars that remind us of goth-poppers Evanescence with added synthy lightning strikes and high female vocals. Wind machine, ahoy!

The Netherlands send the potential Eurovision classic, On Top of The World. It hits all the right cliches: starts off slow and acoustic, kicks into a soaring chorus, an odd middle 8 and a huge key change accompanied by squiggly sounds. To top it off, Edsilia, the performer, is a past Eurovision entrant and knows how to work the stage. Brilliant.

Hear My Plea cry the Albanians with a slow ethnic ballad, the title of which in Albanian is Stone Ballad. That's about as exciting as it gets.

Denmark send a fabulous drag queen singing Drama Queen, a fabulously dancey pop song about how fabulous her dramatic life is.

Croatia's entry is a fairly dull mid-tempo rock number, sung by a man who will be the oldest entrant in the contest ever.

Poland's Jet Set tell us that it's time to party, time to party, time to party in their Black Eyed Peas-esque bouncy, rappy hip-pop song.

Serbia's Marija is eye catching as she looks somewhat K D Lang. Her song Molitva translates as Prayer and is a big, big ballad with ethnic drums and flutes. We see this one doing very well.

The debut performers from the Czech Republic are growling, hoary rockers performing a fairly standard rock number.

Portugal's latino dancing song is nowhere near as good as Norway's, which is odd, you'd think.

Macedonia's Karolina (that's her there in Eurovision 2002) brings us the best instance of "ni-ninny-na-ni-na-na-na-ninny-ni-na" nonsense lyrics this year with her classily performed sort-of nationalistic pop song.

Norway send a fun Latino-flavoured dancing song Ven a Bailar Conmigo sung by a woman who's not Spanish and old enough to know better but seems to be having the time of her life, especially during her fabulous eye-catching costume change.

Malta throw the kitchen sink into their entry, Vertigo. It has a big Mediterranean ethno-pop sound, evoking Greek, Spanish and Turkish music. Performer Olivia Lewis is a trooper, and vocally powerful and the song's swooshing sound makes this one of our favourites for this year. Malta would love to win, let's hope they have the chance.

Andorra's entry are Busted-meets-Blink182 boys Anonymous, and they are some guys singing about saving the world in Catalan. It's a fresh, interesting approach from a country that usually are ignored at Eurovision.

Rusza Magadi sings Hungary's entry, Unsubstantial Blues. It's what it says: a blues number about being dumped. With her repeated shrieks of "why did you leave me", we can think of at a few reasons.

The brother of Estonia's Gerli Padar won Eurovision 5 years ago, but her pleasant, uptempo guitar-led number probably won't follow suit. Nice strutting, though.

Belgium's late 70s disco-funk number is an ace track full of positivity and love and happiness.

Slovenia continue their tradition of sending ace, but unusual, songs to Eurovision. The song, Cvet z Juga, is an ethno-opera-dance song with a high, high note at the end: odd, yet strangely alluring.

Turkey's got the hunk of the contest. Kenan Dogulu performs the very Turkish sounding electro-ish Timberlake-esque pop song Shake It Up Shekerim.

Austria bring an uptempo, uplifting guitar rock-pop song sounding a little like Bon Jovi who tells us to "get a life, a better life". Their performance is going to feature lots of crystals and ribbons. Wonderful.

Latvia have 6 men singing Italian opera stylings, very G4 like and the kind of thing your mum is supposed to love.

Final

Bosnia & Herzegovina send a song very like their entry from last year, an ethnic ballad with traditional instrumentation and harmonies. It's pleasant, but that's as far as it goes.

Spain send D'NASH, a buff boyband that stick to the boyband rule of having two hawt members. We can't help but picture them. They're singing I Love You, Mi Vida, a straight-forward uptempo, latin pop song.

Ireland's act Dervish bring a traditional Irish music tune about how all of Europe is now free and friendly, sung with traditionally Irish lamenting vocals. It's very Irish, take that how you will.

The host nation Finland are sending their massively popular winner of Finnish Idols who was once a forklift driver. Hanna Pakarinen will sing Leave Me Alone, a rock anthem about broken love which veers just to the right side of depressing.

The Lithuanian entry is a slow, classy jazz tune with Spanish guitar and an affecting lovelorn sentiment.

Sarbel, the Greek entrant is actually a London boy. He's singing an uptempo laika-tinged pop song about a fabulous cheeky girl called Maria. It reminds greatly of Helena Paparizou, the singer who won for Greece 2 years ago.

Sweden have a jaunty glam-rock song performed by The Ark, one of Sweden's biggest bands, and led by the sexually ambiguous Ola Salo.

France, having upped their effort considerably this year, send a jaunty guitar pop song called L'Amour a la Francaise. The song sung partly in French and English plays with cliches and ideas about love, the French way. It's cute and we hope it does well.

Russia send Serebro, a funky girl band, singing a grindy electro-ish catchy pop song much like something Britney should be singing. It's one of the few proper pop songs in the Contest this year and, last year, Russia came second - Moscow 2008, anyone?

The German entrant this year is the rather dishy Roger Cicero, singing a swing jazz number praising how women rule the world.

Ukraine send Verka Seduchka, a lumpy drag queen singing a nonsensical drinking song over a tinny ethno-dance beat.

UK - Scooch are camp, frothy, tinny and flying the UK flag

Romania's entrant are Todomondo, 6 blokes singing about love in 6 different languages. It's ridiculously catchy and quite charming, and goes a bit bonkers when the police siren kicks in before the key change. Wahey.

Armenia send a mid-tempo love ballad, with the air of a faint late 80s easy-listening sound. Not one to be reckoned with.