Obviously it seems ridiculous that this is even happpening at all, let alone starting next Monday! A quick snabbrepris taken from Wikipedia:

 

The competition will involve five episodes of Qualifying Rounds, followed by two episodes of Semi Finals and one Grand Final. In each Qualifying Round, a 56-member jury of music industry professionals (one for each state and territory) selects one song to advance to the Semifinals, while three songs will also advance after a week-long viewer voting. After the Qualifying Rounds, the jury will then select two "redemption songs" to join in the Semifinals, thus a total of 22 acts will remain in the competition. The same selection process will be facilitated in the Semifinals to determine the 10 acts that will compete in the Grand Final. The final results will be presented in Eurovision style, with each jury member awarding their 12 points then adding in the viewers' points. The viewer votes will be weighted, with each state and territory be worth 12 points much like in Eurovision, thus giving all regions equal voting power while preventing populous states like California and Texas from dominating the voting process. The winning act will earn the title of Best Original Song.

 

The first 11 competitors for next Monday's premiere episode have been announced:

 

Arkansas: Kelsey Lamb - Never Like This

Connecticut: Michael Bolton - TBA

Illinois: Justin Jesso - TBA

Indiana: UG skywalkin - Love In My City

Iowa: Alisabeth Von Presley - TBA

Minnesota: Yam Haus - Ready To Go

Mississippi: Keyone Starr - TBA

Oklahoma: AleXa - Wonderland

Puerto Rico: Christian Pagán - Loko

Rhode Island: Hueston - Held On Too Long

Wisconsin: Jake'O - TBA

 

The songs will be released midnight Eastern Standard Time on Monday 21st March.

 

I doubt I'll be able to catch any of this live because of the time difference but I'm interested to see how this plays out. Who knows, we may have a subforum in a few years time!

Quite excited about Justin Jesso! Hope he has a banger!

I’m so glad AleXa’s in this. She’s extremely talented and didn’t get to shine that much in Produce 48 because she was injured, and this would be a great opportunity to promote K-pop in a way her contemporaries haven’t done yet. She also recently had a comeback with this song which is great

 

 

I wonder if ZB Label is going to release Wonderland officially or if it’s gonna be only on the ASC youtube site whenever that comes

Excited for Jewel who I heard will be in a later round!

 

Michael Bolton has had some classics too…albeit 30 years ago.

Interesting. I think there should also be an attempt at a 'The Americas Song Contest' with Canada, USA 1 entry and all the Central and South American countries in it?

Edited March 16, 20223 yr by TheSnake

Interested to see what this throws up, for all the worries of it being a 50% hip hop 50% straight bro country lineup, the diversity of this set of songs looks like it'll be pretty varied. Will feel like a bizzare melfest/eurovision mash-up to watch but I'm cautiously optimistic!

This sounds horrendous

This sort of contest/voting format is obviously new territory here so I'm very curious how it'll play out. I think the bigger names will be at a huge advantage, like for round 1 Michael Bolton could easily advance no matter how good or bad the song is. I hope to be proven wrong! Also hyped for Macy Gray *.*

Is this going to be shown in the Uk?

Song previews for a few songs are out!

 

 

Wyoming’s track is the worst thing I’ve heard in a long time 💀💀 whoever f*cking greenlit that should be arrested

Wyoming probably had a pool of like 2 artists to choose from in fairness. :lol:

Interesting. I think there should also be an attempt at a 'The Americas Song Contest' with Canada, USA 1 entry and all the Central and South American countries in it?

USA participating in it would mean they accept they are not the only country on the continent and it will never happen in our lifetime :lol:

Edited March 21, 20223 yr by Bdelita

My ratings:

 

1. Wonderland (Oklahoma) (7.5/10)

2. Ready to Go (Minnesota) (7/10)

3. Beautiful World (Connecticut) (7/10)

4. LOKO (Puerto Rico) (6/10)

5. Wonder (Iowa) (6/10)

6. Fire (Mississippi) (5/10)

7. Held On Too Long (Rhode Island) (5/10)

8. Never Like This (Arkansas) (4/10)

9. Feel Your Love (Wisconsin) (4/10)

10. New Boot Goofin' (Wyoming) (2/10)

11. Love In My City (Indiana) (0/10)

 

I'm so sorry I need to give my 0 pointer because it was very cringe :kink:

Edited March 22, 20223 yr by uhsting

Is this going to be shown in the Uk?

 

SVT2 is showing it in Sweden on Fridays at least, but that's not surprising with the Björkman connection.

Bit of a mixed bag, I think it will take this contest a while to find its feet though. If it does well with ratings or produces any chart or viral hits then I guess it could start to attract bigger artists and/or better songs. I wonder if Christer was weeping sifting through the quality available, compared to Melodifestivalen.

 

I liked Wonderland, Wonder and Ready To Go. Held On Too Long, Beautiful World, Fire and Never Like This were all not bad. New Boot Goofin' and Feel Your Love are terrible.

 

Hard to tell what the US will vote for but I don't imagine there's a winner in this first episode.

The first 11 performances were actually pretty good. Michael Bolton and the girl from Arkansas were the least interesting, but all the acts did well. Rooting for Alexa, Ryan Charles and Jake'O!

SHE ATE

 

 

Just realized Cazzi Opeia co-wrote this! No wonder it has that MelFest imprint! *.*

I really enjoyed it! I wasn't expecting it to actually resemble Eurovision as much as it did production-wise. Looked like some of the performers were lip-syncing though which is a shame if true.

 

I'm probably gonna vote for Mississippi, Wisconsin and Iowa (which was VERY Pink both literally and figuratively :lol:). Michael Bolton didn't disappoint either. Not a fan of Rhode Island, just seemed like obvious jury bait. New Boot Goofin' was not quite in my top tier of faves but I'm deciding to stan anyway *.

Looks like Atlantic Records is distributing the songs since they're all on their YouTube page:

https://www.youtube.com/c/atlanticrecords/videos

Anyone know of where I can watch it in full?