Bulgaria: one step closer to deciding

24 November 2011 at 05:00 CET

Last week two of the songs were disqualified as they had been published before the 1st of September, thus breaking the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest. The two excluded ones were performed by the group Bee In The Bonnet and the replacements were by the groups New 5 and Go Week.

These are the 22 entries selected for the semifinal to be held on the 14th of January 2012 as ranked by the jury called "Academy":

  1. New 5 - Chance For Better Life (190 points)
  2. Ivaylo Kolev - Searching For The Words  (166 points)
  3. Desislava - Love Is Alive (160 points)
  4. Tsvetelin Atanasov Elvisa feat. DZ - Love Goes Around (144 points)
  5. Sofi Marinova - Prosto Lyubov  (142 points)
  6. Steliyana Hristova - Putyat  (140 points)
  7. Alex & 4give - Dream  (136 points)
  8. Margarita Hranova - Proshka  (130 points)
  9. Todor Gadzhalov - Still Love You  (130 points)
  10. Viktoria Dimitrova - Novo Nebe  (116 points)
  11. Svetozar Hristov - Keep Me Down  (112 points)
  12. Better Than Grey - Dream  (112 points)
  13. Georgi Vurbanov - This Is My Green Wave  (108 points)
  14. Sonya Ivanova - Finalna Lyubov  (106 points)
  15. Rene Ranev - Alone  (100 points)
  16. Teni Omede - Without You  (98 points)
  17. Sunnie - Shut Your Mouth And Do It  (96 points)
  18. Vyara Pantaleeva - Vyara  (92 points)
  19. Ivaylo Kolev - Ima Li Put  (90 points)
  20. Simona Sivanio - Eternal  (88 points)
  21. Monika Kirovska - You Are My Angel  (84 points)
  22. Go Week - The Way You See The World  (82 points)

It's interesting to note that the song that came first, performed by the group New 5, was one of the replacement songs. The other replacement, The Way You See The World has also qualified. The winner of the previous stage, Desislava, came third in the new voting.

Next is the semifinal on the 14th of January where 12 songs will proceed to the final sometime on February.  Bulgaria is trying to reach the Final of the Eurovision Song Contest again as they did in 2007 when Water/Voda placed 5th in Helsinki.