Germany: Well-known acts to compete in national final

The following seven musicians and bands have been chosen by an expert commission involving the biggest German record companies, the public broadcaster NDR, and the production company Brainpool:

• Das Gezeichnete Ich
• Madeline Juno
• MarieMarie
• Oceana
• Santiano
• The Baseballs
• Unheilig

This content is unfortunately no longer available

The eighth participant of the national final will be a young talent, chosen through an online platform and a subsequent club concert.

Among the participants is Unheilig, one of the currently most successful German bands. They have been awarded several of the most prestigious prizes, and their album Lichter der Stadt climbed to the top spot of the charts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Lead singer der Graf stated: "It's an honour for me to be chosen for the national selection. It would be a dream-come-true if I could represent Germany in the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest with a song in my mother tongue."

Another well-known act is Oceana, who gained pan-European success with Endless Summer, the official anthem of the UEFA Euro 2012. The singer, who can be proud of a huge fan audience particularly in Eastern and Southern Europe, commented on her participation: "I am very happy to present two of my new songs, which I recorded in LA with DRE Harris (Alicia Keys, Robin Thicke, Destiny's Child etc.), in front of a huge public on March 13th."

Santiano is a very versatile music act, who combines international folk songs, rock, pop or Irish folk within their "shanty rock" style. Their first album Bis ans Ende der Welt climbed to the first place in the German charts, and currently they are touring through 60 German cities.

Madeline Juno is only 18 years old, but her debut single Error became an instant hit on Youtube, and after that also the title song of Fack Ju Göhte, the most successful German movie in 2013. Das Gezeichnete Ich is actually a singer, composer and "multi-instrumentalist" from Berlin whose TV debut was his participation in the 2010 Bundesvision Song Contest. In February, his new album will be released.

MarieMarie is famous for bringing traditional harp or cello sounds together with electronic beats - the band has branded their music "Folktronic Pop". The Baseballs can already be considered a Europe-wide success stories, reaching the top of the charts in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland with their rock songs.

Thomas Schreiber, entertainment coordinator at ARD, stated: "Now it's getting exciting. We have great young and very popular artists in the competition - all very different, musically speaking. I am confident that up to our show Eurovision Song Contest 2014 - Unser Song für Dänemark some of the song will have become real hits. In the show, the public will be able to vote three times, in order to send both the best artist and the best song to Copenhagen. I'd like to thank all artists for agreeing to take part in the Eurovision adventure."

Unser Song für Dänemark will take place on March 13th in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, and you can watch it live on Eurovision.tv, starting at 20:15 CET!