Ulrikke Brandstorp wins Norway's Melodi Grand Prix 2020

The previous five Saturdays, Norway has warmed up for the final of Melodi Grand Prix 2020, with five semi-finals and five pre-qualifiers.

Tonight it was time for the 10 finalists to compete in the 58th edition of Melodi Grand Prix in Trondheim Spektrum. Last year's KEiiNO opened the show with the hit Spirit in the Sky.

After three rounds of voting, the Norwegian public – and a backup jury – selected their representative for Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam: Ulrikke Brandstorp with Attention.

Attention is written by Christian Ingebrigtsen, Kjetil Mørland and Ulrikke Brandstorp herself.

Voting Scandal

The online voting system on NRK's homepage collapsed during the evening. This meant that NRK used a backup jury consisting of only 30 people in Norway decided the first round of voting. There were lots of booing in the arena, and the artists were not happy to know, that the results of the first round was not based on public voting.

The deputy head of NRK, Vibeke Furst Haugen, said after the voting scandal:

– We feel assured that we have found the correct winner tonight.

Stig Karlsen, the head of MGP, blames the technique:

– When you work with such a gigantic production, there is lots of technique involved. Unfortunately the technique was not our friend today. We can just apologise, says the head of MGP, Stig Karlsen

– We had to use a backup jury that we created for exactly this kind of situations. We used the backup jury from 10 to 4 artist (the first round). We received 700,000 votes on just the last round of voting, Stig Karlsen explains.

Ulrikke Brandstorp

Ulrikke (24) is already a well-known singer in Norway, after she participated in Idol in 2013, MGP 2017, and most recently she played Liesl in the musical Sound of Music on Folketeateret in Oslo:

– My dream to become an artist and actress began when I started playing at a childrens teatre in my hometown of Sarpsborg. I later studied music in High School, and this is when I made the big decision that music was something I wanted to devote my whole life to, says Ulrikke in an interview with Eurovisionworld.

– I went on tour with two big tribute shows: One for Michael Jackson, and one for Queen. I learned so much during this time!! After that I started auditioning for different TV shows.

Attention: Power ballad!

As you can hear in Ulrikke's MGP song "Attention", it is truly a song with power but it also comes with a message:

– It’s a power ballad. The song is basically asking a question to the listeners; Why is it OK to change ourselves for others when it comes to love? It's written based on my own experiences, but I hope people are able to identify themselves with the message.

Ulrikke co-wrote the song together with Christian Ingebrigtsen, from the the British–Norwegian pop group "A1", and Kjetil Mørland, who represented Norway in 2015 together with Debrah Scarlett (A Monster Like Me). To work with them was a dream come true, and such an honor for her:

– Wow, they are both so talented and professional, and we matched really well. So I hope we can work on more music together in the future.

Ulrikke has followed and watched Eurovision every year, for as long as she can remember. It is one of the highlights for her every year:

– I just loooove Loreen and Euphoria. I mean... what a song!! I’ve done the song several times at my own shows, and people always gets in such a good mood when they hear it!

Now she will be a part of the world's largest music show:

– It's without a doubt one of my biggest dreams – to be able to represent Norway in ESC!

Melodi Grand Prix 2020

Melodi Grand Prix 2020 selected the artist and song that will represent Norway at Eurovision Song Contest 2020.

A total of six shows took place from 11 January to 15 February 2020:

• 11 January 2020: Semi-final 1 (winner: Raylee)
• 18 January 2020: Semi-final 2 (winner: Rein Alexander)
• 25 January 2020: Semi-final 3 (winner: Kristin Husøy)
• 1 February 2020: Semi-final 4 (winner: Magnus Bokn)
• 8 February 2020: Semi-final 5 (winner: Liza Vassilieva)
• 15 February 2020: MGP 2020 Final

The five Semi-finals all took place live from H3 Arena in Fornebu, Oslo. There were four contestants in each of the Semi-finals, where the best from each qualified to the Final of MGP 2020. The results were decided solely by online voting on nrk.no during the show.

The Final took place live from Trondheim Spektrum on 15 February, where the 5 qualifiers from the Semi-finals competed with 5 pre-qualified songs.

Hosts of all the shows were Kåre Magnus Bergh, Ingrid Gjessing Linhave and Ronny Brede Aase.

Norway in Eurovision Song Contest

Since the debut in 1960 Norway has participated 58 times in Eurovision. They have won the competition three times:

• 1985: Bobbysocks - "La Det Swinge"
• 1995: Secret Garden - "Nocturne"
• 2009: Alexander Rybak - "Fairytale"

In 2009, Alexander Rybak's Fairytale was the song that has received most points with the old voting system: 387 points – got 12 points from 16 countries. But Norway holds another Eurovision record: The country that ended last most times – 10 last places!

Since the introduction of Semi-finals in 2004, Norway has been very succesful with qualification to the Grand Final 13 out of 16 times.