THIS YEAR'S ENTRY

For almost thirty years Turkey struggled to make an impact on the Eurovision Song Contest but all that changed in 2003 when "Every Way That I Can" brought victory. Since then Turkey has been an ever-present in the final, in many cases benefitting from a large Turkish diaspora scatted throughout Europe.    

This year Turkish broadcaster TRT had an internal selection, and on December 10th they announced that rock band Mor Ve Ötesi (Purple And Beyond) would represent Turkey in Belgrade and that the entry was likely to be performed in Turkish, the favoured language of the band. The band, which was formed a decade earlier had seen a steady rise in popularity and were named Turkey's band of the year at the end of 2007.

A week later, the band were officially presented as Turkey's Eurovision representatives and it was made known that the group would submit three potential entries and that a panel appointed by TRT would choose which song would be performed by Mor Ve Ötesi in Belgrade.

The band entered the recording studios in January and submitted the three songs a few weeks later. At the time, there were suggestions that TRT were not enamoured by the arrangement of their favourite song and asked he band to re-record it. Whatever the reason, the announcement of the song was delayed until February 15th, when Mor Ve Ötesi unveiled their entry "Deli" on the main evening news on TRT.

While the song received a generally poitive reaction outside of Turkey, many Turkish traditionalists were not impressed by the choice of song and there was a lot of media coverage of the controversy in the following days. However undeterred, the band continued their Eurovision preperations, including a special photo shoot and the recording of a very impressive preview video with the acclaimed director Ezel Akay.  

Mor Ve Ötesi was established in January 1995 by Kerem Kabadayı (drums), Harun Tekin (vocals/guitar), Derin Esmer (vocals/guitar) and Alper Tekin (bass), four close high school friends in Istanbul, Turkey. In 1997, the first line-up change took place with Burak Güven replacing Alper Tekin on bass. In 1998, Derin Esmer left the band and was replaced by Kerem Özyeğen on guitar.

Mor Ve Ötesi have recorded five albums during the period since 1996, all of which have enjoyed success and won various awards. "Şehir" (The City) , their debut album was released in 1996. Three years later, "Bırak Zaman Aksın" (Let Time Flow), saw them make a major breakthrough. In 2001, they released their third album, "Gül Kendine" (Smile at Yourself), while "Dünya Yalan Söylüyor" (The World is Lying) released in 2004, became their biggest seller, gaining over a quarter of a million sales. The band's most recent album "Büyük Düsler" (Big Dreams) was released in 2006, this was a darker more personal and political album, and won an award for "Album of the Year" in Turkey.

On stage, the group continue to headline major festivals and shows in Turkey, including the international Radarlive 2007 festival which saw 29 foreign acts play and was headlined by Marilyn Manson, James and Groove Armada.

Mor Ve Ötesi also did a special acoustic session for MTV Turkey at the niche Istanbul club Ghetto, which was aired as a special broadcast by the network. Four songs from this concert were released alongside other Rakun recording artists on a special label promo CD which was included in the february issue of the international Rolling Stone magazine.

Outside of Turkey, Mor Ve Ötesi has played many sell out shows in Germany between since 2004 in and also one in the Netherlands.

"Deli" is hardly a typical Eurovision entry, but it has done reasonably well in fand polls, while bookmakers see Turkey as favourite to qualify from the very competitive second semi-final, without necessarily being considerd a front-runner to win the contest outright.

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