Switzerland: Kaceo replace Stephanie Palazzo in national final

Controversy has hit the Swiss selection show for Eurovision 2016 as one of the six candidates for Entscheidungsshow was replaced. Stephanie Palazzo, selected to perform at the national final with the song “Perché mi guardi cosi?”, will now be replaced by Kaceo with the song “Disque d’or”

The reason for Palazzo’s disqualification from the competition is that the song “Perché mi guardi cosi?” had previously been released in French back in 2013. This goes against the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest which state that no song which has been publicly released prior to September 1st 2015 are eligible to participate in this edition of the contest.

The rules of the competition also forbids cover entries of previously existing songs as well as sampling already successful songs. This renders Palazzo’s entry an unavailable option to enter the national final and instead of going ahead with the national final with just five participants, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS have decided to replace the entry with the song “Disque d’or” by the French band Kaceo.

The switch in finalists could not be more of a contrast. Where Stephanie Palazzo had a soft Italian ballad, Kaceo have a French folk-rock song similar in style to Turkey’s 2004 Eurovision entry “For Real” by Athena, which placed fourth overall at Eurovision. Their participation will surely shake up the national selection which is due to take place on February 13th 2016. The band now join five other artists to give us the final line up for this year’s Swiss Endscheidungsshow, you can listen to the entries by clicking the links below: