Albania was Just the Beginning...

By Jamie McLoughlin on Jan 2, 09 09:13 AM

HAPPY New Year Boom Bang a Bloggers - and what better way to usher in 2009 than with a shiny new entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest?

That is exactly what the top execs at Turkish telly thought, hence their decision to unleash their already-selected performer Hadise, with the ditty Dum Tek Tek, on the audience of its televised New Year party at just after midnight Turkish time.

Here's the singer and the song:

The 23-year-old singer is the first act to represent Turkey who wasn't actually born in the country itself. Hadise was born in Mol, near Antwerp, Belgium, in 1985, to Turkish parents.

Like so many of the 21st Century's Eurovision entrants, she took a Pop Idolish route to fame, although Hadise hardly left a scratch on the 2003 Flemish version of the show, which she entered in 2003 and didn't even reach the semi finals.

She is smashing pals with Belgium's 2006 entrant, Kate Ryan, whose heavily-fancied pop stomper Je T'Adore didn't make it out of the semis in Athens.

In protest at her chum's alleged poor treatment, Hadise was heard to say she would never take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. Funny how people change their mind when a bit of Europe-wide publicity is dangled in front of their nose...

By the way, here's Kate Ryan's bookies' favourite from 2006, so you can see and hear what Hadise was referring to. Boom Bang a Blog really likes this - if only it had been given to someone who could actually sing live.