Skrellex has won the first Melodi Grand Prix 2026 radio duel.
With the song “Into the Wild”, Skrillex has received enough votes to defeat the opponent EMMY and advance to the quarterfinals on January 24.
As explained by the Norwegian broadcaster NRK, eight finalists out of nine for Melodi Grand Prix 2026 have already been chosen. The last finalist will be decided through a radio duel between eight artists on Nitimen, where the audience will vote for their favourite. This ninth finalist will be chosen on January 26. All of the finalists’ songs will also be released on that date.
Two artists will face off each day, with one of them advancing to the next round. The voting window will be open for 24 hours from 10:00 AM CET to 10:00 AM CET the following day. Voting is open on delta.nrk.no. The four winners of the duels from Tuesday to Friday will meet for new duels on Saturday and Sunday. The last two artists will then face each other on Monday morning (final).
The six remaining acts competing in the wildcard round are:
- GOTHMINISTER ft. Thomas Jenssen – “The spell” – January 21
- Vika Anonymous – “Har du itt vørri på toten?” (Do you have a knife on your belt?) – January 21
- Aranja – “Pysjamas song” (Pyjamas song) – January 22
- Sander Silva & Victorjus – “Fritt fall” (Free fall) – January 22
- Raylee – “Where did you friend go” – January 23
- Thomas Jenssen – “Smalltown” – January 23
The confirmed Melodi Grand Prix 2026 line-up is as follows:
- Storm – “Lullaby”
- Alexander Rybak – “Rise”
- Emma – “Northern Lights”
- Hedda Mae – “Snap Back”
- Jonas Lovv – “Ya Ya Ya”
- Leonardo Amor – “Prayer”
- Mileo – “Frankenstein”
- Silke – “Forevermore”
Among this year’s line-up is Alexander Rybak, who won the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with “Fairytale”. He then represented Norway again in 2018 with “That’s how you write a song”.
Melodi Grand Prix 2026 will take place on February 28 in the Håkons Hall in Lillehammer, which hosted the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004. Ronny Brede Aase, Marte Stokstad and Markus Neby will be the presenters of Melodi Grand Prix 2026.
Kyle Alessandro represented Norway at Eurovision 2025 with “Lighter”. He finished 18th in the final, scoring 89 points. Norway was 23rd with the jury, receiving 22 points, and 12th with the public, receiving 67 points.
Source: NRK | Image source: Julia Marie Naglestad / NRK
Norway debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1960 and have won the contest three times – in 1985, 1995 and 2009. The country has the dubious record of finishing last the most times, twelve in total, and have received nul points four times. Norway last won the contest in 2009 when Alexander Rybak broke all records with his song “Fairytale”. He scored 387 points in the final, receiving 16 sets of 12 points and scoring points from every country.
