As reported on esctoday.com last week, the new mix for the Irish Eurovision Song Contest entry for Helsinki, They Can't Stop the Spring, is available for free download from RTE's website. It would seem that RTE have opted to offer the digital download instead of a CD single release in a move to reflect the changing face of the music industry.

RTE announced the download officially today, which can be found at rte.ie/eurovision . Julian Vignoles, Assistant Commissioning Editor for RTÉ Entertainment, explained the move as a sign of the changing times, and an event to mark Ireland's participation in the final: "The decision to offer it as a download as opposed to a CD single reflects the exciting changes that are taking place in the Irish music industry, where downloads are an increasing phenomenon compared to CD single sales. It’s also a way of celebrating our involvement again in this huge global event."

Digital bandwagon
Ireland is not the first country to offer its Eurovision entry as a free download; other broadcasters across Europe such as RTVBiH in Bosnia Herzegovina and HRT in Croatia have been making tracks available to fans through their websites for some years now. However, the Irish move to completely replace the promo CD single may spell the beginning of the end for the traditional fan collectibles. Increasingly often at recent contests, traditional audio CDs have been replaced by multimedia CD-ROM press-kits, and RTE have merely jumped aboard the digital bandwagon and pushed the concept in presenting They Can't Stop the Spring exclusively online.

The song will be available on the website until Monday 14th May, by which time Europe (and the rest of the World) will know the eventual winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. After that, the track will be included on Dervish's forthcoming album Travel and Show, their eighth full length release to date, also including Finnish Matti Kallio's Irish Eurosong entry The Thought of You.