Eurovision Song Contest
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LIVERPOOL, U.K. — On Saturday, 26 music acts from Europe, Israel and Australia — many dressed in a dazzling display of outlandish outfits — will take the stage at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena to compete in the Grand Final of what can justifiably call itself the biggest music competition in the world: the Eurovision Song Contest.
When it comes to music television shows, Eurovision, taking place this year in Liverpool on behalf of war-torn Ukraine, dwarfs them all. More than 161 million people across 34 countries watched last year’s show, held in Turin, Italy and won by Ukrainian rap-folk band Kalush Orchestra, an increase of 7 million viewers (4.5%) from 2021, according to organizers the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
In audience terms, that puts Eurovision ahead of the Super Bowl, the biggest annual U.S. television event, which drew 113 million TV and online viewers for February’s contest. Comparing to awards shows, 12.5 million viewers tuned into this year’s Grammy Awards, a rise of 31% year-on-year, while 2022’s MTV Video Music Awards averaged 3.9 million viewers, up 3% on the prior edition. This year’s Brit Awards, the U.K.’s biggest music awards show, also drew a television audience of just under 4 million.
While many viewers in the United States and United Kingdom have long regarded Eurovision as little more than a kitsch joke with novelty costumes, the song contest’s enormous audience gives it an unrivaled reach as a marketing platform, making the competition – famous for introducing ABBA to the world — an increasingly attractive launching pad for record labels to develop artists.
Netflix 2020 musical comedy film “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, further elevated the event’s international profile, introducing its idiosyncrasies to a wider global audience.
But it was the success of Italian rock band Måneskin, whose international career exploded after winning 2021’s contest with “Zitti e buoni” (Shut up and behave) that “changed the game completely” in how executives and labels approach the competition, says Andrea Rosi, CEO of Sony Music Italy, which counts Måneskin on its roster.
Earlier this week, the Italian act played a sold-out show at London’s 20,000-capacity The O2 arena, while the band’s most recent album, Rush!, topped the charts in multiple countries and debuted at No. 18 on the Billboard 200 in January – Måneskin’s highest ever U.S. chart placing.
In the past, Eurovision “was not so important for the Italian market,” and there were some years when it was not televised in Italy at all, says Rosi. “Now the picture is completely different. National television is giving much more space to the [competition] and it brings massive exposure to the artists [taking part] across the world.”
Italy’s entry in Eurovision’s 67th edition, which wraps up Saturday, is Marco Mengoni, already an established star in his home country, who came seventh in the competition 10 years ago and is signed to Sony Music Italy. Rosi is confident that Mengoni’s song, “Due Vite” (Two Lives), a soaring orchestral ballad sung in Italian, will help open up new markets for the artist.
Ahead of the competition, which kicked off Tuesday with the first of two semi-finals, Sony Music Italy worked with its international label partners to devise an extensive marketing campaign to build Mengoni’s profile in Europe. Last month, he played club dates in France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. A larger follow-up European tour, promoted by Live Nation, is scheduled for the fall. This summer, Mengoni will play a series of sold-out stadium shows in Italy, wrapping July 15 at Rome’s Circus Maximus.
Since being selected in February to represent his home nation at Eurovision, Mengoni’s “Due Vite” has topped the charts in Italy and, says Rosi, is now “starting to have traction” in other European countries, including Germany and Switzerland. “It’s been a long time [since] an Italian pop artist has been successful outside Italy,” he says. “We have big hopes for Marco.”
As one of the so-called ‘big five’ countries taking part in Eurovision, Italy’s entry automatically qualifies for a place in Saturday’s grand final because of their broadcaster’s financial contributions to the event. The rest of the big five is made up of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain, while Ukraine also receives a free pass as last year’s winner. In total, 37 countries are taking part in Liverpool across two semi-finals and the main show.
Among this year’s favorites to win is Sweden’s Loreen, who won the competition in 2012. Her 2023 Eurovision entry “Tattoo” has earned around 20 million combined views on YouTube. (The singer’s official Eurovision video has 3.8 million views).
Another hotly tipped act is Finnish rapper Käärijä, whose catchy entry “Cha Cha Cha” has generated around 15 million combined views on YouTube, by Billboard’s calculations. Since being first released in January, the song has been streamed more than 18 million times and has become “the biggest phenomenon ever in Eurovision history in Finland,” says a spokesperson for Warner Music Finland.
The publicity has given a massive boost to Käärijä’s profile. At the start of the year, the artist had around 1,500 followers on TikTok. Following the first semi-final on Tuesday, that number had grown to just under 100,000. Monthly listens on Spotify have jumped from just under 50,000 in January to 1.2 million.
Käärijä is one of four Warner Music entries in this year’s contest – the others being Austria’s Teya & Salena’s “Who The Hell Is Edgar?”, Reiley’s “Breaking My Heart representing Denmark and Polish singer and model Blanka, whose song “Solo” marks her debut for the label. Since its release in November, “Solo’s official video has had 23 million views, while Spotify streams have crossed 10 million — largely fueled by the publicity from Eurovision.
Hubert Augustyniak, head of non-urban A&R at Warner Music Poland, is confident that competing in the competition can help break Blanka outside her home market, where, he says, Eurovision has already made her a “really well-known” star.
“It is not easy to do international marketing when you are a Polish label,” says Augustyniak, “so this is a huge opportunity for us.”
LIVERPOOL, U.K. — The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 kicked off Tuesday with a jubilant party of elaborate PVC costumes, soaring rock ballads and cheesy Euro pop, as contestants competed in the first of two semi-finals to determine which 20 acts would move on to Saturday’s Grand Final.
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The semi-final at the 11,000-capacity M&S Bank Arena, standing on Liverpool’s waterfront next to the River Mersey, marked the official start of the annual competition. The 10 acts moving on were Croatia, Moldova, Switzerland, Finland, Czechia, Israel, Portugal, Sweden, Serbia and Norway. That means the Netherlands, Malta, Latvia, Ireland and Azerbaijan were eliminated.
The United Kingdom is hosting this year’s Eurovision Song Contest – famous for introducing ABBA to the world – on behalf of war-torn Ukraine, which won last year’s competition with “Stefania” by Ukrainian rap-folk band Kalush Orchestra (the U.K. finished second through Sam Ryder’s “Space Man”).
It is the first time that the U.K. has held the contest in 25 years with Liverpool – whose illustrious music history includes The Beatles and Echo & the Bunnymen — fully embracing its role as host city.
Memorable highlights (although not always for the right reasons) included Croatia’s Let 3, who stripped down to their underwear as they wielded giant missile props for their song “Mama ŠČ!”, and Israel’s Noa Kirel with her marauding dance pop track “Unicorn.”
Some of the night’s biggest cheers went to two of this year’s favorites to take home the main prize: Sweden’s Loreen, who won the competition in 2012 and performed “Tattoo” on Tuesday; and Finnish rapper Käärijä, who sung his catchy song “Cha Cha Cha,” semi-topless, wearing only black spiky trousers and bright green Incredible Hulk-style sleeves.
In a mid-show interval of the two-and-a-half-hour show Rita Ora also performed a medley of her biggest hits, including singles “Anywhere,” “I Will Never Let You Down” and Praising You.”
Other non-competition performers included Liverpool singer Rebecca Ferguson and Ukraine’s Alyosha in a duet of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” which they dedicated to refugees who had been forced to leave their country.
The semi-final was hosted by British TV personality and singer Alesha Dixon, “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina — who opened the show with her band The Hardkiss. It was broadcast live on television in the U.K. and throughout Europe.
In total, 37 countries are taking part in this year’s contest. Ukraine automatically qualifies for the final as 2022 winners, as do the so-called ‘big five’: the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain, who all get a free pass to the main show because of their financial contributions to the event.
Viewers in participating countries vote to decide the winner, although people can’t vote for an act from their own country. The second semi-final takes place on Thursday when another 16 acts will perform.
In the runup to the competition, Liverpool has been transformed into a vibrant display of Eurovision banners and Ukrainian flags.
Ahead of Thursday’s semi-final, the English National Opera put on a free show at the purpose-built fan village on Liverpool’s Pier Head, where they were joined by a series of former Eurovision contestants, including singer Ruslana, who won for Ukraine in 2004, and international opera stars who performed classical arrangements of some of the contest’s past hits.
“I bring one message: Listen my sisters and brothers, we need to stop this bloody terrible war as soon as possible,” Ruslana said. “And I ask you, just help Ukraine to win. Because we are fighting for freedom. We are fighting for light. The light of human heart.”
There’s nothing like nearly winning to wake people up. And the U.K.’s second-place position at last year’s Eurovision Song Contest has helped kickstart widespread enthusiasm for 2023’s edition — taking place in Liverpool this week.
Sam Ryder’s “Space Man” restored the nation’s interest last year with his smiling enthusiasm, soaring vocals and great song despite coming on the heels of James Newman in 2021, who received no points at all, and 2019’s Michael Rice, who also came in last.
Normally the winner of the previous contest would host the next one, but that winner was Ukraine, and the ongoing war there has made that impossible. So the U.K., as runnerup, is hosting instead. Singer Rita Ora says Eurovision — the semifinals begin Tuesday (May 9) and the final is Saturday — has received another lease on life in the U.K.
“The Eurovision is suddenly just (becoming) huge again and I’m really here for it,” she said. She’s performing during the interval at a semifinal in Liverpool, but her connection to the event goes back much further: Ora was lined up to represent the U.K. in 2009, but decided not to. After all, until Ryder, competing in Eurovision was no guarantee of a sparkling career for a Brit.
The last time the U.K. won the contest was 1997, thanks to Katrina and the Waves and “Love Shine A Light.” The intervening years have seen five last-place results for the U.K. That could add up to a lot of pressure on this year’s U.K. entry, Mae Muller, but she seems to welcome it.
“The energy feels different,” Muller said.
The London singer-songwriter is representing the U.K. with “I Wrote a Song,” and says Ryder helped change the way people inside and outside the U.K. view its participation in Eurovision.
“I feel like with the U.K., we have the tendency to be quite like self-deprecating,” Muller said. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously and I feel like that might have been like half our problem maybe with Eurovision. And I feel like now we’re like, ‘Let’s take this seriously. Like, let’s do this.’”
Liverpool singer Rebecca Ferguson is performing in her hometown alongside Ukrainian singer Aloysha in a duet during the semifinals interval. Ferguson thinks that the U.K. had become disheartened with the scores, but that being “so close” in 2022 changed things. “The U.K. were like, yeah, OK then … I can get into this,” she said. “We like winning, basically.”
Ukrainian rock star Julia Sánina, the frontwoman of The Hardkiss, is one of this year’s Eurovision hosts and a lifelong fan of the competition. She agrees that the U.K. is taking it more seriously in 2023 “because of Sam Ryder and his musicality.” But in addition to last year’s success, there is added enthusiasm because Liverpool is hosting on behalf of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian entry Kalush Orchestra won in 2022. When the U.K. agreed to host in Ukraine’s place, it promised to celebrate Ukraine’s culture and people in every way. Sánina says she has felt that warm welcome in Liverpool. “Beautiful city, super friendly people. And what was heartwarming for me that I saw lots of Ukrainian flags and Ukrainian blue and yellow colors all over the city,” she said.
After all, the U.K. does like a party. “Eurovision, in my culture and when I grew up, was everything,” Ora said. The Kosovo-born singer grew up with Albanian parents in London.
“It was like getting around the TV, all the music, like, ‘Everyone shut up,’ when there’s like a song on. There’s drinks flowing, everyone’s having a good time because it’s like, it was almost like rooting for your country or like where you’re from,” she added.
“It’s just a cool way of everyone getting together,” she said.
From AFC Richmond to the Eurovision Song Contest. Hannah Waddinghan, Emmy-winning star of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso, has been named as one of the hosts of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, set to take place in Liverpool between May 9-13.
Waddingham will co-host the two semifinals on May 9 and May 11 alongside Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, with Graham Norton joining the three for the grand final on May 13.
The U.K. — which came second in 2022 — is hosting the 2023 Eurovision contest on behalf of last year’s winner Ukraine, which is unable to host due to the invasion of Russia.
“There’s something really special about Eurovision which is why I’ve been an avid fan for years — from the camaraderie of all the acts backstage, to the epic scale of the show,” said Waddingham. ” It’s one of the world’s greatest music festivals, but this year, perhaps more than ever, it is such a great honor to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, a country which has carried itself with such strength and unity. It is my great privilege to join Eurovision this year of all years.”
BBC Studios is producing both the semi-finals and grand final, having agreed to step in for Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC.
More than 160 million people are expected to watch the competition globally.
This article originally appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.
Punk icon John Lydon has failed in his attempt to become Ireland’s entry for the pop music competition the Eurovision Song Contest.
The former Sex Pistols frontman entered the song “Hawaii” with his post-punk band Public Image Ltd. in the national runoff for May’s continent-wide contest.
Jurors and viewers of a televised final on Friday (Feb. 3) chose the song “We Are One” by the band Wild Youth to represent Ireland at the contest in May. “Hawaii” came fourth of six finalists.
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The ex-punk firebrand once known as Johnny Rotten was born in London to Irish parents. He said “Hawaii” was a tribute to his wife, Nora, who is living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Founded in 1956 to help unite a continent scarred by World War II, Eurovision sees more than 40 countries compete for the continent’s pop music crown.
The 2023 contest will be staged in the English city of Liverpool after Britain was asked to hold the event on behalf of Ukraine.
Ukraine won the right to host the pop extravaganza when its entry, folk-rap ensemble Kalush Orchestra, won the 2022 contest. Britain’s Sam Ryder came second.
British organizers say the event will be a celebration of Ukrainian culture and creativity as well as Liverpool’s musical heritage.