Eurovision
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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.”
Eurovision is back!
This year’s semifinals will kick off at the U.K.’s Liverpool Arena on Tuesday (May 9) and Thursday (May 11), followed by the grand finale on Sunday (May 13).
All three days of Eurovision 2023 will stream on Peacock at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT. Julia Sanina, Graham Norton, Hannah Waddingham and Alesha Dixon are among the hosts for the semi-finals and grand finale.
Rita Ora will perform a medley of her hits during Tuesday’s show, which will also feature performances from Sanina and Ukrainian singer Alyosha.
The international singing competition’s highest-scoring countries from the two previously aired semi-finals, along with the “Big Five” (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain) will compete for the prize. Participating nations vote on the winner, though citizens can’t vote for their own country. See the grand final rundown here.
Aside from Eurovision, Peacock subscribers can stream exclusive series, movies and more for $4.99 per month ($9.99/month to stream without commercials and get access to NBC).
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See more on the Eurovision 2023 allocation draw in the video below.
At the Eurovision 2023 Song Contest in May, 37 countries will participate, but only one nation is sending their act to the competition in Liverpool while their country is fighting a war. Tvorchi, the electronic music duo from Ukraine, has been recording and rehearsing while their homeland is under attack by forces commanded by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the weeks of early preparation and national competitions, the duo – producer Andrii (Andrew) Hutsuliak and vocalist Jimoh Augustus Kehinde (a.k.a. Jeffery Kenny) – ran from shelter to shelter to avoid unpredictable drone and missile strikes and weathered intermittent electricity outages. And while most countries vying for the Eurovision crown hold their national finals in theaters or arenas, Ukraine’s live broadcast for the 2023 contest took place in December at an underground metro station that has been used as a bomb shelter, with trains passing on both sides of the stage.
“We didn’t imagine this might happen, that any minute you could be killed by missiles,” co-founder Hutsuliak tells Billboard via Zoom. “In the first week of war, we had a lot of emotions, and we transferred all those emotions into how we can help our country and how to be more productive.”
The war affected the participation of Tvorchi (“creative” in Ukrainian) in Ukraine’s national final to determine which song would go to Eurovision, forcing the duo to do some recordings in shelters “There are the times we just grab the equipment and to go to the shelter and wait for the air (sirens) to turn off,” he says. During Tvorchi’s preparations in Kyiv, one day they were shooting video when an alarm sounded signaling a drone strike and missile attack, recalls Hutsuliak. “We ran to the shelter and were sitting there for four hours.”
With many power plants destroyed by Russian attacks, Ukrainian officials have conserved electricity by periodically shutting it off. “When you hear the alarm and the missiles strike, the electricity can go off,” says Hutsuliak. “We look for generators and big power banks where you can plug your laptop in there and charge your devices and go on.”
Since winning Ukraine’s national final, Tvorchi has focused on preparing its music and trying to tune out the dangerous conditions that threaten their lives. “We’re not physically participating in rehearsals yet,” says Hutsuliak. “We’re trying to get the music done as quickly as possible then we can move on to the choreography and trying out costumes and rehearsing for the show on stage.”
U.K. Steps Up To Host Despite Ukraine’s 2022 Eurovision Win
By tradition, the country that wins Eurovision hosts the competition the following year. In 2022, Ukraine won with The Kalush Orchestra’s “Stefania.” While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he wanted his country to host the 2023 contest, the European Broadcasting Union selected the U.K. as substitute host, deeming it too dangerous to have the annual event in Ukraine.
“We are thankful that Britain is going to organize this and make it happen,” says Hutsuliak. The promos for the 2023 Eurovision will feature the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag inside the traditional heart-shaped logo, even though the competition is being held in the U.K.
Tvorchi and the delegation from Ukraine will have to travel from their besieged country to Liverpool, where the Eurovision final will be held on May 13 at the M&S Bank Arena. The duo has already been to London for a performance at the O2 Arena last fall, held to raise funds to buy military equipment for Ukraine.
While the country is under attack by air, there are no flights coming in or out of Ukrainian airports. “We can only travel by car or train,” says Hutsuliak. “Before Putin’s invasion, it took four or five hours to fly to London. [For the O2 performance] it took us 24 hours to get there. We traveled by car to the airport in Krakow, Poland and then we flew to Warsaw. Then we caught another plane to London.”
Even in London, the electronic duo struggled to avoid the feeling of trauma. “You hear a plane flying overhead and you get scared or anxious for no reason,” says Hutsuliak. “But it was nice to meet Ukrainians who lived in our country before the invasion, and it is nice to interact with them. There are Ukrainian people who live in Berlin, in London, in Portugal and in Spain and we appreciated sharing emotions and being in the moment.”
Both members of Tvorchi say it is important to continue making music and appearing on a global platform such as Eurovision. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to spread our message as well as represent the country,” Kenny tells Billboard. “Ukrainians don’t want to be pitied,” adds Hutsuliak. “You need to look at us and get inspired, be united and help so we can help you tomorrow.”
The duo has raised money for the Ukranian army and urges others to donate money and equipment, and to stream music from Ukrainian artists. (Among the platforms receiving donations is one organized by President Zelensky, United24.)
Tvorchi’s song for Eurovision, “Heart of Steel,” was inspired by the siege of Azovstal in Mariupol when the Ukrainian army defended the steel and iron works there, holding out for 82 days under brutal conditions before finally surrendering in May. The lyrics are also a warning about nuclear warfare. Tvorchi is keenly aware that Eurovision was originally created to peacefully unite the nations of Europe several years after the end of World War II.
“Heart Of Steel” is not Tvorchi’s first song inspired by the conflict with Russia. In the first months after the invasion began, they wrote a song called “Boremosia” whose lyrics include:
We fight and will win over everyone
the bullets are flying but we are strong
we fight, the worlds are divided
the voices for freedom have become as one
Last June, Tvorchi performed “Boremosia” for army soldiers in a camp, on a stage atop a big truck. “They opened the place where they usually store some ammunition,” says Hutsuliak “It was very valuable for us to be there to talk with the [soldiers] and support each other, to share the emotions and just be in the moment.”
Once again, the Sanremo Music Festival impacts Billboard’s global charts. Italy’s qualifying competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, the showdown yields a handful of debuts on the Feb. 25-dated rankings. Sanremo was held at the Teatro Ariston from Feb. 7 to 11, and was broadcast by Radiotelevisione italiana. (Eurovision is set for May 9-13 in Liverpool.)
Five songs from the Sanremo competition enter the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart, led by Lazza’s “Cenere,” at No. 29. In the week ending Feb. 16, “Cenere” drew 22.5 million streams worldwide, according to Luminate. Ultimately, it placed second in Sanremo.
The competition’s winner was Marco Mengoni for “Due vite,” which topped its competitors in all three categories – public televoting, jury of the press and demoscopic jury. Though it swept its way to a Eurovision qualification, it debuts just under Lazza’s high mark, hitting Global Excl. U.S. at No. 32, on the back of 21.3 million streams.
Mr. Rain follows at No. 42 with “Supereroi,” also third place in Sanremo. These three top 50 debuts also crack the Billboard Global 200 at Nos. 68 (“Cenere”), 80 (“Due vite”) and 97 (“Supereroi”).
Additionally, Madame enters Global Excl. U.S. at No. 104 with “Il Bene Nel” and Tananai rounds out the Sanremo scope at No. 195 with “Tango.” The latter song finished in fifth place in Sanremo, while the former ranked seventh.
All five charting songs from Sanremo drew more than 90% of their streams from Italy, with Lazza, Mr.Rain and Tananai each above 94%. They make up the entire top five of Luminate’s latest Global Hits – Italy ranking, as seen in the data firm’s Music Connect platform, with “Cenere” leading the pack.
The sum of five Sanremo-sparked Global Excl. U.S. entries falls short of last year’s seven but is still above 2021’s four. Plus, the three Global 200 debuts match last year’s high, after no Sanremo songs impacted two years ago. (Both worldwide tallies began in September 2020.)
The zero-to-100 (er, three) momentum from 2021 may have something to do with the notoriety that that year’s winner brought to the competition. Måneskin triumphed with “Zitti E Buoni,” before winning Eurovision and then scoring multiple global hits later that year (plus a Grammy nomination for best new artist this year), including “Beggin’,” which reached No. 2 on Global Excl. U.S.
The band’s pan-continental, and then worldwide, fame may have assisted a top 10 debut for last year’s Sanremo champion, “Brividi” by Mahmood and Blanco. The ballad reached No. 7 on Global Excl. U.S. following Sanremo and returned to the chart after Eurovision.
But while Måneskin may have helped launch a new era of international success for Sanremo-associated titles, one may forget that the Italian glam-rockers were initially outpaced on the global charts. “Zitti E Buoni” debuted at No. 106 on the March 20, 2021-dated ranking, slightly behind the year’s runner-up “Chiamami Per Nome” by Francesca Michielin and Fedez at No. 100. That Måneskin went on to greater heights should give extra hope to Mengoni as he prepares for Eurovision, as even though his competition-winning song didn’t yield the biggest initial chart impact, even bigger things could be right around the corner.
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.
Ukraine has become one of the first countries to select which musical act will represent it in next year’s Eurovision contest, but even that joyous moment is marked by the impact of ongoing war with Russia. After a nearly four-hour showdown during which a handful of finalists performed songs for consideration, electronic music duo TVORCHI was chosen as the Eastern nation’s official competitors — all of which took place from a bomb shelter in Kyiv.
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The selection showcase, known as Vidbir, was livestreamed online from an underground metro station, which has been used as a bomb shelter since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, according to BBC and Eurovision. It was converted into a performance space for the show, which aired Saturday (Dec. 17).
“We did everything possible to hold this Vidbir in full swing, and once again unite Ukrainians around this important choice for the biggest music stage in Europe,” Ukraine’s head of delegation at Eurovision Oksana Skybinska told BBC. “The decision to go underground was the first one taken. It made us feel sure that the show itself could go on uninterrupted because no matter if we have air raid alerts the work could continue.”
TVORCHI’s Andrii Hutsuliak and Jimoh Augustus Kehinde performed their song “Heart of Steel” for their Vidbir entry, backed by dancers wearing gold gas masks and a visual effects screen divided into four quadrants. “Don’t care what you say, don’t care how you feel,” sang Kehinde, dressed in a gold jumpsuit. “Get out of my way ’cause I got a heart of steel.”
Near the end of the show, the pair stood alongside their fellow competitors onstage and listened as host Timur Miroshnychenko announced that they would be the ones to move on to the international Eurovision song contest, where they’ll battle against acts from 36 other countries.
Now that the duo is officially headed to Eurovision — scheduled to take place in May 2023 in Liverpool — TVORCHI has some big shoes to fill. At last year’s contest, Ukrainian’s Kalush Orchestra was victorious, winning for its hip-hop song “Stefania.”
Watch TVORCHI’s winning performance of “Heart of Steel” below:
Three years ago, Rosa Linn was writing songs in her free time and dreaming of a career in music. But she never expected a performance at a local village festival in her native Armenia would be her ticket to stardom.
Her standout delivery of an original rock song, backed by her band of friends, floored talent scouts in the crowd from record label Nvak Collective. Soon after, the team invited her to attend the company’s upcoming songwriting camp for women. “We really recognize the fact that talent is equally distributed — but opportunity isn’t,” says Tamar Kaprelian, Nvak Collective co-founder and Rosa Linn’s manager since last July, when the rising singer-songwriter also signed to the label.
Kaprelian says that while Rosa Linn was more introverted than the other songwriters at the camp, her personality beamed through the lyrics she wrote independently after songwriting lessons. When Rosa Linn returned to class one day, she presented the first verse of a folksy pop song about hopelessly ruminating over a romantic interest. That early draft became “Snap,” the global crossover hit that has catapulted her career and led to her first Billboard No. 1.
Inspired by her “first real love” in 2017 during her time as an exchange student in the United States, Rosa Linn returned home to Armenia feeling hung up. “I wrote about my readjustment process and mental state,” the 22-year-old says. “It was a very hard period for me. It’s just about life, and I think that’s why people relate to it.” Adds Kaprelian: “She came in with those deep lyrics, and I was like, ‘There’s something special here.’ ”
Over the next two-and-a-half years Rosa Linn fleshed out the rest of the song ahead of its official release this March. She says that the final product is “very close” to the original demo, and includes vocals she cut in a hotel room, as well as her own guitar playing, “even though I’m not the greatest guitar player. That’s why the song has a vulnerable feeling. It’s honest and not perfect.”
Kaprelian sent the track to local radio stations, but was determined to get the song noticed on a larger level, eventually submitting it as an applicant to represent Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. Rosa Linn was ultimately chosen for the televised music competition this May (besting a finalist entry submitted by one of her friends), where she performed “Snap” to 161 million people across Europe. She placed 20th.
“We really saw it as a steppingstone,” Kaprelian reflects. “When she didn’t rank well, we could have been like, ‘We tried. Let’s move on to another song.’ Instead, we decided to double down on ‘Snap’ and I know that it might not have seemed smart, but we really went hard in the TikTok strategy.”
Rosa Linn (left) and Tamar Kaprelian photographed on November 11, 2022 in Malibu, Calif.
Martha Galvan
Turns out it was the smartest thing they could have done. Rosa Linn began “experimenting” with different videos on the platform, including acoustic performances, remixes and POV-style clips showing the behind-the-scenes action at Eurovision. And after a fan-made, sped-up version of the track was uploaded to TikTok, “Snap” began to go viral.
More than one million videos were uploaded to the platform using the quicker, pitched-up version of “Snap,” with users showing everything from favorite recipes to sweet moments with their pets, as well as participating in a wholesome trend in which people highlighted the “color palette” of their hair, skin and eyes. Its popularity on TikTok pushed “Snap” up the Billboard charts, leading to its Billboard Hot 100 debut at No. 97 on the Sept. 3-dated chart. It has since reached a No. 82 high and spent seven weeks at No. 1 on Adult Alternative Airplay. “After [seeing the song do well], that’s when I knew it was real,” Rosa Linn says. “‘Snap’ gave me the best and most productive year of my life.”
It also led to a major-label deal with Columbia Records, which Rosa Linn signed in August. The label has already set the artist up with top songwriters and producers, including a recent session in Los Angeles with Diane Warren and Dan Wilson. In late October, she released her follow-up single “WDIA (Would Do It Again)” with fellow Eurovision star Duncan Laurence — and then capped the month with her late-night television debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden. Rosa Linn is now in the process of curating her sound to represent her artistry, with hopes of releasing a debut studio album. “I’m very picky,” she says, noting she has no timeline in mind for her full-length. “I wrote a lot of songs in the past three years, but none of them got released because [then] I would write another and it was better. This period is me growing as a songwriter and trying to improve.”
“I’m always going to stay personal and honest,” she continues. “My music is a representation of what I’ve gone through. Coming from Armenia and now living my dream is unbelievable.”
Rosa Linn photographed on November 11, 2022 in Malibu, Calif.
Martha Galvan
A version of this story will appear in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.