Blog - Page 55 of 132 - Eurovision Universe

Noa Kirel to represent Israel in 2023 (UPDATE)

Today, Israeli Broadcaster Kan announced that singer Noa Kirel has been chosen to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest. According to a statement from Kan, a committee discussed 78 names “with rich and proven experience in standing in front of a large audience”. 21-year-old Kirel became famous seven years ago when she released her first single called “Medabrim”. The song was followed by a lot of hits. In addition, she start in the TV-show Double, In the movie “Kimaat mefursemet” and she participated in the show “Lo Nafsik Lashir”. Since she sings with the international label Atlantic records, Kirel released three successful songs: “Please don’t suck”, “Bad little thing” and “Reashim”. In a reaction, the singer’s representative said: “We received the news about the Eurovision Song Contest with complete surprise. We are happy and grateful for the choice of Noa and are proud to represent the State of Israel with dignity. The Eurovision song is not anounced yet. UPDATE: In an interview with radio presenter Raz Shechnik, Noa said that Kan spoke out of turn. Noa’s participation is, according to the singer herself, a ‘maybe’. To be continued…..

Ben Dolic: “I would like to come back as a songwriter”

Photo made by Zlatimir Arakliev This week the 2020 representative for Germany held a Twitter Space, and our reporter Kal had the chance to interview him. But how is Ben doing as of today? What are his upcoming plans? How does he feel about Eurovision these days? Ben told us everything. “I’m doing good! Right now we’re busy with my next single, and we’ve already got a location for the music video! Just like ‘Kissing Her, Missing you’, we’re shooting it in London again. We also have some plans for merch, but that has got to wait a little longer.” Kal: “New music? That’s always great to hear, but since there’s so much new music coming out, does this also mean there’s an album coming along the way?” Ben answered that “It takes a lot of time to make an album, ‘cause there’s so much that needs to be done. But maybe in about a year or two I might drop one.” Kal then asked how it is to perform at gigs now that everything opened up again. Ben: “It’s great now that the pandemic is kind of over, but I don’t perform that much. I still need some more tunes to sing. Maybe if I and some friends put a set list together for a festival or something, maybe than we can gather a crowd.” Kal: Now everything’s back open again, however this wasn’t the case in 2020. How do you feel about missing out on performing at Eurovision? Ben said that “It of course sucked. The week everything closed down, I was actually about to fly to the Caribbean Islands to film my postcard. It sucked that we didn’t get to see the end result of ‘Violent Thing’, but at least the German broadcaster put together a small Eurovision show, and I got to perform it there.” Kal was stunned to hear that Eurovision would go so far for postcards. After that he asked if Ben would ever return to Eurovision. Ben: “For now I wouldn’t say yes again to be the representative for a country. For a whole year you focus your life around one song, and it’s that song only. However I would like to come back as a song writer, or creative director in some sort of way.” Kal: I have always wondered what the staging for ‘Violent Thing’ was about to look like, so if you can maybe spill some details, then I would love that.” Ben answered that the staging was going to look very futuristic. “So the staging was about look like the German Eurovision show one, but way better. There would be pictures and videos that would kinda float in front of me, and it would look as if I’m in the future. The main colours of the staging would like the cover art, mainly red and blue.

Happy birthday, Eurovision!

Happy birthday, Eurovision Song Contest. Today it is 66 years ago that the first Eurovision song contest was held. The Eurovision Song Contest was created after the coronation of the British Queen Elizabeth II was broadcast on French television. They wanted to use the equipment purchased for this for other events. A song contest, modeled after the Italian festival of Sanremo, was one of the ideas. The first song contest took place in Lugano, Switzerland. Ten countries wanted to participate, in the end there were seven. They each presented two songs. There was no voting as we know it now. The jury consisted of two members from each country. Remarkable: Luxembourg had no jury, two Swiss did the honors for that country. At the end of the evening, chairman Rolf Liebermann only announced that the song “Refrain” had won. That was one of Lys Assia‘s two Swiss entries. Little image has been preserved of the first Eurovision; only a part of the reprise, when Lys Assia had won. Wanna know more? Have a look at our 1956 page!

Did six countries make a mutual deal?

Six countries have mutually agreed on the voting in this years Eurovision Song Contest. That’s what Jean Philip De Tender of the EBU said to Belgian newspaper “Het Laatste Nieuws“. Earlier it was announced that the points of the aforementioned six countries were annulled. The EBU announced that there were irregularities during the broadcast. A new points list has been compiled for these countries. The EBU then looks at the voting behavior of comparable countries.This situation would concern Azerbaijan, San Marino, Romania, Montenegro, Georgia and Poland, but the EBU does not want to confirm that. It seems that the EBU had not informed the countries about the nullification of the points. Georgia and Romania were not amused. Georgia is said to have given the twelve to Ukraine and now saw them go to the United Kingdom. Romania had awarded twelve points to Moldova, which went to Ukraine.

Ukraine wins Eurovision 2022

Ukraine has just won the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin. It is the 3rd time that wins. Kalush Orchestra reached the first place with the song “Stefania”. Note that both jury and televoter had different winners. United Kingdom was the winner of the expert jury, while Ukraine won a landslide among the televoters. Here you find the full result: Ukraine, 631 pts. United Kingdom, 466 pts. Spain, 459 pts. Sweden, 438 pts. Serbia, 312 pts. Italy, 268 pts. Moldova, 253 pts. Greece, 215 pts. Portugal, 207 pts. Norway, 182 pts. The Netherlands, 171 pts. Poland, 151 pts. Estonia, 141 pts. Lithuania, 128 pts. Australia, 125 pts. Azerbaijan, 106 pts. Switzerland, 78 pts. Romania, 65 pts. Belgium, 64 pts. Armenia, 61 pts. Czech Republic, 38 pts. Finland, 38 pts. Iceland, 20 pts. France, 17 pts. Germany, 6 pts.

UK or Ukraine…. our prediction for tonight

There are bookmakers, there are polls, there are so many different opinions and predictions. Our team gave it a go too, and we have different opinions. Some of us think, like many people, that Ukraine will win tonight. However, some of us are convinced the United Kingdom will win. Anyway, this is our final top 5: 1.United Kingdom Finally, after so many years of bad scores, the United Kingdom might win the Eurovision Song Contest. Let’s all go to London (or wherever in the UK) next year! 2.Ukraine A lot of emotion comes along with a song, that got a completely different meaning after the invasion, February 24 of this year. If Ukraine doesn’t win, it will at least end up very high! 3.Italy Before the Russian invasion, Italy was the number 1 at the bookies. That was not for nothing: the song was and is popular. Whatever happens, this will be the best score for a host country in years. 4.Sweden Bad luck these two weeks for Sweden. Even in the last rehearsals, things went wrong. But still, we have a strong pop song that stands out in this contest. Sweden might not win, but do well anyway. 5.Spain What goes for the United Kingdom, goes for Spain: after so many years of struggle to find a good song, they found one. A performance with a lot of dance, and a singer who can manage that: it’s unique. Welcome back to the top, Spain!

Italian organization surprises again

The Eurovision Song Contest has been going on for almost a whole week now. We have started with the dress rehearsals of the final. But the Italian organization continues to surprise. Presenter Laura Pausini was not present at the start of the rehearsals. Her colleague Alessandro Cattelan told the press that the singer and presenter is doing well, but she had to take some rest. Mika was present, but left before the rehearsal had really started. Someone from the production had to replace him. It has never happened in recent years that one of the presenters did not rehearse. Most notable was one of Petra Mede’s rehearsals. She hosted the festival in 2013. She appeared on stage with curlers in her hair. And believe it or not, the participant from Sweden struggled with technical problems again. Cornelia Jakobs started singing “Hold me closer”, the music started, but the sound cut out again. That makes the singer the unluckiest person of this year towards the end: for her so far no rehearsal has gone without problems. source: nu.nl

Running order: from Czech Republic to Estonia

This Saturday, the Eurovision Song Contest will start with the song that was the last one in the 2nd semifinal: the Czech song. It will end with one from the same semifinal: Estonia. There are some remarkable things in the running order: the contest starts with two uptempo songs with a lot of show: Czech Republic and Romania. At the end of the show, three powerballads (Australia, United Kingdom and Poland) will be performed in a row. Whether this will be a good running order or not, we will see. This is the complete overview:

In the spotlights: Sam Ryder

Tomorrow, the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 will take place in Turin. One of the favourites for the win is Sam Ryder, who represents the United Kingdom. But who is Sam Ryder? Sam Ryder is a familiar face to TikTok users, but he will be a newcomer to millions if they see him represent the UK at Eurovision 2022. Sam was born on 25 June 1989 in Maldon – United Kingdom. As a child he started singing, and after seeing the Canadian Rock band Sum 41, he knew from a young age that he wanted to become a professional musician. It was 2009 when he made his debut as a singer and guitarist in 2009 with the band “The morning After” of which he was the co-founder. In 2010, when he was a member of the band The Morning After, Ryder stepped in to replace Casey Jones as a backing vocalist and rhythm guitarist of Blessed By A Broken Heart, a Canadian glam rock band, that was touring Europe at the time. In July 2012, Ryder joined the band full-time and appeared on their single “Out of Control”. The band broke up two months later and Ryder became the lead singer of Close Your Eyes, an American Christian hardcore band from Abilene, Texas. Ryder replaced old “Close Your Eyes” frontman Shane Redmond, which caused concern among the band’s fans. Nevertheless, the band’s 2013 album Line in the Sand was well received. On December 15, 2014, Ryder announced his decision to leave the band. He returned to “The Morning After” as lead singer and guitarist. From 2014 to 2019, “The Morning After” toured American coffee houses and farmers markets. He became known via TikTok in 2020, when he started posting his music covers. He found new famous fans such as Sia, Justin Bieber, Alicia Keys and Elton John. By the end of the year he became the most followed British artist on the platform. Sam soon signed a record deal with Parlophone and in 2021 he released his debut EP, “The Sun’s Going to Rise”, followed by a sold-out tour. The United Kingdom has not done too well in the Eurovision Song Contest in recent years, but now Sam Ryder is high in the polls, and he is, next to Sweden and Ukraine, even tipped as the winner! Is that going to happen? We will know tomorrow. In any case, we wish Sam Ryder a lot of success!

Who will perform when on Saturday?

On the picture: Cornelia Jakobs (Sweden) joking with the press conference host Tonight, during the winners’ press conference, every artist had to draw a ballot for the final. Will they perform in the 1st or in the 2nd half? Last week, the Big 5 already had their draw. And Tuesday, the winners of the first semifinal found out when they have to perform. Tonight, or early tomorrow morning, EBU will decide the following order. Only one thing is known yet: host country Italy will perform as 9th. 1st half: Armenia Czech Republic Finland France Germany Italy (9th place) Norway Portugal Romania Spain Switzerland The Netherlands Ukraine 2nd half: Australia Azerbaijan Belgium Estonia Greece Iceland Lithuania Moldova Poland Serbia Sweden United Kingdom