this year, Eurovision will be held in malmoSweden, and already fans are flocking to the country’s third-largest city, decked out in sequins, glitter, skin-tight metal or neon, some of them with their country’s flag painted on their faces or over their shoulders. Is wrapped around.
For fans, it’s a year-long buildup week long party, To audiences in Europe and around the world, the competition will be shown over three days next week.
Artists from 37 countries Europe And beyond that, original songs will be performed to compete for the public vote – ranging from powerful ballads to the downright ridiculous – before a winner is chosen in a high-drama grand final.
The dazzling, pyrotechnic spectacle attracts approximately 160 million spectators, making it the world’s most watched non-sporting event – second only to olympics And World Cup.
In fact, Eurovision is often compared to the Olympics of pop music. Paul Jordan, a superfan who wrote his PhD on the contest: “They’ve got a great opening ceremony. You’ve got a stage play.”
“If you haven’t seen it, or heard about it, you’re probably living in a sad world,” Sylvester Belt, who entered this year from Lithuania, told NBC News. “It’s the funniest and weirdest and funniest event in the world. I don’t think there is such a thing [it],
The first Eurovision took place in 1956. Seven countries took part in what was essentially a technological experiment – national broadcasting organizations of the early TV era wanted to know if they could do a live, simultaneous, international broadcast. The show’s format was copied from a popular Italian song contest called San Remo, and evolved from there.
Eurovision proved to be a technical and cultural success. Seven decades later, Eurovision is more beloved than ever, spawning a huge ecosystem that transcends TV superfan blog And social media accounting book Covering its every development breathlessly.
Today, Eurovision covers most of Europe and some remote countries. israelAzerbaijan and Australia.
when is it?
First Semifinal: Tuesday, May 7, 3 p.m. Eastern.
Second Semifinal: Thursday, May 9, 3 p.m. Eastern.
Grand Finals: Saturday, May 11, 3 PM Eastern.
In the US, the shows are available to watch on Peacock.
How does this work?
Eurovision is divided into two semi-finals and a grand final. 15 countries presented their songs in the first semi-final and 16 countries presented their songs in the second semi-final. After each semi-final, the viewers at home vote for their favourites, and the top 10 from each are placed in the grand final.
In total, the Grand Final will feature 26 performances: the winners of the semi-finals, plus the host nation (this year, Sweden) and a group called the Big Five – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK – who automatically enter the final. Because their countries make the largest financial contributions to Eurovision.
The winner of the Grand Final is decided by a combination of the audience’s popular vote and the official Eurovision jury.
Each artist performs only one song during the entire competition. Songs can be in any language, but are limited to three minutes. The lead vocal must be performed live and there cannot be more than six people on stage during the performance.
how to vote
Viewers at home can vote by phone, text or via the official Eurovision app.
Voters from countries participating in the contest cannot vote for their own acts, but fans from places not participating in Eurovision can also have their say. By voting on the app or a website, viewers from around the world form a “rest of the world” country equivalent of a participating nation. Once Eurovision is live, this website will be activated and will allow viewers outside Eurovision countries to vote: www.esc.vote.
For the final, the audience votes for their favorite from the 26 remaining contestants, and the popular vote is combined with the votes of a jury of music industry professionals from each participating country.
The presenters, building up anticipation in a drawn-out process, announce the jury votes country-by-country, creating tension as some acts move forward.
Then the real drama begins with the reveal of the popular vote. The leaderboard may change dramatically as the popular votes are read. In recent years the jury and the public voted for different winners, meaning that there is no guarantee that the person leading after the jury vote will remain on top after the public has said so.
The winner is awarded a trophy and a lot of glory for winning Eurovision. The country they represent will host the following year’s competition.
variety of styles
Part of the joy of Eurovision is the huge range of songs to perform back-to-back, often making up for strange bedfellows with incompatible musical styles.
Lithuanian singer Belt said, “Every single person on Earth can find something in Eurovision.”
This year’s entry Bambi Thug from Ireland calls their goth-influenced lyrics “Ouija-pop”. Their entry “Doomsday Blue” alternates between frantic growling and screaming and relaxed singing in the chorus.
Denmark’s Saba showcases her powerful vocals in “Sand”, a classic break-up ballad. Czech entry, Aiko, sounds as if her musical style was inspired by American pop.,rock, while Austria’s entry is a Europop dance anthem that eschews subtlety with its title, “We Will Rave”.
And then there are some of the off-the-wall entries that Eurovision is perhaps best known for, including inexplicable musical style and staging.
Iconic performances from past decades have included a group of Russian babushkas, a Finnish heavy metal band dressed as demons and a bearded Austrian drag queen belting out what could have been a James Bond theme song.
Eurovision co-host Petra said, “I think the majority is there to win it.” Mayday said, but some countries Focus less on sending out a strong singer, and more on putting on a memorable performance that will have people talking, delivering a great entry and they know they’re not going to win, but they’re going to give us a good three minutes. Are there.”
“I think there are some bizarre ones,” said superfan Paul Jordan, who is writing a PhD on Eurovision, inspired by a chaotic performance of “Cha Cha Cha” by last year’s runner-up Finland’s Cariza, who jumped around the stage. . The lyrics in Finnish are about hitting the dance floor after a long week at work, screaming “cha cha cha” amid high energy in a puffy neon green dress.
“I think there are some guys who have tried to emulate that success,” Jordan said.
The Netherlands’ Joost’s “Europapa” is worth a visit, he says. “It is very attractive. It has gone viral online. I can imagine people all over Europe voting for it, they’re having parties, they’re loving it.”
Jost performs with backup dancers in blue suits with exaggerated pointy shoulder pads that include a man in a bird costume wearing an EU-logo tie.
Croatia’s baby lasagne called “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” is also gaining attention. The high-energy song about leaving the countryside for urban life is a great way to shed light on the issue of Croatia’s brain drain.
favorite to win
Contest winners come from all over the music world. In the last decade, successful genres have included pop from Sweden, jazz from Portugal, and rock from Italy.
Jordan says that unlike past years, where there were heavy favorites, “this year it feels really open. “There doesn’t seem to be a runaway winner.”
Some worth watching include Switzerland’s “The Code” by Nemo, about the singer’s journey of discovering his non-binary identity, and Italy’s Angelina Mango. Their entry, “La Noia”, which translates to “Boredom”, is inspired by the cumbia music of Latin America.
The quirky Dutch and Croatian entries are also likely to be favorites among the viewers at home, with stellar performances that could help them stand out in a crowded field.
The public and jury often disagree on who should win, with the jury’s votes being to reward musical skill while the public’s votes are often influenced by spectacle.
Jordan says that Ukraine “can never really be discounted. They know how to stage a song,” and are currently the only country in the contest to have ever advanced from the semi-finals to the final. Ukraine has won Eurovision three times since joining the contest in 2003, and the Ukrainian entry usually finishes in the top ten.
Great pop singers have emerged from the Eurovision gauntlet: Fifty years ago, then little-known Swedish band ABBA won with the song “Waterloo”, which has since joined the ranks of pop classics. In 1988, a young Celine Dion rose to fame when she won for Switzerland with the song “Ne partez pas sans moi”.
Regardless of whether or not this year’s artists will be the next ABBA, Jordan says Eurovision will endure, “It’s a format that is very old now – almost 70 years old, and yet it’s still alive. And it’s amazing. In fact, given all the changes in people’s viewing habits, Eurovision has really captured our imagination.