Of the many mistakes the BBC has made at Eurovision, surely this revelation counts as one of the more painful. Hurts—the popular English snytho-pop duo who have sold more than two million singles worldwide—were passed over in favor of Engelbert Humperdinck back in 2012. Big mistake. Big. Mistake.
“We’d said in interviews like three years ago that we were interested,” Theo Hutchcraft, one-half of the group, told NME. “We thought it would be quite interesting. We had some ideas for it but then they went with Engelbert Humperdinck.”
As you’ll remember, the Hump finished next-to-last with his slightly dated number “Love Will Set You Free”, and sparked fear that the BBC would have to bring adult diapers to the Eurovision stage. Hurts, on the other hand, have gone on to conquer Germany and Eastern Europe…something Englebert did, like, a million years ago.
Given the BBC’s knack for choosing artists who are irrelevant, perhaps Hurts will be invited to perform again twenty years after they burn out. Now that would hurt…
Please tell me someone got the sack over this decision. Seriously the Hump over the Hurts? What’s the betting that they’ll ignore Little Boots’ and Simon Cowell’s expressions of interest for 2014 and send Cilla Black or Cliff Richard?
Doesn’t the BBC purposely choose acts they know will do really badly? I assumed it was purposeful as no one trying to win would have selected any of the recent UK entries.
Oh wow! The Hurts would’ve been amazing! Instead they went for Engelwhatever Hisnameis….
This story has been around for over a year now, so it’s nothing new here.
Geez, the BBC’s internal selection process is as bad as the FA and the state of English football right now.