On Saturday night, when Eurovision fans were embroiled in Scandi drama and Iberian intrigue, Hungary was off doing its own thing. The grand final of A Dal 2020 was held and Hungary decided the act who won’t be going to Eurovision 2020. Gergő Rácz & Reni Orsovai won with the duet “Mostantól”.
While A Dal 2020 no longer serves as Hungary’s Eurovision national final, the show kept the familiar A Dal format with three heats, two semi-finals and the grand final. The contest was retooled and instead of giving the winner the ticket to Rotterdam, they instead received the Petofi Music Award for Song of the Year, a cash prize and will have many live performance opportunities.
The grand final was won by Gergő Rácz & Reni Orsovai won with their duet “Mostantól” (“From Now On”).
From Eurovision selection to Hungarian song excellence
The A Dal grand final result was decided from two rounds of voting. After the eight finalists performed their songs, the expert jury voted and from their votes alone the top four acts then progressed to the super final. The four super finalists were: Gergő Rácz & Reni Orsovai with “Mostantól”, Márk Ember with “Tovább”, Nene with “Későre Jár” and Turbo with “Iránytű”.
The four superfinalists then faced a second round of voting determined entirely by the public vote. The people of Hungary voted “Mostantól” their favourite song.
Gergo Rácz & Reni Orsovai – “Mostantól” (A Dal 2020)
Gergő may be familiar to Eurovision fans as being part of the boy band V.I.P. They represented Hungary at Eurovision 1997, where they placed 12th with the smooth track “Miért kell, hogy element?” He returned to Eurovision in 2008 where he sang backing vocals on Csézy’s song “Candlelight”.
Gergő came close to returning to Eurovision in 2014. He was part of the a cappella group Fool Moon who made the A Dal 2014 superfinal with “It Can’t Be Over”. Gergő was also one of the writers behind Kati Wolf’s 2011 Eurovision track “What About My Dreams?”
Reni Orsovai was a busy person at the A Dal grand final. As well as singing with Gergő, she was part of another act. Reni sang with the group Nene who competed with the pop-rock track “Későre jár” and also made the superfinal.
Reni and Gergő performed two versions of “Mostantól” at A Dal. In the semi-final, they performed the arrangement from the studio version, accompanied by a sophisticated interpretive dance routine. In the semi-final and grand final, they delivered a stripped-down acoustic performance.
In November 2019, Hungary’s MTVA was not on the list of participating broadcasters for Eurovision 2020. However, MTVA did not give a reason for its withdrawal from Eurovision, simply saying that it would instead directly support Hungary’s local pop music.
But despite Hungary’s withdrawal from Eurovision 2020, many fans are considering “Mostantól” to be Hungary’s unofficial selection for Eurovision 2020. As the song is under three minutes and was released after 1 September 2019, it would technically be eligible as a Eurovision entry. However, as Hungary does not have a participating broadcaster for Eurovision 2020, sending the song to Rotterdam is not a possibility.
What do you think? How would “Mostantól” have done in the Eurovision 2020 lineup? Should Hungary return to Eurovision 2021? Sound off below!
This is a nice song. I like it. Such a shame they wont be in Rotterdam.
who cares?
Shame on MTVA for not sending these two to Eurovision to have a global audience for their song.
Woah, this is amazing! Would have loved to seen this in Rotterdam!
For people who are interested: the song is about a man begging for forgiveness after the lady found out he was cheating. The chorus is surprisingly clever, the lady uses the exact phrases that the man uses, just changes the word “mást” to “már”, technically translating “this (his) body doesnt want others anymore” to “this (her) body doesnt want you anymore”.
What is clever here??
I like the song. It ‘s sad that Hungary is not participating this year. It would be a great entry. I hope for their come back next year.
Probably a good choice to stay out this year with a song like that.
Guys, I don’t think Hungary will return for next year’s Eurovision. Don’t you know what their prizes were? They earned enormous amount of money (75 million Hungarian Forints to spend on their musical carrier and things like that), they are to attend at Hungary’s 2 of the biggest festivals (VOLT and Strand festivals), earned the Musical Award of Pet?fi 2020 and this song is the winner in the Song of the Year category. This is kinda bigger than travelling the world and attending at the biggest contest of Europe (the world)
The song is ok. Wouldn’t have been a bad act. I don’t get the slap thought. Normalizing violence towards your partner? It doesn’t matter if it is a woman or a man doing it. It is just disgusting and doesn’t add anything to the performance.
do people in here ALWAYS believe in all wiwwibloggs say? you know they are not REAL journalists? this is a fan site. I can write articles to, If one person in Hungary said something, it doesnt mean all of Hungary said it.
But there is such a thing as truth. Not everything is subjective, or open to interpretation.
Your comment confuses me? Everything in this story is factual. Are you suggesting that these two didn’t win A Dal? Am I falling into a vortex?
you know what i meant
The slap on the man’s face in the beginning was completely unnecessary. Even though it is an act can you imagine what would be the reaction of people if it was the man slapping the woman?
I agree, but in the context of the song it creates drama. Also the music video is very popular with over 10 mil views and most of their audience had already seen it. In the opening scene someone is ringing on the phone, she opens it and its some woman calling for her husband. So she finds out her husband is cheating on her and thats why they start with the slap in live performance.
Great song and deserving winner as i followed A DAL this year as well. Too bad it wont be in this years competition. I miss Hungary. Arany Timi: Hurrikán was another highlight for me.
Was it even actually confirmed that the Hungary govt. called ESC ‘too gay”? I thought this was never actually proven
no it’s more likely their tv director is personally homophobic and used their nq as an excuse to retire
It’s hard to see other explanations. This government loves international PR events, and then they spent all the money to hold ‘A Dal’ anyways. One thing I’m 100% sure about is that it wasn’t about the costs.
I’m sorry but is this post relevant to Eurovision. Hungary made their decision and we have to respect that. To ask the question how do you think it would have done is rediculius because it’s purely hypothetical and irrelevant. We have to stick with Eurovision because this is what the platform is about.
You can’t say it’s completely irrelevant. Besides, if you don’t want to read something because you think it’s irrelevant, then why even bother commenting?
I comment on the post being irrelevant because I have the ability to do so. This platform is all about opinions. My opinion that it’s stupid to ask hypothetical questions is a valid one. There are hundreds of eurovision linked events happening so to report on a contest unrelated to Eurovision is a little pointless. Thanks for the input though. Nothing personal.
Wiwibloggs have covered A Dal for a long time so it’s nice to hear an update about this competition from the site. This is is only one of the few outlets that would give us news about other non-Eurovision-related international music competitions such as Slavianski Bazaar, New Wave Festival, Kënga Magjike, and Golden Stag.
And besides, what makes this even relevant to the song contest is the fact that a former Eurovision participant won this year’s A Dal.
Far-right governments ain’t know sxxt. They should be worried about the Coronavirus than the gay things that they hate. They have time to boycott anything related to gay people but they can’t handle the virus that threatens people around the world. And don’t get me started with Italy’s far right government that mocked Mahmood last year for his sexuality. Pathetic.
Exactly. Well said.
Agreed. And I don’t understand people who say “I hope Hungary comes back next year”. They spit in the face of the whole LGBTQ people and some beg them to come back?? Where IS those ppl’s pride, and intelligence?! First, Hungary should have a sanction. You don’t get to quit the Eurovision for openly hateful and homophobic reasons, and get to come back whenever you want. This, is a clear violation of the EBU rules of the worst kind, and if you don’t get a sanction for that, then for what? My take: a 5-year ban (or more), starting of… Read more »
You know really well what’ s the reason of their non-participation, and it doesn’t appear anywhere.
Please be honest, or stay home and stop writing.
People are sick of hypocrisy and lies.
Everybody stil spreading the fake news: they did NOT pull out of contest because of too gay Eurovision! They even stated already that this was not right and even Fake News a long time ago.
its to gay , didnt ypu watch in israel? It was over the top. And everyone know that. You dont have to talk about men all the time like the presenter did. Its not a pride festival
Annoying Swedish strikes again. Rasmus, whenever you make some comment, my grudge toward your country increase a little. Yes. You can call me ridiculous but that’s how I see things.
then be a super GAY person then. I dont care, i dont want that in ESC. you can do that outside.
i care 0% what you think and your vote in ESC is so small that it dont count. I dont compete for Sweden so i dont care who you vote for. You will probably vote for the guy who is most nude anyway.
I listened to the song once and it was alright. Not super memorable but nice enough. There were better songs in the selection.
The positive news was that this was far and away the most viewed act on Youtube throughout the competition and it actually ended up winning. When can you honestly say A Dal has managed that? Maybe, if Hungary does return to Eurovision, they’ll keep this new A Dal scoring system and stop the judges from sabotaging the show.
I think some people care, those who prefer music over some silly politics.
I would not call persecution and duscrimination silly politics
That’s the after effect of silly politics.
Those who care about music, not politics, probably wouldn’t want to watch an international event organized by public broadcasters controlled by different governments around the world.
I see your point. True, sometimes politics affect Eurovision, as much as we don’t want that to happen. But still, the main thing I take away from ESC every year are some wonderful songs and talented artists. I don’t let politics ruin that for me.
This would probably have done really well this year, hope Hungary come back next year
But it is
Any reasonably objective gay person would have to agree that Eurovision is quite gay for an event that is not officially a gay event.
Honestly I‘m more interested in overall viewing figures to see, how much of an impact did the „loss“ of the Eurovision prize had for the hungarian public.
It definitely led to a huge slump for the semis.
Considering the length it takes A Dal to usually field their semifinalists alone, I reckon live viewership is low as always, if not on par with last year.
Hopefully anyone from Hungary can provide any ratings figures on their side.
Viewership numbers in 18-49 averaged around 30 thousand. That’s down from around 50 thousand last year, already low compared to around 250 thousand in 2015 and even higher beforehand.
Total viewership number also down to a record low, around 220 thousand. That is down, from around 300 thousand last year. Both numbers are record low.
In 18-49, the viewers averaged around 30 thousand, which is, put simply, a disaster. Last year, that was around 50000, and even that was super low. In 2015, this number was around 250000. The views among the total population was also a record low.
I’m thinking maybe it could have been top 10!
Mediocre song.. After the government’s too gay remark I couldn’t care less… Bye bye
this is a no from me, sounds like Denmark’s “Yes” but a bit off