Faroese TikTok star Reiley will see you at Eurovision 2023. That’s after winning Denmark’s Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2023 on Saturday evening. He is the first Faroese winner of the contest ever.
The eight finalists competed for three spots in the Super Final, determined by public vote. This included both the votes submitted during Saturday’s performances and the votes submitted in the DR Grand Prix app in the week leading up to the final.
After all eight acts performed, producers revealed the three that had advanced to the superfinal. They were: Reiley, Micky Skeel and Nicklas Sonne.
Then the top 3 performed again and the winner was determined through a jury and public vote split 50/50.
Reiley’s road to the crown hasn’t been easy. At the end of January the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet reported that he was in danger of being disqualified from this year’s competition, because the song had been performed at a concert in Seoul, South Korea back in October 2022.
At the Slow Life Festival the Faroese-Danish TikTok sensation performed the song with a different title and lyrics, and while the performance was after the cut-off point of 1 September 2022 in the EBU rules about Eurovision entries, it could be a breach of the rules DR set for participation in Dansk Melodi Grand Prix.
DR said it was fine. The song’s brief performances had not in any way given it an advantage in Denmark, and therefore he was good to go.
?? Reiley is the first artist from the Faroe Islands to represent Denmark at #Eurovision.
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) February 11, 2023
? @simonfalkdk asks him about that shortly after #dmgp2023. pic.twitter.com/dg9jKcAsP6
Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2023 results
Super finalists
- Reiley – “Breaking My Heart” – 43% votes (Tele: 15% – Jury: 28%)
- Nicklas Sonne – “Freedom” – 34% votes (Tele: 20% – Jury: 14%)
- Micky Skeel – “Glansbillede” – 23% votes (Tele: 15% – Jury: 8%)
Rest of the lineup
- Frederik Leopold – “Stuck On You”
- EYJAA – “I Was Gonna Marry Him”
- maia maia – “Beautiful Bullshit”
- Mariyah LeBerg – “Human”
- Søren Torpegaard Lund – “Lige Her”
Was Reiley your favourite in the Danish selection tonight? Can Denmark get back into the Eurovision final with “Breaking My Heart”? Let us know in the comments below.
Weeknd from Wish
I’ve already heard much worse than this
Y’all are mean, I love this guy.
This is the least watched DMGP in 30 years. And people wonder why Denmark has been struggling at Eurovision lately.
Lige Her won the night for me, but congrats to Reiley!
Is he Not too young for adult Eurovision? What age is this kid?
He might look 16, but he isn’t 🙂
He’s 20 years old. Some people look really young for their age. Heck, I turned 32 last week, and I still look like I’m in my mid 20s
Officially he is 20 but one article stated that he is 25. But he’s an adult.
I can’t believe Denmark is sending Ice Spice to Eurovision lol
Welcome to the Eurovision Recorded Backing Vocals Song Conntest 2023!!
And EBU statement about increasing quality by allowing recorded vocals is just lolesque. We all knew it would ended like this. The quality of ESC songs has drastically decreased in just 2 years.
and vocals too ofc.
Ah finally, a contest I could actually do well in! 🙂
Soren Lund was right there and you ignored him in favor of this TikTok kid and his repetitive track, why? Another missed opportunity.
IKR! He is so charming. I love both his vocal and his song. His appearance reminds me of the adorable Monika Liu last year.
My only concern is that it is not a very catchy ESC song. So even if he won, it could be risky to reach the GF. I only hope he could return with an even stronger song and then go to the ESC one day. T_T
You get that the voting system was down most of the night right?
It was a disaster to watch
People couldnt vote on the app only sms
From sms voting Søren was in top 3
Then unfortunately the app votes could only count the votes given before the show (from Monday to Friday) and the result was confusing aswell.. the didnt say how many votes or in what order or anything it was very wierd
But Søren was in the top on sms but because of the app being down might have lost some votes there
I keep hearing “Doing it right” by Daft Punk in the chorus
This is what happens when you allow pre-recorded and audio effects vocals. Horrible!
Just another generic overproduced and overautotuned song. Like a million other. But in a mix of catastrophical entries it’s so far the best one.
The song is good in studio and the live performance was lukewarm. He doesn’t have stage charisma (sorry!) and I wonder how they will do the autotune in Liverpool.
Having said that, Reiley was their best chance after rejecting EYJAA. I still can’t believe EYJAA flopped so hard. Danes are so random.
Agreed. Reiley is cute (both in the video and on stage). But the performance is not that impressive. Also not sure whether it can charm more audience other than the teens.
I love EYJAA’s song. Not meant to be offensive, but their appearance on stage reminds me so much of the Shining twins.
Congrats to Reiley, so happy Faroe Islands finally has a Eurovsion participant! Just wish he’d entered for Iceland like all the other Faroese acts do (Jógvan, Eivør, Kristina Bærendsen) we could have really done with that song this year lol
Hoping this moment will one day pave the way to Faroe Islands debuting at the contest 🙂
Why I have the feeling this lad and the Drag Race twins would like each other?
Good song, glad this won over the rock song and the Danish entry in the super final.
well i’m in love with him!
Apparently controversial to say, but I quite like this.
Denmark 3,5/12
I have to correct this. Denmark 2,5/12
As a studio recording, it’s alright (even if it does feel like someone copied and pasted chunks of Never Really Over into GarageBand to make it). The recorded backing vocals are doing all the heavy lifting though in the live performance , and we saw from Benjamin Ingrosso what that leads to at ESC.
This year is shaping up to be a disaster. It is giving me 1999 vibes.
1999 wasn’t that bad..
Well done, Denmark! You took the right decision. The rock song would have been a good entry, too. Since the first listening of the songs, day 1, I said, it’s going to be between those two songs, they immediately stood out. Well done, Reiley. That’s one of the most contemporary songs by DK in years. Also, we loooved the beautiful ballad by Soren, that would be a great entry, too. No clue why they did not qualify to the Top-3. Danish voters know best. Other than that, the show was really poor, the venue, presenters, the flow, something lacked this… Read more »
I like Reiley but the song is forgettable- I would not be surprised if this is a non qualifier.
wont qualify for grand final.
Average bland song and mediocre vocals.
most selected songs so far sound like non qualifiers
first photo from above – i see a teenageboy around 13-15 years old.
😀
…Sorry. I am not convinced that this guy actually knows how to sing :-/
He clearly don’t.
The real winner was Søren’s trap muscles. He might’ve had a Salvador moment in Liverpool. This selection was overall very amateur compared to the past Dansk MGP from the early 2010s. I’m assuming they must have a different head of delegation from that era. It’s the only explanation to the quality of show we are now getting from Denmark.
This song sounds like a rip-off from a Weeknd song…or something from those.
Sorry DK, this is…bland.
I was rooting for I Was Gonna Mary Him but to be honest Reileys song is my 2nd favorite so I’m not that mad lol.
What’s the American accent ???
He..he can’t??
They all sing like that,everyone trys to sing in american accent nowadays.
immitation as they say is the best form of flattery
I think he more wonders why he talk English rather than Danish..
He has lived in the US for some time. Now lives in London
Love how the picture in the article looks like the cover of William’s book!!! As for the song, will wait to see how it develops from now to May as it seems a bit underpowered.
If this was sung by Justin Bieber the world would be swooning. That is not a criticism i actually like this entry it has a melody unlike a certain other country!
Overproduced, tik-tok plastic music.
Again the wrong song. Juries what did you do?
They’re in the weaker semi so we can expect Denmark to at least qualify with this, but I wouldn’t say this is worthy of it. It’s a little unique in his vocal tone, but with extremely derivative lyrics and a boring instrumental, this goes nowhere and is more of an annoying earworm than a catchy tune. I hope this doesn’t move on to the final, but I expect that it will.
Ok…
What is that chorus….tonight is a bad night for entries
i was gonna marry him was THAT b!tch. you will be missed folklore queens
Well it is a step above the recent Danish entries. This will step them a bit closer to the final. Cute good song, nice singer and nice with a bit of representation.
I neither like the song nor the singer.
I’m glad for Reiley! He delivered tonight (although the vocoder thing was off-putting) and his win is historical, as he’s the first Faroese to take part of ESC! 😮
He is the first Faroese lead singer to take part of the international Eurovision. Faroese have took part before, but as part of a choir (Linda Andrews)
i love when artists use vocal modifiers since you can do so many things with it artistically but my main problem here is that we don’t here him singing much ? don’t know if it was his fault or production’s but i hope he can actually deliver something…
Did anyone else think that Søren Torpegaard Lund’s performance of “Lige Her” was extraordinary. Such a delicate ballad performed with such restraint and beauty…very touching in studio and amazing live. Denmark failed him with their hardline middle-of the-road tastes.
The app went down and never worked before the super final
So top 3 was decided by the people who voted the week up to the show
The sms votes did nothing and seems like they where a small part of the voting so top 3 was almost votes from before the show and the winner was decided by the jury ?
It was a stunning performance, oldschool and Classic… but the whole way through, i kept hearing “Skibbet skal sejle i nat”… which killed it a bit for me..?????
Yes Søren was absolutely amazing!!!! It was a perfection of a performance. But the Danish never supports their good songs in their native language… Seen it happen over and over and over again… Should have at least been top 3.
They sent a song in danish two years ago, so they’re not completely adverse to sending something in their national language. I think it depends on whether it’s the best song they’ve got regardless of language.
Yes, absolutely amazing! That song and performance would have won the whole contest, I got such vibes.
I mean, Reiley’s song is good, but the whole vocoder thing ruined everything of the performance for me. It’s as if I am watching and listening to an entry of the American Song Contest..
Good pop song but Denmark you are breaking my heart…chose the wrong song TWICE! ‘Lige Her’ should have made the gold final as it was extraordinary. Then in the gold final this auto-tuned song wins over ‘Freedom’…come on! I understand Reilly won with only 15% of the televote in the gold final…something rotten in the state of Denmark.
I love him! I’m so glad he won!
Him? I thought it was a girl, seriously. But then he can’t even spell his name right (it’s Reilly not Reily) so I doubt he knows very much.
Seems they found a little click with the chorus and I dunno I guess….just played that on repeat?
So please for Reiley, he has such a sweet song and performance, it is hard not to like it.
I’m also pleased for Nicklas, he was another one of my favourites and he gave a strong rock performance.
Honestly, Nicklas Sonne served tonight. He should have won.
Jury robbed him.. A jury full of people with strong relations to music and got so much musical knowledge.. the fact that they ignorer a vocal as strong as Nicklas Sonne’s and a stage pressent as powerful as his.. make no sense while picking an autotuned boy who looked kinda confused.. the staged looked kinda too big for him while Nicklas Sonne couldve used a bigger stage cause they filled it out so well.. No way people involved the music business and with knowledge (if they put own taste aside and look at pure talent/technique) Nicklas shouldve won easily.. and… Read more »
Cute song and guy, but his vocals are average…
Do you know how hard it is to sing a song like that? He changes between head voice and chest voice all of the time. It is in no way easy to sing. In my opinon he did a great job.
There was autotune. In Eurovision it is forbidden. We’ll see how he does.
It’s a vocoder. It just distorts the voice, but it is not the same as autotune.