Rejoice: The Eurovision 2017 season has officially started!
Although Eurovision never really ends for us, September 1 marks the first day that a song can be released and entered for Eurovision 2017. Between now and the official deadline in March, fans will be on the edge of their seats waiting for the tunes to drop.
September 1 has arrived — and so has the #Eurovision 2017 selection season! Let’s do this! pic.twitter.com/AC99K8I9Ey
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) September 1, 2016
Who will be the first country to reveal their song, either through an internal selection or a national final? And does the country that reveals their song first gain any sort of advantage, or is it better to keep the waiting audience on edge? We thought we’d have a look into the past and judge for ourselves.
2016: Albania — “Përrallë” by Eneda Tarifa (Fairytale at Eurovision)
Every Eurovision fan’s traditional festive watch-along, Albania’s Festivali i Kenges produced the first song of 2016. Eneda Tarifa won FiK in December 2015 with “Përrallë”, giving Albania plenty of time to start their remix work. The song was re-worked as “Fairytale” and released to a less than positive reaction at the time. Things didn’t get much better for Eneda at Eurovision, where she failed to qualify for the final. Albania ultimately finished just 16th in Semi-Final Two. But we still love Eneda (oh, oh)!
2015: FYR Macedonia — “Lisja esenski” by Daniel Kajmakoski (Autumn Leaves at Eurovision)
Macedonia’s Skopje Fest made a welcome return to the national final season in November 2014. X Factor Adria winner Daniel Kajmakoski won the contest with his song “Lisja esenski”. After a rather ugly voting controversy involving the cops, Daniel confirmed the song would be reworked and performed in English in Vienna, resulting in “Autumn Leaves”. Baffling staging and the unnecessary inclusion of ex-Backstreet members ultimately led Daniel to finish 15th in Semi-Final One.
2014: Ukraine — “Tick-Tock” by Mariya Yaremchuk
Finally, a prime example of how to do a revamp right! “Tick-Tock” won the Ukrainian National Final in December 2013. Mariya immediately spent the next three months revamping the song from the ground up. Gone were the odd references to belonging “like a sister to a brother” and in came a much stronger beat. In fact “Tick-Tock” might still be one of the best examples of a revamp in recent Eurovision history. Ukraine easily qualified for the final, where Mariya finished in 6th place.
2013: Switzerland — “You and Me” by Takasa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyaHa3Jllv4
“You and Me” didn’t really change much after it was selected in December 2012. Instead, the band behind it did: Originally known as the Heilsarmee, they performed in Malmo as Takasa (and Lys Assia claims it was her idea). That’s because their original name is the German word for the Salvation Army, thereby putting them in violation of the rules that forbid acts of a political and religious nature. That particular bit of “controversy” didn’t help Takasa at Eurovision though. The group finished 13th, giving Switzerland a second straight year of non-qualification.
(Note: We’re aware that Belarus technically chose first, with Alyona Lanskaya’s “Rhythm of Love” — but considering that was an entirely different song to “Solayoh“, we decided it didn’t count!)
Clearly presenting your song first doesn’t give you any huge advantage.
In 2016 the Dutch team purposefully held back on releasing “Slow Down”, after Trijntje failed to qualify in 2015 with “Walk Along” (released in December 2014). Douwe qualified easily, lending even more credence to the theme of his song.
What are your thoughts on the above songs? And do you think it’s better to wait? Let us know in the comments box below.
The group behind Daniel in 2015 was Blackstreet, not Backstreet.
No diggidy. No doubt.
Play on playa.
You Dre, drop the verse…
The best song of ESC 2016, Poli Genova’s, was the last to be released at the end of March so idk!
Switzerland 2013 deserved to qualify. Without any doubt. Good instrumental. Not a Top 5 song.
I think that Maltas preselection will be held a few days after JESC like they did in 2014 because of the huge stage they built
Please Ukraine, do everything you want, but bring the Epic Sax Guy from Moldova 2010, as interval act.
Please someone make a petition about the Sax Guy at ESC 2017 as interval act.
About releasing the songs I think is brave to release early, and as a fan I can’t wait, but sometimes is not possible because some countries have national not internal selections.
I have doubts if someone made really worthy promotion for 5-6 months recent years…
By the way, the original version of “Tick-Tock” was bad indeed.
As I have already said, it doesn’t really matter when the song is released, the outcome of the contest doesn’t get influenced by that. My thoughts on the above songs: Albania 2016: I think this song got too much hate. Yes, the original version was much better and with the revamp the song lost all the power and the drama but I still like it and Eneda is a great singer. Still though, it didn’t deserve to qualify, there were too many great songs this year. FYROM 2015: Very good song but the presentation was so bad… It didn’t deserve… Read more »
I think that Greece would be..They have already find the artist and they prepare the song from the early summer…
Here is first song of this season, she took part in Polish National Final 2010 and she was 2nd. Now she is back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tXIZe4iHL8
I think it was only one song this year that was released at the wrong moment, “Sunlight”, it matters on the song. “Sunlight” would have fitted more as an “later-release”. The rest were released in the right time, and as D said, the most people hear the songs at the night of the first semi finals
National Finals should all be held off until after February. I don’t want to hear any songs until just before the March deadline. Make it feel like Christmas.
I don’t think it really matters, considering the large majority of voters are hearing every song (except their own and maybe neighboring countries’) on the night of the semi-finals. It just so happens most often countries that rarely do well choose their songs first. I don’t think Trijntje would’ve qualified if the song had been released later as from what I saw there were a lot of people, including myself, who didn’t like the song when it was released.
It’s obviously better to go at the end. Rather have a song 2 months old in May than 5 or 6 months old
I believe the earlier you release it, the more likely people will grow bored of it when Eurovision comes around