Songwriting camps are a staple of the Eurovision Song Contest. They’re places where songwriters can draw inspiration from like-minded people in the industry and collab with artists on potential hits — and songs for our beloved contest.
You could literally attend a songwriting camp every single weekend somewhere in Europe and beyond. As we reported in June, a group of songwriters and performers (including Holly Tandy, Mørland and the BBC’s former music consultant Greig Watts) were spotted in Woking, England at a camp, which we’ve learned from insiders was for the Swiss internal selection.
And recently our Insta feeds put another camp — this one in The Netherlands — on our radar. This particular songwriting camp wasn’t set up to write for one specific country. Instead it’s focused on writing potential Eurovision songs for artists from anywhere. #ComeTogether. #CelebrateDiversity. #ShareThe Moment!
Publishing and recording label Cloud 9 Music organized the camp. The label represents a variety of artists, mostly active in the electronic dance music department (Hardwell, Fedde Le Grand and Armin van Buuren) and the Dutch rap/hiphop scene.
Among the attendees was the singer-songwriter Emy Perez, who is responsible for co-writing Eleni Foureira’s last single “Loquita”. Others included the singer PollyAnna, who has written songs for some of the biggest DJ’s around, YouTube phenomenon Emma Heesters and Belgian DJ Regi. Dutch singers Jayh, Tim Dawn and Jake Reese were also invited to the party. Former BBC music consultant Greig Watts — who worked with the UK on Eurovision: You Decide in 2018 and 2019 — paid a visit, too.
One of the organisers, Pieter van Bodegraven, currently Head of Synchronization at Cloud 9 Music, is among the most experienced men in the Dutch publishing industry. He represented Tiësto and Afrojack. He also used to co-own music publishing company Talpa Music.
Are you excited to see all of these names in one place? Do you think the Dutch songwriting camp could produced an epic hit? And would you like to see the Dutchies go with something in the electronic dance genre? Let us know down below!
i just hope it sounds nothing like hoe het danst, his latest smash hit in holland and belgium. while that (quite outdated) sound certainly works over there, the rest of the world ain’t here for that. i do confide he can bring something good
New Xena in the making
Anybody can list the Eurovision entries that came from songcamps in the past few years? Maybe some of them can undo the bad impression I have about their results (and by results, I mean the perceived quality and the tracks’ originality, not scoreboard results). Though, in any case, the songwriters should do whatever they think it’s the best to boost their creativity.
any song involving swedish songwriters basically
Thanks for continuing to review the songwriting camps were involved with organising. Whilst many seem to criticise them , the ones I have been involved with have provided 6 Eurovision entries over the past 4 years and many national final entries , aswell as releases outside of Eurovision . The songwriters we gather all have a goal of writing the best songs they can for the best contest in the world , whether that be with other writers or with the artists themselves ! We’re also raising the profile of the competition with songwriters from countries outside of Europe all… Read more »
As an upcoming, still unknown songwriter/composer how can I participate? Are only Swedes allowed or people with a certain number of hits released? How to take part without being invited or having connections (friendship, relationship, family connections) to organizers???
I’m not a fan of these songwriting camps. For every “she got me” they give us ten “bigger than us” manufactured, uninspired entries. Recent winners have proven that looking for songs that are organic, authentic to the artist is a much more effective approach.
So glad my country won’t be relying on these amateurish songwriters anymore! The problem I have with songwriting camps is most of time, they give the artist little to no creative freedom. They’re all a bunch of Danes and Swedes writing some generic and uninspiring songs.
Look at countries like Albania and Italy, real musicians with quality songs, unlike the countries that use this failure method!
Unless it’s the artist themselves who take part in those camps to come up with their own songs.
Martin Garrix as interval act please!!!
STOP THESE RIDICULOUS SONGWRITING CAMPS