Israel hyped up the Eurovision fandom back in July by revealing their 16-song national selection format for Eden Alene. And now Israel’s Eurovision 2021 selection is getting closer to becoming a reality. KAN has confirmed to Israeli Eurovision news site Euromix that the official song committee has received a total of 220 songs.
The committee includes “Toy” and “Feker Libi” songwriter Doron Medalie, who was ineligible to submit a song due to his position on the selection team.
220 songs received for Israel’s Eden Alene
According to the Euromix report, 220 songs were sent to the committee that will select Eden’s national final entries. The good news comes after the the committee received only 70 entries during the initial submission period, which was then extended by a week.
Familiar names that submitted a song include Dana Lapidot (Israel 2020 artist selection) and Dolev and Penn (Israel 2017 songwriters). Most of the “Rakata” songwriters from 2020 also returned. This time, however, they are collaborating with Yinon Yahel, producer of “Golden Boy” and “Feker Libi”.
The 220-song figure stops the growth trend seen in recent years. Netta’s selection only received about 130 songs, Kobi’s selection received about 200, and Eden received about 250 last year. KAN approached multiple songwriters to work on songs for Eden, in order to keep the level of submissions high. Other songwriters sent their songs in through the tenders page on KAN’s website.
Svika Pick, “Diva” and “Hasta la Vista” (Ukraine 2003) songwriter, did not submit a song to the selection. That upends earlier reports in Israeli media that Pick had thrown his maestro hat into the ring. It is still unknown if Gal Jo Cohen, the “Rakata” songwriter not credited earlier, sent his own submission. According to Euromix, it is likely that he had submitted an entry. However, Cohen has not confirmed that.
KAN will reveal the 16 songs selected for Eden’s selection next month. Right now, the broadcaster is going through the submissions to remove ineligible entries (e.g. those over three minutes, those with illegal sampling, etc.).
In other news, Alene completed her service for the IDF on Wednesday. She served as a vocalist in the army band.
What do you think of the selection format? Are you hyped for November? Let us know in the comments below!
Exciting to hear what she has on offer
According to a Kan spokesman quoted on Euromix.co.il, there will only be one semi final instead of two. He also doesn’t commit to a 16 song format and leaves the number open depending on different variables and circumstances. According to the initial tender document, Kan reserves the right to modify the format, but if it does – it will poorly reflect on its ability to organize future song selections. If a country like Slovenia can come up with 191 submissions with a population of 2.1 million, 220 submissions for a country with 8.9 million people is a poor number. It… Read more »
Unless people knew that Doron would be on the selection committee, they might’ve assumed that a song he wrote would automatically be selected. In 2020, Feker Libi wasn’t really the favourite (at least for fans) but had Doron and Idan.
Doron is not on the list of the 6 selection committee members this year. That list was published 2 days ago and he’s not on it, so he could either be an ‘impartial advisor’ for the committee or perhaps a member of a jury panel which will be separate from the committee’s votes. Name recognition gave Doron and Idan an automatic advantage. The public vote played in their favor. The jury panels ranked Feker Libi second.
If I understand correctly, the 6 member committee is selecting the songs *for* the Israeli national final. Doron Medalie will be a judge on the national final itself, like Harel Skaat was judging in the national final last year without being involved in the process of selecting the songs for the final.
That makes sense, but if his vote counts for only 5% of the total score like in Harel’s case, it will be more symbolic than substantive. If KAN wants the committee and the jury panelists to count for 60% of the total vote like back in March 2020, it should give both the committee and the televote a 40% share of the final score. That will leave Doron and other potential judging panels a 20% share which could potentially become decisive and even cause an upset.
I don’t know what the mix of voting will be, but I don’t think any professional judge should get too much influence over the outcome, accomplished as they may be. It just feels too arbitrary to give all that power to a small group of people, whereas the outcome of a large number of jurors is more of a “wisdom of the crowd”, and I don’t really care if Medalie’s presence is merely symbolic. I hope they’ll have a simpler method in the future, preferably 50%-50%. The 2020 system was all over the place. Also, I hate that they let… Read more »
My ‘beef’ with KAN is that it apparently sent invitations to many established songwriters because there was a risk that the public submissions will not meet the bar. The selection committee isn’t supposed to know the identity of the writers so that all songs are treated impartially, but I’m not sure that’s how it really works in reality. KAN should have set a quota in advance, say 50% invitations and 50% general public offerings so that there are no illusions about the ethics and the integrity of the selection. I also don’t mind Medalie’s presence, but it suggests to me… Read more »
Doron being on the selection team will be good for them, although it’d be better for Israel if he was writing the song!
In this video a very excited Eden is in her unit, cutting her military identity card in two – an act Israeli discharged soldiers perform to symbolize their return to civilian life. She’s saying “OK pals! we’re here to cut mine and my best friends’ military ID cards!”
https://twitter.com/RazShechnik/status/1316316187211464704?s=20
Good for her! Nice to not have that hanging over her head on top of everything else.