For several months now, Germany has been hard at work searching for its entry for Eurovision 2021. But now things are getting down to the wire. ESC Kompakt has reported that the German internal selection process has narrowed the entries down to a select few who remain in the running to be Germany’s entry for Rotterdam.
German broadcaster NDR is using the same internal selection process it used last year, an adaption of the method used in 2018 and 2019 to select the national final acts.
The entries have been assessed by two juries — the 100-person Eurovision jury, made up of music lovers and Eurovision fans; and a 20-person internal jury, made up of former members of Eurovision juries. The Eurovision jury has been selected in order to reflect the musical tastes of general Eurovision viewers around Europe.
The juries whittle down the entries
Over the summer, the juries have been assessing the entries. Though as ESC Kompakt notes, the international jury didn’t come into play until the initial entries had been whittled down a little by the Eurovision jury.
The juries are often assessing singers and songs separately with the idea that the best singers will be paired with the best, most suitable songs. The juries have now produced a shortlist of acts in the running for Eurovision. While it’s not known exactly how many acts remain, ESC Kompakt notes that last year’s final stage involved 20 entries, made up of 17 songs and ten artists.
The shortlisted singers have also recorded live video performances of their songs to give jurors an impression of their ability to interpret the song live.
ESC Kompakt also notes that once Germany’s song for Rotterdam has been selected, it’s not clear how it will be presented. Last year’s song was announced via the special show Unser Lied für Rotterdam — which was not as popular with viewers. This suggests that NDR will revamp the song presentation for 2021.
Ben Dolic is out of the running
One artist who won’t be part of the 2021 shortlist is Ben Dolic. While the artist was the internally selected act for 2020, he has taken himself out of the running for 2020.
Earlier this month, he announced his decision, writing “I have decided not to participate at the Eurovision next year! It has been a hard and a difficult decision to make, but the right one at this moment in time.”
In July, Germany’s Head of Delegation Alexandra Wolfslast made it clear that Ben, who was chosen for Eurovision 2020, would not be automatically invited back for Eurovision 2021. However, he was welcome to enter the selection process and had been working with the Bulgarian hitmaker and “Violent Thing” writer Borislav Milanov on new songs for 2021.
With Ben Dolic out of the running, it’s less clear who might end up as Germany act for Eurovision 2021.
What do you think? Who would you like to see represent Germany in Rotterdam? What sort of song should they take to Rotterdam? Tell us your thoughts below!
It’s a process that resulted in an entry last year that lacked much (if any) actual German involvement. I don’t think that’s acceptable. Hopefully, they’ll do a better job with it this year.
Germany wasn’t last in 2019.
That is correct. Germany finished second-to-last, with only the UK doing worse. Germany got 13 more points than the UK, but had the dubious distinction of getting no points from the televote (all 24 of their points came from the juries, and I think only 5 countries voted for Germany). The UK got just 11 points, 8 from the juries and 3 from the televote (from just one country…no surprise, it was Ireland).
Violent Thing was my favourite German entry since 2011 so another upbeat summer song would be nice, but I’m open to anything really 🙂
And 4th place in 2018 with the same method.
Not really. 2018 had a strong national final which didn’t randomly pair songs with artists, but had artists picked with their own songs. The result was much stronger. Michael’s song is actually dedicated to his late father. That certainly wasn’t the product of random coincidence.
Still, Lena was additionally paired with Satellite and she won, so that might still produce a hit sometimes.
It was the same process in 2019, but with the added wrinkle of having wildcard entry that got them Sisters in the end. Everyone else in that Unser Song final had creative input with their own entries.
The big change was not doing another televised selection but the process of selecting the artists and the songs are supposed to remain intact for 2020.
Hmm… this news is pretty restrained, though. It’s basically ”The list has been shortened”, without giving any real names, numbers, genres or dates. Still, it’s something.
UK will likely go with another internal choice (might not even be James) and shove the song on BBC 47 at 3 in the morning, promote nothing of it, have staging like it’s still 1992 and then complain about their 24th position in the final. (I am being sarcastic, of course, but please, UK, prove me wrong!)
Sorry, I’m being bad, aren’t I? 🙂 I believe that The UK mostly has decent to good songs, but then doesn’t do anything to promote them or stage them the right way. I will give them huge props from upping the game drastically in terms of official videos. James and Michael Rice had really great official videos, as opposed to dancing to empty studio backgrounds they used in several previous editions. If only they actually backed-up songs they got…
PS. If he is willing, I am rooting for James to return. I really liked his 2020 song.
I hope that James, Iain and Ed are involved in some way (even writing a song for someone else if not themselves), but I wouldn’t be surprised if whether it is him or not is not known until our song’s release…