A jazz singer, a pink-haired hipster, an avant-garde performer from another planet and an emotional balladeer. The last four years of Portugal’s Festival da Canção brought mixed fortunes for the Iberian nation at Eurovision. What could 2021 have in store?
Festival da Canção 2021 Composers Revealed
On Friday 4 December, national broadcaster RTP announced the list of composers charged with creating the 20 entries for next year’s competition. The list is diverse in genres and style, something the revamped Festival da Canção has us used to by now.
Carolina Deslandes, Virgul, Neev and Karetus are among the most exciting names in the mix. And Festival da Canção 2017 act Pedro Gonçalves is back with a composition of his own.
Carolina Deslandes
Carolina Deslandes is a well known singer-songwriter in Portugal. After coming third on Portuguese Idol back in 2010, the singer went on to release three studio albums. Her last effort, “Casa” (Home) topped the Portuguese charts and her last singles — “A Vida Toda” and “Avião de Papel” — are solid hits.
Virgul
Virgul has a long career that started way back in 1995 as part of the famous group Da Weasel, opening for acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After the group ended, the singer-songwriter focused on his solo career and the project NuSoulFamily, aimed to reinvent funky, house and pop styles.
He is the winner of several MTV Music Awards for Best Portuguese act, both on group and solo.
NEEV
NEEV, artistic name for Bernardo Neves, is an up-and-coming singer-songwriter. He writes and performs in English and lists Bon Iver, Nick Drake and Sufjan Steven among his inspirations.
His work reflects the sound of the new generations, mixing pop with multiple genres, creating distinctive, impactful, some even say mystical tunes. He’s featured on Seeb’s hit single “Breathe“.
Karetus
Karetus is a Portuguese group formed by two DJs and music producers. They’ve focused most of their work on a premise the group calls “Full Flavour”, or in other words, music that pays no attention to conventional genres or rhythms. Their main goal is just to create and perform good music.
Over the last several years, Karetus has worked with several known artists in Portugal. Among them is Festival da Canção 2018 act, Diogo Piçarra. In 2018, the group created a rendition of “Bella Ciao” for Netlfix’s “La Casa de Papel” (Money Heist).
Festival da Canção 2021 – Composers
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- Pedro Gonçalves (Open Submissions Call)
- Miguel Marôco (Open Submissions Call)
- Tainá (wiwibloggs wishlist 2021)
- Tatanka
- IAN
- NEEVE
- Hélder Moutinho
- Anne Victorino D’Almeida
- Carolina Deslandes
- Stereossauro
- Filipe Melo
- Joana Alegre
- Virgul
- Irma
- Viviane
- João Vieira
- Da Chick
- Fábia Maia
- Karetus
- Pedro da Linha
Festival da Canção 2021 – Rules
The 50/50 voting system is back, but with different forms for the semi-finals and the grand final. A single jury and the public televote will decide which songs will advance to the final. In case of a tie, the professional jury will decide which ones advance.
In the grand final, the decision will be split by televote and seven regional juries. This time around, if we have a tie, the televote will prevail.
Note that this year, 20 songs will take part in the competition. 10 in each semi-final with 5 songs from each advancing to the Grand Final.
As in previous years, the semi-finals will take place on February 20 and 27. The final is set for March 6.
What do you think of the composers? Which name are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments.
Just listened to a couple of authors and loved NEEV and have never heard from him before! Hopes up for him!
Carolina deslandes !!! oMG we discovered her music through luisa sobral and we love her !! She has to win !
“A single jury and the public televote will decide which songs will advance to the final”
this is interesting
Same system since 2017. 🙂
Your historical assessment of their colonial activities is not accurate – they did plenty of trading, including slavery.
Also, their soccer team suggests they have plenty of competitive spirit too…
I really like this national selection concept Portugal has these days, it puts the people in more light who usually are just names on the backround behind the songs.
Sometimes composers and producers are background noise, but they should be front and center. I mean, they did write and produce the songs. haha
Probably middle of January.
You have a point, and I agree with some, but…I give you just one main reason to be the weakest Eurovision Country: Our Broadcast, RTP. The major of the songs doens’t represent, at all, our music taste. Even the greatest and successful artists that we have…they simply don’t care about FDC. Dispite that we are one of the countries in Europe that listen more English pop songs, RTP only break the rule for the language a few years ago… They just keep and keep stuck to some cultural issues, that don’t Make sense anymore. And I am referring to RTP,… Read more »
You have some fair points there. I especially agree that their simplicity with staging clashes with all the glam of Eurovision.Their songs tend to get lost in translation, so compensate with visuals would be smart. Though simplicity it was a big selling point for “Amar Pelos Dois”, when the only showy thing was the fact Salvador does some adorable quirk faces. And when they tried something more extravagant with Conan, they were rejected. Then I have question: what would be the point for Portugal to “dress up” as a different country just to win the contest? Of course, it’s a… Read more »
Deslandes, finally! I hope she decides to sing her entry. NEEV sounds great too. I wonder if any of those songwriters can bring something like “Movimento” from this year’s FdC. I think it’s a type of entry that could make some waves in Eurovision, though I assume it would be unusual for the Portuguese audience to vote for something like that.
Oh please, “Portugal is the weakest country in Eurovision”, a country that won once with the biggest amount of points ever? At least they won while some countries have barely touched the Top 10 since they joined Eurovision. And some haven’t won in more than 50 years, like “Espain”. I think it’s your jealousy speaking.
FdC is coming, which means their iconic theme song will be heard again. Yehey!
Love NEEV…but why do I have the sense there are only 1 (possibly 2 songs) that will actually be fast and full of energy…mostly because looking at composers previous track record…I am a little shocked…and it seems like they had a record number of entries but the 2 they picked from the open call seem to fall under the melancholic singer songwriter ilk…again–I am so confused with so much dance, rap and pop music filling their radio stations, Festival da Cancao sticks to this singer-songwriter selections…there’s a sameness to the genre so many of these artists hit
About half of these people make mostly uptempo music, including one of the open call picks.
I like the increase of songs to 20. With a fewer national finals, I like that several will have over 20 songs in them (Melfest, FdC, FiK, MGP, Eesti laul, Pabandum iš naujo, probably Sanremo, perhaps more). 🙂
So these composers could also be the singers right? who composed their own songs or am I wrong? so happy about a lot of these and I’m glad if we have a strong song in the second semi, which will probably lack a bit of quality.
Correct. Composers can sing their own songs or just select another singer/group to do so.
great! Really want to so Neev and Carolina on FdC as singers.
YES!
I think it’s reasonable to expect a good portion of these entries to be singer-songwriter efforts. Almost 50% of the efforts are written by women, too. Really promising!
yes correct, i myself like Virgul a lot, he got such a nice feel good vibe with his music, ”Nina” ”Só Eu Sei” the latter i had in a fan contest too
OMG NEEV, Carolina Deslandes!! Love them two! Excited for Pedro Gonçalves coming back as well. Portugal is going strong for 2021! Thank god. From Brazil <3
well they also got a brazilian on the line up btw, singer Taina 🙂