Israeli broadcaster KAN has revealed the official results of the national final that took place on Monday. The results show that “Set Me Free” won in a landslide with over 70% of the vote. Such a lop-sided result isn’t common in Israel. But it’s clear the song had widespread appeal within the country.
Israel: KAN reveal full national final results
- Set Me Free (71.3% of the vote)
- La La Love (17.2% of the vote)
- Ue La La (11.5% of the vote)
On Monday the bi-lingual bop “Set Me Free” seemingly won against all odds. Chatter on social media seemed to favour the other two entries — as did the results of various worldwide fan polls, including our own. “Set Me Free” came last in our poll with just 22% of the vote.
There are several possible explanations for the discrepancy. First, the taste of international fans isn’t always the same as the taste of people within any given country. Plus casual fans and viewers — who may never tweet or Insta about Eurovision — do vote in these shows…perhaps even more so when so many of us are forced to stay home.
The poll on Israeli Eurovision site EuroMix showed that about 43% of fans voted for the eventual winner. Evidently, the song appeals to an Israeli audience.
Of course, Israel can’t vote for itself at Eurovision. The question now is whether the song will appeal to international voters at the contest.
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Landslide NF finishes in Israel
In Israel, this type of result is very uncharacteristic. While in 2021 the results showed a one-horse race, in other years this wasn’t the case. Israel’s 2014 and 2016 selections ended with a very tight finish, with the top two being 5% and 1% apart respectively. Then, in the artist-only selections in 2017-2019, the largest margin of victory was 7%. Eden Alene’s landslide victory in the 2020 selection was the anomaly, but even she only scored 20% more than the runner-up.
What do you think of the results? Are you happy with “Set Me Free”‘s win? Sound off in the comments below!
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It’s probably because the music video was clearly the best out of all of them, and viewers made their decision based on the music videos. It really elevated the song, while ‘La La Love’ was still stuck with those terrible lyrics. ‘Set Me Free’ has grown on me a bit. I don’t think it will get Eden very far, but I hope she at least reaches the final. Much luck to her!
It seems they have a lot of confidence in it!
Yet more evidence of the massive disconnect between the Eurovision fan base, like those of us posting here, and the larger voting audience. 95% of people don’t think about Eurovision or the songs until it is presented to them on TV, and then they think about it for 1 minute and move on. Everyone here overanalyzes everything. The best example is Norway 2019 which won the popular vote in Europe but was largely ignored by the Eurovision fanbase.
I don’t think Keiino was ignored by the Eurovision Fanbase. I saw a lot of 2019 ranking videos that placed Spirit in the sky pretty high
Nobody on this site predicted Keiino to win the popular vote. I don’t think you can find any comments about Keiino potentially being the popular favorite.
ESC fans: “WE WANT BOPS!!”
Israel: *gives a bop*
ESC fans: “NO!!”
you people make me sick sometimes, like everything needs to be some fuego 2.0 or it’s trash in your eyes!!
The distribution of the percentages on that pie chart is highly irregular. The missing part of the puzzle is whether SET ME FREE was in fact the jury’s favorite because that would mean it was the voters’ third place song out of the 9 demos. I read the columns of three music critics from different newspapers here who are all very critical of the song and almost don’t hold back anything: One calls it a messy and shameful trash pop flop, another one calls it an engineered and formulaic template written by pop bots and the third one says it’s… Read more »
All of the voters weren’t necessarily voting for the song – they could have been voting for Eden’s vocals, which are most impressive on this one – or they could have been voting for the songwriters, the ones they like best based on the long introductions.
Also, it was not rigged. I don’t know why people think KAN would bother, when none of these songs was ever going to win in Rotterdam anyway.
Exactly. If KAN wanted to determine the outcome of the selection precisely, they wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of a selection show process only to rig it.
How do you know, all, that semi-final 1 is the more difficult one??
judging by a country’s reputation? judging by their songs of their pre-selection? and if many of them will pick the non-favorite one?? ( as Israel did).
I love Eurovision just because it is full of surprises for the good and the bad.
I voted for Set Me Free twice and so did most people I know..so. I guess that most Israelis didn’t feel a real connection to the semi-french song or to the childish sound song.
The answer is nobody knows. People are just assuming that certain countries will be good because of the name of the country.
The votes are true, but the people where influenced by couple of things: 1. The video of ‘Set Me Free’ was the most expensive video and perfectly made with shots that show Eden Arlene the best. Ost the only video with good grahics and lots of dancers and people in it. 2. The titles of La la love and Ue-La-La feel not authentic because they lookalike and la la love was Ivi Adamou Greece entry. 3. Why was the favorite Shoulders deleted? I think too much competition for Set Me Free. They manipulated the public to vote for Set Me… Read more »
What??? Impossible!!! Escfan4ever and ilyduncan said it’s rigged!!1! I know for certain they’re right, I don’t trust these results!1!!
Thank you for your suggestion of vote-rigging there Former President Trump!
You know you sound like a fool?
I think you are responding to someone who is obviously a troll. It’s best to just ignore them.
So people in Israel love Set me free but they didn’t vote for it the first online vote and the jury put it in the final… And now, again online, wins with more than 70% againts. Suuuuuuuure….
That’s not true
Set me free is bland and nothing new, but it was the only possible choice among the bunch. La la Love was very cringy in terms of lyrics, while Ue La La was just noise, not even music.
Set me free, without being good at all, was the least worst choice.
It will struggle to qualify, though
Thank heavens the best song won at the end of the day!
All of those that claim this is rigged – need to check your Trump-privilege at the door – because you’re sounding like deluded orange men right about now. AND IT’S HILARIOUS!!!
The comments that disbelieve the offical results remind me of some politicians that claim to repeat the elections because their favorite candidate wasn’t selected.
Set Me Free has a good meaning behind it that talks about being dreaming of going out of lockdown. I think that’s why it won. While La La Love is the catchiest out of the 3 its really just a standard pop song about love and party. As for Ue La La, its too risque and American sounding for the European-Mediterranean ears which is why it finished last.
NEVER NEVER!!! absolutely never!!! NEVER this is so rigged
stolen votes, rigged elections – do you realise how mad you sound right now?
For everyone complaining—a reminder that Deban chose Set Me Free after seeing the three videos and William who loved one of the La La songs ended up conceding that Set Me Free was the best video. The Israeli audience voted on the best video and not the best song. Also—2 of 3 songs had sound-alike names which reinforces to people that they probably feel unoriginal. Only to hardcore ESC bubble fans can they tell apart Ue La La from the La La Love. I honestly can’t remember which one was the Japanese inspired video vs the party in the parking… Read more »
I’m happy Set Me Free won but the results are suspicious tbh…
I don’t see why. Israel had a clear favourite song.
I’m sorry Kan,but something wrong clearly happened with the results.
Maybe this year it’s too late to change and make some more drama,but for next year, ditch the long voting process, add some jury and don’t show us the demos.
stolen votes and rigged elections – what is the world coming to?!
People who don’t get their own way always find fault in the process.
Actually I hated all the songs lol so I just said what I think I see.
First of all, the 9 songs were online only while the final was tv-broadcast. Lots of people joined the TV voting that didn’t even know about the vote the first time (this is true in the eurovision semis vrs final too, btw). 2nd of all, we were able to vote for 3 songs in the online vote, and now had to pick just one. 3rd of all, the songs had revamps and music videos this time, giving us a chance to see how Eden handles them. I voted for UeLaLa, Set Me Free and Shoulders in the first round. I… Read more »
Wasn’t that poll in question in here (wiwibloggs) showing that all of the Israeli votes showed “Set Me Free” on first spot?
I liked “Set Me Free” the best from the time the 9 demos were released. For all the reviewers saying that they’re not sure Israel can qualify with this -that’s nothing more than sour grapes. Does anyone really think that this song and her performance will be bested by anything N. Macedonia, Ireland, Belgium, Croatia, Belarus, Australia, Slovenia will send to Semi-Final 1. I doubt it.
Honestly, I don’t think we should assessing any song’s chances of qualification or winning chances this early until all 41 songs are out. I could say “set me free” feels like a borderline qualifier to me, but that’s not really a fair assessment without other songs to compare it to. Let’s hold off until March.
not loving the australia slander. montaigne will bring it.
I’m sure Set Me Free will be Euphoria compared to whatever the Belarusians send this year, but I’m sure the likes of Hooverphonic, Montaigne and Nina (if she’s chosen for Croatia) will have very good songs on offer.
What surprises me the most about this is the fact that this song was the Jury’s choice to go through to the final since the public voted for the other two and then all of a sudden it is the outright favorite of the public. Seems just a little weird, to me at least
It is weird! It seems that the ones that voted for the 6 songs that were eliminated along with the ones that had voted for Set Me Free, in a way they allied and voted against Ue La La & La La Love. I know that this is a conspiracy theory but there’s no other logical explanation. Actually there is. It was an online vote so maybe something went wrong. I am NOT saying it was rigged but maybe there were some technical errors. Anyway, it is what it is!
i believe the rumors that say this was an arab boycott of israel
‘Set Me Free’ would certainly be an apt title, in that case.
This just gets weirder and weirder.
Even accounting for different tastes, for such a lukewarm song to get over 70% of a vote is just strange. There’s something we’re all not getting here.
Well I didn’t like the other two so it’s not really all that deep to me.
Honestly I think of the three this song demonstrates the most vocal skill (not that any of them really did that much). Probably that’s why.
I honestly think they should have had an international jury or something.
Look, I’m glad Israeli people are proud and love their entry, however, it’s a painfully forgettable song, which is a shame, given Eden’s increíble talents.
Oh well, hopefully they’ll revamp the song or wow us with the staging, because I’m not really hopeful as if right now.
they should have selected a team of competent songwriters internally from the get go, who ever thought an open call would be a good idea
Eden certainly has a bigger mandate than Netanyahu then.
To be fair, I think the electoral system in Israel prevents big majorities to begin with (like most countries that use proportional representation) but that is still major shade.
I don’t know what to think of this. Idk if it was necessary “rigged” but it’s a bit suspicious… I mean yeah I guess it’s possible that the fan favourited don’t win but like this is a bit sketchy with over 70%.
How could we all be so wrong on this? I mean almost everyone was thinking that Ue La La was unbeatable and of course there were some that thought La La Love would be the winner. But Set Me Free?? I admitted that Ue La La’s music video wasn’t living up to the expectation but I thought that this would be an advantage for La La Love, given that Eden Alene said that this was her favourite. I’ll be honest, I don’t think that Set Me Free’s music video was the best nor that as a song per se is… Read more »
“How could we all be so wrong on this?”
Groupthink?
Wrong use of words, I meant the majority of the fans. And I amplified it
Who is we? Wiwibloggs readers who don’t even live in Israel? ?
Wrong use of words as I said
It’s simple, really.
Because you’ve been brainwashed by peer pressure?
“Set Me Free” was absolutely the best entry of the three. It was the only one that didn’t sound like it had been written by a 13-year-old schoolgirl who failed her recently English exams.
Two words only: not surprised. This was the most dynamic of the three options and the public recognized that. Congrats Israel.