No calm after the Hurricane: Serbia is already thinking about Eurovision 2022. RTS director of Entertainment, Olivera Kovacevic, has suggested that the national final Beovizija will return next year.
Apparently the country will bring back its traditional selection for 2022, and preparations have already started. Kovacevic broke the news of their plans on a Serbian TV show earlier this week. An official announcement is expected in June.
Beovizija took a year off in 2021 after the 2020 winners, Hurricane, were internally selected to return to Eurovision following its cancellation. Traditionally, Serbia’s national selection has gathered up to 20 artists and is known for a wide range of Balkan ballads and ethno-bangers.
According to Ms. Kovacevic, the finals of Beovizija 2022 are expected to take place in February. Whether there will be semi-finals or not is still unknown.
Beovizija: A key to Serbia’s success?
RTS first hosted Beovizija in 2003, when Serbia still formed a federation with Montenegro. While it was used as a semi-final in 2004 and 2005, it wasn’t until 2007 when the winner of Beovizija entered Eurovision.
Marija Serifovic won Beovizija in early 2007 and would go on to give Serbia their only Eurovision win so far. The following year was also a success, with Jelena Tomasevic coming 6th on home soil.
Beovizija has brought Serbia mixed results since then. They missed the final in 2009, which led to a re-work of the selection process. In 2010, 2011 and 2015, mini-shows with a few songs were held, while in 2012 Zeljko Joksimovic was internally selected. In 2013 a contest named “Beosong” led to the selection of Moje 3. RTS went internal in 2016 and 2017.
Ever since the return of Beovizija, Serbia has managed to qualify for the final. However, the results were not stellar: Sanja Ilic and Balkanika ended 19th while Nevena Bozovic came 18th. Hurricane did slightly better, coming 15th, although the song was internally selected.
Are you excited for Beovizija returning? How much did you like Serbia’s national selection? Should they go internal again? Let us know down below!
I would like to see Emina Jahovic for Serbia in 2022
Nina 2011 nije nazalost imala nikakvu podrsku medija a moze se reci i dijaspore, da nije bilo zirija koji je prepoznao kvallitet ne bi usli u finale. Da je imala podrsku medija kao npr Uraganke, Balkanika… bila u verovatno u TOP 7 u finalu. Slicno ko Nina je prosla i Tijana Bogicevic, da je imala vecu podrsku dijaspore verovatno bi usli u finale tj zapadni ziriji su je visoko bodovali i imala je vise poena od zirija kao i Nina. Te dve pesme su bile previse zapadnjacke za nase gradjane. Marko Kon je 2009 imao porsku dijaspore ali ne i… Read more »
I’m not optimistic at all. RTS uses Beovizija to push their artists (they have a record label) and as a tool to reanimate careers of forgotten stars (term star used loosely) even if their songs are horrible and ill received. They are willing to sacrifice the quality in favor of pushing their agenda, even trying the same disaster multiple times (Lana i Aldo). They are completely out of touch with reality. Serbia’s initial success was based on originality. Lane moje brought a new and exotic sound. It wasn’t just new at Eurovision – contrary to popular belief it was written… Read more »
If it were up to me, I’d try to get Lena Kovacevic or Emina Jahovic on board. Maybe even Jelena Tomasevic or Aleksandra Radovic but in that case I would go looking for songs as well because I wouldn’t trust them to come with something great on their own.
Emina has really poor vocals so I hope she doesn’t participate at the national final again.
Apart from that, after seeing the fallout with Manizha, I have to wonder if ultra nationalist Serbs would throw a fit over a Bosniak representing them at ESC.
Emina Jahovic was born in Serbia and currently lives in Belgrade, so she is technically a Serb (or at least a Serbian resident – not sure about the wording they use.) Her songs seem to be popular among the Serbian audience so I don’t see any issue with it. Even if Edita Aradinovic (who’s of Albanian origin) was to represent Serbia, I’d confidently say she’d receive massive support. It’s not that Balkan nations are still trapped in the 90s. On the other hand, since Russia still has problems in the regions populated with Muslims, there’s certainly a degree of hatred… Read more »
Emina is definitely a Serbian citizen and I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. But her ethnicity (as in heritage) is Bosniak. I’m glad that ethnic tensions appear to be low in Serbia though.
However, I think even if most people were fine with her representing Serbia in Italy, that a few ultra nationalists would form a small but vocal minority, like what happened in Russia.
I guess that’s become “natural.” There are many people who discriminated Bojana Stamenov in 2015 and now Hurricane for their looks, so there would probably be an insignificant fraction of people that dislikes Emina for her ethnicity.
I agree with what you said! I can recommend you Brut and his label Parabellum, especially the songs with Nina Todorovic and Iva, most of the songs are written by Brut who is very talented.
I do wish you a lot of success and maybe apply nonetheless, maybe you can change something. 🙂 Or maybe for Montenegro if they return lol. Good luck.
Thanks! Maybe I’ll reconsider it in a few years. And thanks for the recommendations.
this! i like, infamously despise our music scene of the last decade, but parabellum really caught me of guard. first arena, then the rest of their discography
Today the Maneskin are the third most listened to artists in the world and have beaten the likes of Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Pink, Coldplay and Bruno Mars. Better than Damiano, Victoria, Ethan and Thomas only BTS and Olivia Rodrigo, current queen of all charts with her debut album. 10 hours ago. historic result for Eurovision
ok but this post is not about maneskin
Today the Maneskin are the third most listened to artists in the world and have beaten the likes of Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Pink, Coldplay and Bruno Mars. Better than Damiano, Victoria, Ethan and Thomas only BTS and Olivia Rodrigo, current queen of all charts with her debut album. 10 hours ago
Even in a year with a ton of internal selections, there were still a lot of enjoyable NFs this year, from the evergreens like Melfest and Eesti Laul to nice new surprises like France and Russia’s selections. If just about every country with an established national selection is bringing it back, more or less (Romania’s in an interesting spot – I wonder if they’ll go completely internal or do what they did for Roxen initially, ‘cuz they seem reluctant to go back to a full-on Selectia Nationala; Poland, Georgia, and Israel I also have a hard time guessing what their… Read more »
Most hyped for UMK from the outset, since theirs was a really excellent NF that turned out Finland’s best result since Lordi. The Finns have a lot to be proud of this year and I hope the lineup is also great next year.
Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland are keeping on with the internal selections. Some countries here, it’s honestly anyone’s guess what their plan is. I know which countries SHOULD be re-evaluating their selections (*cough* United Kingdom *cough*), but weirdly enough, for how notoriously 50-50 the outcomes of NFs can be, they all proved to be reliably good this year and most of them led to strong results (including our top two).
The only songs that competed this year from NFs that didn’t qualify were Croatia, Denmark, and Estonia, and at least the first two still came very close to doing so (Eesti Laul was actually really good, but we all knew who was going to win and it wasn’t the best song). Both bottom-placed songs in each semi AND every single song that got nil points from the televote were internally selected.
Greece will hold a national selection? That would be so cool considering all the talents who seems to be keen. I think Spain should do so, I’m sure it would work well for them, providing a strong involvement in the songs preselection. Among this year’s NF, Albania and Italy were the two I enjoyed the most. In 2020, that was Lithuania and Sweden. All in terms of songs quality. I really enjoyed discovering incredible artists that doesn’t necessary go through the ultimate goal. Elvana Gjata, Erika Vikman, Monique, Carolina Deslandes, Madame, Jaagup Tuisk are a few of them among others… Read more »
I doubt they need to change a functioning formula. Ever since they returned to a national final format Serbia hasn’t missed the final since. Sanja Ilic & Balkanika in 2018, Nevena in 2019 and now Hurricane have all been impressive. Looking forward to what Serbia will give us in 2022!
If I could make a wish, I’d have Zeljko Joksimovic return. Also, Milan Stankovic and Nina were awesome as well.
Unpopular opinion: Zeljko Joksimovic’s compositions for Eurovision all sound the same and therefore are really ingenuine.. While I love Lane moje and Lejla, I just can’t look past the predictability
Oh, Milan’s staging was my greatest disappointment of the 2010s xD If they kept the same staging from the national final, he would have achieved a better score
I don’t know his NF performance, but that Grand Final performance was kind of bizarre, since he looked more like k-pop than most k-pop singers do. 😀
Yet most importantly, he perfectly delivered those joyful energetic Balkan brass vibes of his song. I really had a blast watching him perform and singing along.
In this case, I don’t even bother that much. They’re all good in their own ways and during his days, there was no such thing as a Balkan ballad overload.
But yeah, you’re right, they indeed sound pretty much alike. Still that’s primarily because they stuck with the traditional formula, I guess.
Yes, Zeljko is talented without a doubt!
Yes , but Zeljko without a ballad. He sings so many pop and rock song and is good at them that it would be fun to see a diverse side of him
Why is it called Beovisija? Is it because of Beograd? Isn’t that disrespectful to other Serbian cities?
Hello San Remo xD
Because first one was just music competition with artists from all over ex-yugoslavia, not a national finale for Eurovison.
Why the downvotes, I just asked a question? I’m not even Serbian, I don’t care at all what they call it. I just would’ve expected Serbiavision or something else neutral and wondered if people in other Serbian cities won’t be mad.
I don’t feel like Sanremo is the same thing, it’s the name of a festival and predates Eurovision; while for Beovisija it specifically says “national selection”. The other national selections I’ve seen, that are not festivals, don’t have city names.
It is held in Belgrade, so why not to call it Beovisia? Why would anyone be mad, it is just name of music competition, its not like people from different cities cant compete.
It’s actually a good question. Idk why they downvoted you XD. It’s a leftower from Serbia and Montenegro when it wasn’t the top competition deciding who goes to Eurovision. Named after Belgrade. Top Serbian representatives would be chosen on Beovizija while Montenegrin would be chosen on Montevizija and then the finale was called Evropjesma in which the actual contender to be sent to eurovision was chosen. That’s the short of it. There’s an “interesting” longer story behind it all regarding separation of Montenegro and Serbia. See there was a major problem with this system stemming from the fact that at… Read more »
OFF TOPIC:
Interesting article in today’s Times Of Malta.
Thought I’d share.
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/betting-on-destiny-investigation-malta-eurovision-spending.874678.amp
Explains a lot regarding the attitude of many commenters on here in the run up to ESC who have all gone mysteriously silent too.
Well, 1.) Destiny =/= the Maltese delegation and 2.) That just shows the Maltese has no confidence their songs will do well on its own. Which is bad.
Between TVM’s conduct and Muscat’s links to Caruana-Galizia’s murder I’m starting to think Malta is a sunny place to do shady business.
Destiny deserves so much better than this.
Oh YES! I mentioned that in another comment a few days ago
It’s beyond me why they felt the urge to do that. Back in the day, Chiara scored fantastic results without such efforts.
Would the EBU have to be involved? If I’m doing is confirmed, would Malta be punished?
I’m not surprised and it was like this back in 2019 too.
I hope they won’t send Mello reject again and get the focus on the local talent.
Destiny is great and I really feel so bad for her being manipulated by the Maltese broadcaster and delegation like that. But is anyone really surprised? I’m not, it was so obvious there was a dark and calculated side to it. We couldn’t say anything about the Maltese entry this year without some bot calling us a “hater” (really hate that word). JMC was being smashed into our faces while being one of the most generic entries of the year. It was so obvious that it was being manipulated in the odds. Of course we where being attacked for disliking… Read more »
Exactly Una! I totally get that everyone who participates want to win, but it’s like Malta had the rule book of “How to Win ESC” and where throwing a lot of money (public money) at it. Had to be Swedish Had to be choreographed by SJB Had to be top of the odds Etc A tiny country like Malta should be encouraging their own songwriters, producers, singers, choreo, designers etc. I’m sure they are crying out for an opportunity to showcase their work on the world stage, especially when something like Eurovision is their best opportunity for public explosive coming… Read more »
I also wonder why Wiwibloggs haven’t discussed the issue.
I wonder is it because they where one of the “overseas blogs” paid to promote Malta?
We all know they loved her a lot on this site.
Robyn commented on it today, saying he wasn’t sure whether or not to write about it as he felt that Ludwig’s findings were a bit picky.
Ah well there we go then. Wonder if the Times of Malta is being too picky too?
Maltese broadcaster showed the demo of the song to Wiwibloggs Wiwibloggs reacted to it.Search on youtube We previeuw Destiny esc 2021 song.so yes you are right Malta paid Wiwibloggs to promote Malta.
Completely agree re Ireland lol
Balkan countries rarely disappoint me at Eurovision, and Serbia is one of the more consistent. Can’t wait!
PS: This is the approach the UK should have. 0 points on May 22, 2021? Start May 23rd working on Italy 2022.
if there’s one thing i know, it’s that beovizija will always serve great music, flavor and entertainment. can’t wait to watch next year !
Fun fact: 2017 was the first (and only) time in which Serbia NQ’d with an internally selected artist and song (Tijana Bogicevic I think)
I really love Beovizija and I think it’s a really underrated national selection, people should follow different NF’s than Melodifestivalen, Sanremo, MGP and Destination Eurovision imo (all of these 4 are amazing)
i’ll never understand what rts was trying to do with “in too deep”, that song could be from anywhere. serbia is one of the last places that should be sending flavorless cookie cutter pop songs, with the amazing language and musical heritage they have it’s just pointless.
Well, after YEARS of traditional and ethnic sounds, they took a one-year break and then came back with three generic bangers just to see how it goes…
That year, the song was the biggest problem not Tijana Bogicevic herself… She should have done better with a ballad, because ballads suit her pretty well.
Beovizija is not one of my favorite national selections, however I loved their winners in 2018 and 2019, they are both in my top 10 of those years, so I hope Serbia will keep this national final the next years, only expect quality entries for them.
As a Serb, I’d like to mention some issues with Beovizija. The most recent edition saw the highest number of submissions. If I remember correctly, the jury, that then selects the competing songs, doesn’t know who the artist is, which makes me think the songs are demos and sung by someone else. If not, then the jury seems to be biased a lot of times, sometimes probably influenced by the organisers (RTS) to choose some high profile names in order to bring in the audience. Which actually brought some really bad songs. The whole thing doesn’t appear as transparent as… Read more »
do you know who would be interesting to see in ESC considering the recent development of the contest? Someone from Parabellum like Nina Todorovic. I that would be very cool and unusual
Angellina, Tam, Zoi, META, Bu? Kesidi, Sara Jo
Yes, they would all be great candidates
I love them all, but let’s be real, all of them aren’t considered great live vocalists, especially Sara Jo. She can sing, but her vocals aren’t as energetic or powerful compared to Hurricane. Hurricane has a great mix, I was surprised when I saw Sanja part of the group when they introduced themselves to the serbian scene. And I don’t really see anyone delivering the same package as the three (please don’t say Jelena Karleuša, I would love to see her finally go and fail and shut up with the critique). We really need to consider everything and send a… Read more »
Yes. It feels as if Jelena Karleusa is overrated. Her vocals aren’t pleasant for everyone’s ears, so she’d do poorly with the juries.
On the other hand, Sara Jo is only able to do the whistle note properly, but besides that, she’s quite average.
again i should say, if they have enough determination, please do it as if you hosted Eurovision. slick production, big venue (only Stark Arena for Serbia is eligible), 50-50 voting.
“their only win so far” .. c’mon now Luis, as if it was easy to win Eurovision. Serbia is a great contender and got very good results so far taking in consideration they “short” run so far. . hope they keep sending quality songs, and continue sending songs in Serbian, this adds a lot to the competition.
Angellina confirmed that she will go to beovizija! (via twitter)
she produces great, modern tracks.
ANGELLINA – DAH PO DAH (OFFICIAL VIDEO) – YouTube
https://youtu.be/HY_uAwszevE
Hopefully Beovizija 2022 will bring some dance bangers like Hurricane’s “Hasta la Vista” and “Loco Loco”! However, I’m not sure if famous artists will dare to apply to Beovizija as many of them want to be internally selected.
Not sure dance bangers will work again after this year. They have to be very very unique.
We’ll have to see … as for the last few years, the only common demonimator was that there never was an obvious recipe for winning. Just remember Salvador handing the trophy to Netta. I sincerely hope it won’t, but maybe next year will be a big year for ‘fast food music’ ‘Fuego’s. Who knows?
What about something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSL3C8w2zy8
It’s a banger but also pretty chill
I’d prefer something more original and experimental like Nova Deca
and that did terribly. europe is over that sound, it seems
At least it barely qualified, but yes it’s completely outdated.
It was innovative, mixing traditional sound and electronic music, something never seen before in ESC and people all over Europe appreciated enough (it was 12th with the public). Hurricane on the other hand were good performers, but the song? Something every coyntry could bring and very dated sound. Look at Italy and France this year, they were true to themselves and got top 2. Don’t be afraid to be considered “dated”, just show your musical culture to Europe and you’ll be rewarded.
Well, Hurricane were even less liked, they just had a better score for Balkan votes, sincr they are successful there. Not knowed artists with better pop songs than Hurricane got terrible results (such as Eden or Elena), so that would definitely not be the sound Europe is searching for.
Off topic but congrats wiwibloggs on 2,3 million views and currently trending #14 in Greece with the Maneskin wiwijam performance. You are also part of the cultural reset we are experiencing
It is also trending in Romania, in top 40!
the wiwijam is performance is the 4th video trending in Slovenia! maneskin really did sth here..
It’s also trending in Belgium!
Also in Israel
In the Netherlands it’s in the top 20 as well!
It was trending in Italy too last couple of days; and so did their video of their reaction to the results and the reaction of the Italian press they filmed.
13th in serbia!
would love smth similar to “nova deca” from serbia even though i think there is gonna be a slight preference to smth popish considering the fact Hurricane finished 9th at public votes.
I don’t really think that the selection process is important – it’s always about the song. If they have a good song and they want to select it internally, that’s fine. If they have many good songs to choose from and decide to go for a national final – that’s also fine. The advantage of national finals is the fact that they are more exciting and give us Eurofans something to watch. It’s also a great chance to get to know even more local artists, even if they eventually fail to win the selection. Btw, is it just me or… Read more »
but if I could choose between “good song internally” and “good song from a televised national selection”, I would of course choose the second option.
I’d say that national finals are always the method to prefer, as long as there are good entries to choose from. It might not make a difference for the international audience if a good song was selected internally, but national finals always make the people feel more connected with ‘their’ entry and trigger more interest in Eurovision.
Can’t wait for an ethnic Serbian song with local instruments, the contest needs it imo
Serbia needs to send such because the y allways had good results when they sent
The Zeljko style ex Yugoslav Balkan ballad is tried and tested. They never fail to be beautiful, can’t see them winning (Lejla would’ve for Bosnia if we had juries in 2006) but they do well. Just classy.
I think that Eurovision needs a leija,molitva, lane moje song again
I’m really missing those Balkan ballads. I rarely listen to such music outside the ESC. But at the contest, I feel like they are an essential part of the magic and a main ingredient of what makes Eurovision so wonderful in the first place.
As a Serb I say BIG NO to ethnic songs we’ve sent back in 2000s… Because they are now completely outdated and they won’t do that well like back in the 2000s… Just look at the 2018 entry, it barely qualified and ended up 19th.
@1998 You should be proud of the result in 2018. 🙂 The competition was at a really high level then and Balkanika advance to the final was a great success for Serbia.