In the aftermath of Germany’s 25th-place finish at Eurovision 2021, Jendrik told Germany’s Bild that he wasn’t all that surprised. “I suspected two months ago that I would not meet the expectations of others,” he said. “But honestly: My goal was to get to the ESC! And I did that by convincing the German juries with my song. I knew that ‘I Don’t Feel Hate’ was not my best song, I have better songs, but I also knew that the German juries would only select me for the ESC with this song. Bit sneaky, isn’t it?”
His comments suggest that sending one’s best song isn’t a route to getting to Eurovision. That raises some very big questions about Germany’s selection process and indeed its selections more generally. Since 2015, Germany has finished 25th or lower in every edition of the contest except for 2018 — when Michael Schulte bucked the trend and placed fourth.
Germany’s Eurovision team is well-aware that something isn’t working. Speaking to our friends at German-language Eurovision site ESC-Kompakt, Head of Delegation Alexandra Wolfslast praised Jendrik’s song, but suggested it was too divisive to compete.
“Jendrik made a great performance,” she said. “Unfortunately, his song was not as well received in Europe as the songs of other acts. ‘I Don’t Feel Hate’ is definitely a catchy tune, but also a title that polarizes and has a hard time in the mainstream. In any case, I have integrated the phrase ‘I Don’t Feel Hate’ into my vocabulary.”
Germany’s jury system is identical to that of Switzerland’s and indeed was developed by the same management consulting team. It involves a lengthy process with two juries recruited by the broadcaster — one consisting of music professionals, and one consisting of Eurovision viewers thought to have predictive power based on their past tastes. It’s worked extremely well for Switzerland — fourth place in 2019, third place in 2021 — while it’s been less successful for Germany. In those same two editions Germany placed 25th with with S!sters (including zero televote points) and again with Jendrik (again, no points from the public).
We should point out that in 2018 and 2019, Germany used the system to choose finalists for its national selection. In 2020 and 2021, it used the system to choose the artist and song internally (bypassing a national final).
“Any explanation would be pure speculation,” Alexandra says of the faltering selection process. “The fact is that the same procedure obviously works extremely well in Switzerland, but has not earned us a good ranking.”
“I think it is easy to understand why we are now self-critically reviewing the current selection process and considering what we can do differently in the NDR in the future.”
ESC-Kompakt also asked Germany’s Eurovision boss about the now infamous interview Jendrik gave to Barbara Schöneberger after the grand final, which the singer has described as a “drunk interview”. The interview was agreed in advance. But looking back Alexandra says she would have been happy not to have him do it.
“Together with Jendrik, we had already decided in advance to appear before the press together, regardless of the result,” she says. “Given the situation, the fact that a young artist with little experience in the public doesn’t give the perfect press statement after this experience is simply human. Jendrik subsequently apologised several times for his statements via his channels. In retrospect, however, I would have gladly spared him this experience.”
What are you hoping to see from Germany next year? Do you think they need to give up on their current selection process? Or should they stick it out, hoping for another result like in 2018? Let us know in the comments box below!
>Michael Schulte would like to know your location
I think they thought the song is super catchy and people will fall for it. OR the other competing songs were very bland and boring.
I don’t think the process needs change, Switzerland used the same one and they got 2 top 5 results. It really depends on what the juries want to choose and based on what criteria.
Jendrik is cute and fun but not super talented and comes off as annoying. The middle finger costume was cringy.
When they announced the pick, didn’t they say it received the most points in their internal selection process as any song EVER? Something clearly wrong there.
I want Zoe Wees to represent Germany in Eurovision 2022
Possibly because tastes are different.
Jendrik’s entry was my 2d choice to win after Ukraine. The most cheerful song this year, hearing it and watching those backing vocalists dancing was simply making my wig fly to the ninth sky in rapture. A song you can’t help but want to dance to, and a message impossible to disagree with. I voted 6 times for it. It’s also the second best German entry after Elaiza’s Is It Right for me. That hand costume was a little bit over-the-top indeed, but it still had deserved top 10 imo. Needless to say, those 0 points was a huge robbery.… Read more »
is it right and I don’t feel hate are both godawful songs, sorry
When will countries realize that troll entries don’t fare well in the competition?
Also, trying too hard to be funny.
I’ll honestly share my thoughts – during Germany’s act I couldn’t help thinking what Hitler would have thought of this years Germany’s entry. (I hope I will not offend anyone with this comment – I can see how easily it can be misread.)
Hasn’t there been one of those reaction videos, yet?
Still was better than the boring song from 2018 that finished too high.
the entry was not polarizing. polarizing entries get some televote points, this got ZERO, it was flat out horrendous (i think it’s the worst eurovision song of the new millennium).
the problem with germany is that their taste tends to be different from the rest of the world’s, which would explain why there’s no such thing as globally legendary german pop singers. the only german act that became legendary was rammstein… so they should leave their tacky pop taste at home and turn to widely appealing rock.
You’ll agree it was not Piero Esteriore horrendous. I even enjoy some moments of it – but of course far from enough to vote for it.
piero esteriore’s song wasn’t bad for the sake of being bad like jendrick’s, that’s the difference. piero’s attempt was genuinely bad. this one is…bad in a pathetic/sad way.
But what about ‘Leto svet’?
I’ve actually seen “Leto svet” live, and I’d repressed that memory altogether (probably for a good reason).
I could see Das Model winning. In 2021, not 1978.
Ping Pong entered the chat
after Rammstein performed, the venue needs a new stage
This year the selection process completely failed by picking Jendrik.
Last year Ben Dolic would have likely had the same problem as Ireland and the UK this year: a catchy song with the wrong performer/staging.
In 2019 they had the right process in picking the finalists, except S!sters didn’t have to go through that process and were added at the last moment. And that was exactly the problem.
They need to use the same selection process as in 2018, 2019 and 2020 + making sure the singers can perform properly.
UK’s song was better, but the staging was worse. James’ vocals were bad too. But he still should have gotten Jendrik’s 3 jury points.
You nailed it.
My evidence to the review panel: A song that was never going to do well in the contest.
They would not go. Like ever.
Germany is such a strange country in ESC, the placements they get annually are so weird and unexplainable…
One year we see them having two BOPS (2010,2011) continuing with a decent song (2012), a Euphoria ripoff (2013), a song destined for 14th to 20th place (2014), you get the point
The more all-over-the-place country in ESC
In the 2019 selection, there were still some songs that would have done well.
Last year they would have done a decent result too.
So why just scrap the whole process.
They just needed to readjust some parameters.
2019 national final had better songs yes but the problem was the low number of viewers or better the age group watching the show which was older than the age groups watching Eurovision final.
Sisters would have never won the Eurovision audience.
Comedy is one of the hardest things to translate beyond borders, so I can believe that a song seems really good to a German panel because they’d get the specific humour behind it which didn’t translate to a pan European audience.
true words – I’m from Germany and Jendriks song / staging wasn’t funny at all.
I still don’t even have a clue which part of it was supposed to be funny. The middle finger? Well … no. The tap dance? No, not at all. The outro? Nope. The shiny ukulele? Who would deem that to be funny?
It was just the biggest cringe I’ve ever experienced in my life (google ‘Fremdscham’).
Guess people just put it in the comedy category because they thought ‘They Just can’t be serious about that’.
I think it’s pretty clear how much of a fluke 2018 happened to be for Germany. Yes, Violent Thing was a good song, but hearing Ben live I think he wouldn’t have been able to perform and sing it adequately for it to really do the song justice on the Eurovision Stage.
I think what Germany really needs to do, is look for a strong and capable vocalist, and work with that to find out what fits him or her best. Israel did this with Eden Alene and it goes to show that it works!
That’s what they claim they’re already doing. Anyway, after this year’s edition, I’d definitely say the song has to come first. And most ideally, songwriter and singer should be the same person.
It’s not the process, it’s the people. I can’t believe they sat there and chose this troll thinking it would do well. They should have been in UK place with double zero
seriously who were this people? how did 100 people gave this song almost a perfect score… I refuse to believe this .
I can’t understand why Germany doesn’t send a Deutche Harte entry. It’ll do good for a bunch of reasons like:
1). Support of rock entries on ESC last years;
2). Pure authenticity of the genre;
3). The way the language fits the kind of music;
Actually, they could send a cool sex song. Sex is one of the most important genre’s topics and German bands know how to make it feel really vicious and lustful. Just listen to Rammstein or Oomph!
I’m just glad that Jendrik’s year is over for Germany, and now they can move on and do something different. Turn the page.
I will never understand why Ben Dolic wasn’t invited back for 2021. Violent Thing was great.
He dropped out of the selection process. Voluntarily.
Allegedly. After all, it was NDR who stated that. And Ben’s complaint about not being invited to the Grand Final pre-show makes me question that.
@Nils
There is no correlation. And if it has, its more likely a result of his drop out.
NDR could be pissed that Ben does not want to return so they are peeved and dont invite him. Would not agree with that NDR move if thats the case, but it seems realistic to me.
Yep, could have been that way, too.
He recently commented under Wiwi instagram post that it was HIS decision because NDR showed little interest in his participation.
I think if Ben is going to return to esc it will be for Slovenia
Yeah, I’d rather see him representing his own country Slovenia if he ever wants to return.
As much as I love I don’t Feel Hate and adore Jendrik’s sportsmanship, the Bild quote about it not being his best song (which makes sense on hindsight) but him sending it to the selection maybe because the juries were actively looking for something outrageous before something necessarily good … it’s strange. This was allegedly one of his drunken interviews though, so I’ll take it with caution. Maybe it’s just me, but in a way I think NDR is in a right trajectory (in terms of having an original memorable entry albeit for somewhat wrong reasons). 2018 and 2020 also… Read more »
You officially have the best name in the history of wiwibloggs
instead of having internal selection (and that means a backstage selection) with only juries picking the entry, why isn’t the selection brought to the front and made televised, with the German public also voting? yes, that means basically bringing back “Unser Lied”. but the way ‘Unser Lied’s voting (especially in 2018 and 2019) was calculated was not how it should be. I often say, the best voting calculation is from Melodifestival 2011 to 2018.
This is from an article on February 24th: “Head of Entertainment Thomas Schreiber and Head of Delegation Alexandra Wolfslast revealed the strong support the song had among the juries. Herr Schreiber said “I Don’t Feel Hate” won the whole process with the highest average points ever seen in their system: 11.82 out of 12 possible points”. I guess even the biggest fans of “I Don’t Feel Hate” immediately knew it wasn’t a competitive entry, because juries in Eurovision would obviously kill it. If your system gave a song like this almost the perfect score, reviewing the process sounds like a… Read more »
Yeah, it seems like they were trying to capitalize on the popularity of those acts and it backfired big time.
It was a bit sad that Avantasia didn’t receive the right to represent Germany in 2016. It is a powerful band with catchy tunes and deep lyrics, the frontman showed his talent to write songs that could be liked by different public. Actually, I love to listen ‘Mystery of a blood red rose’ here in 2021, just can’t forget this beautiful harmony, the same is about all their songs. I think Germany should be proud to have such magic called Avantasia.
Honestly I’m not sure how well that song would’ve done in 2016. It sounded so much like Meat Loaf, and I feel if you can hear a resemblance to much you get punished for it in the scoring. Nevertheless I also would love to see them trying different genres for the entries. It’s overdue.
between that, levina and sisters, the german public should never be put in charge of choosing their own representative ever again lol
As you know, the problem lies within ARD’s core audience which is more dead than alive. Once they cooperated with a ‘younger’ channel from 2010 to 2012, things worked out fine.
So if they were to do a national final again, they’d at least have to stream it on YouTube. Otherwise, and you’re right about that, they’ll only present us with more Levina’s and S!sters’.
Sorry but apart from the selection procedure or juries, this was a kind of a clowns act. Zero points shouldn’t come as a surprise. I really don’t get why they think this was a better entry than Voilent Thing. The graphics were OK but the thing that bothered me was that Jendrik and his song was far too cheerful. It didn’t feel sincere to me.
too divisive to compete? I think everybody went pretty much united on this one…
Maybe the selection system isn’t bad, it’s just that there wasn’t enough good song to win it in the end. Jendrik’s song was good, but it didn’t make enough big impact to be voted, though juries should hand out points in larger variety in my view, since none of the songs were bad.
Every country gets highs and lows, it’s normal.
The problem with Germany was: they saw that Dadi, The Roop and Little Big were huge favorites last year. They are unconventional, they are out of the box, and authentic. I think that the German delegation tried to replicate this formula with Jendrik, but they failed, because ‘I Don’t Feel Hate’ is way weaker than “On Fire”, “Think About Things” and “Uno”. And here is the main problem with Germany: they follow the rules, they let others inspire the genre of the song. In Eurovision you must be original and innovative, you must create your own rules. Look at Italy: they… Read more »
couldn’t have been said better
IDFH is somewhat entertaining for some people. Embers is just ok. Doesn’t matter what your average score is, just how many jurors put you in top 10. I don’t know a single person who would put UK in their top 10. Germanu got last place in many rankings, but there were people who really enjoyed it too. Its not that surprising
“Germany’s jury system (…) involves a lengthy process with two juries recruited by the broadcaster — one consisting of music professionals, and one consisting of Eurovision viewers thought to have predictive power based on their past tastes.” I think the problem lies with the latter jury. They are not trying to pick a good song (Jendrik also outright said that) but one that would tick the Eurovision boxes (boxes made in a past decade, too). As for their “predictive power”, lol!
yup, if every contest since 2016 has proven anything, it’s that there’s no Eurovision winning formula (sorry love love peace peace). Send a good, authentic song, and you’ll do well.
There were many powerful songs in their national selection. EL DIABLO was a candidate for Germany 2021 (singer would be a German singer OXA) , also one of the most popular artists in Germany Yvonne sent a song , and Ben Dolic sent a song, many professional candidates sent songs and also they received many songs from other countries , so why they picked him ? No hatred here but he is so unexperienced and his song has no potential. Picking him was their own fault they shouldn’t be complaining
Yvonne? How do you actually know as nobody in Germany knows who was in Selection. It must be fake! Don’t spread such rumours, please! (without any ource or evidence).
That rumour about Yvonne Catterfeld has been circulating for a while now. I wasn’t part of the jury, so I can’t confirm it. But I’d say it sounds pretty credible, especially since her music career really stalled in the last few years.
and also because she released asong in English that is 3 min. long – when she otherwise sings in german
Possibly because they are neighbours with Austria who gave the three points Una. Have heard “Embers” on the radio a few times, sounds great, what can I say?!
I love Jendrik but his song isn’t great I mean Germany can send great entries such as last years and 2018 they just need to put in more effort. Their national final airs on a channel where the majority of the viewers are over 60. They need to put it on a different channel where there is a large majority of younger viewers since they’re the ones more likely to vote in Eurovision and the national final. They could also choose artists through.X factor and the voice since this works so well for other countries and maybe try sending someone… Read more »
Chill, in 2020 they would be in top 5.
And yet they have a lot of talented singers. I receive the German music channel Deluxe Music and I am amazed by the quality of their artists. Don’t look for “what can work at Eurovision”, find an artist, with her/his/their own universe and good compositions.
The exact same process works in Switzerland but not in Germany.
Explains perfectly how bizarre Eurovision is. Just as in UK, when the broadcaster picks we’re told no you need to let the public have a say, then when the public vote they say no just get the broadcaster to pick a good song.
I’m still feeling so bad for Jendrik, Jeangu, Blas and James for their 0 points. I really want to hug them and thank them for sharing their music with us. Even if my country won, they deserved more. Much love for them <3
Agreed. This year I just genuinely liked, at least appreciated, most of the songs.
Me too. Especially since I spent my money voting for all 4 of them. So robbed.
These giant, expensive internal selection processes clearly don’t work. Germany has all the components needed to host a successful Melodifestivalen or Sanremo style selection process, so I think that’s the route they should go down.
The selection process needs an International jury too, we have seen from previous German national selections that the German public + jury tend to make the wrong decisions quite often. Maybe that’s because Germany’s voting demographic is slightly older than middle age…
Polarizing means some countries gives you 10 points, some 12,some 4 and others nothing,and that often leads to top 10, top 5 or even win. But when no country gives you points you can’t say it’s polarizing..
Though I don’t think it was worthy of zero points I agree something is broken in Germany. They started the 2010’s really well but hasn’t managed since 2013..
Michael Schulte in 2018 was really good and he did great in the Grand Final. But yeah, it is only one song in 10 years…
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, the fact that Michael Schulte ended up being 5th doesn’t excuse the poor results they’ve been having lately. I even think Violent Thing wouldn’t have done that well in the Grand Final considering how disappointing the song is live.
I agree, Denis. That’s what Italy has been scoring between 1975 and 1997 so I guess their entries were polarising – top marks from some juries and crickets from everyone else.
No Ben Dolic, no Violent Thing = No good result. This entry would have done so well last year. It was phresh and honestly my favorite male uptempo song last year. It was in the same lane as Benjamin Ingrosso‘s song. Germany has to undergo another National Final process under these circumstances. They have so many great singer/songwriters, yet always fall for those half-assed acts who pretend to not take themselves too serious. The only exception were that worked was Michael Schulte and his no-nonsense song. But honestly they have one job to do: Just send Wincent Weiss next year… Read more »
I just wonder how they went from Sister/s to Ben Dolic then Jendrik if it was the same selection process? Or did they just get lucky with Ben?
Have you actually seen him performing Violent Thing? Ben Dolic was not capable of delivering the song live. It would not have gone too well at Eurovision, maybe 21st or 22nd…
He would have had weeks or months of rehearsals with better staging than what you saw.
exactly people are forgetting that he had a lot of time to prepare… I doubt any song would look “good” on that stage..
Send Rammstein next year and everything will be ok.
This year Germany hardly had any selection process! 🙂
I think that the 2019 selection was perfectly fine as is, but the chosen song on the other hand was the main issue. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s look at some of the other songs which were fan favorites an contendors to represent germany: Lilly Among Clouds”Surprise” – This was something new and interesting, would have been great to see this entry in Tel Aviv. Easy top 15. Makeda “The Day I Loved You Most” – This was EASY jury bait, would have made the top 10 with jury and top 20 with televoters. Very emotional and… Read more »
wear your love was boring and formulatic AF
But was it really worse than S!STERS?
It was a bad song but was such a guilty pleasure that people would’ve shamelessly voted for it.
Oh, Surprise… such a missed opportunity
Honestly the 2019 national final was good…except for the winning song. Returning to it and just having a rigorous process for selecting the songs that make it to the national final would be a step in the right direction.
Or just abandon any attempt to win the jury vote and send Helene Fischer with a schlager bop.
1) thats not polarising at all. what was polarising?? entries like Toy or Lovewave. both rlly appreciated (even with juries despite them being songs friendlier to televotes!) or totally ignored! (there were countries who gave 0 in both juries and televoters to them). getting a 0 from everyone isnt polarising. its a mutual agreement that this song is barely listenable and plainly terrible 2) the system works perfectly as Switzerland has demonstrated three times in a row (considering Repondez Moi was also a big favorite). the only thing wrong with it is that Germany simply doesn’t care anymore about Eurovision.… Read more »
2) They were probably hoping for “Guildo Hat Euch Lieb” or “Whadda Hadda Dooda Da” # 2. But that was over 20 years ago.
Also, they were a lot better than ‘I don’t feel Hate’.
Everyone feel free to downvote this, but history already proved me right on this one.
Both penned by Stefan Raab who is an absolute mastermind for quality „joke“ entries.
Also he was responsible for Max Mutzke (8th in 2004) Lena and Roman Lob (three Top 10‘s in a row) before he decided to retire from television and everything.
Currently, Germany is just unable to recreate the success of Raab with the exception of Michael Schulte. And finishing in bottom 2 five times in the last six editions shows it.
Well Germany ended 11th to 17th place a lot in televote rankings across the countries which means he got millions of televotes. Maybe even more than moldova who tanked at 25th in most countries so I think you can call it polarizing despite ending with zero points since it wasn’t capable of finishing 10th anywhere.
Michael proves that NDR know what they’re doing. It was a great song with good staging and sung well. Even with Ben last year they seemed to have a decent chance of doing well (Lena and Roman also weren’t that long ago)
So it’s not really a case of thinking of a new strategy to do well, but more why have we stopped doing what we did before?
Polarising was Italy’s entry. Polarising was Finland’s 2006 entry. Polarising was Ukraine’s 2016 entry etc etc. This is not exactly polarising. Jendrik looked annoying, out of breath and his accent was too thick. besides, that finger outfit was cringy as f. Let’s just agree that the German team failed to select the best song and instead they tried to predict that this will do well with televoters, albeit not the best song. I struggle to believe the German selection had no better songs… The same internal process gave us the 2020 entry which was very good by the way. By… Read more »
well my family and i were laughing our asses off during that whole performance, so they did something right. jendrik’s charisma and the middlefinger SAVED that horrid song, he was one of my three votes (mostly out of swiftie solidarity and his hurricane edits but still)
They should give the alcohol to the viewers instead!