Eurovision is first and foremost a song contest. But what’s a song contest without vocals? At both ends of the spectrum, whether you hit a few bum notes or give a dazzlingly perfect vocal performance, people will remember. And Gjon’s Tears performance of “Tout l’univers” certainly falls into the latter camp.
We’re pleased to announce Switzerland’s Gjon’s Tears as the winner of wiwibloggs’ Vision Music Award 2021 for Best Live Vocals.
This is Gjon’s second trophy in the VMA 2021 season after also winning the Best Music Video award.
Our readers selected Gjon’s Tears as their favourite out of seven shortlisted finalists.
Gjon’s Tears wins Best Live Vocals at the Vision Music Awards 2021
We asked our readers to vote for which act they thought delivered the best live vocals at Eurovision 2021. And Gjon’s Tears took home the gold with a staggering 2,139 votes — that’s 33.06% of all votes cast.
The Swiss singer stunned us all with his astonishing high notes in “Tout l’univers”.
Casual viewers and expert juries alike marvelled at Gjon as he belted out ascending and descending melismatic passages. Eventually, he went on to win the jury vote and place sixth with the public, resulting in a third-place finish overall.
As wiwiblogger Pablo wrote in his Wiwi Jury review:
“Sublime. ‘Tout l’univers’ showcases Gjon’s Tears at his best. Possibly the most arresting ballad in the mix, the epic instrumentals hark of Woodkid, one of my all-time favourites in the French music scene, while Gjon makes those high notes sound as effortless as they are crisp, clean and pretty much pitch-perfect. With a tender first half that grows into an explosive cinematic flair, this song exudes class.”
Gjon joins the VMA hall of fame alongside former Best Live Vocals winners including Spain’s Ruth Lorenzo, Poland’s Michal Szpak and the Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence.
The first runner-up in our poll for the Best Live Vocals award was France’s Barbara Pravi. Barbara poured her heart and soul into her grand final performance of “Voilà”, eventually going on to win the Eurovision 2021 silver medal. In our poll, Barbara Pravi received 1,003 votes — that’s 15.5% of all votes cast.
Meanwhile, third place went to Ukraine’s Go_A frontwoman Kateryna Pavlenko. Our readers loved Kateryna’s impeccable white voice singing technique on “SHUM” and gave the Eurovision 2021 fourth alternate a grand total of 974 votes — that’s 15.5% of the total vote.
Poll results: Who should win the Vision Music Award for Best Live Vocals at Eurovision 2021?
- Switzerland: Gjon’s Tears — 33.06% (2,139 votes)
- France: Barbara Pravi — 15.5% (1,003 votes)
- Ukraine: Go_A’s Kateryna Pavlenko — 15.05% (974 votes)
- Italy: Måneskin’s Damiano David — 13.71% (887 votes)
- Malta: Destiny — 11.68% (756 votes)
- Israel: Eden Alene — 7.36% (476 votes)
- North Macedonia: Vasil — 3.65% (236 votes)
Total votes: 6,471
Vision Music Awards
This award is the final of 14 honourifics we launched as part of the Vision Music Awards 2021 (VMAs).
Our 14 categories — from Best Dressed to Best Use of Social Media — identify the contestants who left the biggest impression on Eurovision fans, regardless of whether they won the contest or not.
Check here for more Vision Music Awards news and find out the other winners!
Do you think Gjon’s Tears deserves the Best Live Vocals award? Who else had killer vocals? Sound off in the comments below.
nahh hands down Destiny had the best vocal even if you dont like the song
Honorable mention : Ana Soklic , VICTORIA and Geike Arnaert
Also love these 7 artists on your list 🙂
Very much well done vocals by all nominees. Also like to mention Ana Sockli?, excellent vocals from her as well.
I love how everyone suddenly forgot about Destiny after all that fake hype and bandwagoning of name dropping. Serves Malta right.
what are you on about lol
Ok congrats to him, deserved, but sad to see that Barbara is THE only one of the esc 2021 top 5 act to not get an award here, some specific readers and wiwibloggers will be happy for that, they will recognize themselves.
wasn’t a fan of gjon’s entry at all this year but he is very talented so this is deserved. personally i would’ve given this award to tatanka from the black mamba, his vocal moved me more than anyone else this year. like the song or not, can we all admit that portugal should have been an option here instead of north macedonia??
Tatanka would have even been a deserving winner, I don’t understand how his level of professionalism went so unappreciated.
definitely. one of the best dark horses and biggest growers in eurovision history
maybe because the song is exploitative
as you may know, vocalists arent defined by what they sing it’s about how they sing it
but we would be remiss to ignore the content of their songs. otherwise, we could say that jo by Erik lloshi from fik had great live songs, despite the song being anti abortion.
live singing, not live songs lmao
Damiano good vocals??? Sorry, but NO! There were much better vocalists who did not even qualify!
He has incredible strong vocal
he literally just screams…
Congrats, Gjon! A well deserved award, as much as all of those before. I must say that Vision Awards 2021 had a tough job, but have made some good decisions! Congrats to all the recipients! 🙂
Also, congrats to Barbara, Kateryna, Damiano, Destiny, Eden, and Vasil for much deserving high points in the category. Each of them was amazing on stage!
Loooook, I get how he won the Music Video award (it was captivating) but Eden literally performed the highest note in the history of the contest! I’m gonna play both sides, because Gjon was my 7th overall and the note in the jury final was indescribable but still. Israel 5th is small crime
Vocally, Eden is just as spectacular as Gjon, Barbara, Destiny, and Kateryna. Still, in a field of equally outstanding vocals, I guess that the complexity of the song itself is what made the final line-up. I find Set Me Free to be by far the least compelling song in this field. Still, I do find Eden to be an equally brilliant performer, who definitely elevated it on stage.
Highest note =/= best vocals
Congratulations!
It’s nice Vasil got a mention in 7th!
Well, this is just a travesty. Switzerland was in my bottom five on the night. Couldn’t stand his screeching!
I would say it’s well earned, I have no idea how you could classify his performance as “screeching” but go off king
it was just a french version of arcade. and there’s been better falsetto notes if we want to compare on vocals. Def overrated just to see switzerland do well for once