It’s been less than 48 hours since the Netherlands announced they would hold another open internal selection to choose their at for Malmö, but one news item keeps coming after another. One of the hottest of them definitely is the news that Douwe Bob is seeking a Eurovision return in 2024.
Douwe Bob to enter Eurovision 2024 selection
The Eurovision 2016 alum spoke about his willingness to return to the contest back in May. And now he seems to be putting his plan in motion. Douwe’s manager told Shownieuws that the “Slow Down” singer will likely apply to the selection:
“Douwe Bob would like to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest another time. Although there hasn’t been an exact track selected, we do expect that we will apply.”
Ever since the last edition in Sweden, Douwe Bob’s career has seen personal highs and lows as well as the release of several successful albums. Mostly known in the Netherlands nowadays as an unexpected father of three, Douwe could be plotting a comeback by participating in the Eurovision selection.
Douwe Bob is not the only notable name intent on participating in the internal final. Earlier, rappers Bizzey and Kraantje Pappie announced that they want to enter the selection as a duo, while YouTube group De Bankzitters stated their interest too to send a bid to AVROTROS.
Music industry had no interest in a national final
The choice for another internal selection came to the surprise of a few, who thought that the Netherlands would perhaps return to a national final similar to Eurosong in Belgium or other formats in surrounding countries.
AVROTROS instead announced a more transparent format of internally selecting an entry, which could include a live performance on location in front of the selection committee. It has also been revealed that selection committee will include two extra members outside of AVROTROS.
The brand new Dutch Head of Delegation, Twan van de Nieuwenhuijzen, explained to news agency ANP that there was not a lot of interest in holding a national final in the Dutch music industry. He added:
“Of course, the Netherlands didn’t have the best year the past year. (…) But I honestly want to say: the past ten years went quite well. In eight out of ten editions, a place in the final with some high rankings and of course the victory in 2019. I think it’s bit like: ‘if your bike loses its chain, you don’t throw it away immediately either’.”
What do you think about Douwe Bob potentially returning for Eurovision 2024? Who do you want to see send in a bid to represent the Netherlands in Malmö? Let us know in the comments down below!
Douwe is a great country artist, but I doubt he could bring a winning song. Nothing in his musical catalog is particularly exceptional, he’s not even popular anymore.
There are many insanely talented, unique and cool acts in the Netherlands. They deserve the spotlight. The Netherlands were heading in the right direction with S10, a young contemporary artist with a huge following, they took a huge step back with Mia & Dion.
Why is he described as an ‘unexpected’ father of three?
He had made 3 different woman pregnant at the exact same time.
That’s like the most annoying type of men to me, not because he has 3 different women pregnant at the exact same time, but because he seeks attention for it. Reminds me of one guy on Twitter for making whole his Twitter account about how he’s having a sex with the whole city. Guy, no one gives a f and if you think it makes you some alpha man or cool you’re in delusion.
Yeah he definitely has some narcissist traits.
The Dutch media loved it, they were the ones who gave it a lot of attention and a lot of people are still making jokes about it.
hahaha what a stud
Be careful, you might be next on his list…..
Rico!
They were all born in a very short period of time, one is of his current girlfriend, one of his ex girlfriend, and one is of an in between girlfriend
Try another contest, too boring. Good luck though.
I seriously believe the one doesn’t rule out the other. AVROTROS can perfectly well organize a national final made up out of 5-8 songs that have pre-selected by the internal committee. No big names? Well, big WHOP! As long as the songs are of good quality and diverse. (I am old, so I am referring to the Dutch National Final of 1998; that year a very diverse field of participants, with many lesser known names, but good to high quality songs. These all were pre-selected and it brought us Edsilia reaching 4th place in Eurovision). Not enough quality to get… Read more »
who cares about dumb Netherlands
i love Ireland more, they have to win and especially on plastic sweden soil, a nice in your botox face moment towards talentless faker Loreen
Cian Ducrot for Ireland and i personally wanna fund his staging for a winning magic moment a la Arcade
Dumb Netherlands? explain yourself
Uhhm no! Can we move on from the “country” songs from the Netherlands and leave it in 2010s.
Send something in dutch, although S10 finished 11th but that was their best effort since Duncan.
I think that our delegation should ignore whoever’s names come up and choose the entry on sonical prowess alone. A good singer can come with a bad song, a good song can come with an inept singer. It’s the duty of our broadcaster to find a mix where it takes both sides at its strongest
Yes! I love him! So under-appreciated! I also think Kris-Kris Amsterdam would be another good choice!
Sander and Jordy were awesome ”traitors” in that same titled reality game show here <3
fun fact, they are nephews of Mr Playbackshow ”Henny Huisman”
Dan moet er minimaal een dijk van een zangeres bij want KK A’dam is wel heel erg autotuned
Veel te veel autotune, en alle succesvolle hits zijn covers, dan moet er sowieso een dijk van een zangeres bij en dan nog…
pls not Douwe again, there are loads better singer-songwriters than this snooze, like JW Roy or Mercy John, both of whom could’ve performed ”slow down” better as well (with more lyrics too)
Not a chance. His music is missing the WOW factor needed to succeed in ESC.
Not all songs need a WOW factor. I mean I understand that the idea is to win the contest but I prefer a great serious song than something that catches the attention but akin to a circus. The song that Douwe Bob had in 2016 wasn’t my cup of tea but the live version was great and I think a 11th place is a pretty good result.
This being said, I’d prefer someone new. 2-3 years ago I would have love to see Davina Michelle but I’m not really convinced by what she sang recently.
Agreed
Haar covers super, maar haar eigen liedjes zijn denk ik te mager.
We don’t need Netherlands to win anyway
They won in 2019, which still is quite recent.
After a NQ last year, for now qualifying is the most important
He has a good number of songs that are actually a lot better than slow down. He could do well if he tries a bit harder this time, which I don’t think would be that difficult for him?
What did that selection committee base their decision this year, since I got the impression from all these articles after they were selected that the whole song wasn’t even done yet?
Were they just played a small demo, telling who’d be the writers of the song and slap Mia & Dion as the performers and then the selection committee just went with luck “what comes, comes”?
It feels like that. I hope they make a more well considered decision this time around. We could have the same amount of love for eurovision that finland has at the moment if avrotros handles the eurovision brand well enough. There are so many dutch artists who have shown interest in representing our country. Goldband, armin van buuren, zoe tauran, joost klein etc.
who is Joost Klein????
Je bent waarschijnlijk over de dertig, een zanger mega populair bij tieners en iets ouder
All his lovers and children could join him. Oh hang on, only 6 persons are allowed on stage.
I agree with the HoD. It’s not because it failed once that the system is broken. They sent some great songs in the past 10 years (even in 2021, the song just wasn’t appealing for the votes but it certainly was quality). I encourage The Netherlands to continue this way. The only think I would say is try to send something up tempo, something that makes people want to dance.
I always like national final more because the winner is selected by people too and not just couple of individuals in some room. And if they opened the submissions anyway and they will obviously be getting lots of them, how they can say that there is no interest in music industry?
From an artists/labels perspective, a ‘behind closed doors’ internal selection process is very different from a live TV performance to hundreds of thousands or millions of people.
there was not a lot of interest in holding a national final in the Dutch music industry. Can you elaborate on that? Did he really say that? How did they receive this feedback? They did not ask anyone in the industry and the public was very interested. I think only big/well known names would not want a NF, the rest of the singers (young and new like Duncan Laurence in 2019 and the dude in 2021) would definitely participate as a NF is a good exposure for artists to promote their music. Anyway, I trust that they learnt their lessons… Read more »
The established artists probably won’t be up for competing in a national completion like that, so you’d only get new and unexperienced artists that try to get airtime. Which was like all those years that NL didn’t qualify for the final remember??
Since Anouk, the Dutch artists are finally taking Eurovision more seriously (apart from Trijntje with her crap performance). More likely that big artist submit a song to a commitee then go through a TV competition with the risk of failure.
Whatever happens, let’s just hope they choose carefully this time instead of based on which song has the biggest name attached to it