Armenia last competed in Eurovision back in 2019 and little has been heard from them so far this season. However Armenian media is now reporting that upcoming singer-songwriter Rosa Linn will represent her country at Eurovision 2022.
Armenian news site Hraparak reports that Rosa Linn has been internally selected by broadcaster AMPTV. No further details of the Rosa Linn’s song for Turin are known, but the newspaper says that confirmation of Rosa Linn and her song will be revealed next month.
Who is Armenian singer Rosa Linn?
Otherwise known as Roza Kostandyan, upcoming singer-song Rosa Linn already has a Eurovision connection. She has been part of Nvak, Tamar Kaprelian‘s programme for young musical artists.
Rosa Linn is highly involved in her music. As well as singing and writing her songs, Rosa Linn is also involved with production. Last year FLAUNT magazine described her as Armenia’s “first woman music producer”.
Her official biography notes that while Rosa Linn was raised in a country that has seen plenty of conflict over the years, Rosa Linn has been left with “a predisposition for love in all its forms.” She believes that “it is her duty and purpose to spread as much love as she can.”
Rosa Linn released her debut single “KING” in September last year. The cool alternative R&B song was a collaboration with Rosa Lin and the American electro-pop artist KIIARA. “KING” features bilingual lyrics, with Rosa Linn effortlessly mashing up Russian and English — sometimes in the same sentence.
The music video has picked up over 240,000 views on YouTube, while on Spotify it’s enjoying over 480,000 listens.
Rosa Linn’s debut single “KING” featuring KIIARA
Armenia’s return to Eurovision
Armenia last competed at Eurovision 2019, when the internally selected singer Srbuk performed “Walking Out”.
The following year, broadcaster ARMTV brought back national final Depi Evratesil. It was won by the Armenian-Greek singer Athena Manoukian, who was due to go to Eurovision 2020 with her song “Chains On You”. However, due to the contest being cancelled because of the pandemic, Athena did not realise her Eurovision dream.
Last year, after initially confirming for Eurovision 2021, broadcaster AMPTV later withdrew. The broadcaster explained their withdrawal as “considering the latest events, the shortness of production time as well as other objective reasons that make the proper participation of Armenia at ESC 2021 impossible.”
Armenia also withdrew from Junior Eurovision 2020. However, after returning to Junior Eurovision 2021, the country took home their second Junior Eurovision victory, with Maléna’s song “Qami Qami”.
What do you think? Would you like to see Rosa Linn represent Armenia in Turin? What kind of song should she perform? Tell us your thoughts below!
I assumed Athena was going to be the chosen one for Armenia. Back in 2020 she had such a bop and it’s such a shame she didn’t have the chance to get to the stage. Regarding Rosa, this is the first time I hear from her but this review of her does excite me, she sounds like a winner (or at least a top placement) and she must’ve sent something great for her to be chosen over Athena and Saro. Armenia has been silent for too long, but I understand, their situation is still pretty delicate, I hope the best… Read more »
Rosa Linn must have submitted something really really good for AMPTV to overlook Athena and Saro both of whom had submitted entries, the latter produced by Kirkorov. I know Roisa Linn is also signed to a major label and works with NVAK on top of that so fingers crossed. I feel like she might have something like Belgium 2007 (City Lights) up her sleeves…
This is sure now tbh since the same site has reported last year that Malena is representing Armenia in Jesc2021 before she was officially confirmed
I also really hope that Athena will get her chance for Armenia later this decade, she really deserves to go!
I know it’s unfair to make any comments on Rosa Linn since she only has one song.
… but I’m not excited.
I’m so tired of reading about Athena… She’s not that great.
I personally didn’t like her 2020 song at all, but I love her as a person and she’s got charisma. I did not like Hasta La Vista, but I wanted Hurricane back anyway because of energy, and then they came back with quite better song than Hasta La Vista.
I think a lot of people forget how bad her song was until it got a pretty good revamp too.
i love athena but if rosa linn’s entry is anything like king it’ll be a banger
Whatever happened to Athena Manoukian and Gaho?!?!?! I wanted either one of them to represent Armenia in Turin T___T
Tbh Athena was never good, it was all about her looks and stage presence. She has that main pop girl appearance but eveything she has released since Chains On You has been mediocre and amateurish (COY itself sounded like a demo until the revamp), her songwriting skills are just so poor, she probably doesn’t have the budget to get better songwriters. On the other hand I hope they give this Rosa girl a chance, she seem to be inspired by the genree of music that’s trendy rn
I love Athena, who writes her own songs, but I agree that her output since Chains On You has tailed off – OMG was musically lazy (2 dancehall sung verses and a repetitive chorus, with no middle 8 or break section, and a lot more accent than her prior 3 songs) despite its meta themes and You Should Know would have struggled in ESC – she relies on a compact team by-and-large. She also hasn’t done a public performance, beyond the wiwibloggs one and busking in the OMG video shoot, since September 2020, and that was for a holiday spa.… Read more »
That’s why they should have given her the chance, Eurovision would have been great promotion for her and AMPTV could finance finding a good song. I mean she won the ticket that she never actually used…
My biggest disappointment is that Athena was one of the few 2020 acts that had no method of promoting her work outside ESC (Sandro, who has since adopted pseudonyms, is probably the only other lost act that isn’t known for anything beyond their 2020 entry) even though she sent what I think was clearly the year’s best song, and one I think had a reasonable chance of beating Shirusho and Aram’s benchmark. The biggest irony is that her song and looks allow her to make waves outside the fandom but she hasn’t found a way to expand on it, whereas… Read more »
nothing against this lady but i’d so want athena to get her chance to sing for armenia, she’s too good to go to waste
Since they gave malena a second chance Athena should also represent them
It seems JESC victory hit them too hard
Although this is not oficial information, I can confirm that Rosa Linn is Armenia’s representative. She has submitted several songs and the broadcaster is focused on 2 of them. They are now being edited, so that the broadcaster choose the best option. Plus, they say, they want to make sure there are not any similar entries from other countries. So they will wait antil early March. Of course, Rosa Linn will be officially announced as the representative much earlier.
After two nq entries for Armenia they definitely need to come back strong. If Rosa Lin had the best song and not Athena I think it’s right to send her.
Poor athena. Cyprus 2023? maybe? she’s on panik records so there might be still a chance.
I think she left Panik ages ago and is on a German indie label now. But Panik should resign her, although I would like Cyprus to be away from female solo upbeat songs, even though what makes Chains On you so special is that it’s unlike all the others.
yes I thought the same. greece could choose her tho. but greece seems to prefer greek artists who were born in other countries (like helena, amanda and stefania). didn’t know she was on a german label I mean I heard her singing some german but didn’t know that it was because she was on that label.
She has worked with a DJ and promoter in Hannover since 2017, so has done most of her (infrequent) gigs since than in the Niedersachsen region of Germany, though she has only been there occasionally. Tbh given that Iveta, better known throughout Germany, got only 2 televotes from them, it is no guarantee that, unless the song was Chains On you level awesome, Germany would have given the points.
I mean im willing to give this singer a chance bit athena didnt get her chance and should of been choosen! But its allg!
Did all singers chosen for 2020 get their chance in 2021? I guess most of them didn’t.
28/41 (counting Mamas and Aksel losing in the selections) did, 24 of them automatically or all-but-automatically. However, the best faring of these was Gjon in 3rd.
16 of them were in the final, but included 4 of the bottom 5, and only Gjon, Go_A, Stefania, Natalia, and (due to Flo Rida) Senhit definitely fared better than they would have in 2020.
Nearly all singers who won the national final in 2020 and whose country decided to choose internally in 2021 were picked for 2021.
Nooo what about athena!!???
I would take it with a grain of salt as that local media isn’t really reliable. Anyway, I don’t really know why they just didn’t announce Athena and then spent several months to find some strong r&b/hip-hop song for her like they did for Srbuk, I’m sure many songwriters would be interested. This is just so random…
From what I’ve read, Athena and Saro DID submit a song internally, but I guess it wasn’t good enough? I mean I don’t blame the Armenian delegation. If you look at Athenas songs, they’re mostly unoriginal pop songs that could easily get lost in the contest. While I do agree that the chains on you revamp was much better, I had doubts about whether it would qualify or not. In a way I’m kind of glad Armenia is taking a different route. After qami qami’s success I doubt they would want to send an unoriginal song to the adult version.
Whilst You Should Know (which is a power ballad) and OMG (where English and German are mixed up, sometimes in alternating lines) were good in terms of themes, and in their own right, I don’t think either would have fared well in ESC – the former was too depressing, and the latter seemed unduly rushed and missed almost all the things that would have made Chains On You, which I thought was original, despite some similarities to Little mix and Normani songs, top 10 at least . I think that Athena not being well known in Armenia beyond Chains, not… Read more »
Saro was meant to go with ballad produced by Kirkorov & co., but at the end he decided to pull out because he wanted a dance pop song instead. As for Athena she wasn’t even shortlisted by the broadcaster from what I heard
Athena’s song was not good
Definetly, but I’m not even sure how their selection process went on. I remember some Armenian medias also reported how Saro, Athena and Kamil were in game and now this. There might have been some internal competition, but I don’t remember the call was public. Anyway, I’m sad for Athena, but she’s not the only 2020 participants whose broadcaster picked someone else. Alicja from Poland who won the national final too also never got the chance. Athena announced the coming of her new song, which means she obviously won’t go and she moved on…
Athena writes her own songs (though recent dancehall song OMG had lyrics in English and German, with lyrics in the latter language written by an external songwriter) but I think there should have been a song selection like Shirusho and Dorians did for them in the past, and don’t get why it hasn’t occurred this year for anyone
idk, i really thought that armenia would go with athena again…
(i know this is not confirmed yet)
That’s what I thought too, but it’s also possible that maybe either she decided not to return or the song she’s offered wasn’t good enough. We’ll have to see if Rosa Linn actually is a participant or it’s just rumor