Good evening and welcome back to our news round-up where we recap everything you might have missed for Eurovision 2021! We have an interesting slate of news from artist confirmations, song announcements, music videos, and a national final on the rocks – let’s get started!
North Macedonia confirms Vasil for Rotterdam
This morning it was confirmed that MKRTV has selected Vasil to represent them again at the 2021 contest, marking his third appearance at the contest. Vasil served as a backing vocalist for Tamara Todoveska’s song “Proud” in 2019, and would have represented them at the 2020 contest with his song “You”. As the saying goes, third time is the charm! He will join 21 of his fellow competitors from the 2020 lineup, as numerous countries have internally selected their artist from the prior year.
His song for the 2021 contest will be selected internally, as is tradition for MKRTV lately. According to a press release, interested composers and producers will have until January 27th to submit their entry to the broadcaster.
Portugal Announces the Twenty Hopefuls for Festival da Canção
This aftenroon RTP announced the 20 artists competing in Festival da Canção after announcing the composers back in December. Festival da Canção 2021 will kick off with two semi-finals on February 20th and 27th, with the Grand final taking place on March 6th. Below is a playlist featuring each song, with a link to each lyric video on YouTube.
- Ana Tereza “Com Um Abraço”
- Ariana “Mundo Melhor”
- Carolina Deslandes “Por Um Triz”
- Da Chick “I Got Music”
- EU.CLIDES “Volte-Face”
- Fábia Maia “Dia Lindo”
- Graciela “A vida sem acontecer”
- IAN “Mundo”
- Irma “Livros”
- Joana Alegre “Joana do Mar”
- Karetus, Romeu Bairos “Saudade”
- mema. “Claro como água”
- Miguel Marôco “Girassol”
- Nadine “Cheguei Aqui”
- Neev “Dancing in the Stars
- Pedro Gonçalves “Não vou ficar”
- Sara Afonso “Contramão”
- Tainá “Jasmim”
- Valéria “Na mais profunda saudade”
- The Black Mamba “Love is On My Side”
RTP will still be using a 50% televote, 50% jury panel voting structure to decide the qualifiers for the Grand Final, and the jury will hold the power to break a tie if it happens. In the grand final the voting will be split between a public televote and seven regional juries, with the tie-break power going to the televote.
Roxen has selected her 2021 entry!
Roxen revealed on her Instagram story Monday that she has selected her entry for the 2021 contest. She has released numerous singles since the 2020 contest was cancelled, and many of these give us insight into who she is as an artist like “How to Break A Heart” and “Spune-mi“.
Romanian broadcaster TVR has not released when her song will be revealed but it is likely that we won’t see it until February or March.
HaShir Shelanu L’Eurovizion Voting Begins
As we reported earlier this week, the planned live show for Eden Alene has been cancelled and replaced with an online vote using official music videos. The results from the online vote will be revealed on Kan 11 next Monday January 25th at 20:15 CET. A general reminder that the vote will not be available to anyone outside of Israel.
When discussing the music videos, Eden said that she had the most fun filming for “La La Love” and it is a song she had an immediate connection to. “Set Me Free” was the hardest song to record for her and it took two days to capture.
RAI holds emergency meeting for Sanremo 2021
This week the Italian govermnent imposed new COVID related restrictions that will prevent RAI from hosting a national final with a live audience. The measures are set to expire on March 5th so it’s possible that the final show could be hosted as normal, but organizers have scheduled an emergency meeting to decide the fate of the show. Sanremo will NOT be cancelled due to these restrictions, it will only impact the structure of the long running music festival.
The organizers appear to be considering three potential options for Sanremo. One option is to host the show just like other countries have without a live audience, while the other is to postpone the festival to the second week of April. If RAI chooses the second option it will confirm that Sanremo will not be used as a Eurovision selection method this year. The third option, which is the most interesting one, is to host the show’s artistic team and audience on a cruise ship to isolate them from Covid-19 and protect the competing artists.
What do #YOU think about all of this news? Is there anything that shocked you? Let us know on social media, in the comments section, or on our forum page!
