How to win the Eurovision Song Contest, according to experts

Thehe Eurovision Song Contest It was watched by about 163 million people last year – which means there are potentially 163 million different opinions about what makes the perfect participant.

Do you go to a mental ballad, guaranteed to leave Europe with foggy eyes and filled with love and peace?

Or do you choose the extravagance cheese, complete with juicy acquisition of regional costumes and eye -laying that will make the whole continent (and Australia) bump into their living rooms?

According to Bennett, there is some validity of this, with each Eurovision song falls under six broad lyric themes: “Love, unity, self -affirmation, coupons, history and songs for the creation of music.”

He adds that “Songs of Self-affirmation or lyrical self-government are doing very well”-as it can be seen with the winner in Austria in 2014. Ascending as a phoenix (Conchita Wurst)S

Acts may be tempted to pass over the top at staging, but this may not be the way to secure a win, according to our experts.

The author of Thomas Stuttgaard songs is a co -author The winner of Denmark for 2013. Only tears (as well as This year’s entry into the UK What the hell has just happened from remember Monday). In part, he puts his success on his simple production, which he said made it easier for him to remember.

“If you asked a child to draw this production, they could. It was a girl without shoes, two boys played on the drums and a flute man. Very simple, but that works.”

Vocal trainer Carrie Grant who He led the UK jury in 2014. And the sixth came to the competition as part of Sweet Dreams in 1983, it agrees.

“There is nothing more than having an artist whose stage has a lot of money, but their performance does not guarantee it,” she says. “This makes this performance look worse.”

The winner in 2014 (and Carrie’s personal favorite) was Conchita Wurst – the first act to win the competition without supporting singers or dancers on stage since 1970.

What made Conkita stand out was that she was the Beard Queen of Drag. Carrie believes that Eurovision fans love things that are bizarre and who “embrace the LGBT community.”

But she adds that Konkita was not a trick, but instead “a brilliant singer who could deliver what we call in vocal coaching” monetary moments “.

Songs with a minor key are increasingly dominated by Eurovision.

Bennett debunked the idea that “Major is equal to the happy, insignificant equal sad,” adding that “insignificant keys are more a transcript of emotional depth.”

In 2023, 85% of the finalists performed in minor keys, according to the Press Association. In the last 20 years they have won only two main songs – 2011. Running frightened (for Azerbaijan) And the love of 2017 for both.

Professor Elizabeth Helmut Margulis, a Princeton Musical Knowledge Researcher, emphasizes the sensitivity to the source – our instinct to connect the sound of the song to its predicted context. Several techno song bars, for example, and we have a mental image of a dark nightclub and the type of DJ that it can perform there.

This means that certain minor keys are now immediately signaling the audience’s Eurovision.

Remember on Monday, which the hell happened, it was written in a songwriting camp, with many songwriters working together to retreat rural areas to write the perfect song about this year’s United Kingdom act.

The song was deliberately written in a main key to stand out in a sea of ​​songs with a minor-like recording in the UK for 2022, Cosmic man from Sam Ryder (B Major).

Repetition is important to make a song on a pes in the mind, says Margulis. But songs should avoid being too repetitive. Margulis says that what is especially the song attracted is “not only when they are heard many times, but also when they throw some surprising reversal.”

Bucks Fizz’s winner of 1981 for the UK, Make your mindis a classic example. First, the song changes the key, quickly followed by a memorable change of costume in which the skirts of women’s singers were torn to reveal shorter skirts – a joint visual and musical twist.

The older Eurovision winners often made fun of their nonsense, such as the 1984 winner of 1984. TheheBut Bennett claims that this emphasizes the strong focus of Eurovision on the tune.

“Eurovision really needs big melodic hooks. You want people all over Europe to sing this tune. The need for a very affordable, catchy choir is essential.”

Key changes have long been a way of introducing a novelty into Eurovision songs. In 2000, many winners follow this formula, including the Olsen brothers of the Olson brothers Flies on the wings of love for Norway (2000) and Serbia’s prayer In 2007

But as Bennet points out, although they are still present in about one fifth of the finalists, no song with a final change of the keys of the Chorus has won from Molitva almost 20 years ago.

Stengaard’s song about this year’s United Kingdom act does not forget that Monday is certainly full of surprises. BBC music correspondent Mark Savage said the song includes “a dizzying massif of key changes and shift pace.”

The song is the answer to the author of songs to the question he asks himself when he writes about Eurovision: “How do you stand out in a competition where everyone wants to stand out?”