The competition will see musical acts from 37 nations carry out authentic songs within the English metropolis of Liverpool, with semi-finals Tuesday and Thursday and a grand remaining on Saturday watched by an estimated 160 million individuals.
For followers and first-timers alike, right here’s an important Eurovision information:
WHAT IS EUROVISION, ANYWAY?
First staged in 1956, Eurovision was based to assist unite a shattered continent after World Struggle II and to check nascent live-broadcasting expertise.
Initially a sedate affair that includes crooners in ballgowns and tuxedos, it started to let its hair down in the course of the swinging 60s and reached pop perfection in 1974, when ABBA received with “Waterloo,” propelling the band towards superstardom and jump-starting Sweden’s music trade.
Since then, the competition has expanded throughout Europe and past – Israel and Australia are each entrants – with ever-more elaborate staging and eye-popping costumes.
Eurovision additionally has turn into a celebration of range, with an enormous LGBTQ+ following that celebrated when Israel’s Dana Worldwide turned the competition’s first transgender winner in 1998.
Above all, the competitors is a crash course within the continent’s splendidly different musical tastes. Winners have ranged from Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion, who competed for Switzerland in 1988, to fright mask-wearing Finnish metalheads Lordi in 2006 and bearded Austrian drag performer Conchita Wurst in 2014.
Final yr, Ukrainian folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra triumphed, delivering a morale increase for a rustic battling Russia’s invasion.
Paul Jordan, an knowledgeable on the competition who is named “Dr. Eurovision,” stated the competitors has turn into a treasured a part of European tradition.
“You may go to Spain, Slovenia, wherever — everybody’s heard of it,” he stated. “They might not like it, they might not prefer it, they might not watch it, however everybody’s heard of it. Everybody’s received an opinion. I believe it’s actually highly effective, and it’s an excellent icebreaker.”
Eurovision is about rather more than music. It’s diplomacy with a disco beat, a discussion board during which nations can increase their profiles and play out regional rivalries.
Organizers attempt to maintain pop and politics aside; overtly political symbols and lyrics are prohibited. However world tensions have usually imposed themselves on the competition. Ukraine has a number of occasions used its entries to criticize Russia, profitable in 2016 with a tune concerning the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944.
Russia was banned from the competition final yr after it invaded Ukraine. Belarus had been kicked out the earlier yr over its authorities’s clampdown on dissent.
Dean Vuletic, an instructional knowledgeable on Eurovision, stated that by banning Russia, Eurovision misplaced one in all its greatest nationwide audiences and “one in all its most enthusiastic individuals.”
“However Eurovision can also be a platform on which values are expressed, round which values are constructed,” Vuletic stated, and strain from member nations compelled the European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, to behave.
Eurovision “has all the time mirrored cultural, political and social change in Europe,” he stated. “(It’s) a strategy to measure the zeitgeist in Europe.”
Eurovision was lengthy related to fluffy 3-minute pop songs — earlier winners embody the likes of “La, La, La” and “Growth Bang-a-Bang.”
However Vuletic says it’s not “the competition with foolish songs, innocuous lyrics that it maybe was.” He says a 3rd of this yr’s entries deal lyrically with “poisonous relationships, nervousness” and different mental-health points. One other batch of songs are about warfare.
Musically, contestants vary from pop ballads like “Energy” by Iceland’s Diljá and relationship-breakup dance observe “I Wrote a Track” by Britain’s Mae Muller to the electronica of “Coronary heart of Metal” by Ukraine’s Tvorchi. Austrian duo Teya & Salena provide an offbeat tribute to Edgar Allen Poe, “Who the Hell is Edgar?” whereas Croatia’s Let 3 belts out antiwar rock opera “Mama ŠČ!”
Eurovision’s advanced voting system, which awards factors from juries of music trade professionals in addition to viewers throughout Europe, makes winners notoriously laborious to foretell.
Bookmakers’ favorites embody Finnish entry Käärijä’s pop-metal occasion tune “Cha Cha Cha” and energy ballad “Tattoo” by Sweden’s Loreen, who beforehand received the competition in 2012. Singer La Zarra, competing for France, can also be extremely ranked for her Edith Piaf-esque chanson “Évidemment.”
The U.Okay. stepped in to host the competition for Ukraine after final yr’s British entry, Sam Ryder, completed second. As Ryder put it: “It’s Ukraine’s occasion. We’re simply inviting them to throw it at our home.”
The ultimate might be co-hosted by Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina and can characteristic a efficiency by Kalush Orchestra and different representatives of Ukrainian tradition. A number of thousand Ukrainian refugees in Britain acquired tickets to attend.
Ryder’s robust displaying final yr with “Spaceman” helped rework Eurovision’s picture within the U.Okay. Lengthy seen as a responsible pleasure – amid perennial grumbling over the nation’s poor outcomes — it now a supply of delight and celebration.
A number of U.Okay. cities competed to host the occasion, and winner Liverpool is in occasion temper. The port metropolis that gave start to The Beatles went by means of robust occasions as U.Okay. trade collapsed within the late twentieth century. It has since reinvented itself as a hub for sports activities, tradition and tourism – a resilience that matches nicely with Ukraine, Jordan says.
“It’s an actual artistic hub, and I believe it’s going to be an excellent host metropolis — other than the climate,” he stated.
For extra AP protection of Eurovision, go to https://apnews.com/hub/eurovision-song-contest
The competition will see musical acts from 37 nations carry out authentic songs within the English metropolis of Liverpool, with semi-finals Tuesday and Thursday and a grand remaining on Saturday watched by an estimated 160 million individuals.
For followers and first-timers alike, right here’s an important Eurovision information:
WHAT IS EUROVISION, ANYWAY?
First staged in 1956, Eurovision was based to assist unite a shattered continent after World Struggle II and to check nascent live-broadcasting expertise.
Initially a sedate affair that includes crooners in ballgowns and tuxedos, it started to let its hair down in the course of the swinging 60s and reached pop perfection in 1974, when ABBA received with “Waterloo,” propelling the band towards superstardom and jump-starting Sweden’s music trade.
Since then, the competition has expanded throughout Europe and past – Israel and Australia are each entrants – with ever-more elaborate staging and eye-popping costumes.
Eurovision additionally has turn into a celebration of range, with an enormous LGBTQ+ following that celebrated when Israel’s Dana Worldwide turned the competition’s first transgender winner in 1998.
Above all, the competitors is a crash course within the continent’s splendidly different musical tastes. Winners have ranged from Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion, who competed for Switzerland in 1988, to fright mask-wearing Finnish metalheads Lordi in 2006 and bearded Austrian drag performer Conchita Wurst in 2014.
Final yr, Ukrainian folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra triumphed, delivering a morale increase for a rustic battling Russia’s invasion.
Paul Jordan, an knowledgeable on the competition who is named “Dr. Eurovision,” stated the competitors has turn into a treasured a part of European tradition.
“You may go to Spain, Slovenia, wherever — everybody’s heard of it,” he stated. “They might not like it, they might not prefer it, they might not watch it, however everybody’s heard of it. Everybody’s received an opinion. I believe it’s actually highly effective, and it’s an excellent icebreaker.”
Eurovision is about rather more than music. It’s diplomacy with a disco beat, a discussion board during which nations can increase their profiles and play out regional rivalries.
Organizers attempt to maintain pop and politics aside; overtly political symbols and lyrics are prohibited. However world tensions have usually imposed themselves on the competition. Ukraine has a number of occasions used its entries to criticize Russia, profitable in 2016 with a tune concerning the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944.
Russia was banned from the competition final yr after it invaded Ukraine. Belarus had been kicked out the earlier yr over its authorities’s clampdown on dissent.
Dean Vuletic, an instructional knowledgeable on Eurovision, stated that by banning Russia, Eurovision misplaced one in all its greatest nationwide audiences and “one in all its most enthusiastic individuals.”
“However Eurovision can also be a platform on which values are expressed, round which values are constructed,” Vuletic stated, and strain from member nations compelled the European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, to behave.
Eurovision “has all the time mirrored cultural, political and social change in Europe,” he stated. “(It’s) a strategy to measure the zeitgeist in Europe.”
Eurovision was lengthy related to fluffy 3-minute pop songs — earlier winners embody the likes of “La, La, La” and “Growth Bang-a-Bang.”
However Vuletic says it’s not “the competition with foolish songs, innocuous lyrics that it maybe was.” He says a 3rd of this yr’s entries deal lyrically with “poisonous relationships, nervousness” and different mental-health points. One other batch of songs are about warfare.
Musically, contestants vary from pop ballads like “Energy” by Iceland’s Diljá and relationship-breakup dance observe “I Wrote a Track” by Britain’s Mae Muller to the electronica of “Coronary heart of Metal” by Ukraine’s Tvorchi. Austrian duo Teya & Salena provide an offbeat tribute to Edgar Allen Poe, “Who the Hell is Edgar?” whereas Croatia’s Let 3 belts out antiwar rock opera “Mama ŠČ!”
Eurovision’s advanced voting system, which awards factors from juries of music trade professionals in addition to viewers throughout Europe, makes winners notoriously laborious to foretell.
Bookmakers’ favorites embody Finnish entry Käärijä’s pop-metal occasion tune “Cha Cha Cha” and energy ballad “Tattoo” by Sweden’s Loreen, who beforehand received the competition in 2012. Singer La Zarra, competing for France, can also be extremely ranked for her Edith Piaf-esque chanson “Évidemment.”
The U.Okay. stepped in to host the competition for Ukraine after final yr’s British entry, Sam Ryder, completed second. As Ryder put it: “It’s Ukraine’s occasion. We’re simply inviting them to throw it at our home.”
The ultimate might be co-hosted by Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina and can characteristic a efficiency by Kalush Orchestra and different representatives of Ukrainian tradition. A number of thousand Ukrainian refugees in Britain acquired tickets to attend.
Ryder’s robust displaying final yr with “Spaceman” helped rework Eurovision’s picture within the U.Okay. Lengthy seen as a responsible pleasure – amid perennial grumbling over the nation’s poor outcomes — it now a supply of delight and celebration.
A number of U.Okay. cities competed to host the occasion, and winner Liverpool is in occasion temper. The port metropolis that gave start to The Beatles went by means of robust occasions as U.Okay. trade collapsed within the late twentieth century. It has since reinvented itself as a hub for sports activities, tradition and tourism – a resilience that matches nicely with Ukraine, Jordan says.
“It’s an actual artistic hub, and I believe it’s going to be an excellent host metropolis — other than the climate,” he stated.
For extra AP protection of Eurovision, go to https://apnews.com/hub/eurovision-song-contest
The competition will see musical acts from 37 nations carry out authentic songs within the English metropolis of Liverpool, with semi-finals Tuesday and Thursday and a grand remaining on Saturday watched by an estimated 160 million individuals.
For followers and first-timers alike, right here’s an important Eurovision information:
WHAT IS EUROVISION, ANYWAY?
First staged in 1956, Eurovision was based to assist unite a shattered continent after World Struggle II and to check nascent live-broadcasting expertise.
Initially a sedate affair that includes crooners in ballgowns and tuxedos, it started to let its hair down in the course of the swinging 60s and reached pop perfection in 1974, when ABBA received with “Waterloo,” propelling the band towards superstardom and jump-starting Sweden’s music trade.
Since then, the competition has expanded throughout Europe and past – Israel and Australia are each entrants – with ever-more elaborate staging and eye-popping costumes.
Eurovision additionally has turn into a celebration of range, with an enormous LGBTQ+ following that celebrated when Israel’s Dana Worldwide turned the competition’s first transgender winner in 1998.
Above all, the competitors is a crash course within the continent’s splendidly different musical tastes. Winners have ranged from Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion, who competed for Switzerland in 1988, to fright mask-wearing Finnish metalheads Lordi in 2006 and bearded Austrian drag performer Conchita Wurst in 2014.
Final yr, Ukrainian folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra triumphed, delivering a morale increase for a rustic battling Russia’s invasion.
Paul Jordan, an knowledgeable on the competition who is named “Dr. Eurovision,” stated the competitors has turn into a treasured a part of European tradition.
“You may go to Spain, Slovenia, wherever — everybody’s heard of it,” he stated. “They might not like it, they might not prefer it, they might not watch it, however everybody’s heard of it. Everybody’s received an opinion. I believe it’s actually highly effective, and it’s an excellent icebreaker.”
Eurovision is about rather more than music. It’s diplomacy with a disco beat, a discussion board during which nations can increase their profiles and play out regional rivalries.
Organizers attempt to maintain pop and politics aside; overtly political symbols and lyrics are prohibited. However world tensions have usually imposed themselves on the competition. Ukraine has a number of occasions used its entries to criticize Russia, profitable in 2016 with a tune concerning the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944.
Russia was banned from the competition final yr after it invaded Ukraine. Belarus had been kicked out the earlier yr over its authorities’s clampdown on dissent.
Dean Vuletic, an instructional knowledgeable on Eurovision, stated that by banning Russia, Eurovision misplaced one in all its greatest nationwide audiences and “one in all its most enthusiastic individuals.”
“However Eurovision can also be a platform on which values are expressed, round which values are constructed,” Vuletic stated, and strain from member nations compelled the European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, to behave.
Eurovision “has all the time mirrored cultural, political and social change in Europe,” he stated. “(It’s) a strategy to measure the zeitgeist in Europe.”
Eurovision was lengthy related to fluffy 3-minute pop songs — earlier winners embody the likes of “La, La, La” and “Growth Bang-a-Bang.”
However Vuletic says it’s not “the competition with foolish songs, innocuous lyrics that it maybe was.” He says a 3rd of this yr’s entries deal lyrically with “poisonous relationships, nervousness” and different mental-health points. One other batch of songs are about warfare.
Musically, contestants vary from pop ballads like “Energy” by Iceland’s Diljá and relationship-breakup dance observe “I Wrote a Track” by Britain’s Mae Muller to the electronica of “Coronary heart of Metal” by Ukraine’s Tvorchi. Austrian duo Teya & Salena provide an offbeat tribute to Edgar Allen Poe, “Who the Hell is Edgar?” whereas Croatia’s Let 3 belts out antiwar rock opera “Mama ŠČ!”
Eurovision’s advanced voting system, which awards factors from juries of music trade professionals in addition to viewers throughout Europe, makes winners notoriously laborious to foretell.
Bookmakers’ favorites embody Finnish entry Käärijä’s pop-metal occasion tune “Cha Cha Cha” and energy ballad “Tattoo” by Sweden’s Loreen, who beforehand received the competition in 2012. Singer La Zarra, competing for France, can also be extremely ranked for her Edith Piaf-esque chanson “Évidemment.”
The U.Okay. stepped in to host the competition for Ukraine after final yr’s British entry, Sam Ryder, completed second. As Ryder put it: “It’s Ukraine’s occasion. We’re simply inviting them to throw it at our home.”
The ultimate might be co-hosted by Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina and can characteristic a efficiency by Kalush Orchestra and different representatives of Ukrainian tradition. A number of thousand Ukrainian refugees in Britain acquired tickets to attend.
Ryder’s robust displaying final yr with “Spaceman” helped rework Eurovision’s picture within the U.Okay. Lengthy seen as a responsible pleasure – amid perennial grumbling over the nation’s poor outcomes — it now a supply of delight and celebration.
A number of U.Okay. cities competed to host the occasion, and winner Liverpool is in occasion temper. The port metropolis that gave start to The Beatles went by means of robust occasions as U.Okay. trade collapsed within the late twentieth century. It has since reinvented itself as a hub for sports activities, tradition and tourism – a resilience that matches nicely with Ukraine, Jordan says.
“It’s an actual artistic hub, and I believe it’s going to be an excellent host metropolis — other than the climate,” he stated.
For extra AP protection of Eurovision, go to https://apnews.com/hub/eurovision-song-contest
The competition will see musical acts from 37 nations carry out authentic songs within the English metropolis of Liverpool, with semi-finals Tuesday and Thursday and a grand remaining on Saturday watched by an estimated 160 million individuals.
For followers and first-timers alike, right here’s an important Eurovision information:
WHAT IS EUROVISION, ANYWAY?
First staged in 1956, Eurovision was based to assist unite a shattered continent after World Struggle II and to check nascent live-broadcasting expertise.
Initially a sedate affair that includes crooners in ballgowns and tuxedos, it started to let its hair down in the course of the swinging 60s and reached pop perfection in 1974, when ABBA received with “Waterloo,” propelling the band towards superstardom and jump-starting Sweden’s music trade.
Since then, the competition has expanded throughout Europe and past – Israel and Australia are each entrants – with ever-more elaborate staging and eye-popping costumes.
Eurovision additionally has turn into a celebration of range, with an enormous LGBTQ+ following that celebrated when Israel’s Dana Worldwide turned the competition’s first transgender winner in 1998.
Above all, the competitors is a crash course within the continent’s splendidly different musical tastes. Winners have ranged from Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion, who competed for Switzerland in 1988, to fright mask-wearing Finnish metalheads Lordi in 2006 and bearded Austrian drag performer Conchita Wurst in 2014.
Final yr, Ukrainian folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra triumphed, delivering a morale increase for a rustic battling Russia’s invasion.
Paul Jordan, an knowledgeable on the competition who is named “Dr. Eurovision,” stated the competitors has turn into a treasured a part of European tradition.
“You may go to Spain, Slovenia, wherever — everybody’s heard of it,” he stated. “They might not like it, they might not prefer it, they might not watch it, however everybody’s heard of it. Everybody’s received an opinion. I believe it’s actually highly effective, and it’s an excellent icebreaker.”
Eurovision is about rather more than music. It’s diplomacy with a disco beat, a discussion board during which nations can increase their profiles and play out regional rivalries.
Organizers attempt to maintain pop and politics aside; overtly political symbols and lyrics are prohibited. However world tensions have usually imposed themselves on the competition. Ukraine has a number of occasions used its entries to criticize Russia, profitable in 2016 with a tune concerning the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944.
Russia was banned from the competition final yr after it invaded Ukraine. Belarus had been kicked out the earlier yr over its authorities’s clampdown on dissent.
Dean Vuletic, an instructional knowledgeable on Eurovision, stated that by banning Russia, Eurovision misplaced one in all its greatest nationwide audiences and “one in all its most enthusiastic individuals.”
“However Eurovision can also be a platform on which values are expressed, round which values are constructed,” Vuletic stated, and strain from member nations compelled the European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, to behave.
Eurovision “has all the time mirrored cultural, political and social change in Europe,” he stated. “(It’s) a strategy to measure the zeitgeist in Europe.”
Eurovision was lengthy related to fluffy 3-minute pop songs — earlier winners embody the likes of “La, La, La” and “Growth Bang-a-Bang.”
However Vuletic says it’s not “the competition with foolish songs, innocuous lyrics that it maybe was.” He says a 3rd of this yr’s entries deal lyrically with “poisonous relationships, nervousness” and different mental-health points. One other batch of songs are about warfare.
Musically, contestants vary from pop ballads like “Energy” by Iceland’s Diljá and relationship-breakup dance observe “I Wrote a Track” by Britain’s Mae Muller to the electronica of “Coronary heart of Metal” by Ukraine’s Tvorchi. Austrian duo Teya & Salena provide an offbeat tribute to Edgar Allen Poe, “Who the Hell is Edgar?” whereas Croatia’s Let 3 belts out antiwar rock opera “Mama ŠČ!”
Eurovision’s advanced voting system, which awards factors from juries of music trade professionals in addition to viewers throughout Europe, makes winners notoriously laborious to foretell.
Bookmakers’ favorites embody Finnish entry Käärijä’s pop-metal occasion tune “Cha Cha Cha” and energy ballad “Tattoo” by Sweden’s Loreen, who beforehand received the competition in 2012. Singer La Zarra, competing for France, can also be extremely ranked for her Edith Piaf-esque chanson “Évidemment.”
The U.Okay. stepped in to host the competition for Ukraine after final yr’s British entry, Sam Ryder, completed second. As Ryder put it: “It’s Ukraine’s occasion. We’re simply inviting them to throw it at our home.”
The ultimate might be co-hosted by Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina and can characteristic a efficiency by Kalush Orchestra and different representatives of Ukrainian tradition. A number of thousand Ukrainian refugees in Britain acquired tickets to attend.
Ryder’s robust displaying final yr with “Spaceman” helped rework Eurovision’s picture within the U.Okay. Lengthy seen as a responsible pleasure – amid perennial grumbling over the nation’s poor outcomes — it now a supply of delight and celebration.
A number of U.Okay. cities competed to host the occasion, and winner Liverpool is in occasion temper. The port metropolis that gave start to The Beatles went by means of robust occasions as U.Okay. trade collapsed within the late twentieth century. It has since reinvented itself as a hub for sports activities, tradition and tourism – a resilience that matches nicely with Ukraine, Jordan says.
“It’s an actual artistic hub, and I believe it’s going to be an excellent host metropolis — other than the climate,” he stated.
For extra AP protection of Eurovision, go to https://apnews.com/hub/eurovision-song-contest
