Germany – ARD, the German national broadcaster, has surprisingly announced today that it has internally selected Xavier Naidoo to represent them in the Song Contest final in Stockholm.
The song that Xavier Naidoo will sing will be selected by the German public by televote during a live TV show to be broadcast on 18th February 2016.
Naidoo is a highly successful artist in Germany but has also courted some controversy with his right wing views, with some people accusing him of anti-semitism and homophobia in the past.
Tobias Zimmermann, a member of the LSVD’s federal board (German Gay and Lesbian Federation), told The Local,
“We’re astonsished about this choice.”
citing Naidoo’s “agressive and inciting” song lyrics, and added;
“ARD is a publicly-owned broadcaster and he isn’t someone who should be representing the pluralistic society we have in Germany abroad.”
“ARD is a publicly-owned broadcaster and he isn’t someone who should be representing the pluralistic society we have in Germany abroad.
Naidoo is quoted on eurovision.de as saying
“I’m really keen for the ESC. This contest that binds nations together is something really special for me, and of course I’ll show up to bring the thing home,”
“I promise to sing more beautifully and better than I ever have in my life. I’ll show in my three minutes on the stage that we make music with passion in Germany, too.”
The Eurovision Times 
Checked this guy’s stuff on YT. Not very enthusiastic over it I must admit.
Anyway, I’ll wait for the entry itself.
As for his political views, I think I’ll refrain from commenting them.
Good luck!
Germany in my esc books (post 2006):
2006: 12/12
2007: 12/12
2008: 4/12
2009: 5/12 (mainly due to Dita Von Teese factor :P )
2010: 7/12
2011: 10/12
2012: 7/12
2013: 4/12
2014: 7.5/12
2015: 7/12
My all time fav German entry: “Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein” (1975), followed by 1956, 1964, 1970, 1980.
mine is 64! I genuinely love 70 too but cant stand 80
Is it the Ralph Siegel factor? ;)
you think? :o and the campy performance, ugh
This calls for the annual “how do I rank all the bajillion Ralph Siegel entries” list. :D
1974 Bye bye, I love you (3/12)
1976 Sing Sang Song (1/12)
1979 Dschinghis Khan (7/12)
1980 Papa Pingouin (3/12)
1980 Theater (8/12)
1981 Johnny Blue (9/12)
1982 Ein bißchen Frieden (6/12)
1985 Children, Kinder, enfants (6/12)
1987 Laß die Sonne in dein Herz (3/12)
1988 Lied für einen Freund (4/12)
1990 Frei zu leben (5/12)
1992 Träume sind für alle da (6/12)
1994 Wir geben ‘ne Party (6/12)
1997 Zeit (4/12)
1999 Reise nach Jerusalem (9/12)
2002 I can’t live without music (4/12)
2003 Let’s get happy (5/12)
2006 If we all give a little (4/12)
2009 Just get out of my life (3/12)
2012 The social network song (2/12)
2013 Crisalide (5/12)
2014 Maybe (7/12)
2015 Chain of light (5/12)
Ok, 5/12 is most probably a bit too much for the chain of farts. One step down.
it’s like a 2
(3/12) with +1 for the “No”. ;)
We more or less agree :)
2006 8/12
2007 9/12
2008 3/12
2009 8/12
2010 8/12
2011 12/12
2012 5/12
2013 5/12
2014 8/12
2015 4/12
1956 (Schwarz), 1970, 1971, 1972 and 2011 are my Top 5 songs.
So, another one who likes TBAS better than Satelite ;)
im on that gang too
2006: 5/10
2007: 7,5/10
2008: 4/10
2009: 5/10
2010: 9/10
2011: 12/10
2012: 7+/10
2013: 5-/10
2014: 9/10
2015: 6/10
2006 5/10??? :-o :cry:
The epitomy of an idifferent song imo
Oh well… :P
I strongly dislike it myself
It’s a rather underwhelming choice tbh.I was expecting a strong NF again.Good luck!
Another Esti Laul song.It’s a bit weird: https://soundcloud.com/meisterjaan/parmupillihullus
Good luck … *sigh*
If XN wants to get a good result, he needs to come up with sth totally different from his normal stuff imo. Most of contemporary German pop music isn’t instant because the focus has been on lyrics (rather larmoyant lyrics unfortunately …) for quite some time. Such an approach won’t work in ESC.
I just listened to “Ich kenne nichts (das so schön ist wie du)” and wow, it’s AWFUL!
All of his songs are imo. I think that I’ve never listened to a Xavier Naidoo song until the end. They give me nausea …
It’s musically boring as hell, and he doesnt have huge charistma… and it has 26 million views! Reminds me of French popular music, which is always some very lame songs, boring melodramatic lyrics “with message” or shaky rnb and they get million of views… I know also that if we sent those popular songs in Eurovision we’d fail: songs that do well in esc are songs meant to work on stage and written to please beyond the frontiers, while songs originally popular at home tend to not be that big elsewhere (for instance Unheilig or Andreas Kümmert would have done horribly in esc too…)
Imo Germany should have sent the following songs:
2013 Blitzkids.mvt (Alas, Ben Ivory was weak live …)
2014 Marie Marie (Cotton Candy Hurricane)
2015 Laing (any song) or Alexa Feser (Das Gold von morgen)
Marie Marie with Candy Jar and Laing with their 2nd song last year for me :-)
Same
I had everything I had to sat about him. He is not that talented and his songs not that interesting anyway. I hope the german broadcaster reconsiders.
On the german entries : They have been consistently very good since 2010, with the peak being at 2011 with Lena’s 2nd attempt. All of Cascada, Elaiza and Ann Sophie deserves MUCh better imo.
Not too enthusiastic here (for various reasons), but I will of course wait for the song.
As for Germany in Eurovision, these are probably my favourites:
“Im Wartesaal zum großem Glück”
“Wunder gibt es immer wieder”
“Johnny Blue”
“Frauen regieren die Welt”
“Taken by a Stranger”
Other fine songs:
“Junger Tag”
“Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein”
“Theater” (except the theatre theme with its fiction/reality thing is perhaps a bit overused, still, fine melody)
“Rücksicht”
“Can’t Wait Until Tonight”
“Satellite”
You make perfect sense, as almost always. My list would look similar … but include 1964. :)
I know many fans love 1964, I personally find it a bit thin. I think the vocal performance is better the composition.
Oh, and the worst ones:
“Heute Abend wollen wir tanzen geh’n”
“Sing Sang Song”
“Über die Brücke gehn”
“Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben”
“Träume sind für alle da”
“Verliebt in dich”
“Wadde hadde dudde da”
“Disappear”
both 98 and 2000 are among the worst songs ever to me: they really launched joke entries doing well just when televote started
I have to admit I somehow enjoy Guildo Horn. But for the wrong reasons and partly against my own will.
It is so-so with its musical content, and that it made joke entries popular, which clearly isn’t a good thing in a song contest. But I have always had a weak spot for complete craziness.
“Wadde hadde dudde da”, on the other hand, was just stupid.
From what I read he will receive warm “welcome” in Amsterdam concert :P hope he chose better song for ESC ;)
meh…
Will anyone else be around for jesc tomorrow night ?
So it looks like the controversy got to NDR/ARD: http://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/presse/mitteilungen/Xavier-Naidoo-faehrt-nicht-zum-ESC-nach-Stockholm,pressemeldungndr16524.html
Basically, they didn’t expect the highly negative reaction and controversy to his selection, and how music and international understanding should remain the focus in ESC, so they’re withdrawing his participation.