Belgium – After VRT, the Flemish broadcaster in charge of the country’s participation in Eurovision 2020, revealed that they had internally chosen Hooverphonic to represent them in Rotterdam, they revealed their song “Release Me” this morning!
What do you think of this entry? What are its chances in Rotterdam?
The Eurovision Times 
I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. If Hooverphonic or Salvador think that ESC isn’t heading in the direction they want, they are perfectly entitled to voice their opinions. In fact, such a stance is a strong argument in favor of such acts participating in ESC imo. Uniformity and blind loyalty are always a dangerous things.
I agree with that.
Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the Belgian song is the best of those I have heard by far :)
It’s one of 2 songs I like at the moment. The other one is Lithuania. I like the singer’s voice and the 80s retro charm.
Unfortunately Lithuania is not for me.
I know. :)
Btw. Uniformity is one of the reasons why I don’t enjoy most of the contests before 1961 very much. Most of the songs sound very alike – with a few notable exceptions.
I really like 1956, which was pretty diverse in my opinion, but I agree on 1957 to 1960.
Yes there is 1956 which is a good year overall.
I have always wondered if ESC had gone in a different direction if a less mor song had won the first edition.
Good question. Rumour has it that one of the German songs came 2nd…
Both weren’t mor but I like only one of them.
Yes, “So geht das jede Nacht” is a rather tame attempt at doing rock’n’roll. It kind of reminds me of the officially first Danish rock’n’roll song. It is based on “Heartbreak Hotel”, but overall I’d say it is more jazz than rock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGgBG0euEZo
I quite like it, even though it sounds like rock’n’roll for the middle-class youth …but then I am middle-class too.
It was sung by the actor and entertainer Preben Uglebjerg. Rock’n’roll was introduced in Denmark as a dance, by a dancing teacher called Børge Kisbye, so there was not much youth rebellion about it to begin with. It came shortly afterwards though, with a little help from the tabloid press…
The introduction of rock’n’roll to Denmark sounds like a very well-mannered affair. Aunt Gertrud would approve. :)
The difference is Hooverphonic never said the things it was reported they said.
Of course I disagree with the premise of what you said, Sobral is an entitled spoiled know-it-all with no real talent to back up this huge ego and as an esc winner aka ambassador of the brand he had certain duties in terms of behaviour he did not live up to. But now he has drifted back to the irrelevancy where he, and people with idiosyncrasies similar to his, belong.
If Hooverphonic or anyone else had exhibited similar behaviour I would be as strongly against that as I am with Sobral. I downgraded the Slovenian duo last year based on their behaviour. But Hooverphonic never exhibited any Sobral like behaviour – yet and thank god they didn’t.
I’d applaud Hooverphonic if they did comment, because ESC is in desperate need of constructive criticism like the one Mr. Sobral provided. :)
There is constructive criticism and then there is downright offending a historic event and artists that participate in it because your hyper inflated ego and sense of being the best thing in music since Mozart have never helped you gain perspective on different kinds of music. Sobral does the second because he is not smart enough to protect himself either and the people around him are unable to do it as well.
Even wasting time talking about such a terrible person and at best mediocre musician and singer two years after his unfortunate win is too much for him.
I am more than glad to see him drift to the irrelevancy where he belongs.
Now let’s talk about people and musicians that are worth more than the 15 min of fame Sobral had please.
It is so easy to tease you. :) <3
I did not feel teased in any way, just stating my opinion that’s all.
But you have been behaving like a Sobral bashing machine …
I haven’t talked about him for quite some time actually. Last time I bothered was when he reminded us of his presence back in 2018 – not with his music of course but with his behaviour yet again.
As I said, people like him thrive on attention based on the controversies they cause so I wont give him more of that. He just happened to come up now because of the whole Hooverphonic fake news when another user thought it was a good chance to call out my supposed “double standards” when I havent even had time to even react to the (fake) news at the time. He was supported by the usual suspects then the whole thing blew up in their faces and now they pretend like it never happened. The usual stuff.
Please let’s move on and talk about other stuff. Neither Sobral nor the people who started this new kerfuffle (god I love this word !) deserve more attention or time wasted. Romanian songs are out and they are great and we have 2 promising finals tomorrow !
P.S. And IMO Sobral is one of the last people who should “criticize” esc for its current or former or supposed state because he is a person and as a musician are part of the problems esc faces.
Gooooosh Trollkara Kovac should win this EMA… I’m living for one more dramma with euro fans alla “Tom Leeb”… :heat:
1 Netherland
2 Iceland
3 Lithuania
4 Spain
5 Germany
6 Belgium
Ooops I cant have top 10 in moment ,hope the next entrys are good…