The Key to Success in Eurovision (part 3): Connecting
Some say there is no formula for success at the Eurovision Song Contest. However, studying the past results of the competition closely, one would have to conclude there is in fact a Key to Success in Eurovision. This the Key To Success. One must focus on the three basic elements in the contest: Vision, Sound and Emotion.
In this second episode we talk about Emotion for the first time. As a Eurovision participant, you only have a three-minute-pitch to convince jurors and possible televoters to choose you over everyone else. Therefore, you have to connect with them.
Now three minutes is a very short amount of time. And although we have had acts at the contest who seem to last more like thirteen minutes, the clock has no mercy: three minutes each, not a second more. This is the time in which you have to convince your audience.
There are plenty of ways to do that, and almost every musical genre has been successful in Eurovision. Artists from every ethnic background, gender, age, and with all different kinds of looks have scored well. As long as they managed to get their audience to actually listen to their story. Or even better: get them to think “I would like to see this performance again.”
The champion of connecting with the audience is probably Conchita Wurst. You can say whatever you like about the song with which Austria won Eurovision in 2014, but the numbers do not lie. People all across Europe were talking about the story of a bullied kid who took revenge on the world that initially had rejected him. The message of tolerance came across well because music, visuals and Tom Neuwirth’s appearance all fit together.
A year later, Russia was very successful with a similar strategy. The ballad that Polina Gagarina sang was, just like Conchita’s “Rise like a phoenix”, musically a bit dated. But the message of peace was believable and perhaps even more touching because it came from a Russian woman. It provided people with hope in desperate times, and Polina even came close to threaten Mans Zelmerlöw in the battle for victory…
It does not take a very serious message to connect with the audience. People can be moved by something more fragile, or even humoristic. Think about Russia’s Babushka’s in 2012 — they may not have been the best vocalists, but they created a very recognizable image. Lots of people could sympathize with six grandmothers on a big music stage who were obviously having the time of their lives during ‘Party for everybody’.
It was sweet, it was funny, it was cute. Nobody would even think about taking a bathroom break during the Russian entry in 2012. But it is way too easy to dismiss this entry as a circus act. Songs such as ‘Leto Svet‘, ‘Eastern European Funk‘, and Dustin the Turkey did not manage to score, while ‘We are the winners’ did. Why? Because people recognize when something is real, or when they are being tricked into something that is only supposed to be funny. More on that in a later part of this series.
We’ve mentioned the bathroom break. How many people will really go to the bathroom when they do not like a song? Probably not a lot, but the image is still very strong, because apparently certain songs do not connect enough with the audience to absolutely make them want to stay in their seats. And this loss of connection can already happen within the first thirty seconds.
Now think about the United Kingdom’s entry from last year — an entry with a very ambiguous message. Was it a parody? A circus act? Or a serious attempt to bring an old-fashioned jazzy song? Were the two singers adressing each other in their lines, or not? Non-verbal interaction between Electro Velvet was lacking. And if they cannot connect to each other, how will they ever be able to connect with the audience at home?
The worst thing that can happen to your Eurovision act is for it to become dutiful. Several acts in recent years have tried to follow all sorts of standard formats: putting dancers on stage, making the backdrop flash a little, spinning the camera’s around. It is all worthless if, like in this Irish performance, the act does not stick together. People at home are not willing to solve a complicated puzzle, therefore, every element in a performance needs to point in the same direction.
Other websites have described this as ‘Storytelling‘ (Ewan Spence). And in order to do this, every element we describe in this series needs to tie together. Mans Zelmerlöw had the uplifting music, the slightly mystical yet comprehensible lyrics, the personal charisma, and of course the props and visuals all working in his favor.
In the next episode we go back to Sound and discuss the most basic and yet most difficult element of the Key to Success: you need a good song to win Eurovision. But how to define a good song, when every person has their own musical taste?
