Six on Stage Blog

Tag: artists

  • Which of this year’s acts have been involved before?

    The class of 2024 have been selected and their songs confirmed with the EBU – but not all of them are newcomers to the Eurovision Song Contest. Seven of the artists taking part this year were already part of the Six on Stage database from a previous contribution.

    1. Hera Björk

    By some margin the best known to Eurovision fans is Hera Björk from Iceland. As well as representing her character as singer and co-writer wi`th Je Ne Sais Quoi in 2010, she has provided backing vocals on multiple occasions (2008, 2009 and 2015) and been a vocal coach. She also came close to representing Denmark in 2009 with Someday.

    2. Natalia Barbu

    Our other returning artist this year is Moldova’s Natalia Barbu, who also performed Fight for Moldova in 2007.

    3 & 4. Zaachariaha Fielding & Michael Ross

    The duo Electric Fields are another fan favourite, coming to prominence in 2019 when they finshed second in Australia Decides with 2000 and Whatever. While they are finally representing Australia this year, their success in that national final saw them announce the Australian jury’s 12 points in 2019.

    5 & 6. Marcus Gunnarsen & Martinus Gunnarsen

    Although they’re flying the flag for Sweden this year, twins Marcus & Martinus are Norwegian and it was for Norway that they revealed the jury scores in 2017, when they were just 15. (We’re going to have to do another post about the times a country had more than one spokesperson…) Earlier the same year they had performed an interval act during Finland’s national final.

    7. Raiven

    Raiven took part in the public selection for Eurovision three times in Slovenia and this year finally makes it to Malmö via internal selection. But back in 2018 – between her second and third attempts – she was chair of the national jury and, unanimously with her colleaogues, gave her top score to Dance You Off.

    An honourable mention too to Kaleen from Austria, whose previous roles have included being a creative director at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, acting as an artist stand-in during Eurovision rehearsals, and being a dancer and choreographer for interval acts in 2018.

  • Who’s had the most Eurovision roles?

    There are lots of roles at the Eurovision Song Contest and plenty of people have taken on more than one – not least every songwriter who’s delivered their own song on stage. But who has performed the most roles at Eurovision?

    First, some caveats. We’re talking about people representing their country. There are lots of roles at Eurovision beyond this – in TV production, website and social content, stage management, etc. But when it comes to countries’ participation, Six on Stage identifies the following specific roles:

    • Lead artist – the credited singer or group for an entry
    • Backing performer – dancer, backing vocalist, puppeteer – anyone performing an entry on stage who’s not the lead artist
    • Songwriter – you’ll see this broken down into composers and lyricists on song pages (and where that information isn’t available we list credited writers as both), but for this analysis we’re considering the role of writer as a single one
    • Jury member – someone who has been a member of a country’s professional jury
    • Spokesperson – someone who has announced the country’s scores (or, in the current format, their jury’s 12 points)
    • Host – slightly different as it’s not linked to any entry and only the host country provides these each year, but we record this not least because so many hosts have also been involved in other ways
    • Other – we’ve started trying to note creative directors, choreographers, stylists… This is pretty much unlimited and dependent on suitable sources so is never going to be complete. That’s why it’s a generic “Other” category.

    Lots of people fall into three or four of these categories as it’s common for a singer-songwriter to also serve on their country’s jury and sometimes be a spokesperson too, but two people in the Six on Stage database fall into five categories.

    Germany’s Stefan Raab has a long history with the Eurovision Song Contest and that’s reflected in the number of roles he had between 1998 and 2011. He was his country’s named artist in 2000 with Wadde hadde dudde da?, which he also wrote; he wrote and was a backing performer for Max Mutzke‘s 2004 entry; he wrote the legendary Guildo Hat Euch Lieb and turned up to “conduct” the orchestra (who weren’t playing); and finally in 2011 he was one of the Contest’s hosts in Düsseldorf.

    The only person who can match this is Slovenia’s Lea Sirk, and arguably her six roles count more strongly as they don’t include hosting. Her first involvement was actually in 2012 as a jury member before going on to provide backing vocals for Tinkara Kovač in 2014 and ManuElla in 2016. She’s best known for her own entry in 2018, Hvala, ne!, which she also co-wrote, and returned a year later to reveal her country’s jury scores.

    Now if Stefan could come back and sit on Germany’s jury or Lea could host for Slovenia, they could complete the set…

  • Two-time winners

    Two-time winners

    With her victory in Liverpool, Loreen became only the second person – and the first woman – to win the Eurovision Song Contest twice as a lead artist.

    The other person to have achieved the feat is, of course, Johnny Logan, who has the distinction of also having one twice as a writer: for Hold Me Now and for Linda Martin’s Why Me. Like Logan, Loreen was a credited writer only on her second winning song.

    But Loreen wasn’t the only person to achieve a second win this year. Two of the other writers of Tattoo were also writers of Euphoria: the prolific Thomas G:son, who has had 15 songs at Eurovision for 7 different countries (plus a 16th/8th if you include France’s 2020 entry), and Peter Boström, whose previous achievement involving Euphoria was having written the songs that came both first and last in the 2012 final. (Ironically, that last placed song, Norway’s Stay, is his only Eurovision song not co-written with G:son.)

    They join a select group of writers with multiple Eurovision victories:

    • Willy van Hemert (Netherlands 1957 and 1959)
    • Yves Dessca (Monaco 1971, Luxembourg 1972 – notable for winning with different countries, in successive years, and having a 100% success rate with his only two Eurovision entries)
    • Rolf Løvland (Norway 1985 and 1995 – and as artist for the latter as a member of Secret Garden)
    • Johnny Logan (Ireland 1987 and 1992)
    • Brendan J. Graham (Ireland 1994 and 1996)
    • Thomas G:son (Sweden 2012 and 2023)
    • Peter Boström (Sweden 2012 and 2023)

    No writer has yet had three wins – if anyone for that list is going to achieve another, it’s G:son or Boström.

    We should also note that a number of backing singers have been involved with winning songs, some more than twice. They are:

    Finally there are a handful of conductors. Back in the days of the orchestra, many conductors were regular fixtures for their countries and could also conduct for another country when Eurovision was on home soil. Consequently, three conductors have held the baton for multiple Eurovision winners: Dolf van der Linden (Netherlands 1957 and 1959 and Ireland 1970); Franck Pourcel (France 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1969); and the most prolific of all Eurovision conductors, Noel Kelehan (Ireland 1980, 1987, 1992, 1993 and 1996).