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Starting field at the rehearsals for the German ESC preliminary round: Frida Gold (far left) had to cancel due to illness
Photo: Julian Meusel / SVEN SIMON / picture alliance
In the seven Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) events since 2015, the German entry has come last or penultimate six times.
In 2022, Malik Harris came 25th out of 25 with »Rockstars« in the final, for which Germany, as one of the five largest contributors to the European Broadcasting Union, is directly qualified.
This is the framework in which the ARD - as it has been under the leadership of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) since 1996 - is looking for a title that is to represent Germany at the Song Contest on May 13th in Liverpool.
The decision will be made late Friday evening, possibly at the witching hour: the start of broadcasting of the live show for the German preliminary decision in the first is 10:20 p.m., the following program is scheduled for 12:05 a.m.
The broadcaster calls it a "programming experiment".
How is it decided?
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ESC candidate Lord of the Lost: In the name of blood and glitter
Photo: VDPictures / NDR
Similar to the voting procedure in the ESC final, half of the winning song in the German pre-selection should be determined by the audience and half by a jury.
The jury:
50 percent of the points are awarded by eight juries in eight different countries, each consisting of five people from music and show business, according to the NDR.
They come from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Lithuania, Ukraine, Austria and Great Britain.
In the show, the respective jury speakers of these countries award the points 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12.
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ESC candidate Patty Gurdy: A hurdy-gurdy for Europe?
Photo: Oliver Weisskopf / NDR
The audience vote:
The other 50 percent of the points are made up of votes during the show by phone call and SMS and an online vote that is already running - via the websites of various ARD radio stations and the NDR Eurovision site.
This voting ends on Friday at 10 p.m., before the show.
The points would be "distributed among the eight songs in percentage terms of the German televoting," it said.
The show:
The ARD broadcast on the preliminary decision will be moderated by Barbara Schöneberger for the seventh time since 2014.
It takes place in the MMC studios in Cologne.
On the sofa, Schöneberger talks to Ilse DeLange (2014 ESC runner-up for the Netherlands with the Common Limnets), Florian Silbereisen, Riccardo Simonetti and Malik Harris, the German participant in 2022 in Turin.
Who is entering?
Eight acts were selected by the ESC editorial team and an advisory team of national and international music experts.
Expertise came, among others, from the ARD radio stations, whose selection had been sharply criticized last year because they had only chosen different shades of transparency.
An additional participant in the preliminary round was selected via TikTok for the first time;
Ikke Hipgold won this vote with a clear lead.
On the day of the preliminary decision, Frida Gold had to withdraw her participation with "All women in me are tired" (here the music video): Singer Alina Süggeler is ill, she complained of fever, chills, an ailing voice and cannot perform.
TRONG - »Dare To Be Different«
Who?
Trong Hieu Nguyen, 30, grew up in a Franconian accommodation for asylum seekers, studied singing in Hanover and took part in a casting for the Vietnamese version of »DSDS« when visiting relatives.
The result: He became a »Vietnam Idol« and was idolized there as a »German Hot Boy«.
He has already tried five times in vain to take part in the German ESC preliminary round;
now it worked with a hymn to the courage to stand by yourself.
how does it sound
As a child and teenager, Trong Hieu repeatedly took part in dance competitions under the motto "Dance 4 Fans", where the aim was to imitate the choreographies of famous role models.
He even auditioned for Britney Spears on a TV show.
His music also has something epigonal about it, whereby the styled K-Pop sound in particular is currently the model, here as a disco piece.
Would he last at Liverpool?
Probably not: the sound and message are contemporary, Trong is an impressive dancer and with the traditional Vietnamese rice hat he has a memory-boosting accessory for fast forwarding.
A few points would probably come together.
Rene Miller – »Concrete Heart«
Who?
René Müller, 28, comes from Swabia, the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" described him as the "Ed Sheeran from Filderstadt".
He dropped out of his studies on renewable energies after two semesters;
he works as a songwriter from Berlin and London and was part of the team that wrote Zoe Wees' breakthrough hit »Control«.
His debut single was released in April 2022, now with an anglicized surname.
how does it sound
You can tell that Miller understands his craft: "Concrete Heart" is a concentrated, very radio-friendly ballad that many British artists could also sing.
Maybe less the very first Sheeran League, but close behind.
However, the native speakers would possibly be bothered by the fact that badly used language images are used ("You just build me up to knock me down").
Would he be last in Liverpool?
Very difficult to judge.
It depends on the staging.
René Miller himself is not the type for the spectacular show, and there are a few solid radio hits in the ESC, so he could go under.
The eternally hopeful in the NDR would refer to the singular success of Michael Schulte in recent years, where not much was going on on stage, but everything fitted together.
Anica Russo - »Once Upon A Dream«
Who?
Anica Russo's first name is pronounced "Ani-za" after her Croatian father;
her mother is from southern Italy.
The 22-year-old grew up in a village near Oldenburg and now lives in Berlin.
With a duet cover version (with Jannik Brunke) of the Rihanna hit »Work« she reached over 150,000 YouTube clicks in four days as a 16-year-old.
In 2022 she won the young talent competition "Beat Waves" at the W Festival in Frankfurt am Main and was rewarded with appearing in Zoe Wees' opening act.
how does it sound
The ballad, written with Finnish support, ripples away dreamily until a hello-awake break hits at minute 1:15.
As if frightened by the harsh reality, the song seems to lie down again afterwards.
Would she last in Liverpool?
Most likely.
The one highlight of the production would be lost in the general noise of the ESC final.
Maybe one or two sympathy points from Croatia or Italy.
Lonely Spring- »Misfit«
Who?
The band around the Fuchs twins from Freyung in Lower Bavaria has been touring the country's small clubs since the mid-1900s.
They received support from the Munich punk band Emil Bulls;
their first EP was mixed by a musician from Electric Callboy - the band whose non-qualification for the 2022 preliminary round brought discussions about the primacy of radioworthiness to the extreme.
A hidden
mea culpa
from the NDR team?
how does it sound
After the early nineties, after pop-punk with polyphonic singing, after Avril Lavigne, »Teenage Dirtbag«, Fall Out Boy.
The song is about being an outsider - and not giving a damn about it.
A good attitude for Lonely Spring in this competition.
Would They Last in Liverpool?
Maybe not the very last.
A small pop-punk revival has also reached the mainstream more recently.
In addition, the Bavarian boys could trigger protective instincts in the audience with their smeared eyeliner.
Will Church - "Hold On"
Who?
It's always nice how pop allows people to transform themselves.
When he sang in the »Young Voices Brandenburg« choir, his name was Willi Czuch – now the 28-year-old is appearing as a bearded man of sorrows with a hat under the name Will Church.
An important phase for this transformation was apparently a time as a busker in Brighton.
Despite all the demands that the big names in the German pop business should take responsibility for the ESC, there is something in it when almost unknown people are given their chance.
how does it sound
However, it is not Will Church's first chance, he also appeared on "The Voice of Germany" in 2021 - and convinced all four jurors at the blind audition with his version of the then Eurovision winning title "Arcade" by Duncan Laurence.
The stupid thing is: his own title for the ESC preliminary decision sounds almost the same.
Would he last at Liverpool?
Yes, probably.
Relying on proven recipes is common practice at ESC, but it could be a little more originality.
Patty Gurdy - "Melodies Of Hope"
Who?
Patricia Büchler, 26 and from the Düsseldorf region, has been touring Germany's (somewhat hidden from the media) flourishing medieval music scene for years.
This is due to the instrument from which she borrowed her stage name: the hurdy-gurdy.
A duet with the band D'Artagnan has over four million views on YouTube.
Patty Gurdy's debut solo album is beautifully titled »Pest & Power«.
how does it sound
"Melodies of Hope" is an upbeat pop song with vague Celtic overtones, particularly in the hurdy-gurdy refrain.
They won't win awards for songwriting finesse, but Patty Gurdy and her producer and co-songwriter Hannes Braun (who has worked extensively for Santiano) know what they are doing.
Would she last at Liverpool?
No way.
Folk-pop with unusual instruments is an almost classic part of the ESC mix and has repeatedly brought great success.
It doesn't quite match the magic of winning titles like »Nocturne« (1995) or »Fairytale« (2009);
and a band like Go_A (Ukraine 2021) musically dared far more in a related field.
But a good placement, at least in the public vote, would be possible.
Ikke Hipgold – »Song with good lyrics«
Who?
Matthias Distel, born in Limburg an der Lahn in 1976, calls himself Ikke Hipgold when he wears his black hair wig.
Under this name he performed a number of Ballermann hits himself (»Big Tits, Potato Salad«, »I still sway«) or produced them with his company Summerfield Records (»Layla«).
Trying not to make the party hit business look too cynical.
Read more in the SPIEGEL portrait.
how does it sound
The beat bangs through, the synth fanfares cheer, it's party hit sound out of the box.
The text, in which Ikke Hipgold takes up the »Layla« debate and the miserable German ESC record with a strong wink, is more decisive.
Some fans of the song contest see Ikke Hipgold as a troll who interferes unintentionally, the singer in turn was amazed: "Now in the ESC bubble I realized: Wow, there's a damn lot of hate".
Fast forward to the chorus, and it goes "La la-la-la lala-lala-la."
Would he last at Liverpool?
The fact that Lala refrains are international, like hip gold sings, cannot be denied, refer to the Spanish winning title of 1968, »La, la, la«.
But all in all, one can have doubts as to whether these very German debates about a very German milieu will find much understanding in Europe.
Points from Austria, Switzerland and Mallorca would be expected.
would have been Frida Gold - the start number remains vacant after her cancellation.
Lord Of The Lost - »Blood & Glitter«
Who?
Lord of the Lost is a dark metal band from Hamburg led by singer Chris Harms, 33. The band has become increasingly successful since it was founded in 2007, thanks to tireless touring (most recently as the support act for Iron Maiden) and appearances at festivals such as Blackfield and Castle Skirt.
Her latest album »Blood & Glitter« even reached number one in the German charts.
Part of the image is also Harms' pop preference, which is unusual for the genre and manifests itself, for example, in glittering guitars and a Roxette cover with guest singer Jasmin Wagner (Blümchen).
how does it sound
Chris Harms also works as a music producer in a recording studio in Hamburg-Dulsberg, successfully giving old warriors like Joachim Witt or Nino de Angelo a new, dark, radiant coat of paint.
Lord of the Lost emphasize this sense of the popular in their ESC song: melodic intermediate parts, Rammstein pathos in the verses, electronic gimmicks alternate with skillful metal roaring.
Would They Last in Liverpool?
No.
Even if the surprise effect of metal at the ESC fizzled out at the latest with Lordi's victory in 2006: "Blood & Glitter" has enough crossover approaches for the pop audience, and singer Chris Harms is explicitly queer.
Main danger: Australia is also sending a metal band into the race, whose singer even comes from Germany.
"Our song for Liverpool", Das Erste, ONE and Eurovision.de, 10:20 p.m
With material from the dpa