Can the UK do well at Eurovision again, and what do they need to do to succeed?

In the first of two opinion blogs, The Euro Trip blogger Emily Herbert takes a look at how the UK had enjoy success at Eurovision next year.

Over the past few years, the UK have gained a reputation of doing “bad” at Eurovision, but why? Perhaps we haven’t quite got the formula right. It’s hard to tell what song you’d like to see at a contest when you don’t know what genre the other songs are (e.g is it a ballad year like 2015?). What I’ve found is that if a solo female wins the year before, there’s an increase in solo female artists the year after (2013 for example). The same goes with duets; The Common Linnets came 2nd in 2014 for The Netherlands, and we saw an increase in duet entries in 2015.

So, if we look at the top of the leaderboard in 2015, we see that we obviously have Sweden at the top with Måns Zelmerlöw, his catchy pop song and captivating graphics. Perhaps cool graphics are the way to go? Stage presentation is key. With Electro Velvet, the stage looked nice and colourful, but VERY busy, and so that could have made it forgettable. Additionally, we haven’t sent a (young) solo male artist in a while, maybe now is the right time?! 

Jade Ewen sang the UK to 5th in Moscow

Songwriting is also key. Whoever ends up producing the song for this year must have experience or background in the industry, or at least done research on the competition so they know what they’re looking for. Gary Barlow for example (though I have a feeling he mentioned he didn’t want to do Eurovision?) would be a good choice, with the success of Take That and the X Factor. Andrew Lloyd Webber was the songwriter for Jade Ewen in 2009 where she came 5th (and that year was a tough one!), so that is one factor that needs carefully deciding.

Personally, as much as I’d like a National Final, the quality of the songs may not be as good as if it was selected internally with a good songwriter. If the NF was at Melodifestivalen standard (which I think is the best NF), there would be more budding artists wanting to get involved with good quality songs, but for now I think that the country doesn’t take the contest seriously enough.

In 2016 I’d like to see a powerful solo male ballad from the UK, produced by a well-known composer or songwriter. I don’t think there are ever enough male solo ballads at the contest and they do relatively well (e.g Andras Kallay-Saunders or even Johnny Logan). A young artist would be better (see Engelburt Humpadinck), thought they have to be experienced and not so nervous (see Josh Dubovie). With the right staging, strong vocals and support from the public, I believe we could do well again. Emily