It was announced on Thursday night that Engelbert Humperdinck will represent the United Kingdom at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. Not Charlotte Church, Katherine Jenkins, John Barrowman, Pixie Lott, Katie Melua, Steps, Right Said Fred, Atomic Kitten....all of whom were rumoured at one point or another to be doing it this year. No, the BBC surprised us all by going for the legendary singer who at 75 years old, he will be the oldest singer to appear on the Eurovision stage. So he's already made history without even singing a note. As publicity coups go, this one's already been a cracker and there's certainly been a lot of reaction following the announcement.
It's certainly an unusual choice, but it's an inspired one. Apart from the novelty value, he's got a great voice and with the right song he will certainly get the viewers of Europe to sit up and take notice.
Ah yes, the song - I'm guessing it will be a contemporary big ballad, maybe something in the style of Adele's "Someone Like You" which continues to take Europe by storm. The UK has done better in recent years with ballads - think "Come Back" and "It's My Time" - so this would be a good choice I think. The songwriters are Martin Terefe and Sacha Skarbek, and we should get to hear the song in the coming weeks.
I read somewhere that Engelbert continues to play 200 concerts a year, so one more night in Baku should be a doddle. We wish him all the best and in the words of the wonderful Melodimen, we will be #humperdincking on the 26th of May!
2 comments:
Making the announcement a few weeks before Mothers Day shouldn't do too much harm to CD sales either.Mum's just bought one for my nan- I guarantee she wouldn't have thought to do that if the Hump hadn't have been in the news!
I'm hoping for something along the lines of Quando Quando Quando because there's not enough bossa nova in Eurovision for my liking.But whatever he sings he's going to put some of the other amateurs to shame *cough* Jedward *cough*.Not Kasper though,I reckon he'd probably quite like Kasper.
Quando Quando Quando - now there's a tune :) Don't think he'll do anything as wonderfully cheesy as that though.
Had another listen to Kasper today, I really hope they keep it in Estonian as I think that's what makes it special. Same goes for Iceland - I wish more countries would move away from English language songs. But they'll probably go for English, with the emotional impact lost in translation.
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