On paper, the United Kingdom’s Eurovision profile has never been deeper into the doldrums. The dismal stats are well-known, but bear repeating. In the past decade, the UK has finished in the bottom three six times, and the last time the Union Flag was seen on left-hand side of the leaderboard was a decade ago.
And yet, as miserable as the outlook has been, I would argue that the level of engagement from the BBC has improved since the years of Scooch, Andy Abraham and Josh DuBovie. The will seems to be there, but year after year something just doesn’t connect across Europe.
The Anonymity Problem
I would argue that the main issue around recent entries like ‘Storm’, ‘Bigger Than Us’ and ‘Embers’ isn’t that they were weak songs. They were perfectly listenable, what they lacked was a clear USP. Why should a viewer in Finland, Romania or Portugal be inspired to pick up the phone for that song, over 25 others that were performed on the same night?
For my money, the solution is to look at what the Dutch have been doing so (mostly) successfully since 2013, which is to send fully formed artists who can instinctively sing songs that reflect the music they would also release outside of Eurovision. Anouk, The Common Linnets, and Duncan Laurence, are all prime examples of performers with a clear artistic point of view.
Chasing The Radio
Easier said than done, you might argue. By all accounts, established British artists are hardly beating down the BBC’s doors to fly the flag. The vast majority of contemporary major label acts focus on the pop charts and Radio 1, which doesn’t go out of its way to associate itself with the Song Contest – although recent playlistings for Månesken and Dadi Freyr suggest that approach could be evolving.
Which leads me to The Shires, an act I’ve long thought had everything going for them as a potential Eurovision act. A modern country-pop outfit, they’ve managed to build up a sizeable following without ever needing to chase Radio 1-endorsed chart success. In fact, they’ve never had a charting single, but in spite of this they’ve scored four Top Ten albums and played major stages across the UK and Europe.
More importantly, their music has a clear identity. Given its popularity at home and abroad, it’s surprising that we’ve never gone down the country-folk route for Eurovision in recent years, but that’s exactly what The Shires trade in. Songs like ‘Guilty’, ‘I Just Wanna Love You’ and ‘Beats To Your Rhythm‘ are warm, hooky modern pop songs that thread the needle between Taylor Swift and The Common Linnets. None of them sound like what the UK public think of as ‘a classic Eurovision song’, but it’s easy to imagine any of them gaining traction with both juries and televoters on the Eurovision stage.
What’s In It For Them?
As with all of our prospective artists, the question remains… Would The Shires be interested in doing the Eurovision Song Contest if the call from the BBC came through?
Without asking them, it’s impossible to say, but there’s a strong case you could make to the potential advantages. So far the group have managed to succeed without ever really becoming household names. They headline major festivals and tour frequently, but you rarely see them on television. You won’t hear them on Radio 1, but they’re a staple on the sister station Radio 2, which is traditionally more supportive of Eurovision-associated acts.
Assuming they played to their strengths and didn’t fall prey to the temptation to ‘write a Eurovision song’, a strong showing at the Song Contest could give the group a major profile boost without risking any major long-term damage. At best, they win an exposure to millions of new fans, at worst they can chalk it up as a footnote in an already successful and established career.
We Need A Hero
There are plenty of other acts who fly slightly underneath the mainstream radar who I’d also love to see stepping up – rising electro-dance star Tom Aspaul, beloved British soul queen and podcaster Jessie Ware, or the thrilling alt-pop goddess Rina Sawayama. Like Anouk stepping after eight years of Dutch misery, somebody just needs to go first and make a real case for artists of this calibre representing us with original material that remains true to them, without pandering to a long-forgotten formula of what a Eurovision song is supposed to sound like.
The UK needs a hero – will one of these acts answer the call when it comes?