The decision on victory will be taken only in the final to be held in Turin on 14 May. But the hard core of ESC fans already had a clear opinion: German lyrics? You don’t need it.
The result of a Europe-wide vote among ESC fan clubs cannot be interpreted otherwise. There is no enthusiasm for the song “Rockstar” with which Malik Harris begins to head to Germany. After the song selection for the national preliminary round has already been heavily criticized, those responsible should continue to worry. The nightmare outcome of zero points is in the realm of possibility.
The survey on this issue was conducted by the Association of ESC Fan Clubs across Europe. OGAE (Organisation Generale des Amateurs de l’Eurovision) claims to have over 10,000 members. To simulate voting like in ESC 2022, respective national clubs gave their points. As such each country will ultimately vote individually in the actual competition.
Of course, only a small portion of the latter’s audience was interviewed. On the other hand, there are also self-proclaimed fans of the contest who are held in OGAE and certainly want to cast their vote later – and have probably already heard all the songs already.
The voting results for Malik Harris are worrying. “Rockstar” got a total of two points. It was only in Latvia that the song was popular enough to be rated. This means it ranks 24th among the entries assessed by 43 participating fan clubs. The fact that there are multiple contributions without a score doesn’t even make the result any better.
The top 3 clearly shows where the serious scoring is located. Sweden got 393 points, Italy got 387 points and Spain still got 294 points.
This time, the audience was once again able to vote directly on which musicians should play for Germany at ESC 2022. However, the pre-selection from all applicants by music experts to the ARD radio programs caused controversy. Metal band Eskimo Callboys (now renamed Electric Callboys) were not recruited in the early stages. The official justification was: “suitable for radio” not enough. Supporters of the band rose up, started a petition, but could not change the mind of those responsible.
Given this much-discussed controversy, the search for the next ESC contribution was not ideal from the start. As of now, there is nothing to indicate that the selection process has paid off in terms of scoring.
