23-12: Eurovision Fever

Boom! There she comes. Swedish Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest on 26th May and afterwards storms the charts all over Europe. Also Germany is infected by the eurodance production. Euphoria immediately storms to number 1 on the singles charts. It is the first non German winning song at the top of the sales charts since 1974. Back then it was also the Swedish entry that charmed the Europe wide audience and caused the very first success for ABBA. Euphoria is only the third Eurovision winning song not coming from Germany that can reach the top of the singles list. Only Sandy Shaw in 1967 managed that feat with her Puppet On A string. Of course the two wins of German entries reached the top in Germany as well. It was in 1982 Nicole and her Ein bisschen Frieden (A Little Peace) and two years ago Lena with Satellite.

The number one statistic concerning Euphoria is interesting in another way too. Loreen is the first woman to top the charts since Lana del Rey in December last year. And she is the first Swedish act doing so since Eric Prydz who entered the top in November 2004 with Call On Me – a dancefloor hit too. By the way Euphoria is the 88th song that can enter the German charts straightly at number 1.



Well–all that tells one fact: the Eurovision Song Contest is back as a big mainstream event in Germany. To underline that statement we should risk a look further down the survey: Seven of the 26 Eurovision finalists can launch a chart hit in Germany. Never before that many songs of the contest made it into the list.

Of course German participant Roman Lob benefits from the event aired on TV. Standing Still jumps 39–11 after his performance in Baku. Best entry not winning and not coming from Germany is surprisingly Ivi (eevie) Adamou and her song Lala Love. Her chart success is quite strange considering the fact that the German audience gave no point to her on the competition itself. Seems that people who vote are completely different to the people who buy songs. By the way the song charts in Austria and Switzerland as well–same picture here: no points within the voting on Eurovision but strong sales. Ivi Adamou is–as far as I could find out–the first Cypriot singer who can reach the German charts.

Runner up song Party For Everybody by the Бурановские Бабушки / Buranovskiye Babushki can enter the list easily. It starts chart life at number 44 as the third best non German participant–in the Eurovision voting the song got seven points meaning it landed at rank 4. It is the first time since 2007 that the Eurovision second can reach the sales charts. 5 years ago it was Ukrainian Verka Serduchka with Dancing Lasha Tumbai. There are some similarities between these two songs. With number 44 Party For Everybody is the highest second place since 1977 when Lynsey de Paul & Mike Moran reached number 4 with their song Rock Bottom (and became the secret winner of that year’s contest).

Further down one can find the Eurovision number 23 from Denmark. Soluna Samay got five points from the German voters. Her song Should’ve Known Better lands at number 51 as the fourth best sold Eurovision song. And of course also Irish JEDWARD can sell enough units for charting in Germany. On the votes the fan crowd was not strong enough (or was already done into bed)–the twins only made number 19. Eleftheria Eleftheriou from Greece at least got one single point from the German audience, lands at number 17 in Baku and sees her Aphrodisiac enter the sales charts at number 77. And finally Romanian Mandinga ending up 12th in Baku is sneaking into the charts at the very end with Zaleilah.

The big TV presence around the Eurovision show supports even bands that performed live before and right after the transmission. MIA. is the one that benefits the most seeing its Fallschirm (Parachute) jump 89–66 after the performance at the Reeperbahn live party.



Besides the big European TV event also other shows can again crowd up the charts with new material. But it is more the second row that can get attention. So let's call this week the week of the runner up singers. daniele negroni–the second of Deutschland sucht den Superstar–presents his debut album and a second single. Crazy is a surprisingly sparkling pop tune landing at number 15. So he's one of the very few runner ups who can really launch a second hit. Of course he had a big support by staging with his new song at the final show of DSDS Kids on 25th of May. Maybe he will become the real superstar of the season. The winning song of the DSDS season Don’t Think About Me this week is more sold in Daniele’s version than in the one of the winner Luca Hänni.



Also the runner up of X-Factor (do really somebody remember the show?) comes with an own single. Raffaela (formerly staging as Raffaela Wais) offers an electro infected pop track called Going Crazy. Also this production is surprisingly infecting. Having now the second song inside the German sales chart also Raffaela seems to be commercially more successsful than the winner David Pfeffer.




Back to Europe
In the week of Eurovision more European sound is new in the shelves–especially from Belgium. A new DJ and producer talent starts its way to international fame in the face of Laurent Wery who remixed a track for Swiftkid & DEV. That one brings him worldwide at the dancefloors and in the charts. Hey Hey Hey (Drop Another Bottle) is about party life. But in a much more simple way than most of similar dance productions. It is about pure fun, people look like people on the video and the sound is far away from over produced. I would call it even kind of oldschool. A big part of the crowd loves that. It starts chart life at number 27.



Last week Swedish singer Lykke Li launched their very first chart hit I Follow Rivers. The success was kind of a surprise. Right now the first cover version charts inside the Top 100. It is an unplugged version by Belgian rock band Triggerfinger. In its home country the band already achieved number 1. Now the band starts to take Germany as well. Number 58 is a good start I think.





The last story for today about a very specific German story. Everywhere in the world British/Irish boygroup One Direction tops the lists. In Germany? Nothing. The album Up All Night was available since February. Nobody cared. Now the label released a deluxe version especially for the German market which combines the CD with a DVD. Suddenly there is an interest. The album enters the album list at number 16 and lifts the single What Makes You Beautiful to a new peak. Number 65 is of course a very low peak. Probably the song suffers that lack of interest cause it is not available on youtube in Germany.