Belgium: More than 20 potential Eurovision 2021 entries for Hooverphonic
Hooverphonic, Belgium’s Eurovision 2021 hopefuls have more than 20 entries to choose from in order to select their entry for Rotterdam.
While across the media we see reports that they have selected their ESC 2021 entry, Hooverphonic are still in the process of assessing more of 20 songs will be giving the battle to win the group’s preference for next year’s Eurovision.
Alex Callier, told the media:
“Despite the bizarre summer, we have made good use of our time. I think I already have material for three new albums. We are now selecting. Choice stress! But the best songs do emerge. Some are in line with Release Me , others are not. You know us: Looking for Stars was very electronic, our current single Summer Sun is retro. So it can be very surprising”
No decision on the entry yet!
However no decision has been taken regardng the song the group will perform on the Eurovision stage in Rotterdam in May 2021. The manager of the group confirmed this to the editors of Songfestival.be by metioning the ‘choice stress’ that Alex Callier already spoke about. ‘More than twenty songs’ have been written and ‘the song for the Eurovision Song Contest will come from those songs.’ The decision has not yet been taken, and there is not even a meeting planned with VRT, who may work with Hooverphonic for the Eurovision Song Contest for the second year in a row, and the group’s record company.
A few words about Hooverphonic
The Belgic band Hooverphonic was created in October 1995. Although initially it was known as a trip – hop band it quickly started to include alternative, electo, electro-pop and other sounds. The group started out as Hoover, a name used by other groups too, and switch to the name Hooverphonic αφού in orde to avoid legal complications.
On October 10, 2008 the band’s leading vocalist , Geike Arnaert , announced that she will leave the group opting for a solo career. Hooverphonic’s last concert took place on December 13, 2008 at Tele-Club in Ekaterinburg, Russia. This last concert was recorded by Russian MTV and was broadcast on Russian TV in 2009. In October 2010 Hooverphonic decided Noémie Wolf as Geike’s successor, a choice that was officially announced during the De Laatste Show on VRT. However on March 26,2015 the group revealed that Noémie will leave the group. On April 2018 the band found its new leading vocalist, Luka Cruysberghs.
The group’s major hit was the song entitled Mad About You, which reached high chart positions in European Countries and Australia.
The Eurovision Story So Far
Belgium is one of the nations that have participated in the Eurovision SOng Contest since its first edition back in 1956. It first and only victory comes 30 years after when the country tops the scoreboard in 1986 with the 13 yo Sandra Kim and her entry “J’aime la vie“.
The country has finished last in the contest 8 times while in two of these occasions didn’t receive any point at all. In 2003 the group Urban Trad with their song “Sanomi” almost achieved the country’s second victory finishing in the 2nd place, only two points behind Turkey and Sertab Erener with her entry “Every way that I can“.
Although the country has managed to qualify to the final 5 times the last decade, with Loïc Nottet in 2015 and Blanche in 2017 achieving the best results coming 4th in the final, the last two years that hasn’t been the case. In 2018 Sennek with “A matter of time” , failed to reach the final although the juries ranked her 9th in her semi final. In 2019 internally selected Eliot represented the country in Tel Aviv with his song “Wake up” which failed to reach the grand final.
This year Hooverphonic were to perform “Release Me” in Rotterdam.
Following the cancellation of the contest by EBU due to the coronavirus crisis, a consultation between the VRT, the French-speaking public broadcaster RTBF and Hooverphonic led to VRT announcing that the band will represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021. RTBF considered it a logical decision to offer Hooverphonic and the VRT this opportunity and postponed their turn for participation for a year until 2022.
