(photo: Stina Stjernkvist)
Did the right song win? It was the favourite of the televote, of the international juries, of the streaming charts and of the radio airplay charts. When all four of those stars align for you, there could be no other winner. Sweden have fallen in love with this song en masse – it’s only right that it gets to represent them at the Eurovision Song Contest in May.
How did the win come about? ‘Twas a landslide, particularly in the public vote. In fact, for the first time ever, ‘Voices’ received the 12 points from all eight of the age groups voting in Sweden. In the end, 1,159,881 Swedes cast over 15 million votes, with ‘Voices’ receiving 2,964,269 of them. The international juries, too, were enamoured – giving the song a ten point lead before the televote came in.
How will the song do at Eurovision? At Eurovision this year, there doesn’t seem to be any clear frontrunner, or even a small selection of frontrunners. In such a scenario, the field is wide open for a song like ‘Voices’ – one that inspires, unites and uplifts – to take advantage of its broad appeal and quietly take a small lead amongst all of the eccentricities surrounding it. But equally, there’s also a chance that its formulaic nature causes it to be overlooked and left behind. Unless of course, Tusse does what he did in the reprise…
What did he do in the reprise? Something quite magical. He shed the choreographed poise, and instead allowed his passion and emotions to take over – igniting a fire of euphoria and channeling it into the song, elevating it into something that was in a totally different league to what it was when he’d performed it earlier in the evening. If he can inject a bit of that into his performance in Rotterdam, there’ll be no overlooking ‘Voices’.
You can find ‘Voices’ on our Best New Pop playlist. (and you can watch the winner’s reprise on SVTPlay’s stream of last night’s show, by skipping to the end)
