Eurovision 2021 rule change: Pre-recorded backing vocals will be allowed in Rotterdam
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- A Eurovision 2021 rule change will allow pre-recorded backing vocals as part of a one-year trial to make the song contest more sustainable. The lead vocalist will still need to sing live. It's hoped this change will allow countries to (1) travel with smaller delegations (2) boost creativity and (3) reduce the technical pressure on the host broadcaster.
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What I fear the most is that Eurovision will slowly turn into something like karaoke contest. The prerecorded backing vocals could hide the voice of the main artist (especially with weaker singers)
The backing vocals are not allowed to be lead vocals or lead dubs. And we've seen before that the rules of the contest are strictly enforced (just look at the Poli Genova example mentioned in the video). So why do you think it'll be a "karaoke contest"?
@@jochemvanhees I mean I'm not saying it'll necessary end this way, but rather that I'm worried that it might. It we're talking about examples look e.g. at The Mamas "Move" at MF - in chorus it's hard to distinguish what is prerecorded and what's the live voice. We all know they can sing. but you cannot hear that at performance. Similar case - "Ballerina" by Malou Prytz, in chorus you can barely hear her (except for the high note, that was not great). So what I meant is that if you cannot hear clearly the live voice, what's the difference between this and karaoke preformance
We've all sen it with Greece 2017. Best example possibly.We're going the wrong way here.
This can and does happen with live backing vocals anyway. It's common for backing singers to cover the lead singer's weak vocals.
@@jochemvanhees rules are rules, but how do you know that is not enforced? lead vocals may or may not always be allowed but backing vocals are ?
What sort of rule is that? Eurovision is supposed to be a fair competition for all. If you cheat at ANYTHING, then its unfair by definition. And that includes solving this COVID 2021, so Eurovision can STILL go ahead..
Yes ok... cancel that festival here n Australia, Melbourne,, where there is not as many cases as the rest of the world BUT Eurovision is an exception...
I'd like to see why they reckon they can continue "during a pandemic" still, and other businesses won't come back till later. There is a reason why they wont
EuroVision just wanna be the first ones. to get the media coverage. That's all.
What if those at Eurovision caught COVID ? Could easily happen... We've already sen so-called "precautions" before, and look how that ended up?
William always make such good points, very impressed by his knowledge 😁
Thank you for your kind words!
The cost question is simple to answer; the host broadcaster can provide backing singers for the participants, they used to do in the 50/60/70/80/90s not a problem. Keep the contest live.
Plus production isn't cheap, this just pushes cost from the event to the studio.. Not to be *that* guy but the removal of the orchestra in '99 pulled the rug under a lot of smaller countries who benefitted from the professional backing - the live orch. created a more level playing field
No because a lot of songs need backing singers that mesh well with the song and lead singer.
an while all business remains shut now matter how big, there is a reason why Eurorvision choose to do this... because it wants to be first. Next day, everyone gets COVID..
Put it for till 2022... Make sure everything is good... It's too early while a vaccine is rolling out and no one knows if everything will be ok..
We "assume" will be.
More Swedish dominance in Eurovision on the production side, and immediately it becomes even more similar to Melodifestivalen. 🤦♂️ Whether you have dancers or backing singers, it's still up to six people on stage per country. This means even more show and visual-effects bluster and even less payoff for people with genuine vocal skills.
Metalvision Song Contest this is the truth! Sweden’s competitive, uninspired and controlling nature continues to ruin the contest.
Sweden would dominate the technical aspects. They have the world's best music producers.
I'm probably a little conservative😉 I'd like the contest to lean more towards Sanremo than Melfest. But for me the biggest issue is still the aggregated votes, I don't understand the need for them. In a close year random votes could decide the outcome, why?
Now I understand the singing of the Mama's, Sweden. They used probably a lot of recorded backing vocals (probably more than total of 6). Easy and has nothing to do with a real life performance. When you choose for this way of vocals, also vocal of front artist is not important anymore. So what are we judging then? Song and most technical production? Life performance is killed by this method and in my opinion takes away all Eurovision makes special.
All you should be judging is the song, it’s a song contest.
@@EnriqueSP aside of being a song contest, it's also a live music festival, for the 64 seasons it was held for. Adding pre-recorded vocals takes away this purpose, and the purpose of the lovely backups!
Sendy's Wardrobe of Work The reality is that live vocals is taking away an essential part of the art of producing and it is limiting the creativity of producers. Rules should be made to favor the SONG contest, not the SINGING contest.
Well the, let's watch video clips then to see the essential part of the art of production without being limited by the potential problems a life performance.
So they were able to change this significant rule but not let this years songs compete next year, because rules? Wow.
That has got to change...surely! At least let some of the songs come back...there were some absolute knockouts this year that deserve to be on the stage.
I totally disagree with this change. Making music together isn't first priority anymore. It's becoming more and more a dance/freak show. Not worth anymore spending million of euro's.
it's a harsh choice, but a correct decision for next year. Hopefully this should be laid back for 2022
Terrible idea it would eventually kill the brand as this is not what Eurovision is about... bad vocalists are part of the fun... I suspect they REALLY wanna push the idea to the USA and thats why trying to polish it and even make a movie on it... Terrible
I hope it's temporary only and not permanent. this rule is not good in long-term.
I think it'd open up the door to more creative uses - not just for general backing vocals. Like mentioned - Poli Genova and JOWST especially come to mind.
Oh FFS! Why don't we just bother getting rid of the lead vocals as well? And maybe we could do videos instead of live performances? And maybe we don't need a host and just make it the Eurovision Video Contest? What a complete joke. Let's have a 2000 male voice choir behind it. SVT are determined to recreate Eurovision as EuroMelodifestivalen.
Here's a radical thought. Write a song that suits your artist's voice? Or get an artist who is capable of singing instead of Sweden's obsession with tarting up their weak entries with superfluous backing dancers.
And this one year trial thing is a complete red herring.
What is to stop someone from miming the lead vocal at a really difficult part of the song? I disagree with this rule.
It's a valid concern. Will be interesting to see what rules / steps they put in place to avoid that.
I assume organisers will listen to the recording and approve it for playback or not. What if a particular country records a choir of 200 people and that ends up being the focus during the chorus? There's so many ways that this could be manipulated.
This is a live music competition. More accurately, this will have been a live music competition, and celebration of live performance. All it will become is the X factor. The ticket prices for attendance will remain sky high, and the artistic integrity will collapse.
PUt it this way.... How would we all feel at a live gig, where this backing stuff vocal thing happened? lead/ or otherwise.. Everyone would "Boooo"
What makes Eurovision any different by faking ? All i'm saying, is if this is "normal" then more would be doing it right ? Their are backing's at live gigs too..
Triana Park also a good example of bad backing vocals, this could have saved them
Croatia 1999 entry was prophetic :) sooo ahead of its time :)
Totally
Your talking about a song that should by rights have finished 7th or 8th not 2nd or 3rd because there was an extra disembodied male voice when there wasn't two male backing vocalists on stage.
This a terrible move by them and it'll be revoked the year after.
Sooo we’re probably gonna have more dancers in acts?
I bet a lot of countries will make use of the rule and experiment with a fuller stage. Especially on upbeat tracks.
I hope so! I miss the funny dancers!
@ backing vocals were always included no matter whether they were on stage or not
I notice myself to often disagree with many people when it comes to the ESC. The ESC is growing. It's being viewed by more and more people. It's worldwide trending every year.
A few months (or a year) ago it has been announced that netflix will be streaming upcoming editions of the ESC (imagine what will happen if the whole world has acces to these shows).
A competition that started after WWII with like 5 countries has grown already to 40 to 43 countries, Even to Australia! It's such a hype over there even though it's like 5 AM when the Grand Final is being broadcast. So, the chance of more countries joining the EBU and it's ESC is pretty big i guess.
The EBU has changed a lot of rules over the past years. Like the voting system:
The results of each country were giving from 8 points to 10 and 12. But it was an endless race before all countries had giving there points so the EBU brought it back to the 12 ' Douze' Points. only. (great decision because o lord, those presenters really like to take their moment of fame *auch!)
The live event would be a little less exhausting and with the decision of pre-recording the backing vocals I can imagine that it's so much better to organise all those artists !
But, I do get your point when your argument is 'it's a songcontest so the songs should be live' or 'it's starting to look like a karaoke version'.
Still. The singers voice(s) will be live. And that's what the jury will be giving their points for (and the staging, etc). I just love the 'show' itself. And I really don't want a karaoke version trust me but when more countries will be participating (and i'm pretty sure there will be more) than the EBU HAS to make hard desicions like this. So, I get it and I don't think we will really notice a lot of difference like.. Lesbihonest :-)
Love from Amsterdam
Haha William makes me laugh to the point were I can’t breath !
🤣🙏🏻
OMG they replied I’m going mental and it’s like 2am 😂 . I’m taking a screen shot , printing it out and sticking it on my wall! Thank you so much
I'm glad to finally see Ed/Eddie back :)
He's happy to be here for ya!
Song Contest - it's about singing. Pre-recorded backing vocals? This is like eating out of a can, not an ala-carte preparation. And who knows what's in the can? Organic, really? No idea who has such an idea and why. It is certainly not in the interest of the Song Contest.
Isn't anyone else suspicious how Sweden is basically taking over the competition and getting unfair coverage in it? Many of the head guys are Swedish, the break during songs is always just before the Swedish song is played, and no matter how shite their song, they always very through to the semi-finals? Plus many more. There is a HUGE unfair favouritism for Sweden in play.
One time we didn't qualify and that was recently. Ireland is the country with most wins too. Are you going to ignore that 2 out 5, in the Big 5 countries, are in the top list of wins?
The top 4 are not in the Big 5 and that's a good thing imo.
Sweden just happen to have very good music producers too. Like, there are more factors in this.
I'll insert my own opinion of Melfest: cringe, too exaggerated and lose the playback thanks.
Haha i love the "Lets talk about Amir" girl reference at the beginning 🤣🤣
An extra dancer cost almost the same as a backing singer regarding the staying. Therefore, this rule puts “poor” countries at a biggest disadvantage. I ll prefer to allow 8 people on the stage, than the pre recorded vocals.
I think this can improve many live performances. Take for example Ireland in 2011 and Denmark 2017. What were great performances got knocked down a bit due to slightly poor backing vocals. This change can be a double-edge sword though, I think, since this might strip away some of the realism that the performances have.
Having great vocals SHOULD give acts a 'massive advantage', Ed. Lucy's Mabel example does not help as that BRITS performance involved a cast of thousands. I agree with tweeter Szymon's first two points. We should be told which songs have used pre-recorded vocals, and we shouldn't make it easier to hide poor lead singers. That's not evolution, it's fakery. If Mikolas Josef runs out of breath then I'll be voting for someone like Damir Kedzo, who has no problem in that area. My points will go to those who are doing it all the hard way, on the night. It's as if figure skaters were allowed to do their jumps in advance and submit videos to the judges. That will alleviate stress too.
I'm sorry for this off topic comment, but I took a 4-year long break from Eurovision and in that time all of y'all had major glo ups
If its about options why not open the contest to live instruments? Could add a lot
Imagine if that rule was in place for this year (2020) ... would Iceland’s Daði Freyr have prepared Think About Things with his Gagnamagnið gang as back-up vocals or would he have pre-recorded all the back-up vocals with his own voice as he loves to do with all his other songs? For financial reasons he may well have chosen to do the latter and we would have never seen his delightful song performance they way we know and love it.
I understand why some people are angry but I'm actually not against this idea. I am optimistic that it would allow more creative freedom in the performances and more current sounds. Plus, I appriciate that it's only an option and not mandatory, so every country can choose for itself. Obviously, as you guys mationed, a lot of past performances could really benefit from this rule. Like Netta with Toy for example. I know she won without it but the song could've sound much better in the contest with pre recorded backing vocals, So it's nice that it's an option now. However, I have a feeling that most countries would still choose to still go with completely live vocals, but we shall see. Also, if a song is weak or not good enough, people will not vote for it and all the backing vocals in the world wouldn't change that. I am curious to see how this turns out in Eurovision next year
What is unclear to me is how much editing is allowed in the pre-recorded backing vocals? I think they'll allow auto-tune, but what else? Pitch shifting, vocoder, chopped vocal loops? Because if they REALLY want to make things more current, they should go pretty much all the way.
So what that it's optional. If country wants to win, they would HAVE TO use it to make it fair. It's like saying bringing more people to stage is optional, but look - 95% acts has 6 people to compete for top places.
Yes it's the Eurovision song contest and so the writers and composers should have a much greater prominence rather than being sidelined as they are today. They are the talent and if the song sells well they can watch the songs roll in.
Ed is looking FINE 😍
I was thinking how handsome he was.
Ed is hot ❤
Junior Eurovision use pre recorded vocals and i think it works pretty well. As a competition i do think it's important to stress the importance of live vocals but as long as you can clearly hear the lead person sing then i don't see any problems with it.
This is a good point, but at the same time JESC is such a small playing field compared to ESC that you don't really see the inequality. But in ESC, those inequalities will be highlighted.
This is a good point Re: JESC.
Yes we can get thru this!!! But how you can pre record for example 2014 ukraine??? That song was all backing vocalists, so where EBU where will they mark the line??? Don’t get me wrong I love Ukrainian entry 2014 Tik Tok but that entry was completely performed by baking vocalist
ABSOLUTE BOLLOCKS.
I really hope countries will still stick to live vocals. Speaking for Bulgaria, I enjoy the live version of "Bones" more than original one.
It's a good point -- often times fully live vocals make things more powerful.
Oscar Zia's "Human" at MelFest was the first song to have this done. Also, if a country an afford to record a choir to put on a song and then add backing vocals and have those brought to Eurovision, and other struggling countries can barely afford the five vocalists. Hopefully they'll limit it to only five vocalists that can be prerecorded (or as many people with the main artists that would've made made six on stage), maybe that's different, but also confusing. New rules have new elements to abuse. We'll have to see how it goes down this year and see if it works out in 2021.
Yeah, let's see about this rule and also, it's going to be a disaster trust me.
Guy in a middle is smoking hot. At first I thought he has Asian eyes. :) Cuteness overload.
People saying prerecorded baking vocals hide bad vocals. Don't live baking vocals also do that?
That is an excellent point!
Well, at least backing vocals now are live. If through the song all you can hear is prerecorded than what's the difference between such performance and music video?
Not to the same effect.
Who’s that guy in the middle🔥
His name is Edd
wiwibloggs Hi Edd🤪
In recent years most of the backing vocals were off-scene and this was a big insult to those performers. This rule is better, at least there won't be any 'hidden' singers. But the best choice is all vocals on the scene as the old days.
I doubt this will stop the "The Voice of Europe" effect that Ed describes. Because lead vocals are still live. And if they weren't, the DJs would probably take over... 😂
Autotune as well?
Fly On The Wings Of Love - Had live Auto-Tune in 2000. Really wondering the story around that. It never happend again.
A quick note to explain Australia and the ESC. 66% of our population is either migrant or first generation. The European part of that currently dominates. We gave a national free broadcaster (SBS) that broadcasts news and shows on TV and radio in a multiplicity of world languages. They introduced the ESC to Australians and it is popular. I am surprised we're there but enjoy us being part of this huge show. AND Melbourne is the 3rd biggest Greek city in the world.
I'm not agree, Eurovision is a SONG contest, it isn'y only a show! Backing vocals give value to the live performance
Would be fun to see men lip syncing to prerecorded female backing vocals on stage.
aaaahhahah T has been spilt ☕☕☕
I'm already hearing people using this as an excuse to bash next year winner. 😂
I'm not a fan of this either. But first, were backing vocalists obliged to be on stage as well or not? Because i thought that this rule is to prevent that there have to be too many people on stage in case of a situation like we have this year. But if you replace them with dancers instead it's even worse. They should make it that before the contest they can decide whether backing tracks have to be used to reduce the amount of people on stage or it is safe enough let the entries perform how they are used to. In general i know that this is an artistic aspect, however i don't like how in performances today the singer less and less concentrates on actually singing or even making sure that the song is performable live and is prioritising the show as a whole. In the example of Mabel at the Brits... so many artists don't even sing the chorus anymore and just dance to a backing track to maybe hide the fact that they aren't great live singers. I mean even Lady Gaga who insinsts that she never is going to use playback uses backing tracks during her concerts to a point where she doesn't even sing half the song in the end. If it's not possible to dance and sing well enough at the same time, then just don't do it and concentrate on the singing because ultimately the singer's job is to sing and not to compromise this with dancing until the singing is so bad that they simply don't try no more. I wonder what dancers are for? It's not that i don't like these kind of shows. Although i think the live vocals are edited to some extent at eurovision as well, it was still a true performance what is the appeal of eurovision. This rule might end up as the start to allow performances to become more and more artificial. Let's hope this turns out harmless.
so it will sound like Melodifestivalen?
Do we not want it to chart here in The UK as well though?
I know a lot of performances may have been destroyed by bad backing vocalists. But that's part of the competition. You gotta know your possibilities on that live stage. And if you don't play it right, your brilliant song will seem weak. Now let's just watch a wave of "Bigger Than Us" 's (UK 2019) suddenly arrive, cause we can suddenly create strong, laud choirs on the stage, which no 5 people can do.
Doris Dragović must be very angry 🤭
I do wonderrrr how much Michael Rice is a part of this. We all know the EBU are desperate for the UK to do well - it's embarrassing one of the key sponsors does so badly and they may fear withdrawal. Backing vocals were one of the reasons Michael's song was a bit flat on the night and this rule would have elevated it perhaps out of the last place..
I don't like this idea
I think that this is because of trying to have delegations bring less people to make the contest safer plus country’s won’t have to worry about bad backing vocals dragging down an otherwise good performance. Eurofans are radicalizing this and saying that prerecorded lead vocals and performances are next. smh
Many countries would definitely benefit from having to bring smaller delegations. Hotel bills, food, transport does add up to tens of thousands of euros.
What can we say? Some us like unnecessary drama...
Ed makes a great point and alongside this ‘trial’ there should be a shift in focus for the juries away from vocal ability. Last year (albeit not by a landslide) the most ‘popular’ song was Spirit in The Sky. My only fear with this new rule is that Eurovision becomes even more of a karaoke show 🤔
I was telling everyone that they should keep an open mind but now I'm so angry. I will watch it but they are slowly turning ESC into MELLO
This is a step away from just send in videoclips. Bad idea.
This is a great idear I am looking forward to next years contest thank-you William
These prerecorded backing vocals will mask a bad singers voice. They can even use the artist for the backingvocals and then we are very close to a mime show.
Say it with me: " *The new normal...* because Corona..." 🙄
If this rule was In 2018 russia would have went to the FINALS *PERIODT*
It sounds like a good idea. The performance may be better if we can have backing singers & dancers. What a surprise that Wiwi trolls see Swedish conspiracies. Backing singers can hide bad singers now, so what difference does it make if the backing vocals are live or recorded? Do these trolls want to remove the recorded music track too?
Efects still not allowed so bulgraia 2017 cant do even now this voice on stage.
Reduce technical pressure? It sounds to me like there will be MORE technical pressure. And why do they have to travel with smaller delegations? This is not a good idea at all. What will be next? The lead vocalist can also use pre recorded vocals? I don't like where this is going. Just keep the singing live. And this is taking away a chance of singing on the Eurovision stage for a lot of backing vocalists. And if the backing vocals are recorded and countries bring extra dancers, what's even the point of introducing this rule then? The intention of the people who created this is rule is ruined then (less cost, smaller delegations etc). I don't get how Ed can find this a good idea. Yes the contest has to modernize along with the music industry but this is not the way to do that. If every country used recorded backing vocals in their Tv shows, real backing vocalists is what makes Eurovision unique. And Lucy: Yes, Michael's backing vocals overpowered hem but is using prerecorded backing vocals really the solution? Just fix that problem with the backing vocals singing a bit quite and it's ok.
9:46 I'M DEADDDD
Why perform live than, just allow lip-sync than, the result will be the same anyway.
First the orchestra, now backing vocals... welcome to the 2022 Eurovision Lip Sync Contest!!!! 😅💦
The orchestra is not relevant in the modern music scene.
@@trildi not only i don`t agree with this but also find surprising the fact that no live instruments are allowed
And eventually it'll be the Eurovision Entertainment Contest with 42 dancers on the stage and 600 backing vocalists while the lead singer sings for 5 seconds. I've been watching less and less Eurovision over the years and this is just making it more and more irrelevant as it's removing the uniqueness of the contest.
Maybe countries should only use their own nationals
@Wiwibloggs I fear of it becoming every country suffering with (ESS) Empty Stage Syndrome look at North Macedonia and Montenegro in 2017 maybe not all at once but we'd have more of that. In other words this whole thing is just meant to be aimed at the troglodytes who aren't even remotely interested in the Eurovision it's a poor decision on the part of the EBU end of story.
There was hope that the orchestra would return in Rotterdam. Instead we get this crap.
Does this means that a Looper would be allowed now? :O
I don't think so. autotunes are never allowed as well.
@@a.m.rifkia.3rd493
It's not an auto tune though. The problems were that it was an instrument and that it's effectively a recording (to my knowledge).
So sad !
Conan Osiris would have benefited too imo
Don’t get me wrong!! But I goes every year to Melodifestivalen instead ESC for the same reason. Melodifestivalen is more enjoyable than ESC because the production value is beyond the expected. I think as a payers I want to enjoy a very good show, at this point I think people is afraid of changes but I think is time to evolve into something new and big.
I'm all for this change, not only in response to the global pandemic but also to respond to the current climate of music. I see why people are making the Melfest comparisons but we all love that national selection for a reason and I think the EBU are in their right to use some ideas from that into the bigger platform to make for an exciting show.
I think this is a much needed change in response to the entries we had this year. We might have had our favourites but I think a lot of us can agree it was going to be one of the weakest years we've seen in a long time, very ballad heavy and quite boring, and the world of music is evolving so fast, lets allow modern day music to be a part of Eurovision.
There are certainly some that want the ballads in Eurovision and the ethnic music as well, personally for me, I am a huge Eurovision fan and I love the pop music, the dance modern songs are always in my higher rankings and I want to see Eurovision become more modern.
The only worry I have to this rule change is if the backing vocals are pre-recorded for an entire song so the lead singer can simply just sing-a-long to it. I would rather that element of the song stay live, at least for the verses and maybe join in at the chorus. I think we'll also see that people will vote on the voice they can hear the most against backing vocals when performed live.
I don’t mind recorded backing vocals. Who cares?!
... a lot.
Sendy's Wardrobe of Work what do you mean?
Yes, finally this happens!
If only they could have done this for Sweden 2018 😭
Sweden will win next year