Eurovision 2019 spotlight: The Netherlands' Duncan Laurence with "Arcade"...
Last year the Netherlands had sent in one-half of the act it made second place with in 2014. Waylon, who had competed as the Common Linnets with Ilse DeLange, lost that year to gender-bending vocal wonder Conchita Wurst, and Waylon's return was seen by many as a way to redeem himself and his country. What resulted was a mess, as the song, "Outlaw In 'Em" was an American country music pastiche that seemed more Vegas-ready than Eurovision-ready, and he surrounded himself with dancers that were somehow breakdancing around him. Also, his reported gruff treatment of the press didn't win him any fans. Nevertheless, he did make the finals coming in 18th, doing so for the fifth time out of the last six years, following an eight year drought. This year the country again did not hold a national final, picking the artist and song in an internal selection by the Dutch broadcaster. The result is a young man who has the song everyone is gushing over for its emotional pull...
The Netherlands - "Arcade" from Duncan Laurence
Duncan De Moor from the southwestern city of Spijkenisse, is another graduate of a singing competition on TV, this time the original Dutch version of The Voice, where he had Ilse Delange (yes, the one from the Common Linnets) as a mentor. Written by Duncan with Joel Sjöö from Sweden and Dutch producer Wouter Hardy, the haunting ballad is about regretting a love gone wrong, associating it with the archaic collection of video games your local mall had...
An interesting choice for this competition, it's severely intimate yet pulls a lot of the bells and whistles that a current Shawn Mendes single would (especially if produced by Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic). Still, the emotional pull of the break-up track is strong and universal, and does evoke that good cry. It would be very respectable for this to come out on top, though I'm not as sure as the bookies are in its eventual triumph. Will a depressing track be magnetic enough to win Eurovision in these days of escapeism? This might be the best chance to see. There is no way this is missing the finals, it's just a matter of how high. A lot of ESC-fanblogs are pushing this (possibly due to wanting to travel to Amsterdam next year?), but it will all depend on the presentation and his live delivery. Stay very tuned. (Rating 9/10)
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The Netherlands has been taking part in Eurovision since the very first contest in 1956, where the two songs it entered with didn't win. They've only missed four years, two because of a national holiday and two because of poor showings the year before. The country has won four times, and come in last place five. Their first winner came in the event's second year in 1957, with Corry Brokken and "Net Als Toen" ("Just Like Then"). Coincidentally, the following year Corry came in last place with "Heel de wereld" ("The Whole World")...
The next year, in 1959, singer Teddy Scholten claimed victory yet again for the Netherlands with "'N Beetje" ("A Little Bit")...
Fast forward ten years to 1969, when there was a four-way tie for the winners spot, including Dutch singer Lenny Kuhr with "De Troubadour" ("The Troubadour"). The Netherlands won a coin toss to host the following year's contest...
The country's most recent win in 1975 was from the decidedly mainstream pop of Teach-In with "Ding-A-Dong", sounding like a Carpenters/ABBA mix. It's silly, but also one of my all-time Eurovision favorites...
Besides Teach-in, my personal favorite from the Netherlands came in 2013, when Anouk graced us with the simply beautiful "Birds". The song took ninth place that year...
And on the other hand, during the country's eight year miss of the finals, girl-group Treble used an imaginary language in their "Amambanda" in 2006...
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