SPAIN'S Eurovision 2021 song has been chosen by viewers after representative Blas Cantó performed both on the channel TVE – the country's answer to BBC 1 – and will be seeking votes from across the continent on May 22.
He may or may not be on stage in Rotterdam, the host city after The Netherlands won the contest in 2019, but organisers have confirmed it will definitely go ahead, even if each artist has to send in a recording or perform live via video-conference rather than travelling to the studio.
The 2020 Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as there was no time to make arrangements for a 'remote' version and most of the world was expecting the health crisis to have been relatively short-term and for life to be back to normal by 2021.
Blas, once part of the all-Spanish boy-band Auryn – whose songs were almost entirely in English – co-wrote the two tracks he wanted Eurovision fans in his country to choose between, and says both of them are very representative of him as a person and an artist, with neither one being more essentially 'Blas Cantó' than the other.
It was a close call, but out of the two very different tracks, Voy a Quedarme ('I'm Going To Stay') and Memoria ('Memory'), the one picked out by the audience via telephone call, text message, the channel's website and the Eurovisión TVE mobile phone App was the first of these.
Creative director of the broadcasting company Spanish Television & Radio (RTVE), Marvin Dietmann, said of the song: “Voy a Quedarme is pure poetry. We've attempted to construct a very minimalist mise en scène because the song is powerful enough per se and, combined with Blas' voice, rises to a crescendo and just gets bigger and bigger.
“We've built it without even a frontal-focusing light, just a few spotlights trained on the artist.
“The reason is very simple: What's most important is Blas himself, his voice, and the moment.”
Not yet a household name outside of Spain, but one that is likely to 'ring a bell' thanks to his bilingual duet on US artist Kelly Clarkson's 'lockdown anthem', I Dare You, Blas was on TVE last night (Saturday) on the show Destino Eurovisión ('Destination Eurovision') – and, this time, the programme's title might actually be true for the 29-year-old from Molina de Segura via Ricote (Murcia).
He was picked to represent Spain for the 2020 Eurovision and was due to perform his hit Universo ('Universe'), released as a single in January of that year – and organisers at RTVE decided it would not be fair for him to miss his chance after the contest was called off.
Readers who do not speak Spanish may be intrigued to know how Blas' musical career could be a case of nominative determinism, or 'by name and by nature' – one translation of his surname, Cantó, is the simple past of the verb cantar, or 'to sing', in the third person singular.
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