This year the Netherlands did not do too well during the contest, because the Dutch duo, Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper, ended up in 13th place (of 15) in Semi-final 1, thus they did not make it into the 2023 Grand Final, which marked the first time that the Netherlands did not progress to the Final since 2015. The 2023 selection process happened internally.
The number two artist to represent the Netherlands
Now, almost three weeks after the contest, it became known who the number two artist was who was eligible to compete for the Netherlands in the 2023 contest, which was Dutch 32-year old synth-pop singer MEROL, who became known in the Netherlands for a provocative song about female oral sex; not all her songs are about these kinds of topic though, most of her songs are about all sorts of topics that Dutch youngsters can relate to. In case MEROL was given the ticket to represent the Netherlands it would have been with the Dutch-language uptempo electro song “Applaus” (trans. “Applause”), a song about doing your best, giving it your all, and getting applauded for it.
Listen to MEROL’s entry, “Applaus”, here.
Native Dutch language
It would have been the second executive year that the Netherlands would have chosen a song in their native language to represent their country, which could have been great, but unfortunately other choices were made for the 2023 Eurovision season.
What went wrong in 2023?
What exactly went wrong in the selection process of the Dutch 2023 entry? Did the Dutch public broadcaster, AVROTROS, rely too much on the fact that Dutch 2019 Eurovision winner, Duncan Laurence, wrote the song? Was it the fact that Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper practically did not have any stage experience? Was the act of the song not good or was the song, “Burning Daylight”, too dark and serious? Who knows? Maybe all of the above, but there is always next year…
EUROVISION 2023
This year’s contest is won by Sweden’s Loreen with the song “Tattoo”. Loreen’s win marks the first time a female singer has won the Eurovision Song Contest twice, since Loreen also won the 2012 song contest with the song “Euphoria”, which is one of the most successful songs in Eurovision history. Next to this, Loreen is the second singer to win the contest twice; Irish Johnny Logan came before her.