"Just play the fu**ing note!"
In an effort to immediately correct Ireland’s dismal recent record in the Eurovision and restore our stranglehold on a competition we owned for a time in the mid-‘90s, RTÉ has issued a call out for performers to submit songs to be considered to represent Ireland at the contest in 2018.
No country has won the contest more than the seven times Ireland has, but it’s been 20 years since we last tasted victory in Oslo, when Eimear Quinn’s ‘The Voice’ came out on top.
Ireland hasn’t even qualified for the last four finals and the idea of sending novelty acts like Jedward and Dustin the Turkey in recent years didn’t really work either.
If ever there was a Eurovision crisis in Ireland, we’re bang in the middle of it.
Last month, RTÉ held a Eurovision forum inviting music industry professionals and Eurovision fans to discuss current trends in the competition as well as hearing from international experts.
As a result, they’re inviting accomplished songwriters and performers, preferably with a proven track record of success in the music industry, to submit a song to be considered to represent Ireland in Lisbon next May.
There are a few rules surrounding the submission of songs, which you can see below, and the closing date for entries is Monday, November 6, 2017.
If RTÉ play their cards right, we could be seeing Ireland’s answer to Nin Hoogen and the Hoogen Notes restore our sterling Eurovision reputation with victory in Portugal next May.
Commenting on the entry process, Executive Producer and Head of Irish delegation Michael Kealy said: "The Eurovision Song Contest is highly competitive and as such, the competition attracts top music professionals from around the world.
"Following our Eurovision forum in August, which was attended by both music Industry professionals and Eurovision fans, we are now reaching out to the professional music industry in Ireland to get involved in the biggest professional music event in the world. We're looking for a killer song performed by an act with vast experience of playing live to big crowds.
"As well as publicly inviting submissions, we are actively engaging with professionals in the music industry to ensure that we find the best entry to represent us this year. Only songs that have been released or publicly performed after September 1 2017 are eligible to be entered."
Eurovision 2018 song submission
- All songs received will be considered by a number of expert music industry panels to be appointed by RTÉ. Songs submitted must strictly comply with the rules of Eurovision and RTÉ reserves the right to arrange, produce or otherwise alter any song selected for entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.
- Songwriters/composers may only submit one song (including co-writes) for consideration. If more than one song per composer is submitted only the first song received will be considered. Songs must be no longer than three minutes in duration.
- Compositions submitted for consideration (lyrics and music) must not have been commercially released and/or publicly performed including online video platforms or social networks, in full or in part, before September 1, 2017.
- It is important to note that any entries submitted through this process will be considered alongside other compositions and performers which RTÉ may commission or secure independently of this process and RTÉ reserves the absolute right to approach established acts and songwriters and to select a song and/or a performer(s) at its sole discretion from outside this process. RTÉ also reserves the right to match any song selected with a different artist to the one submitted with the entry.
- If you would like to submit an entry, it must adhere to the EBU 2018 competition rules, a full list of rules is published on the official Eurovision website
- Entries will ONLY be accepted by email as an MP3 (192kbps) file or Soundcloud link.
- No entries will be accepted on CD, cassette or any other format.
- Email entries to Eurovision2018@rte.ie
- See www.rte.ie/eurovision for full details.
