The 2023 Eurovision Song Contest is just hours away and will be taking place in Liverpool in the United Kingdom. The song contest was meant to be hosted in Ukraine after Kalush Orchestra won in Italy in 2022. But due to the ongoing invasion, the EBU felt that Ukraine wouldn’t be capable of hosting the event.
This year, 37 countries will be participating in this year’s song contest. 2023 will also be Australia’s final year due to its 5-year participation agreement with the EBU. With so many good songs released, with some having heavy political undertones, people are keen to know who could win this year’s song contest.
Will Ukraine take the crown once more? Or will Australia finally achieve their Eurovision goal and win the song contest during its final year? Here are the current odds of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
The frontrunners for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest
According to the current odds shown on EurovisionWorld.com and fan reception from fan sites, such as Wiwibloggs and the OGAE International, this year’s song contest is neck and neck between 2012 champion Loreen, who’s representing Sweden once more with the song “Tattoo.” and Finland’s Käärijä with the song “Cha Cha Cha.” Following those two countries are France, Ukraine, and Spain.
Both Finland and Sweden’s entries are total opposites from each other so it’s interesting that these two are deemed the favorites to win.
Why could Sweden’s Loreen win?
For starters, Loreen is not just a Eurovision winner, she’s a legend. Her winning song from 2012, “Euphoria” remained number one during Eurovision‘s yearly Top 250 songs, until 2022 when it was dethroned by Spain’s 2022 entry, “Slomo” by Chanel.
During the 2012 Song Contest, she received a total of 372 points, the second-highest point total in Eurovision history before the voting rules changed, the first being Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytale” in 2009. The song also received 12 points from 18 countries, which broke the record of “the most 12 points obtained.”
In addition to her Eurovision success, the singer has won multiple awards and was featured in the 2020 Netflix film, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga as one of the returning contestants and former winners to receive a cameo role. So clearly, she’s a big deal in the Eurovision sphere.
While there’s a history of previous Eurovision singers returning to the world stage, only one contestant has won the Eurovision Song Contest more than once. Ireland’s Johnny Logan won the song contest two times in 1980, 1987. Knowing the music powerhouse that Sweden holds with its highly recognized songwriters, and Eurovision history, Loreen could be next to break Logan’s current record.
Why could Finland’s Käärijä win?
“Cha Cha Cha” dominated Finland’s national selection show, Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu. And when I mean dominated, I mean none of the other artists could hope to catch up. The song won 539 points in total; 467 of those came from the televote, and 72 came from the jury. All the other entries sat between 66 to 152 total points.
A current trend that’s starting to rise in recent Eurovision Song Contests is that audiences want songs that are not performed in English. They want countries to have entries sung in their native language. The last two entries proved this with Italy’s “Zitti e Buioni” and Ukraine’s “Stefania”.
In 2020, Finland changed its national selection process, where multiple artists get to compete to represent the country, rather than having the national broadcaster select one artist, and audiences had to choose between three songs. Since this change, the winning entries from 2020 to 2022 were performed in English. Looking back at the last 10 years, a majority of Finland’s entries were in English.
So perhaps “Cha Cha Cha” is Finland’s attempt to jump onto this trend and use it to its advantage.
There is another possible reason why Finland is able to win this year’s song contest. Eurovision used to have a history of sending campy songs, until the voting rules changed which led to entries needing to appeal to both the jury and the audience. “Cha Cha Cha” has that element of camp that people are missing all these years.
Who do I think could win this year’s song contest?
As someone who was able to successfully guess 5 out of 6 Oscar winners in 2023, I’m going to use my power of foresight and guess that Finland could win this year’s event. Here are my reasons why.
First of all, the winning song is mostly determined by the televote. While sure, the jury can help boost a song in the leaderboard, it’s the people that decide what the winning song could be. Last year, Ukraine was in 4th place during the jury vote results, but it bolstered itself to victory after the audience votes rolled in. So while there is a really high chance for Loreen to win the jury, it seems like Finland’s strategy is to win the audience, and it’s working.
Next, “Cha Cha Cha” has some elements that might be reminiscent of a previous Eurovision winner, Finland’s Lordi. The 2006 winning song, “Rock Hard Hallelujah” has camp elements, yet the song was also catchy and won the ears of fans. In my personal opinion, “Cha Cha Cha” is like the modern incarnation of what made that song great, only this time it’s in Finnish.
Lastly, the reception of the rehearsals. Based on the comments of the video that first showcased rehearsal footage for this year’s song contest, Finland received the most praise, claiming that it “stood out” amongst the rest. Mark my words, I think “Cha Cha Cha” could win the 2023 contest if it’s able to dominate the televote with its performance. And with the televote opening itself to audiences outside of Europe (and Australia), this victory could be in the bag.
According to the overall community results from the “My Eurovision Scoreboard” app, Finland took the number one spot after the dress rehearsal footage was released. It currently sits at over 303556 votes, just 12 thousand votes more than Sweden which used to dominate the charts after Loreen won Melodifestivalen.
But then again, I could be wrong and people would go vote for someone who’s a legend in the Eurovision scene.
The 2023 Eurovision Song Contest will be broadcast via Peacock and the official Eurovision YouTube channel on May 9, 11, and 1 at 3pm ET.
