After the poor performances of the last few years Germany tried to improve their national selection show in an attempt to remedy this. They refreshingly replaced the music industry experts reminiscent of every single other talent show with a front row panel of international jury members, several of whom were ex-Eurovision entrants and a group of 100 Eurovision fans with bloc voting rights.
This meant that the international juries, the fan bloc and the televoters all had equal say in the result – no doubt trying to select a more Eurovision-y entry.
The show was much more subdued with smaller stage and more intimate setting than previous years and the hosts were much more casual and genial. Some jokes missed the mark and others brought some politics into the scene: “a German could win the Greek final with enough Euros”.
The 6 final contestants had been selected by a mix of international and local fans to attend a boot-camp where several songs would be written with them and the best selected for the night. This is much improved over last year where two generic songs were presented to the contestants to attempt to own as their own.
Nadia Todua
- Georgian native who moved to Germany and won Voice of Germany 2017
- Performed “My Own Way” about her moving to Germany and her difficulties and experiences around this
- Ok but boring staging and lacklustre performance. Nice outfit though
Ryk
- Made a name for himself as the composer and musical director for the German answer to Cirque de Soleil - “Feurerwerk der Turnkunst” (Fireworks of Gymnastics)
- Performed the emotional ballad “You and I” sitting at the piano with a dancer on a turntable on top
- Lovely song but not enough to captivate the audience
VoxxClub
- Bavarian schlager group decked out in lederhosen and refreshingly performing in German/Bavarian
- “I mog di” is a fun song and was a relief to the audience after two serious songs but was sillier than a serious contender when the international jury was in play
- A favourite of the audience but vocals and performance were average
Xavier Darcy
- Scotsman who grew up in Bavaria and has spent some time in London
- Folksy rock song that was enjoyable but beige. Needed to chill out with his ADHD performance a little bit. Energy is good, but this was a tad excessive for the genre of song
Ivy Quainoo
- Berliner with Ghanaian roots who was the winner of the 2012 version of “The Voice of Germany” who has since moved to New York
- Her song “House on Fire” was definitely the most visually pleasing performance of the night with amazing makeup, a burning house frame and fire pits but the first 2:30 were monotonic before getting really good in the last 30 secs. Too late to save it unfortunately
Michael Schulte
- YouTuber with over 200,000 subscribers and 50million views to his name after turning to the site following his 3rd place against Ivy in the 2012 “The Voice of Germany”
- Emotional but fast paced song “You let me walk alone” about growing up without his deceased father complete with a backdrop of photos of fathers and children
- Clearly the audience favourite and performed with heavy emotion and strong presence
Interval act of Mike Singer – Germany’s attempt at a Bieber was a great song and performance but he seems like his huge following of 12-year-old fans are the only ones who know he exists. It might have been better if the young white adolescent wasn’t acting so gangsta.
Votes were presented by Margaret Berger (Norway 2013) on behalf of the international jury, a spokesperson for the 100 selected fans, and Jon Ola Sand announcing the televoting results with some hilarious attempts at German.
The clear winner with 12 points from every group was Michael Schulte. VoxxClub was popular with the televoters, getting 10 points from them but performing poorly with the juries. Nadia received view votes but otherwise there was reasonable spread.
The Ed Sheeran of Germany (Michael Schulte) looks set to take on Lisbon!