How to win Eurovision, according to the experts

The Eurovision Song Contest was watched by astir 163 cardinal radical past twelvemonth – meaning determination are perchance 163 cardinal antithetic opinions connected what makes a cleanable entrant.

Do you spell for a soulful ballad, guaranteed to permission Europe misty-eyed and afloat of emotion and peace?

Or bash you opt for a cheesy extravaganza, implicit with saucy takes connected determination costumes and eye-popping staging that volition person the full continent (and Australia) raving successful their surviving rooms?

According to Bennett, determination is immoderate validity to this, with each Eurovision opus falling nether six wide lyrical themes: "love, unity, self-assertion, partying, past and songs astir making music".

He adds that "songs of self-assertion oregon lyrical self-empowerment bash precise well" - arsenic seen with Austria's 2014 victor Rise Like a Phoenix (Conchita Wurst).

Acts mightiness beryllium tempted to spell implicit the apical connected staging, but this whitethorn not beryllium the mode to unafraid victory, according to our experts.

Songwriter Thomas Stengaard co-wrote Denmark's 2013 victor Only Teardrops (as good arsenic this year's UK entry What the Hell Just Happened by Remember Monday). He puts his occurrence down, successful part, to its elemental staging, which helium says made it casual to remember.

"If you asked a kid to gully that staging, they could. It was a miss with nary shoes on, 2 guys playing the drums and a flute guy. Very simple, but it worked."

Vocal manager Carrie Grant, who led the UK's assemblage successful 2014 and came sixth successful the contention arsenic portion of Sweet Dreams successful 1983, agrees.

"There is thing worse than having an creator whose signifier has tons of wealth but their show doesn't warrant it," she says. "It makes that show look worse."

The 2014 victor (and Carrie's idiosyncratic favourite) was Conchita Wurst – the archetypal enactment to triumph the contention without backing singers oregon dancers connected signifier since 1970.

What made Conchita basal retired was that she was a bearded resistance queen. Carrie believes Eurovision fans emotion things that are quirky and that "embrace the LGBT community".

Minor-key songs progressively predominate Eurovision.

Bennett debunks the thought that "major equals happy, insignificant equals sad", adding that "minor keys are much a shorthand for affectional depth".

In 2023, 85% of finalists performed successful insignificant keys, according to the Press Association. In the past 20 years, lone 2 major-key songs person won - 2011's Running Scared (for Azerbaijan) and 2017's Amar Pelos Dois.

Professor Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, a researcher successful euphony cognition astatine Princeton, highlights root sensitivity – our instinct to subordinate a song's dependable with its intended context. A fewer bars of a techno song, for example, and we person a intelligence representation of a acheronian nightclub, and of the benignant of DJ who mightiness execute there.

This means definite insignificant keys present instantly awesome "Eurovision-ness" to audiences.

Remember Monday's What the Hell Just Happened was written astatine a songwriting camp, with aggregate songwriters moving unneurotic astatine a countryside retreat to constitute the cleanable opus for this year's UK act.

The opus was intentionally written successful a large cardinal to basal retired successful a oversea of minor-key songs - akin to the UK's 2022 second-place entry, Spaceman by Sam Ryder (B Major).

Repetition is important to marque a opus instrumentality successful the mind, says Margulis. But songs should debar being excessively repetitive. Margulis says that what peculiarly makes a opus catchy is "not lone erstwhile they are heard repeatedly, but besides erstwhile they propulsion successful immoderate benignant of astonishment twist".

Bucks Fizz's 1981 victor for the UK, Making Your Mind Up, is simply a classical example. First, the opus changes key, rapidly followed by a memorable costume change successful which the pistillate singers' skirts were ripped disconnected to uncover shorter skirts – a associated ocular and philharmonic twist.

Earlier Eurovision winners were often mocked for their nonsense lyrics, similar Sweden's 1984 victor Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, but Bennett argues this highlights Eurovision's beardown absorption connected melody.

"Eurovision truly needs large melodic hooks. You privation radical crossed Europe to beryllium singing that melody. The request for a precise accessible, catchy chorus is essential."

Key changes person agelong been a mode to present novelty into Eurovision songs. The 2000s saw aggregate winners travel this formula, including Olsen Brothers' Fly connected the Wings of Love for Norway (2000), and Serbia's Molitva successful 2007.

But arsenic Bennett points out, though they are inactive contiguous successful astir a 5th of finalists, nary opus with a last chorus cardinal alteration has won since Molitva astir 20 years ago.

Stengaard's opus for this year's UK enactment Remember Monday is surely afloat of surprises. BBC euphony analogous Mark Savage said the opus featured "a dizzying array of cardinal changes and tempo shifts".

The opus is the songwriter's reply to the question helium asks himself whenever helium writes for Eurovision: "How bash you basal retired successful a contention wherever everyone wants to basal out?"