The first of many super Saturdays is now behind us and no less than 4 countries selected their entries for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in May. One of those countries is Spain! On Saturday night they held their national selection ‘Benidorm Fest’, which was first brought to life in 2022. In total, 16 acts divided in 2 semi finals competed to earn the right to fly the Spanish flag in Malmö. 4 acts from each semi advanced to the final. At the end of the night a national jury, a demoscopic jury and a televote decided on the winner. Nebulossa found herself victorious after winning both the national jury and televote.
Spain at Eurovision
Spain has debuted in the competition in 1961 and has never missed a year since! In 62 appearances the country managed to win only 2 times, consecutively, in 1968 and 1969. Meaning they have now been waiting for 55 years for another victory. Their first win was secured by pop singer Massiel and her song “La La La”. The year after they hosted the competition in Madrid. After a tense voting 4 countries (Spain, United Kingdom, Netherlands and France) tied for first place. All four were declared the winner of the contest, making Spain the first country to ever win twice in a row.
Apart from 2 victories, Spain also came 2nd four times and third once, quite recently, in 2022 with an epic performance by Chanel and her dance track “SloMo”. It has not only been fun and games for them though. They came last on 5 occasions, most recently in 2017, with Manel Navarro and his song “Do It For Your Lover”. Spain’s performance has been interrupted twice in the history of the competition. The first time in 1960 when Azúcar Moreno opened the contest with the song “Bandido” and the music and the backing track started out of synch, causing the singers to miss their cue. They went on to finish 5th eventually. At the 2010 competition, Daniel Diges’s performance of “Algo Pequeñito” was interrupted by stage invader ‘Jimmy Jump’. Daniel continued his performance and afterwards accepted the offer to perform again. He went on to finish 20th.
Since the introduction of the semi finals in 2004, Spain has been part of a group of 4 annual automatic qualifiers known as ‘The Big 4’, along with Germany, France and the UK. In 2011, following Italy’s return to the contest, this became ‘The Big 5’. They have earned this right because they are the 5 biggest financial contributors to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union).
Spain 2024
For this year Spain has chosen Nebulossa and their synth pop song “Zorra”. After an epic performance which was pretty ‘Moulin Rouge’ inspired, complete with half naked men in corsets and boots, Nebulossa won the final with a total of 156 points. There was already a little bit of a controversy regarding the lyrics and the title of the song, which means ‘vixen’ or ‘mess’. However the EBU has already confirmed that the song will be allowed to compete at the Song Contest in it’s current form. Can Nebulossa convince the European public the way she did the Spanish? And can she bring Spain back to the top 10? Read what we think below!
niallpoints Review
Niall
THIS. IS. A. BOP! I absolutely love this track and I’m going to have so much fun watching this in Malmö at the Grand Final. Sure, the vocals need a little bit of work, but who is going to care when a whole arena (myself included) is screaming along? I’m also always a massive fan of reclaiming any sort of discrimination in this way – I think it sends a powerful message whilst having a super fun time. What more do you need?
Side-note: I will protect Mery with my life.
Early prediction: 16 – 20
Tomas
As with Norway, I needed a moment to accept what happened at Benidorm Fest. It’s no secret that I had another favorite. However, this is super fun! Mery has so much personality and you can simply see how much fun she’s having performing this song. It has a very good beat and it’s easy to sing along. It’s actually quite genius when you think about it. The way the crowd is singing along from start to finish just adds so much to the performance. And I have no doubt that the crowd in Malmö will do the same! I can just imagine 15000 people screaming ZORRA ZORRA ZORRA! Epic! Is this a contender? Not in a million years, but I think the Spanish public knows that. They just wanna have fun! And so do I!
Early prediction: 16-20
That’s it for our Spain review! Do you like “Zorra”? Did you have another favorite? Where do you think Spain will end up? Let us know in the comments down below if you agree with us! Before you go: have a look at our full reaction video to Nebulossa’s final performance! We’ll be back with more reactions soon! In the meantime you can read and watch our reaction to Norway right here!
