GERMANY 2023

The German final "Unser Lied für Liverpool" was held on March 3rd at the MMC Studios in Cologne, as ever, presented by Barbara Schöneberger. Before the final there was a tik tok based wildcard to select an extra finalist. There were due to be nine acts in the final but Frida Gold withdrew because of illness. The winner was chosen by a 50/50 split of 8 international juries and online voting/televoting which was open for a week before the final. The winner was Lord of the Lost with the song "Blood and glitter".

Lord of the Lost was founded in 2007 by Chris Harms as a solo project, but set out to recruit a band from the Hamburg music scene so his songs could be played live rather than just recorded and uploaded online. Their first proper single was released in 2009 and the first of their 8 studio albums was released in 2010. They have a good live track record as they have opened for multiple rock acts such as Mono Inc, Letze Instanz, KMFDM and Iron Maiden. In 2013 they were part of the Gothic Meets Klassik event at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and in 2014 they toured the US mainly thanks to crowdfunding. Their songs range from heavy metal, industrial music to glam rock. Harms voice is extremely distinctive, low but operatic, while their outfits are very over the top and dramatic.

The group is dressed in similar red outfits and the musicians are dotted around the stage - the singer and two guitarists on stage and the drummer and keyboarder play on two scaffolding platforms on either side. The lighting is quite dark - mainly red -  and there is a lot of smoke/dry ice. The song starts with the first two lines of the chorus sung quietly and with little backing then the drums and guitars come in along with a screamy shout of the song title. These changes of feeling and delivery right at the start sets you up for the chop and change nature of the song.. The verse in quite slow lyrically but this leads into a very staccato pre chorus. The chorus is very repetitive but in this first instance the music stops and slowly builds up  to s stereotypical shouty end.. There is then another verse and pre-chorus but the chorus this time has the music turned up to 11 the whole way through. This chorus has an extended shouty part and some extra synthesised noises in the background. This crescendo then drops into a quieter last version of the chorus which builds up once more to the repetitive shouting of the title.

The national final was a rather odd affair as the international juries really did not vote the same as in the domestic televote at home - this scored 42 points with the jury but 146 with the German public. That said, this was probably one of the more competent and stand out acts of the night - in a good way!  When it comes to the Eurovision televote, this should do ok, especially with central and eastern countries and the Scandinavian/Baltic countries. I can imagine their section in the vote recap will stand out a mile. As the international jury may foreshadow, this song may not do as well in the jury portion of the voting.

Visually this has a great identity, as it does sonically, but it needs defining and some paring down. I am not sure having the red outfits with red lighting works but as the stage in Liverpool will be bigger, being more spread out stage may help. Although the music is obviously loud it is very important that the singer can be heard clearly, which isn't always the case. This is more apparent when he is using that low register. The repetition of the title as the first word of the chorus is very effective and makes it very easy to repeat. If some of these points can be ironed out I can't see this being a last place, even more so if many of the rockier entries are eliminated before hand in the semi-finals. It is also good to see Germany sending something that isn't radio-friendly or generic and is something that feels more artistically Germanic.

ARTIST - Lord of the Lost

SONG - Blood and glitter

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS -  Corvin Bahn, Anthony J. Brown, Chris Harms, Rupert Keplinger, Pi Stoffers