ESCXTRA’s 2018 Hopefuls: Austria

Welcome to our brand new weekly series, ‘ESCXTRA’s 2018 Hopefuls’, in which we will tell you who we would like to see in Eurovision next year! This series will keep you entertained with new music from across Europe every Monday until the national final season begins next year, and may give you somebody new to root for to represent your country!  Today, we look at who we want to see represent Austria in Eurovision 2018. Let’s get started!

Elly V

You will probably know Eleonora Vardanian, or Elly V for short, for coming second in the Austrian national final in 2016 with the song ‘I’ll Be Around (Bounce)‘. Before this, she competed in The Voice of Germany 2015, the same series which the German 2016 entrant, Jamie-Lee Kreiwitz, won! However, she was eliminated in the knockout phase, and thus failed to make it to the live shows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wNuYRJGrnw
 
In the 2016 Austrian national final, Elly was an extremely popular favourite to win. Throughout the voting, and at the end of the show when only Zoë and Elly were remaining, the audience could be heard chanting “Elly! Elly! Elly!”. Even Zoë herself joined in with the cheering, believing that she had no chance to win!
Austria could clearly get behind Elly V as their entrant. Don’t forget that Conchita came 2nd in the 2012 Austrian national final, and after being internally selected, went on to win Eurovision 2014!

Christina Stürmer

If you live in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, or Italy, you’ll likely know who Christina Stürmer is! In 2003, her pop rock song, ‘Ich Lebe‘ (I’m Alive), became a hit in Austria. She then created a number of number one hits, and in total she has sold over 1.5 million copies of her CDs in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.

Christina’s music is something slightly different for Eurovision, but we think it could be extremely popular and rack up many points for Austria! Despite being different, her music could still appeal to Eurovision viewers. Her most recent single, ‘Seite an Seite‘ (Side by Side), was released last year and was another hit. Perhaps next year she could make a return for Eurovision?

Filous

Matthias Oldofredi, or Filous, is an Austrian music producer and remixer. He doesn’t sing, so he would need to find somebody else to do that for him. However, the music that he creates is modern, on-trend, and just fantastic. We could see a JOWST 2.0 happening for Austria if Filous represented them!

Filous’ music is exactly what we’d expect to hear on the radio, outside of Eurovisionland! It’s catchy and a song of his representing Austria in Eurovision 2018 could easily become a massive hit around Europe. We really hope that he considers Eurovision as the next step in his career!

Ramona Rotstich

Ramona Rotstich took part in the first series of The Voice of Germany in 2011. Unfortunately, she was eliminated in the battle rounds. Since then, Ramona has gone on to release several albums, although Austria don’t seem to have picked up on her yet, despite her music being great! We feel that Eurovision could be her route to becoming much more wellknown and popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi8-cqOTcpA
Ramona has a unique and iconic style, and her music is the exact sort of music that could do well in Eurovision! With the right song, she could give Austria their best result since 2014. She seems like the most likely entrant for Austria out of our list, and we would love to see her for Austria in Eurovision 2018!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWVwqY5kWF0
Next week, we will look at who we want to see represent Sweden!
What do you think of our hopefuls? Is there anybody else you’d like to see for Austria in Eurovision? Do the idea of any of these artists excite you? Tell us in the comments below!