Last week, the Romanian broadcaster TVR revealed that Roxen will represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. This came after months of speculation over the format through with Romania would be selecting their artist for Rotterdam. Ahead of Selecția Națională 2020, her entries will be released on YouTube this evening.
Last week it was announced that Roxen’s five entries would be released at some point today (21 February). Yesterday, in an interview with Europa FM, Roxen revealed that the songs will be released via TVR’s official YouTube channel at 8pm Romanian time (7pm CET). In addition, it is expected that each song will be accompanied by a visual, likely individual videos.
We’ll be sure to post the songs the moment they’re released this evening here on ESCXTRA.
UPDATE: Roxen has released short snippets of each on her Instagram:
Selecția Națională 2020
Three artists – Roxen, Diana V and Cezar – were shortlisted and Roxen was selected internally as Romania’s representative by a special jury panel at the songwriting camp, where the songs for Romania’s national final were born. The three artists were shortlisted in collaboration with Romanian record label Global Records.
Roxen will perform five songs at the Selecția Națională 2020, the titles of which, along with their songwriters, can be found below:
- “Alcohol You” (written by Ionut Armas, Breyan Isaac, Viky Red)
- “Storm” (written by Minelli and Viky Red)
- “Beautiful Disaster” (written by Julie Frost, Breyan Isaac and Alex Cotoi)
- “Colors” (written by Julie Frost, Breyan Isaac and Alex Cotoi)
- “Cherry Red” (written by Theea Miculescu, Sebastian Barac, Marcel Botezan and Costel Dominteanu)
The songs were all born out of a songwriting camp, which was attended by both Romanian and non-Romanian songwriters. Julie Frost, who wrote two of the shortlisted songs, is a notable Eurovision name, having co-written Lena’s winning “Satellite” for Eurovision 2010.
The winning song will be selected by Romanian public together with a jury made up of music professionals. As we reported earlier, the final will take place on March 1st.
Romania at the Eurovision Song Contest
Romania first debuted at Eurovision back in 1994 with Dan Bittman, who finished in 21st place with 14 points. After failing to qualify in 1996, the country returned in 1998, finishing 22nd. Since 2002, they have never missed a contest and throughout their history enjoyed good results and qualification rates. However, they have yet to win the contest.
So far, their best result is the 3rd place achieved twice in 2005 by Luminita and Sistem in Kyiv and in 2010 by Ovi and Paula Seling in Oslo. In more recent years, they broke their qualification streak in 2018, when The Humans finished 11th with 107 points in the second semi-final.
In Tel Aviv, Ester Peony delivered an enchanting performance of her song “On a Sunday”, but failed to qualify. She finished in 13th place on 71 points, which is Romania’s worst result to date. Will 2020 see a turn around of their fortunes?
Are you looking forward to hearing Roxen’s songs? What kind of song would you like to see Roxen perform in Rotterdam? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to see our reactions to the news in the run up to Rotterdam!
