Back in February, NDR confirmed that Ben Dolic had been internally-selected to represent them in Rotterdam. That day, the song “Violent Thing” was released with a full video. Now, the 3-minute edit has been released, despite the contest’s cancellation.
Despite the contest itself not going ahead, the edit was prepared in anticipation of the song needing to be kept to three minutes, in accordance to EBU rules. The edit is slightly revamped, featuring a different bridge and a more dramatic ending.
Although we never got to see the full stage show for the song, Ben had performed the song live previously. However, we knew that the would-be staging was being developed by US-choreographer Marty Kudelka.
The song was written by Connor Martin, Dag Lundberg, Jimmy Thoren, Peter St James and Borislav Milanov, who is responsible for highly successful Eurovision entries like “If Love Was a Crime“, “Beautiful Mess” and “Nobody But You”.
You can listen to the new version below:
Who is Benjamin Dolic?
22-year-old Ben is a Slovenian singer-songwriter who gained success in Germany by participating in the 8th season of “The Voice of Germany” and placing second. He currently lives in Switzerland and has been touring Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in the past. Eurovision fans, however, may know him from the Slovenian national selection EMA in 2016, where he participated as part of the group D Base.
At presented it is not known whether Dolic will be selected to represent Germany at next year’s contest. Following the cancellation news, he gave the following statement on his Instagram:
Hey guys, I am absolutely devastated about the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, but in the view of this current situation it is the only right thing to do. No matter what, health simply comes first. In these hard times we have to take care of each other and stick together to overcome this crisis.
Please stay safe and stay at home! Thank you for the support! I love you all!
Via Ben Dolic’s Instagram
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