In these weeks between the selection season and Eurovision itself, in Basel, artists and delegations are touring Europe through pre-parties and other occasions to showcase their entries, trying to get closer to victory. But what is the road to Eurovision victory? As we wait for the first rehearsals, we at ESCXTRA look back at the last eight winners of the contest, and at their own road to victory. This week, we continue with the 2018 winner, Netta from Israel, with “Toy”.
Genesis of a song / Earning the ticket : The next star and her song
HaKokhav HaBa L’Eurovizion, a rare selection format
Unlike “1944” and “Amar Pelos Dois”, from our two previous articles, “Toy” was not selected by the national public through a classic selection format. But its singer, Netta Barzilai, was.
Since 2015, Israel had been using a show called HaKokhav HaBa L’Eurovizion, or “The Next Star for Eurovision”, to choose an artist for the contest, with the broadcaster later internally selecting a song for them. “The Next Star” is closer in style to the likes of Idols or The Voice, with more shows and steps before the final.
The eventual winner, Netta, appeared in the first audition, broadcast on October 29, 2018. In this format, contestants would start to sing a cover of a song, on a circular stage, surrounded by a giant, circular, two-way screen, hiding the rest of the studio from view. As they sang, public votes from the studio audience would add up, on a percentage scale, with four jurors able to add or remove 10% each to the scale during the performance. Anyone reaching 70% would then be selected for the next rounds.
Netta performed “Rude Boy”, from Rihanna, and got support from all the jurors. Unknown at the time, she was mainly performing in Tel-Aviv clubs, and brought a distinctive element to the competition: a vocal looper, which allowed her to record her own voice and to loop it back and forth during the song.
Netta went all the way to the final, through heats and other qualification shows, but she was rarely, if ever, the best-rated artist at each step. Many times, rounds were played as duels, and even though she won her duels, she was often among the lowest-scoring winners, except for a score of 90% in the quarterfinal.
In the final, held on February 13, four contestants remained. In the first round, Netta faced Riki Ben Ari in a duel, and lost. However, she was saved by the jury, being favoured over the loser of the other duel, Chen Aharoni, who had lost to Jonathan Mergui.
Riki Ben Ari, Netta and Mergui faced each other in a second round, in which Netta performed a medley of “Tik Tok” and “Gangnam Style”
Netta ended up winning the show by just five points, 210 against 205 for Mergui. Netta’s edge came, surprisingly, from the juries: five jurors gave individual points, as well as four special juries (one special jury giving the same amount of points as a normal juror). With only three contestants to choose from, they had to give 8 points to their least favourite, 10 to their runner-up and 12 to their favourite. This meant that the jury vote probably would likely be less spread than the televote. But Netta was awarded 12 points from seven out of the nine juries/jurors, and 10 points from the two others. With 104 points, she had a comfortable enough lead to overcome her deficit in the televote.
The choice of “Toy”
With its artist selected, the Israeli broadcaster Kan/IPBC set off to select a song for her. They ended up choosing “Toy”, written by Doron Medalie and Stav Beger. Medalie had already written the 2015 and 2016 Israeli entries. A year later, Jack White (from the “White Stripes”) was officially credited as a co-composer, after Universal Music had threatened to sue Medalie and Beger over copyright claims, considering the song was too similar to “Seven Nations Army”.
“Toy” was released on March 11th, and was leaked a day before online. It was among the very last entries to be revealed during the 2018 season, and it immediately made an impact. It showcased the vocal loops that had become her trademark at the very beginning of the song, and turned it into a pop act mixing eastern and western sound.
The road to Lisbon: the favourite and the challengers
The season favourite
The day after Netta’s victory in HaKokhav HaBa L’Eurovizion, Israel jumped from positions in the low 20s (27-30th) to the low 10’s (16-19th) in the ranking of bookmakers. The song reveal, a month later, saw it jump to the first place, where it stayed until the actual Eurovision weeks. “Toy” was the clear season favourite, so let us focus more on some of its challengers. Basically, what (and who) were the most serious hurdles in its road to victory?
As we did in previous articles, let us observe the top 5 countries in betting odds at four different moments in the season : right after Netta’s selection in February (Feb 14), after the release of the last song (March 14), in the middle of the promotion season, after Eurovision in Concert (April 15) and just before the start of the Eurovision rehearsals (April 28).
| Position | Feb 14 | March 14 | April 15 | April 28 |
| 1st | 🇫🇮 Finland | 🇮🇱 Israel | 🇮🇱 Israel | 🇮🇱 Israel |
| 2nd | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | 🇪🇪 Estonia | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria |
| 3rd | 🇪🇪 Estonia | 🇨🇿 Czechia | 🇨🇿 Czechia | 🇨🇿 Czechia |
| 4th | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | 🇪🇪 Estonia | 🇫🇷 France |
| 5th | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| 🇮🇱 Israel | 16th | 1st | 1st | 1st |
There were, during the season itself, three to four main “serious” challengers: Czechia, Bulgaria, France, and Estonia.
“Lie to me” – Coming a little closer
“Lie To Me” became the song of Czechia (still the Czech Republic in the contest at the time) through the first edition of ESCZ, the latest format of national selection for the country. At the time, the process was entirely online, and used videoclips instead of live performances.
When Mikolas Josef won ESCZ at the end of January, Czechia’s odds shortened rapidly, and the country rose from the bottom of the bookmakers’ rankings to a 9-10th position. A few days later, on February 10th, Mikolas gave his first live performance as an interval act in the first semi-final of the Ukrainian selection, “Vidbir”.
The performance had little impact on the odds, simply stopping them from drifiting, but it confirmed the live potential of the song to the fan community. As more and more entries won their national selection or were released, Czechia slowly but steadily rose to the top. On March 13th, Mikolas released a “clean version”, expunged from the most “vulgar” elements of the lyrics, but it neither stopped nor accelerated its rise in the odds. It remained third for the entire promotion season, with participations in Eurovision in Concert and the London Eurovision Party validating its live potential.
“Bones” – Wanna be the fire
Bulgaria revealed its song and artist on March 12th, a day after Israel. Their representative, Equinox, was a band created specially for Eurovision, made up of five singers, three from Bulgaria (Zhana Bergendorff, Georgi Simeonov and Vladimir Mihaylov) and two from the United States (Trey Campbell and Johnny Manuel). The whole project was launched by the label Symphonix of Borislav Milanov, who had composed the Bulgarian entries in 2011, 2016 and 2017. That year, he was also behind Austria’s entry, “Nobody But You”.
Having placed fourth in 2016 and second in 2017, Bulgaria had high expectations to meet and was already among the favourites before any song reveal. “Bones” was welcomed with enthusiasm by most of the fan community, but actually drifted in the odds at first, only coming back to the Top 5 after the first live performance in London.
Although other live performances confirmed a good potential, it was also patent that the song relied heavily on backing vocals. The whole act was also judged by some fans as being custom-made for Eurovision and lacking the authenticity of an actual band. Still, when rehearsals started, Bulgaria was a solid runner-up in the betting odds.
Estonia – The force of destiny
Estonia was represented by Elina Nechayeva and “La Forza”, a popera song that had won Eesti Laul with a remarkable landslide. The staging in Estonia was visually and vocally stunning, with Elina standing alone in the centre of the stage, wearing a large dress on which patterns were projected, and delivering perfect live vocals.
The main issue with “La Forza” came from its genre: could a song that operatic win the contest? The closest precedent at the time would have been Romania, in 2013, but “La Forza” had more impact visually and vocally, and felt less like a “joke entry” to a regular audience. Could it reach the public, though? And would the juries respond to it, or reject the “popera” aspect? These were the main questions surrounding Estonia’s position as a serious contender.
Doubts also arose when the Estonian broadcaster admitted that the costs of such a performance would be astronomic compared to their previous budgets, with very strong projectors needed for two weeks (for the rehearsals and for the shows). The money was eventually found, but this little drama cast some doubts over Estonia’s ability to translate an Eesti Laul success on the Eurovision stage.
“Mercy” – Emerging from a wave
France held its new national selection, Destination Eurovision, in January 2018. Madame Monsieur won in the final, beating the original favourite Lisandro Cuxi. The title “Mercy” was a reference to a baby girl born on the Aquarius, a ship rescuing migrants at sea. The lyrics talked of her birth and of the story of these migrants risking their lives when crossing the Mediterranean.
Winning “Destination Eurovision” actually made France’s odds drift, but they slowly shortened over the following weeks, especially during the promotion season. With time, more and more people started to praise its minimalism, its authenticity, its message, etc. In our own reviews from that time, our team rated it among the top entries of the season.
The lack of LED screens in Lisbon also helped, since the entry was not relying on any screen effects, but on the aesthetics of Madame Monsieur, on Émilie’s voice (the “madame”) and on the “Merci Mercy” final section, where Émilie extended her arm back and forth towards the crowd, with the crowd following her, creating a wave of arms. This visual aspect, present in each performance from Destination Eurovision to the preparties, was described as the “flash mob” moment by our editor Ryan and as he said, it had the potential to become a huge moment in Lisbon.
Then came the Eurovision weeks, and the first rehearsals. And in two days, everything changed.
