Joe and Jake, the UK's Eurovision entry 2016
As Saturday 14 May and the Grand Final of Eurovision draws ever closer now seems like a great time to reflect on my last 8 months working for the BBC as Music Consultant with the responsibility of finding songs and acts to represent the United Kingdom in 2016.
My search started at the end of September and it entailed me re-connecting with a myriad of song writers, writer managers and music publishers with whom I’d worked before as well as building a whole host of new relationships. Before getting into more detail, I should probably mention the past roles I've held that have lead to me working with the BBC on Eurovision.
My career actually started in the advertising world but after a few years in it the lure of being a full time musician and writer was too great and I left a career with security and potential for the exact opposite....the very uncertain existence of a full time musician. For a number of years, I played in various groups and wrote songs before moving into management and then eventually a corporate job as Marketing Director of RCA Records in 1992. My first initiative on joining was to immerse myself, with my colleagues, in the business of helping Take That get their career on track after a shaky start. Happily, the band went on to achieve huge levels of success which, unlike a lot of groups at the time, they were able to sustain due to the fact that, at their core, they had an extraordinary song writer in the shape of Gary Barlow.
Songs, songs, songs
Through my time in the music industry I have never ceased to put maximum emphasis on the song... It sounds obvious but a brilliant song is the key to true and effortless success in the industry. An amazing artist without a hit song is going nowhere. The examples of this being the case are manifold but would take too long to list here. Whilst at RCA I was lucky enough to work with a fantastic array of artists including David Bowie, M People, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart, Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia and 5ive amongst many others. I also spent a few years working with Simon Cowell when he was still just a record executive and before he became a TV star... that was fun.
I eventually left RCA having been offered the opportunity to start a joint venture record company with Virgin Records... Virgin had just broken The Spice Girls worldwide and wanted to start a pop label to bring them more mainstream music... I called the label Innocent Records and had an amazing seven years running it and working with a passionate, hardworking team.
We launched Billie Piper who became the youngest UK female to hit the top of the charts and we also had a string of No. 1’s and sold millions of albums all over the world with Blue and Atomic Kitten. After Innocent, I moved to Sony and started another label called Brightside Recordings... Here I launched a number of great acts but I was most proud of the record sales we achieved with Newton Faulkner whose song ‘Dream Catch Me’, which was co-written by one of my song writers, went on to be a huge hit in the UK and elsewhere in the world. It also helped Newton achieve a double platinum album (600,000 sales) in the UK.
After years on the corporate side of the music business I eventually decided to strike out on my own and the last few years have been spent running a recording studio in West Sussex and building my own publishing company which has become a home to some very exciting young song writers.
Why Eurovision?
As mentioned before, I love great songs and the challenge of trying to unearth them which is why I jumped at the chance of helping the BBC find some strong song options (and artists too) for Eurovision 2016.
The search, which predominantly took place from October through to January, was exciting and a little challenging too. However, for the most part it was a fantastic experience. The challenges were borne out of the fact that, in the UK, Eurovision isn’t currently held in the same high regard as it is around the rest of Europe, neither by the music industry nor by the general public, so it wasn’t going to be easy to secure the best songs.
Understandably, writers would rather allocate their song to a well-known artist than enter it into a song contest. This isn’t the case elsewhere in Europe where it is seen as the highest honour for your song to represent your country in the competition. Eurovision is, after all, a MASSIVE event and, with its audience of around 200 million, is by far the biggest TV entertainment show on the planet.
This year saw the BBC undertake their biggest song search ever where tracks were not only coming in from top industry writers but also from any member of the general public wanting to enter.
My time was spent listening to hundreds of submissions and when I thought a song was fantastic or simply had potential I would then meet up with the writers and we would discuss ways in which we could best take the song to conclusion for Eurovision. Every song has to be less than three minutes long and needs to be immediate in its appeal as some people may only hear it once in the Grand Final (the UK does not compete in the semi final stage). Consequently, the production values need to be high and the chorus needs to be compelling and heard enough times to hook in the listener. On top of finding the songs, I also spent a lot of time searching for exciting, enthusiastic singers who could sing the them. It should be said that a couple of the songs were actually sung by the people who wrote them.
Having whittled the vast number of entries down to a shortlist of around 20, these songs were then played to senior industry people from the worlds of radio and TV as well as some top executives from the music industry in order to help us select the final six songs for Eurovision: You Decide – a televised selection show where the public made the final decision on which song was to go forward to represent the UK in Stockholm.
Fan engagement is a crucial part of Eurovision therefore we also enlisted the help of the UK branch of the OGAE (the biggest Eurovision fan club in the world) to help us select the best entries from the general public. From a strong selection of entries the public chose Joe and Jake and the song, 'You’re Not Alone'. Joe and Jake are two very talented and lovely young guys who are relishing the whole Eurovision process and winning new friends wherever they go. The guys are now about to experience the true enormity of the Eurovision experience as they touch down in Stockholm and embark on exhaustive rehearsals before the big night on 14 May!
A marathon…not a sprint
So, what does the future hold for the UK in Eurovision? We must not forget that, in recent years, some massive pan European hits have been spawned by the competition and, in the more distant past, the show has been responsible for two of the biggest pop acts of all time, ABBA and Celine Dion. My strong feeling is that there has never been a better time for a huge new act to break out of Eurovision... The audience can stream or download tracks on the night if they fall in love with a song and this, in turn, can give an artist the opportunity to literally become an overnight sensation right across Europe.
Sweden, currently home to some of the most successful songwriters in the world (songs for Taylor Swift, Rihanna, One Direction, Katy Perry and many more) recognise the power of the contest and for some years now have been totally invested in upping their game at Eurovision. And they have most certainly done this which is why the show is coming from Stockholm in 2016.
My hope is that, slowly but surely over the next few years, the UK will also attract more and more writers and acts of calibre and that we too will be truly back in the Eurovision game in the future.
Hugh Goldsmith is Music Consultant to the BBC
Watch the grand final of the Eurovision Song Content 2016 live on the BBC on Saturday 14 May at 8pm
