The audience has chosen Jamala!

According to organizers, the audience was enormously active this year, sending 382,500 SMS messages, which was the highest ever since our country started to hold these preliminary contests! Let us recall that performers competing over the “ticket” to Stockholm to represent Ukraine there included: Brunettes Shoot Blondes, Pur:Pur, NeAnhely, The Hardkiss, SunSay, and Jamala. It remained competitive until the last minute! Unexpectedly, the jury assigned the highest score (6) to The Hardkiss, rather than the leaders of the first and second semi-finals of the National Selection Jamala and SunSay.

The Hardkiss performed “Helpless,” a revival song. This band was created in 2011. Their strong points are lively shows and strong vocal performance of soloist Yulia Sanina who doubles as songwriter. The Hardkiss won the Yuna Award in 2013 in categories “Discovery of the Year” and “Best Video of the Year.” According to jury member Konstantin Meladze, to win the Eurovision Song Contest, one must reject the politics and prioritize song, and “Helpless” does exactly that...

By the way, SunSay’s front man Andrii Zaporozhets sang the old song “Love Manifest” (which was performed by him before, and so his choice was against the rules of Eurovision), but the jury decided to turn a blind eye to it, because this piece was translated into English and provided with new arrangement. As head of the National Selection Meladze explained, “Love Manifest” was “technically new.” However, Zaporozhets lacked the drive he had shown in the semifinals and lost some of the audience vote due to his, to put it mildly, pro-separatist stance which saw him supporting the so-called Novorossia on Facebook and stating that he was not going to “suspend his performances in Crimea and Russia” because his band included musicians from St. Petersburg.

Jamala won the selection with 37 percent of the audience voting for her confession song “1944,” which was inspired by the singer’s grandmother telling her about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars.

By the way, head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis Refat Chubarov posted on Facebook: “I know that Jamala’s victory at the Eurovision 2016 will indicate a high level of musical culture in Ukraine! But I know also that Jamala’s victory at the Eurovision 2016 will demonstrate to the entire world the high morale of the Ukrainian political nation that is united in the fight against the Russian aggressor...”

The 61st International Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Stockholm. Semi-finals will be held on May 10 and 12, and the final is scheduled for May 14.