The Eurovision Song Contest isn’t the type of show you’re likely to put on if you want to add some hard rock or metal to your day. Yet, this competition has a history of producing some solid rock performances, so can a band with thrashing guitars and pounding drums win it again this year?
The History of Hard Rock in Eurovision
If you’d tuned in to 2006’s contest just as Finland’s entry appeared on the screen, you could have been forgiven for thinking you’d picked the wrong channel. Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi is a hard-rocking track that captivated Europe as it gave Finland their only win to date.
Can a hard rock track win for the Finns again? This country has long been a haven for heavy metal, with bands like Hanoi Rocks and Nightwish among their most popular artists. A look at the Eurovision 2024 odds shows Finland at 60/1 at the time of writing, far behind the favourites like Switzerland (9/5) and Croatia (10/3). But it’s not hard rock. The Finnish entry this year is called No Rules!, is sung by Windows95man and is a retro-style pop song.
The other memorable hard rock and metal moments in the past came from Italy’s Måneskin with Zitti e buoni, which won the contest in 2021 as the country’s third winner to date. While these are the only two heavy metal songs to win Eurovision so far, other notable entrants such as Blind Channel and AWS have provided a few great riffs over the years too.
Can a Rock Song Win in 2024?
You might like the idea of backing a hard rock song to win this year, given how this genre has produced two winners in the past. Betting on the Eurovision outcome isn’t all that different from betting on sports, as you need to look at the odds and other relevant factors. This look at some sports betting tips shows how sports like football and horse racing can be analysed. We can see recent form and weather conditions are among the issues taken into .
In of the Eurovision 2024 entrants, we need to look at the songs and consider which have the most chance of appealing to the viewers. Of the four main favourites – Switzerland, Croatia, Italy and the Netherlands- none of them are built on rock riffs. Israel and Ukraine are next on the list, but neither is a rock song. While many of the songs mix different styles, none stand out as being outright rock songs like those songs that won in 2006 and 2021.
With no rock songs in the Eurovision Contest this year, we’ll need to wait at least another year to find out if this genre can win it again. The lack of hard rock is perhaps a surprise after the success of Lordi and Måneskin, but if you like the idea of trying to predict the winner you might still find a couple of songs in there that you like.
