World Song Contest

The 20th edition of the World Song Contest, launched in October 2006, was by far one of the most exciting one. And that for several reasons. The first one: the number of participants. For the first time, 50 players decided to represent a country. As a result, some new nations made their first appearance. Most of them from Asia with Taiwan or Malaysia. Georgia and Greenland also enter for the first time. Some will say Taiwan or Greenland are not independant countries. But this contest is not about what's a country, but about music. And sometimes you can expect that music from these "territories" is not the same that the one from the country they "belong to". Just check what happens in France with the "DOM-TOM".

The second reason is that so many kinds of music were represented with Bosnia & Herzegovina going with something really different from usual... let's just call it rock. Finland and Estonia, even though it didn't help them once again, stayed faithful to their rock attitude, but with some folk in it. Turkey gave something unusual, with some ethnic elements, more similar to what we expect from Poland or Austria.

Then, and it could also be a good reason, came the stars. Probably one of the edition with the more famous names. George Michael, for Cyprus, Laura Pausini back for Italy, just like P!nk for the USA and, the most successful of them all, Katie Melua, for Georgia. Though they are not international stars like the ones before, Luxembourg, France and Monaco sent some of their most famous singers of the moment in the French music scene. But the real "star" of this edition was probably Thomas Glock who really showed interest. He is the first singer to take this seriously, and was backed by a lot of Austrian fans.

The final reason is probably that the winning song is far from the songs which usually wins the contest. Maybe the players wanted something more ambitious this time. So after nearly two years of participation, Poland finally won the contest. Soul For Me, performed by Pati Yang took the crown. Georgia finished second, and Israel third.

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THE WINNER

Country: Poland
Artist(s): Pati Yang
Song: Soul For Me 

Pati Yang (real name: Patrycja Hilton, maiden name: Grzymałkiewicz, born 26 March 1980) is a Polish singer. She spent the first eight years of her childhood on the road with her mother and her then-partner Jan Borysewicz, leader of the Lady Pank band. In 1998, she recorded her first album Jaszczurka. After that, she moved to London, where together with Stephen Hilton she founded project Children. She also co-operated with David Holmes on the music for many films like Buffalo Soldiers, Out of Sight, Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve. The effect of their co-operation was The Free Association project (in which Martina Topley-Bird was involved). The Free Association recorded a soundtrack for Code 46 (2003). She also co-operated with David Arnold for Tomorrow Never Dies. In 2005, at Air Studios, she recorded a follow-up to her only solo album - Silent Treatment. Along with her husband Stephen Hilton, she started another side-project called FlyKKiller, releasing an album Experiments in Violent Light and three EPs in 2007. In 2009, she released her latest solo work Faith, Hope + Fury.