World Song Contest

The World Song Contest is full of surprises. The 23rd edition, which started in January 2007, confirmed it. After the semi finals, it appeared that the United States of America would be the winner without any possible doubts. Not only the song was a world wide hit at the same time and Christina Aguilera wasn’t what we can call a perfect unknown, but USA received a record of  246 points in the semi’s while Greece, winner of the other heat, received 136 points.

Despite a lot of great songs from several countries, it seemed the games were made. Was it because of Aguilera’s popularity ? She wasn’t the only famous singer of this edition. Alanis Morissette represented Canada and Zucchero was chosen for Italy. Helena Paparizou and Anna Vissi also made a come back, just like former winner, Amaral for Andorra. None of them represented a threat for the USA. 

The threat, that’s the word, came from Asia. After the first victory of an African country in WSC .22, Asia had to do something. All continents already had a winner (if we take the America’s as a whole and single continent). Not Asia. It was time to do something after nearly 2 years of contests. If Asia did something this time we also have to notice the 3rd position of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Before that, the country only reached the top 10 in one occasion, with a 7th position. Then we have the 3rd consecutive top 10 position for Algeria and Belgium reached the top 5 for the 8th time, more than any other country. Estonia, which often failed to qualify, finally reached the top 5 for the second time since WSC .03.

So the winner, you probably got it, was an Asian country. Japan easily won with 26 points more than the USA. This might be seen as a short victory. But if you check the results of several previous editions, you’ll notice that the games are usually made by 1 or 2 points. Anyway, the winning song, Destiny ~ Taiyou No Hana ~, performed by Hitomi Shimatani, showed us that you always have surprise in this contest !

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THE WINNER

Country: Japan
Artist(s): Hitomi Shimatani
Song: Destiny ~ Taiyou No Hana ~

Hitomi Shimatani (born September 4, 1980 in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan), is a female J-pop singer. Her childhood dream, like many others, was to become a famous singer. At the age of seventeen, when she was still in high school, Shimatani decided to pursue this goal and attended "The Japan Audition 1997" hosted by the music label avex trax. Hitomi was chosen out of around two-hundred thousand other girls who participated and received a recording contract with avex. However, before starting her music career, she wished to finish high school -- to which avex agreed, but with the stipulation that Shimatani attend vocal lessons at the same time. She agreed. After having finished school and feeling ready to her first step as a young singer, in 1999 Hitomi released her first single called "Osaka no onna", an enka song. Although the single received much critical acclaim and even won some awards, it sold rather poorly, causing either Shimatani, avex, or both to decide that "Osaka no onna" was to be both the beginning and the end of Shimatani's enka career. She started to record more songs and in 2000 she released her second single, which was drastically different, stylistically, than her previous with its extremely pop leanings. However, mainstream success didn't come until the release of Shimatani's third single, entitled "papillon", a Japanese version of Janet Jackson's song " Doesn't Really Matter". The single became a hit, eventually selling over 200,000 copies, and valuted Shimatani into the spotlight. Since then, Shimatani has often been compared with the top artists on avex trax. Since then she has released five studio albums, one "best-of" compilation, a special concept album entitled "crossover", a winter mini-album, and twenty-three singles. Shimatani often uses "exotic-sounding" titles for her songs, including such tracks as "Perseus", "Falco", "bella flor" and "La Fiesta". She has also been recognized by anime and videogame fans around the globe for songs like ANGELUS -Anjerasu-, which was used as an opening theme for the Inuyasha anime series, Falco (Faruko) the 1st opening of "The Law of Ueki" or Ueki no Housoku and "Garnet Moon", the main theme from the Playstation 2 video-game "Another Century's Episode". Although dance-pop/techno-pop and Latin-styled music were a staple of much of Shimatani's earlier career, she has recently been working extensively in a sound which many have termed "crossover" (named so after the album on which it first made an appearance) -- a blend of traditional pop sensibilities with heavy orchestral and classical-music infusion. Shimatani released her 6th studio album, "Prima Rosa" and her first cover album in 2007. One year later, she released a new studio album. SMILES, released in march 2009, was her 30th single.