World Song Contest

Sometimes there is THE song. The one everyone agrees this is a real winner. The history of the contest is full of close victories (the closest one happened in WSC .30 when South Africa and Luxembourg received the same number of votes), but sometimes we have runaway victories. What happened in the 31st edition of the World Song Contest, which started in September 2007, is the biggest victory ever. 

52 countries took part in this edition, among them new comer Belize, Bahamas and Mongolia while Uzbekistan and New Zealand were back for a second try. Unfortunately only New Zealand managed to qualify for the final (where the song finished close to the top 10 with a 12th position). 

Once again we had big names in this edition: Alicia Keys, former-model-now-singer Carla Bruni and Vanessa Paradis (famous for her songs written by Serge Gainsbourg and Lenny Kravitz, and for her relationship with Johnny Depp). For once, all of them managed to reach the top 10.

But a name was not enough to stop Russia from winning. With 226 points, not only "Samson" (performed by Regina Spektor) was a clear winner but the song also broke the record of points received, being the first one to receive more than 200 points. It was also 93 points more than runner up Australia. France, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia completed the top 5.

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THE WINNER

Country: Russia
Artist(s): Regina Spektor
Song: Samson

A veteran of New York's anti-folk scene, songwriter Regina Spektor makes quirky, highly eclectic, but always personal music. Born in 1980 and raised in Moscow until age nine, Spektor listened to her father's bootleg tapes of Western pop and rock as a young child and also learned to play piano. She and her family moved from Russia to the Bronx, where she was immersed in American culture (at the time, hers was the first Russian family in the borough in 20 years). Eventually, Spektor and her family became part of a community that balanced her Russian Jewish roots with her new home's culture. Meanwhile, she continued to practice piano anywhere she could, including at her synagogue, until her family got a piano of their own. Spektor further developed her classical piano training by attending the SUNY Purchase Music Conservatory. During her studies, she was exposed to blues and jazz artists, including Billie Holiday. These sounds made such an impact on Spektor that they became a big part of her self-released 2001 debut album, 11:11. At the same time, she was also playing gigs anywhere she could in the city, in venues ranging from basements to parties to comedy clubs. On the strength of her frequent performances and another self-released album, 2002's Songs, Spektor developed a following that included Alan Bezozi, They Might Be Giants' drummer. He introduced Spektor to the Strokes' producer, Gordon Raphael, and both worked with Spektor on her third album, Soviet Kitsch, in both New York and London (where she collaborated with the band Kill Kenada). Soviet Kitsch was initially self-released like her other work, but it eventually found a wider release with Sire Records. Tours with the Strokes, Kings of Leon, Mates of State, and the Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson further raised Spektor's profile. She also toured the U.K., where the success of "Us" as a European single led to the release of the CD/DVD retrospective Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories early in 2006. That summer, Begin to Hope, her first album of original material for Sire, arrived. Begin to Hope enjoyed popularity on both sides of the Atlantic and went gold in America, where it also cracked the Top 20. After taking several years to tour and compose new material, Spektor returned in 2009 with Far, which featured a bevy of star producers, including Jeff Lynne, David Kahne, Mike Elizondo and Garret "Jacknife" Lee.