World Song Contest

THE WINNER

Country: Argentina
Artist(s): Lisandro Aristimuño
Song: La Última Prosa

The 37th edition of the World Song Contest, and the first one of the 4th year, started in March 2008 with a total of 64 participants. Only 35 songs could take part in the final, and so 30 of them had to qualify. For the time the previous winner was disqualified as its votes for the semi finals were not received. This allowed some lucky losers to go to the final. Spain was one of them. You can expect lucky losers won't achieved a great result in the final but Spain reached the top 10. On the other hand, some songs that did great just crashed in the final, like Israel or Canada, which respectively finished 2nd and 1st in their heat of the semi finals, didn't manage to be in the top 20 of the final. Some countries did better than usual when they qualified for the final, Peru, for instance never qualified for a WSC final before.

The entries for the Eurovision Song Contest being chosen, several countries sent their representatives in WSC too, but with another song. It didn't proove to be a good idea for Bosnia & Herzegovina and Liechtenstein which didn't qualify for the final, and for Norway which only reached the 23rd position in the final. Russia, Cyprus, Armenia and Lithuania also tried with former eurovision participants. Other countries tried their luck with a previous winner of WSC, like Belgium or South Africa. It didn't work for South Africa, while Belgium reached the 11th position. Among the other artists of this edition, Eros Ramazzotti, Ricky Martin, Shaggy and Santana. For the most famous ones. Only Santana found a way to the final.

For the first time, a nation from South America won. Argentina took an early lead, with 12 points from Serbia, only to stay among the leader till the end, and eventually win. Argentina only received votes from 16 participants, while San Marino was in the top 10 of 21 of them but Argentina received 7 top marks, so a total of 84, more than half of the its final score (141 points). The last minute votes from Greece didn't change a thing for Argentina but give the second position to the United Kingdom, which confirmed its previous good results, over France, which finished for the second time in a row in the top 3.

Gallery of Participants

Adele

Françoise Hardy

Lady & Bird

Rovena Dilo

Kat DeLuna

L'Aura

Sara Bareilles