World Song Contest

Among the 63 countries which took part in the 38th edition of the World Song Contest, new countries joined the WSC family. Asia and South America showed their number of representatives rising with the first participations of Thailand, Vietnam, The Netherlands Antilles and Uruguay. Namibia also joined as the second African countries of this edition. But the "first time lucky" sentence couldn't be more wrong as only Vietnam and the Netherlands Antilles managed to qualify for the final.

The semi finals showed the fall of Colombia, represented by Shakira, with an unusual genre for this singer. Unfortunately it didn't impress the voters. With this elimination, only Coldplay, for the United Kingdom, represented the famous international stars we have in each edition of the contest. But we also had several names familiar to the WSC and ESC fans like Dino Merlin for Bosnia & Herzegovina, Mónica Naranjo for Andorra, Paolo Meneguzzi for Switezerland...

Also we had 4 songs performed in French with the entries from France, Belgium, Monaco, Luxembourg and Morocco. All of them took part in the final, but it has to be said three were directly qualified after the previous editions, so only two took part in the semi finals. So it was probably too early to say French was a sign of success in this contest despite the winner apparead to be a song performed in French.

After they tied with South Africa for the victory in WSC .30, Luxembourg found the way to the top once again, and this time alone. Even if the race for victory was hard, with Australia and Switzerland close behind, "Caravane", performed by Raphaël, collected votes from 22 players, to achieve a 139 points final results, and so a first victory in WSC.

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THE WINNER

Country: Luxembourg
Artist(s): Raphaël
Song: Caravane

Raphaël Haroche, simply known as Raphaël, was born in the Parisian suburb of Boulogne on November 7, 1975. With a Russian father and Argentinean mother, Haroche was brought up in a multicultural household, exposed to a wide range of musical expression. He developed a love for the pop music of the early '80s, listening to artists such as David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and the French rock group Noir Désir. Before settling on guitar, the young artist experimented with a variety of instruments and musical tools, including sax, piano, and even early sampling technology. As a young adult, Haroche spent some time studying law before abandoning the university altogether in order to write full-time. Thanks to some powerful connections, he was offered a deal with EMI at the age of 24. His debut record, Hotel de l'Univers, was released in 2001 to a modest reception. Though the tour that followed was rocky, as Haroche lacked live performance experience, he was ultimately well-received, winning the Victoires de la Musique Award for Best Newcomer. In 2003 his sophomore effort, La Réalite, was released, selling an impressive 160,000 copies, but Haroche's real breakthrough into the mainstream came in 2005. Caravane was met with great critical acclaim and was Raphael's first record to make it into Billboard's European Top 100. The project won a number of awards, and the subsequent tour produced the artist's first live record, Résistance à la Nuit: Live 2006. Raphaël's fourth studio album, Je sais que la terre est plate was released on the 17th March 2008. This album featured the song Haïti, a collaboration with the Jamaican group Toots & the Maytals. His fifth album Pacific 231 has been released in 2010.