Eurovision 2020 l It's Roxen for Romania!
Today we are pleased to announce that Roxen will represent Romania in Rotterdam at this years Eurovision Song Contest.
Instead if having their national selection "Selecția Națională", which they have done for many years, Romanian broadcaster TVR decided this year to choose their representative internally trough the record company Global Records, in the hope to try and achieve better results in Eurovision.
In the end, it was a special jury that decided who was the lucky one that would try and take the throne for Romania. TVR released yesterday a press statement in which they confirmed the three shortlisted names: Diana V., Cezar Guna and Roxen. Out of these three, it has been made official that Roxen is indeed the selected artist.
Roxen is a fairly new name in the Romanian music industry. She was first featured on Romanian producer Sickotoy's "You Don't Love Me" in 2019, which quickly became a hit, reaching number three on the country's Airplay 100 chart, and being playlisted by radio stations in several countries including France, United States, Russia and Spain. She previously described her musical identity as 'experimental'.
Roxen will perform in a national final aired live on Romanian television on March 1st. She will sing five songs, with a combined result of 50% jury and 50% televoting to decide which song is going to Eurovision.
The final five songs will be released on February 21st, so people will get a chance listen to the songs before they decide which song is going to be their winner. Those five songs have also been chosen by experts with different backgrounds in the music industry.
What do we know so far about the songs: TVR will be broadcasting a short material every Monday to Friday called "Destinatia Eurovision". During the previous five editions, we managed to gain insight from the songwriting camp that took place (roughly at the end of January) and in which well-known Romanian producers created a number of songs to be selected by TVR as the most suitable for Roxen.
So far, we've got one up-tempo song produced by Marco & Seba, who are the main producers for international star INNA and are behind 'Sun Is Up' and 'Hot'. The song is described as going into an epic register with 'Up' as a potential title. The second song would an up-tempo bop. Persian-influenced with 'saki saki saki' as a hook. We've also got two classic ballads produced by Coco (main producer for Andra) and Viky Red (Selectia Nationala 2012) and a power ballad produced by David Ciente (producer for INNA and Selena Gomez). As exciting as all of this might sound though, we can't know for sure if these are indeed the selected songs so patience is required at this stage.
Check out our interview in Tel Aviv with Romania's 2019 representative, Esther Peony
What are your thoughts and first impression on the selected artist, Roxen? Did you have a chance to listen to her? If so, what kind of songs are you expecting from her? Tell us in the comment below or on our social media.
