Throughout the year of 2017, we’ve been graced with an incredible array of new music from Eurovision and National Final stars from across Europe (and Australia). We’ve discovered some gems through our Weekly Playlists, which are now coming to an end along with the year of 2017. Since we’ve discovered so many new songs that we love, we wanted to give you a chance to express your favourites with us, and so we’ve created 12 categories in which Eurovision fans worldwide have been voting, and now it’s time to reveal your winners!
It definitely was one of our strongest categories, which each and every one of the nominees putting out incredibly music throughout 2017. Acts such as Amir, Francesco Gabbani and Sergey Lazarev were busy releasing singles and albums consistently, whilst others such as Erik Rapp, Benjamin Ingrosso and Nano releasing fewer singles, but of incredible quality. With such strong nominees, even for us it would be difficult to decide who would be deserving of the title, but the fans have spoken, and the Best Male Act of 2017 is…
Amir
This year Amir released his second album titled Addictions which upon release, and still now is popular amongst fans. The first single from the album was États d’Amour and has been streamed on Spotify over 2.6 Million times, solidifying his place within the modern French music scene.
Best Female Act
Not only has it been a strong year for the male artists, but also the female soloists who have released some of the best music of the year. From the likes of Molly Sanden, who returned with a new Swedish approach to her music, to Iveta Mukuchyan and Jamala who also continue to embrace their cultural roots. We also have Barei, Alma and Demy nominated, all of which have added to the pop music landscape all in their individual ways. However, there can only be one winner, and the voters have decided that the Best Female Act is…
Iveta Mukuchyan
This is Iveta’s second win in our Eurovision Union Awards having won Best Collaboration alongside fellow Armenian artist Aram Mp3. This year Iveta further embraced her cultural history by releasing a handful of new songs that feature the distinct cultural sound of Armenia. There’s our personal favourite Hayastan Jan which displays these qualities, but also her more recent release of the seven track collection titled Armenian Folk. The LoveWave continues for the 2016 Eurovision participant!
EP of the Year
As much as we appreciate a full album, sometimes we only have the attention span to listen to an EP, so we were fortunate this year to have had a platter of amazing new EP’s from both Eurovision and National Final stars. Interestingly, all our nominees for this category are from the Scandinavian region, with four of the nominees coming from Sweden, one each from Denmark, Iceland and Norway. Despite the limited range of geography, all of the nominated artists released quality EP’s that are all deserving of the title, but as you know there can only be one winner… except for this category, where two acts received the equal amount of votes. So, the winners are…
Loreen & Anja Nissen
Loreen’s return to the music scene was tremendous. We saw her return to Melodifestivalen, albeit a relatively unsuccessful return, however the music to follow on from her return was a thing of beauty. Her EP titled Nude featured just three songs, but all had merit both singularly and as the package under the Nude title.
Anja Nissen has also had a big year, first by returning to Dansk Melodi Grand Prix which she went on to win, and then performing at Eurovision on behalf of Denmark. Her EP titled Where I Am featured six songs in total, including her Eurovision entry also titled Where I Am. Her EP displays a competent knowledge of modern pop music, and if you were to pick a random song off the EP you wouldn’t be disappointed with what you hear. Both deserving winners!
Album of the Year
Moving from EP to Album, we once again had a lot of strong contenders. We had Loïc Nottet, Alma and Francesco Gabbani release their albums more within the first half of the year, and we had the late arrivals from Aussie Guy Sebastian, as well as Loreen and Amir. Both Loïc Nottet and Loreen offered up more of an alternative sound, whilst the others dabbled in various forms of pop music. It was a hard choice for fans to make, but we do have a winner, and that is…
Loïc Nottet
This makes his third win of our Eurovision Union Awards – three out of three. It was his debut album which won him Album of the Year, and the 12 tracks of the album Selfocracy as a whole have been streamed millions of times on Spotify, with the most popular tracks being Million Eyes and Mud Blood, which makes sense since they were both singles off the album. A difficult, but great choice by Eurovision fans worldwide.
Song of the Year
It was a difficult task to pick the nominees of this category, so it would have been a difficult choice to actually pick just one favourite from 2017. We had an incredible array of music released this year from East to West, North and South of Europe. Some of the nominees had direct links to Eurovision and National Finals, such as Salvador Sobral’s winning Eurovision song and the fan favourite national final song by Tayanna, and we also had the follow up single from Joci Pápai which as you would have seen has won our Best Eurovision 2017 Follow Up Single. We had the star track from Loreen, 71’ Charger, as well as new releases from Francesca Michielin, Molly Sanden, Marco Mengoni and Laura Tesoro. We had a clear winner in this category, and that is…
Marco Mengoni
He’s arguably one of the most popular Italian pop stars who found fame across Europe and beyond upon his Eurovision performance back in 2013. His song Onde (Sondr Remix) has had over 6 million streams on Spotify, and it’s a song that’s won him both this category of Song of the Year as well as our Best Pop Act.
Wildcard Song of the Year
This category was created for those songs that perhaps haven’t necessarily found mainstream success – although successful, perhaps not on the scale of the songs featured in the Song of the Year category. These were songs that we personally felt represented the best of the undiscovered gems of Europe’s music scene, and songs that we think deserve a lot more love. Out of the list of nominees, only Basim had over a million streams for his song Aji Aji, however the other nominees had far less on their nominated songs. All we’re saying is that these songs deserved some recognition too, so this was their category to shine! In the end, the winner was…
Monatik
The Ukrainian artist came to our knowledge only this year through being one of the opening acts for Eurovision 2017 held in Ukraine. His performance was one of the highlights of the show for us, and we’ve been listening to his song Spinning ever since. It seems that it’s a popular choice with you as well, seeing as Monatik has now taken the title of Wildcard Song of the Year!
Make sure to check out Part 1 of our Winners Revealed, and continue to enjoy our Spotify playlist featuring all our nominated songs and artists!
