History Recap / EurovisionSongContest2021

** And {{Inverted}} by {{Uno}}, who ''declined'' a chance to participate after being selected for 2020 on grounds that a new group should get a chance this time around.

** Senhit's postcard included a video of her performance from the 2011 contest, while Samanta Tina's featured clips from all of her national final attempts prior to making it to the contest at last.

** After Australia's first ever non-qualification, Ukraine confirms itself as the only country with a perfect qualification result.
** Italy caps off a decade of good performances since their return in 2011 (including seven top 10 finishes in nine previous attempts) with a victory at last.

** Armenia was forced to sit out in early March 2021 due to recent resurgence of conflict in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijan (which nevertheless managed to send out anew its prospective 2020 entrant Samira Efendi - Armenia lost far more from that conflict than Azerbaijan did, and Azerbaijan also had superior resources). It was also hard for Armenia’s popular 2020 act Athena Manoukian, Armenian by descent but coming from Greece and who had not been there since the previous contest was cancelled, to travel to Yerevan and carry out the complex undertakings including filming the live-on-tape performance; other acts had also been linked before they withdrew.
** After VAL, the band selected to represent Belarus in 2020, openly supported protests against allegations of fraud surrounding the August 2020 elections that reelected long-time strongman Alexander Lukashenko, their national broadcaster BTRC announced that VAL would not be returning in 2021 because they had "no conscience". Another band, Galasy [=ZMesta=], was selected instead, and immediately came under fire because their song "Ya nauchu tebya" ("I'll Teach You") was interpreted as being openly mocking the same protests. The EBU, invoking the "no politics" rule, asked the BTRC to submit a new song, but when their new submission, "Pesnyu pro zaytsa" ("Song About Hares"), was likewise found in violation of the rule, to say nothing of the emergence of the band's pro-Lukashenko, transphobic and homophobic stance, Belarus was disqualified from the 2021 contest.

** Subverted, by and large, with the United Kingdom's embarrassing dual "nil points." Seeing as the song was not only completely passed over by the juries, but also alongside three other less controversial countries in the televote, it was pretty obvious that the usual "Europe hates us because of Brexit" argument wasn't going to work (not that wasn't tried by the usual pundits) and that the issue came down to not having the right song/staging for such a tough year.

** During jury points presentation, a few past singers and presenters returned as spokespeople: Lucy Ayoub of Israel (co-presenter, Tel Aviv 2019), Ida Nowakowska of Poland (presenter, Gliwice 2019 juniors and Warsaw 2020 juniors), Eldar Gasimov and Music/NikkiJamal of Azerbaijan (winners, Düsseldorf 2011; Gasimov was also a co-presenter at Baku 2012), Music/{{Aminata}} of Latvia (sixth, Vienna 2015), Music/RyanOShaughnessy of Ireland (sixteenth, Lisbon 2018), Sergey Stepanov (the famed "Epic Sax Guy" of Music/SunstrokeProject) of Moldova (22nd, Oslo 2010; third, Kyiv 2017), Joanna Dragneva of Bulgaria (semifinalist, Belgrade 2008, as part of Deep Zone), Oto Nemsadze of Georgia (semifinalist, Tel Aviv 2019), Andrius Mamontovas (sixth, Athens 2006, as part of LT United), Polina Gagarina of Russia (runner-up, Vienna 2015), Carla Lazzari of France (fifth, Gliwice 2019 juniors), and Carola Häggkvist of Sweden (winner, Rome 1991; third, Munich 1983; fifth, Athens 2006).

* CurbStompBattle: Not overall, but the very low televote marks announced for the back-end of the jury ranking was an early indication that the televote was absolutely dominated by a handful of countries - and it very much was, as there were a very clear eight or nine songs (pretty much everything from ninth-placed Russia upward) that scored with the vast majority of televotes. In particular, the televote's top three (Italy, Ukraine, and France, respectively) were the only songs to score with every single televote, while 4th-placed Finland only missed out on one (Georgia's).
* {{Determinator}}: Samanta Tīna had previously tried to represent her native Latvia five times (and twice for neighbouring Lithuania), and she finally won the 2020 edition of ''Supernova'', Latvia's national selection show, on her sixth try. After the contest was cancelled, national broadcaster LTV thankfully selected her internally anew for 2021, though she unfortunately stalled in the semi-final.

* EliminatedFromTheRace: Australia, Croatia, Ireland, North Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia in the first semi-final. From the second, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and Poland. Notably, this is the very first elimination of Australia, which would now leave Ukraine (which qualified in the first semi) as the last remaining country besides the Big Five yet to be eliminated from the semifinals.

** Ten years since they returned to the contest, and after a decade of ups and downs book-ended by runner-up finishes (and a third-place in Vienna 2015), Italy, long considered a high favourite, finally lives up to its potential and wins its first trophy in 31 years, courtesy of a fiery rock and roll performance from Music/{{Maneskin}}.
** Although most of the Big Five countries had a pretty miserable year, the other major exception besides Italy was France. The country saw mixed fortunes throughout the 2010s, and despite Music/{{Amir}} leading them to an impressive sixth in Stockholm 2016, they have since struggled to match his success, with their prospective 2020 entry, "Mon alliée" by Tom Leeb, being panned by the French public and Eurovision fans for being mostly sung in English and written by foreign songwriters. On the heels of their first-ever triumph at the 2020 junior edition at Warsaw, France regained its determination to do well in the senior edition, held a strong national final, and the emerging winner--Barbara Pravi, who also wrote their aforementioned winning song, "J'imagine" by Valentina Tronel (as well as their fifth-placing effort from the previous year, "Bim bam toi" by Carla Lazzari)--quickly emerged as a high favourite. And while Pravi couldn't quite win the whole thing, she nevertheless finished third with televoters (and, like Italy and Ukraine, received televote points from every other country) and second with the juries to earn second overall, tying Amina Annabi's record in Rome 1991 for France's best finish since Marie Myriam won London 1977.

* {{Mondegreen}}: The hook of the Dutch entry, "Birth of a New Age", says "yu no man broko mi" ("you can't break me") in Sranan Tongo. It's ''not'' about broccoli.

** Although most of the Big Five countries had a pretty miserable year, the other major exception besides Italy was France, which saw mixed fortunes throughout the 2010s, as despite Music/{{Amir}} leading them to an impressive sixth in Stockholm 2016, they have since struggled to match his success, and their prospective 2020 entry, "Mon alliée" by Tom Leeb, was panned by the French public and Eurovision fans for being mostly sung in English and written by foreign songwriters. On the heels of their first-ever triumph at the 2020 junior edition in Warsaw, France regained its determination to do well in the senior edition, held a strong national final, and the emerging winner--Barbara Pravi, who also wrote their aforementioned winning song, "J'imagine" by Valentina Tronel (as well as their fifth-placing effort on the previous year, "Bim bam toi" by Carla Lazzari)--quickly emerged as a high favourite. And while Pravi couldn't quite win the thing, she nevertheless finished third with televoters (and, like Italy and Ukraine, receive points from the televoters of every other country) and second with the juries to earn second overall, tying Amina Annabi's record for France's best finish since Marie Myriam won at London 1977.
** Iceland's Music/DadiFreyr and his band Gagnamagnið was long considered a favourite dating all the way back to their prospective 2020 appearance, until bandmate Jóhann Sigurður tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the band to stay in a hotel while footage from their rehearsal was played in place of a live performance. Nevertheless, their song, "10 Years", earned fourth overall (fifth with juries and televotes), its best finish since Yohanna finished second behind Norway's Music/AlexanderRybak in Moscow 2009.

** Armenia was forced to sit out in early March 2021 due to recent resurgence of conflict in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijan (which nevertheless managed to send out anew its prospective 2020 entrant Samira Efendi - Armenia lost far more from that conflict than Azerbaijan did, and Azerbaijan also had superior resources. It was also hard for Armenia’s popular 2020 act Athena Manoukian, Armenian by descent but coming from Greece and who had not been there since the previous contest was cancelled, to travel to Yerevan and carry out the complex undertakings including filming the live-on-tape performance; other acts had also been linked before they withdrew.

** Although most of the Big Five countries had a pretty miserable year, the other major exception besides Italy was France, which saw mixed fortunes throughout the 2010s, as despite Music/{{Amir}} leading them to an impressive sixth in Stockholm 2016, they have since struggled to match his success, and their prospective 2020 entry, "Mon alliée" by Tom Leeb, was panned by the French public and Eurovision fans for being mostly sung in English and written by foreign songwriters. On the heels of their first-ever triumph at the 2020 junior edition in Warsaw, France regained its determination to do well in the senior edition, held a strong national final, and the emerging winner--Barbara Pravi, who also wrote their aforementioned winning song, "J'imagine" by Valentina Tronel (as well as their fifth-placing effort on the previous year, "Bim bam toi" by Carla Lazzari)--quickly emerged as a high favourite. And while Pravi couldn't quite win the thing, nevertheless she managed to finish third with televoters (and, like Italy and Ukraine, receive points from the televoters of every other country) and second both with the juries and overall, tying France's Amina Annabi's record for best finish since Marie Myriam won all the way back in London 1977.

* EpicFail: For the second consecutive year, the United Kingdom (represented by James Newman) languishes at the very bottom of the standings. As if to rub salt into the wound, they also suffered their first ''nul points'' since Jemini in Riga 2003 (as well as having the dubious honour of being the first to blank out with both juries ''and'' audiences in the grand final in the split jury/televote results era, a feat in itself since there are now double the amount of points -- the new voting system was seen as making it nearly impossible to manage ''nul points''), and it is of little consolation that Jendrik of Germany, Blas Canto of Spain, and Jeangu Macrooy of host Netherlands also failed to get any televote points, because at least they had jury points to somewhat ease the pain (respectively, three, six, and eleven).

** San Marino, which is prone to outsource their entries since it is a microstate, is represented once again by Music/{{Senhit}} Zadik Zadik, an Italian-Eritrean, though the part of Italy she is from, the city of Bologna, is the closest major town to San Marino. The song also includes a verse from American rapper Music/FloRida.

** Downplayed with Stefania Liberakakis, born in the Netherlands (which she represented back in the 2016 junior edition in Valletta as part of the band Kisses), representing her parents' ancestral homeland of Greece.

** When Kateryna Pavlenko, lead singer of Go_A (Ukraine), had a health scare the morning before their second rehearsals, stand-in singer[[note]]Stand-in singers are a number of local singers who help the crew with the technical rehearsals before the acts arrive in the host country, essentially covering the songs on stage[[/note]] Emmie Van Stijn subbed for her temporarily - and the band themselves praised her for doing a really good job, despite singing a complicated song in a language she didn't know. The band invited Emmie to sit with them in the green room during the semi-final as a thank you for her help.

* HolyHalo: At the end of Ukraine's performance, the dancers raised their ''Film/{{Tron}}''-esque ring lights behind the head of the lead singer of Go_A, giving her the appearance of a halo.

* ShirtlessScene: The lead singer of Italy's Music/{{Maneskin}} performs in high-waisted leather pants, suspenders, and nothing else. During their winning reprise the guitarist abandoned his jacket and also performed shirtless.

*** While San Marino's Music/{{Senhit}} only managed a paltry twenty-second, it was still a lot better than when she was eliminated from the semifinals the last time she sang at the contest ten years ago; it may have also helped that she had American rapper Music/FloRida sing a verse.
*** Switzerland's Gjon's Tears was an early bookies' favourite, and in the final not only did he manage to finish at third, one spot higher than Music/LucaHanni from Tel Aviv 2019 and tying with Annie Cotton from Millstreet 1993, but even led the jury votes.
** The one major example in the first semi was Belgium's Hooverphonic, as their country had gone from three consecutive top-ten finishes between 2015-2017 (including two fourth-place finishes) to two straight non-qualifications. This marked the first occasion a Flemish entry represented Belgium on Dutch soil, and in spite of the band's popularity, there were worries that the song would be too low-key to advance to the final. Fortunately, the juries loved it, and Belgium qualified for the first time since 2017.
** Ten years since they returned to the contest, and after a decade of ups and downs, including a third-place and a pair of second-place finishes (including Tel Aviv 2019), Italy, long considered a potential favourite, finally lives up to its potential and wins its first trophy in 31 years, courtesy of a fiery rock and roll performance from Music/{{Maneskin}}.
** Although most of the Big 5 countries had a pretty miserable year, the other major exception besides Italy was runner-up Barbara Pravi from France. France had seen mixed fortunes throughout the 2010s, as even after Amir returned them to the top ten in 2016, they couldn't quite match that in the following years, and their planned entry for 2020 was largely disliked by the French public and Eurofans for mostly being in English and written by foreign songwriters. On the heels of their first-ever Junior Eurovision win (also courtesy of Barbara Pravi), France regained its determination to do well, held a strong national final, and the emerging winner immediately became one of the heavy favorites to win the whole contest from that moment on. Even if Barbara couldn't quite win the whole thing, she still scored with every single nation's televote and finished as runner-up both with the jury vote and overall, marking France's best finish since 1991.

During the planning stage, a number of "scenarios" were developed to ensure that the contest will take place in any case in a COVID-19-safe situation. The contest eventually took place under "Scenario B", with all acts except Australia[[note]]as Australia's very stringent anti-COVID-19 measures made very difficult and risky for Montaigne and the delegation to travel all the way to Rotterdam[[/note]] and Iceland[[note]]who pulled out from the live shows after a member of Gagnamagnið tested positive before the second semi-final[[/note]] performing live from Rotterdam, a reduced live audience, a partially virtual press centre and reduced side events. As a back-up measure, all entrants were required to film a "live-on-tape" performance to be shown in the case they had been unable to perform live, as would happen with Australia (Iceland used instead a clip of their second rehearsal). The live-on-tape performances of all 39 acts would eventually be showcased one week later in the ''Eurovision Song Celebration: Live-On-Tape'' online event.

The contest was won by Italy's Music/{{Maneskin}} and their song "Zitti e buoni", the third win for the country and their first one since 1990.

** Iceland's Music/DadiFreyr is once again joined onstage by his sister Sigrún Birna as keyboardist.

** The one major example in the first semi was Belgium's Hooverphonic, as their country had gone from three consecutive top-ten finishes between 2015-2017 (including two fourth-place finishes) to two straight non-qualifications. This marked the first occasion a Flemish entry represented Belgium on home soil, and in spite of the band's popularity, there were worries that the song would be too low-key to advance to the final. Fortunately, the juries loved it, and Belgium qualified for the first time since 2017.

** Senhit's postcard included a video of her performance from the 2011 contest, while Samanta Tina's featured clips from all nine of her national final attempts prior to making it to the contest at last.

** Ten years since they returned to the contest, and after a decade of ups and downs, including a third-place and a pair of second-place finishes (including Tel Aviv 2019), Italy, long considered a potential favourite, finally lives up to its potential and wins its first trophy in 31 years courtesy of a fiery rock and roll performance from Music/{{Maneskin}}.

* RealitySubtext: Considering that the previous year's contest was cancelled due to the global pandemic and many limitations were imposed on this year's to keep it going forward, several competing songs reference the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown one way or the other. Lithuania's "Discoteque" is about dancing alone at home, the Czech Republic's "Omaga" talks about "[having] been home too long" and "the apocalypse", and Ukraine's "Shum" is inspired by a traditional chant about the rebirth of spring, which the band reinterpreted as a reference to human activity starting again after the health crisis.

* CriticalDissonance: Bread and butter for the contest, especially since the split of jury and televote points made the dissonance easier to notice. For example, Italy only came fourth with the juries but managed to gain first place thanks to a massive televote lead.

* ShirtlessScene: The lead singer of Italy's Music/{{Maneskin}} performs in high-waisted leather pants, suspenders, and nothing else.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong:
** The Cypriot entry, "El Diablo", is a dance-pop track sung by a Greek MsFanservice with a GratuitousSpanish title and references to fire and burning as metaphors for love. [[Music/EleniFoureira Now, where have we heard this before?]]
*** Musically, many people noted similarities between "El Diablo" and early 2010s pop hits, most notably "Bad Romance" by Music/LadyGaga. The comparisons went up when Elena Tsagrinou's stage shows included dancers in leotards and a prominent white-and-red motif, just like the music video of Gaga's hit.
** Some of the songs by artists reselected from 2020 sound very similar musically to the previous year's unused entry. Some, like Music/DadiFreyr, have spun it into an outright SequelSong. Azerbaijan's "Mata Hari" takes it a step further, as not only it's named after a historical woman just like "Cleopatra", it even references Cleopatra in its lyrics.

** Gestures are not immune either: Finland's Blind Channel were asked not to do the middle finger from their national final performance, while Germany revised the middle finger costume appearing in the music video into a V-sign costume.

* CriticalDissonance: Butter and bread for the contest, especially since the split of jury and televote points made the dissonance easier to notice. For example, Italy only came fourth with the juries but managed to gain first place thanks to a massive televote lead.

** When Kateryna Pavlenko, lead singer of Go_A (Ukraine), had a health scare the morning before their second rehearsals, stand-in singer[[note]]Stand-in singers are a number of local singers who help the crew with the technical rehearsals before the acts arrive in the host country, essentially covering the songs on stage[[/note]] Emmie Van Stijn subbed for her temporarily - and the band themselves praised her for doing a really good job, despite singing a complicated song in a language she didn't know!

*** Switzerland's Gjon's Tears was an early bookies' favourite, and in the final not only did he manage to finish at third, one spot higher than Music/LucaHanni from TelAviv 2019 and tying with Annie Cotton from Millstreet 1993, but even led the jury votes.

* EpicFail: For the second consecutive year, the United Kingdom (represented by James Newman) languishes at the very bottom of the standings. As if to rub salt into the wound, they also suffered their first ''nul points'' since Jemini in Riga 2003 (as well as having the dubious honour of being the first to blank out with both juries ''and'' audiences in the grand final in the split jury/televote results era, a feat in itself since there are now double the amount of points), and it is of little consolation that Jendrik of Germany, Blas Canto of Spain, and Jeangu Macrooy of host Netherlands also failed to get any televote points, because at least they had jury points to somewhat ease the pain (respectively, three, six, and eleven).

The 2021 edition of the '''Series/EurovisionSongContest''' is programmed to be held in Rotterdam, UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands, from 18 May 2021 to 22 May 2021. The city was originally due to host the event in 2020 after Music/DuncanLaurence's victory in Tel Aviv in 2019, but the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic striking Europe in early 2020 had to force the EBU to announce the cancellation of that year's edition, a first for the 60-plus-year history of the contest. It was later decided that the Netherlands was going to keep the hosting rights for the following year, with the same host city, venue, stage design, slogan and presenters (with Nikkie de Jager a.k.a. [=NikkieTutorials=], originally chosen as online host, being promoted to full host alongside Edsilia Rombley, Jan Smit and Chantal Janzen), and a remixed logo and visual design.

* TheAce: After Australia's first ever non-qualification, Ukraine confirms itself as the only country with a perfect qualification result.

* TheChanteuse: Definitely the vibe given by France's entry, "Voilà" by Barbara Pravi. She even calls herself "la chanteuse à demi" ("half a chanteuse") in the lyrics.

* {{Determinator}}: Samanta Tīna had previously tried to represent her native Latvia five times (and twice for neighbouring Lithuania), and she finally won the 2020 edition of ''Supernova'', Latvia's national selection show, on her sixth try. After the contest was cancelled, national broadcaster LTV thankfully selected her internally anew for 2021.

* EpicFail: For the second consecutive year, the United Kingdom (represented by James Newman) languishes at the very bottom of the standings. As if to rub salt into the wound, they also suffered their first ''nul points'' since Jemini in Riga 2003 (as well as having the dubious honour of being the first to blank out with both juries ''and'' audiences in the grand final in the split jury/televote results era), and it is of little consolation that Jendrik of Germany, Blas Canto of Spain, and Jeangu Macrooy of host Netherlands also failed to get any televote points, because at least they had jury points to somewhat ease the pain (respectively, three, six, and eleven).

* {{Mondegreen}}: The hook of the Dutch entry, "Birth of a New Age", says "yu no man broko mi" ("you can't break me") in Sranan Togo. It's ''not'' about broccoli.

** The Dutch entry "Birth of a New Age" is mostly in English but with a chorus in Sranan Togo, the ''lingua franca'' of Jeangu Macrooy's home country Suriname.

* RealitySubtext: Considering that the previous year's contest was cancelled due to the global pandemic and many limitations were imposed on this year's to keep it going forward, several competing songs reference the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown one way or the other. Lithuania's "Discoteque" is about dancing alone at home, the Czech Republic's "Omaga" talks about "[having] been home too long" and "the apocalypse", and Ukraine's "Shum" is inspired by a traditional chant about the rebirth of spring, which many interpreted as an oblique reference to human activity starting again after the health crisis.

** Israel's entry "Set Me Free" had its instrumentals revamped before the contest.

** Italy's entry, "Zitti e buoni" by Music/{{Maneskin}}, was edited after it won the Sanremo Music Festival to remove some profanity.

** For the jury presenters, a few past singers and presenters returned as spokespeople: Lucy Ayoub of Israel (co-presenter, Tel Aviv 2019), Ida Nowakowska (presenter, Gliwice 2019 juniors and Warsaw 2020 juniors), Eldar Gasimov and Music/NikkiJamal of Azerbaijan (winners, Düsseldorf 2011; Gasimov as co-presenter of Baku 2012), Music/{{Aminata}} of Latvia (sixth, Vienna 2015), Music/RyanOShaughnessy of Ireland (sixteenth, Lisbon 2018), Sergey Stepanov (the famed "Epic Sax Guy" of Music/SunstrokeProject) of Moldova (22nd, Oslo 2010; third, Kyiv 2017), Joanna Dragneva of Bulgaria (semifinalist, Belgrade 2008, as part of Deep Zone), Oto Nemsadze of Georgia (semifinalist, Tel Aviv 2019), Andrius Mamontovas (sixth, Athens 2006, as part of LT United), Polina Gagarina of Russia (runner-up, Vienna 2015), Carla Lazzari of France (fifth, Gliwice 2019 juniors), and Carola Häggkvist of Sweden (winner, Rome 1991; third, Munich 1983; fifth, Athens 2006).

* EpicFail: For the first time since Riga 2003, the United Kingdom's James Newman earns the indignity of scoring ''nul points'' (as well as the first in the split results era). What makes this sting harder was that both juries ''and'' televoters gave him the axe, and it is of little consolation that Jendrik of Germany, Blas Canto of Spain, and Jeangu Macrooy of host Netherlands also blanked out with televoters, given that at least they had jury points to somehow ease the pain (respectively, three, six, and eleven).

* ShoutOut: Finland brought out a "[[Film/EurovisionSongContestTheStoryOfFireSaga PLAY JAJA DING DONG!!!]]" sign during the second semi-final.