Eurovision Song Contest: Today Raab’s rescue mission begins with the ESC preliminary decision

Valentine’s Day is on Friday and it fits that two lovers will find each other again in a television studio in Hürth near Cologne: Stefan Raab and the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC).

The “Raabinator” and the music championship in Europe once had an intimate relationship. “Wadde Hadde Dudde there?”, Guildo Horn, Alf Igel, Max Mutzke, Lena, Lena again – you don’t even know where to start.

What is certain is that Raab (58) starts again after a long ESC break: this Friday evening (8:15 p.m., RTL/RTL+) runs the first of several shows in which he can find the German contribution to the song Contest in Basel in May Will. Name of the format: “Chef’s matter ESC 2025”.

That’s why Raab is back on board

The latent greater gauge, which speaks from the title, fits the – yes you can say – government declaration that Raab made in advance in an interview with his housekeeper RTL. Central sentences in it: “I don’t feel like becoming second. The first loser is always second, so it is.”

The German ESC people might have been very satisfied with a second place. Disposal results marked the past few years. Since 2015, the last or penultimate places had been hailing. The only outlier: Michael Schulte finished 4th in 2018. Last year, singer Isaak took a twelfth place.

Overall, this is not what you hope to break out of the felt time loop “It is ESC and Germany loses again”.

That is why Raab is now on board again, which has been surrounded by Lena Meyer-Landrut in 2010, which has been won under his aegis. The ARD cooperates with RTL, its new home broadcaster.

A kind of casting show is offered with a rather colorful field of participants. There are said to have been more than 3,200 applications – Raab and his people selected 24 starters from it.

Some are largely unknown, others have already released several albums or built up a large follow -up. Some are lone fighters, some duos, some bands. Everyone unites that they are not yet the large numbers in the mainstream.

A name you might have heard is, for example, Noah Levi. The singer won the “The Voice Kids” format at the age of 13.

Singer Cloudy June is also considered an emerging artist in alternative pop. If you go according to the styles, the band will certainly stand out fire tail. She plays medieval rock.

In the first (Friday) and second show (Saturday, February 15th, 8:15 p.m., RTL), twelve acts compete. Anyone who gets on ends up in the semi -finals (February 22nd).

On March 1st, the German ESC contribution will then be chosen in the final. Unlike the first three editions, this show does not run at RTL, but in the ARD. But everyone is moderated by Barbara Schöneberger.

That has to lose Raab

On paper, the experimental setup does not yet sound revolutionary, but like an extensive variant of the preliminary decisions of the past few years – unless you believe that Raab simply has a golden nose and it makes the difference.

In the preliminary rounds alone, he and his jury (Elton, singer Yvonne Catterfeld and a guest juror – at the start of Max Mutzke) decide. The audience only makes his choice in the final.

In fact, there is also something at stake for Raab: the shine of his own ESC legend, which started well before Lena’s victory in 2010. In 1998 he composed – under the pseudonym Alf Igel – the title “Guildo loved you” by Guildo Horn for the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson, as the competition was still pathetic at the time. The moody shaggy hair singer Horn showed Europe that Germans can have something like humor.

Two years later, Raab himself did “Wadde Hadde Dudde?” AN and completed the mission to take over Germany when it comes to ESC.

His appearance, accompanied by the wing of traditional -believing patties, was almost exactly 25 years ago at the preliminary decision 2000 in Bremen. At that time he was called “stupid bar” or “Ulknudel”. Raab was considered a fright of the establishment.

Today he is more likely to have the role of the wise president, who is supposed to judge the things that have come out of the solder. His asserts that it does not want to try again in the end.

“Back then I did what was great fun for me, but life is also a process and you have to see the development of things,” he said RTL, and sounded really old.

Another is more ambiguous: moderator Barbara Schöneberger. “So far” she simply had no time to sing at the ESC, she is quoted in the press material. “Now we are waiting for the result and then of course I have built the best connections to Stefan Raab and I will throw myself so much at him that he writes a song to me that paves the way up.”

Even if it should go back to the rush this year – there will continue to be jobs for Raab.