A successful career in France and numerous hits under his belt: this Saturday, May 11, the singer Slimane, revealed by his victory in the fifth season of The voice In 2016, he prepares to represent the colors of France during the Eurovision contest in Malmö, Sweden.
with your title My loveA sober and moving ballad, the 34-year-old aims to achieve victory and make France’s recent disappointing Eurovision results a distant memory.
Strategy change
After the mixed performance of Quebec singer La Zarra, who came 16th in the competition in May 2023 in Liverpool, followed by several controversies, France decided to change its strategy this year.
In November, the French Eurovision delegation announced that it had trusted with Slimane an artist who had already been popular “for a long time in the hearts of the French” to “bring together all audiences.” This battle plan is clearly inspired by that of Sweden, winner last year thanks to the singer Loreen, who was already crowned with a first victory in the famous musical competition in 2012.
A few hours after this announcement, Slimane revealed live on France 2 news the title he will defend on the Malmö stage. Baptized My love, this pop ballad is “like a cry from the heart” for the artist. He thus became the first Eurovision 2024 candidate to make his song public.
An assumed strategy, as Alexandra Redde-Amiel, head of the French delegation, confided at a press conference: “Accompanying an artist like this to the contest means thinking about everything we can do with him (…) That’s why we we will make it official soon; we want to prepare Slimane, take him to see Europe.”
A success on the platforms and dubbed by Loreen
The bet was a winner since, just one week after its launch, My love managed to accumulate almost a million views on Spotify and YouTube.
If Slimane’s title attracts listeners, it is in particular thanks to his moving lyrics and his vocal ease that the artist has worked intensively since his victory in The voice in 2016.
“This song requires a lot from a technical and emotional point of view,” he confided to 20 Minutos in November.
“I use various registers, I go from head voice to full voice, to slightly saturated voices and it takes all my skills to sing it,” he explained at the time.
Now with over 23 million streams on Spotify, My love It was even dubbed by Loreen, double Eurovision winner. During a meeting with Slimane backstage at the NRJ Music Awards, the Swedish singer said that she was impressed by the artist’s vocal power.
Careful scenery
Launched in his “pre-match” campaign throughout Europe, Slimane also knew how to use some tricks to stand out and seduce the international public in the hope of convincing them to vote for him on the day of the final.
Invited last February by Croatia during their national team to sing their title My lovethe singer, for example, tried out a new interpretation of his title on stage.
Just before his end, he stepped away from the microphone to sing the chorus a cappella to the echo of the room. A winning risk that did not leave Eurovision fans indifferent.
On the networks, many of them, coming from all corners of the world, praised Slimane’s performance, ensuring that thanks to it he had become “a serious contender for first place” in the competition. The success was such that this sequence was finally preserved in the singer’s final set scheduled for May 11.
“This moment has some air, it screams this love in its purest form,” explains Alexandra Redde-Amiel after 20 minutes, who greets a performance “at the same time simple, in emotion and intensity.”
Beginning of April, During a concert in Barcelona In front of a crowd of Eurofans, Slimane also surprised viewers by singing some verses of his song in the language of Cervantes. Then again the next day on a London stage, where Spanish gave way to English.
And these appeals to the international public are bearing fruit as the 34-year-old singer is currently in fifth place in the ranking gamblers. It remains to be seen whether this strategy will be effective enough to allow Slimane to dethrone the current favourite, Croatian Baby Lasagna, to victory on Saturday night in Malmö.
Source: BFM TV
