Next Up: 2021 – Armenia

In 2016, Armenia was once a promising Eurovision nation, ready to win and host the competition anytime soon. Next year, their main objective will be to reach the Eurovision final for the first time in 4 years.

In today’s episode we look at Armenia in 2021. For a full review of their potential entry for 2020, check out this article on our partner website Eurovision Union. Check out our thoughts for next year below.

Key takeaways: A completely new genre

Armenia planned to travel to Rotterdam with Athena Manukyan and “Chains on you”, a modern Nicki Minaj styled R’nB song. A genre highly popular in pop music charts all over the world, particularly in the US. However, in Eurovision we have not often seen or heard a song in this style. It would not only have been a contemporary, but also a refreshing entry.

How to proceed with Athena Manukyan?

Athena Manukyan is most famous as a composer, i.a. having written a Platinum-selling song for ESC 2005 winner, Helena Paparizou entitled “Palia Mou Agapi”. Therefore, it is not surprising that the song was Armenia’s key takeaway this year.

It does not make sense to try to “copy” this year’s song. However, Manukyan is someone who thinks outside the box and this creativity, while risky, can also result in something truly successful. Should ARMTV continue with Athena Manukyan, it makes sense to again include her in the songwriting process – better yet, to give her some freedom.

Exploring other options

This year’s Depi Evratesil was a diverse and most enjoyable national final in which quality and quirkiness were mixed quite well. However, the results do not lie: this preselection format has not brought Armenia much success since the introduction in 2017. The show promises to deliver “new talents”, yet neither Srbuk, Sevak nor Artsvik reached the top 10 (and two of the three did not even reach the final).

Armenia’s top 3 best Eurovision results of all time were achieved by the country’s three biggest superstars: Sirusho, Aram MP3 and Iveta Mukuchyan. All were selected internally.

Preselections work for some countries, but not for all. To bring the contest to Yerevan, ARMTV should first of all say goodbye to Depi Evratesil and instead focus their energy on convincing another superstar to represent Armenia in Eurovision.

This was supposed to be Armenia’s Eurovision 2020 entry

About “Next Up: Eurovision 2021”

In our series Next Up: 2021, we look ahead to the Eurovision Song Contest 2021. After the cancellation of Eurovision 2020, all participating countries now face the choice: Stick with their Eurovision singer, or come up with a new preselection or internal selection.

We make an analysis based on what we know so far. What will this country do, or most likely do? And is that the wise choice, looking at the fact that the Eurovision Song Contest remains a music competition?