You know, when you watch a massive televised
music competition, there is this, like, carefully
constructed illusion of effortlessness. Oh, absolutely.
You see this three -minute pop song performance,
and the lights flash, the bass drops, the artist
hits their exact mark, and it all just feels
like magic. It looks so clean. Exactly. Clean,
polished, and just presented for your immediate
judgment. But behind that three minute magic
trick, there is usually an absolute mountain
of chaos. A literal mountain. Yeah. So we're
going to pull back the curtain on that chaos
today. We're looking specifically at the 2024
Eurovision entry from Austria. Right. It's a
song called We Will Rave by the artist Colleen.
and we're using its Wikipedia article as our
single source guide for this. It's a great example
to use, honestly. It really is. Our mission for
this deep dive is to deconstruct the life cycle
of a modern Eurovision pop track. Because, you
know, this isn't just about a single performance
on a Saturday night. No, not at all. It's this
fascinating look at the really messy intersection
of, like, artistic intent, high -stakes production
drama, and just brutal public judgment. Yeah,
and Eurovision entries act as these fascinating
microcosms of the entire music industry. Yeah,
for sure. I mean, in just a few minutes of stage
time, you have fashion, politics, staging, and
sound, and they are all just colliding at once.
All at 200 beats per minute. Right. And by analyzing
the life cycle of this one specific track from
its initial conception in a studio to its final
placement on a global scoreboard, we can uncover
the hidden mechanics of how global pop culture
is actually manufactured, tested, and well consumed.
Okay, let's unpack this. Because the journey
of We Will Rave starts with a pretty stark contradiction.
It really does. On paper, if you just look at
the production credits, this is a major label
debut single. It was released on March 1st, 2024
by Warner Music Central Europe. Heavy hitters.
Yeah. And it was written by what is basically
a veritable committee of industry professionals.
You've got Anders Retoff, Jimmy Thurnfeldt, Julie
Augard and Thomas Stengard. Right, a huge team.
And it is self -described as a techno -inspired
pop track. So, you know, you see that lineup
of writers and you immediately think of a highly
engineered, totally calculated club anthem designed
purely for commercial radio. Exactly. You expect
a product, essentially. A track built by a team
of Scandinavian hitmakers who just, they know
exactly how to engineer a hook that gets stuck
in your head. But then you look at Kayleen's
specific vision for the song, and it completely
subverts that expectation of just some shallow,
manufactured product. Right. She had a very different
take. She did. She didn't just want this track
to be about jumping up and down in a dark room.
She described the image of a rave party in this
song as a sanctuary. A sanctuary, yeah. She explicitly
stated it's a place where outsiders and wounded
souls go to heal and dissolve their problems
through music. Which is such a strong image.
I find that contrasts fascinating. It's like
the song is this sonic band aid hidden inside
a relentless baseline. But I have to push back
a little on this premise with you. Okay, go for
it. When a major label puts together a team of
pop writers to create this high BPM Euro dance
track, does the sheer volume and that heavy pounding
beat actually distract from that deeper message
of healing? That's a valid question. Like, can
you genuinely deliver a message about finding
sanctuary for wounded souls when the tempo is
designed to make the floorboards shake. What's
fascinating here is that the high BPM isn't a
distraction from the healing process at all.
Actually, historically and psychologically, it
is the actual mechanism for the healing. Wait.
Really, the speed is the point. Exactly. If you
look at the roots of rave culture, these high
energy underground dance parties were explicitly
created as safe havens for marginalized communities.
Well, that makes sense. Right. So the relentless
pounding rhythm is not meant to drown out emotion.
It is engineered to create this collective, almost
hypnotic state where people can physically exhaust
their anxieties. Wow. So pairing a techno inspired
pop track with a message for outsiders is actually
a highly authentic nod to the origin. of the
genre. The beat itself is the therapy. I love
that. Yeah, it demands physical exertion as a
form of emotional release. That reframes the
genre entirely for me. The physical exhaustion
is the point. Yes. But, you know, having this
beautiful, authentic concept about a healing
sanctuary is one thing. Getting that concept
from a pristine recording studio onto the world's
biggest stage in front of hundreds of millions
of people is where the friction really starts.
Oh definitely. Because the timeline of this release
completely shatters that illusion of a seamless,
effortless music drop. The reality behind the
polished facade of a music release is almost
always a logistical nightmare. Totally. And the
timeline for We Will Rave is a perfect example
of this friction. So the Austrian broadcaster
ORF decided to use an internal selection process
to choose their representative right. Right.
They had a short list of 14 artists, and those
artists were judged by a jury and fan clubs.
Now, the public announcement of the winner was
originally expected in December of 2023. But
it didn't happen then. No, that announcement
got delayed for an entire month. It finally happened
on January 16th, 2024. And that initial delay
was really just the start of the gauntlet. because
weeks before the official release in March, a
demo of the song leaked online. The dreaded leak.
Yeah, and this wasn't just some low -quality
acoustic recording. It was an early version of
the track that revealed something very telling
about the industry. What did it reveal? Well,
Killeen actually claimed that the final version
of the song was altered from that leaked demo
to conform better with Eurovision. I want to
pause on that phrase, conform better with Eurovision.
To me, it's less like tailoring a suit to fit
a specific event, and more like aggressively
optimizing a website for Google's algorithm.
That is a great comparison. Right. You have to
insert mandatory three -second dopamine hits,
a predictable bridge, a specific climax, or the
voting machinery simply won't process it. This
raises an important question though about the
fundamental tension between pure artistic expression
and the highly rigid formula required for a televised
spectacle. It's a huge tension. Eurovision has
a very specific set of parameters. I mean the
song cannot exceed three minutes, period. Right.
It has to translate instantly to an audience
spanning over 40 different countries and cultures.
That is a wild demographic to try and please.
Exactly. It requires structural beats that keep
a massive television audience engaged. So an
artist has to weigh their original creative vision,
like that sanctuary for wounded souls, against
the pragmatic mathematical need to score points
across diverse demographics. It's a tough balancing
act. It really is. Altering a demo to conform
means sanding down the edges that might alienate
a casual viewer while trying to preserve the
core. identity of the track. Which has to be
incredibly frustrating for an artist. I mean
you have this vision, you optimize it for the
algorithm, and the universe just keeps throwing
hurdles at you. The hurdles didn't stop there?
No. The music video was supposed to drop on March
1 right alongside the song's official release,
but it had to be pushed to March 4. Why was that?
Because the production company couldn't finish
it on time. Oh wow. Yeah. And meanwhile, Colleen
is out there grinding through this extensive
pre -party promo tour. Right, the promo circuit
is intense. She's performing in Madrid in March,
then London, Amsterdam, and Stockholm in April.
Plus, she's doing a televised performance on
an off -train show called Die Gross Chance. That
is exhausting just to hear. Seriously. We should
look at how these continuous delays and leaks
act as unintended psychological pressure tests
for an artist's resilience. That's a good point.
Long before Colleen even stepped onto the stage
in Malmö for the semifinals, she had navigated
internal broadcaster delays, a leaked demo, enforced
musical alterations, and a botched music video
timeline. Yeah. And she had to manage all of
that stress while maintaining the high physical
energy required for a multi -city European promotional
tour. It really tests whether an artist can compartmentalize
industry chaos and still deliver product. It
is a brutal endurance test, and the result of
that endurance test was that the track was officially
out, the music video was up, and the song finally
reached the critics. Ah, the critics. And the
reaction was spectacularly divided. We often
think of pop music as aiming for universal appeal,
but the critical whiplash here is extreme. It
perfectly illustrates the subjectivity of art,
especially in an environment as hyper -scrutinized
as this one. Right. I mean, a single piece of
music is going to be interpreted in vastly different
depending entirely on what the critic believes
the function of a pop song should be. Exactly.
So listen to this contrast, and if you are listening
right now, ask yourself which side of this divide
you would fall on. Yeah, think about it. On one
side, you have John O 'Brien, a writer for Vulture.
He ranked We Will Rave number one out of all
37 competing songs that year. Number one? Number
one overall. He praised the fusion of musical
styles and called it a relentless club banger.
I praise But then you flip over to the eyepaper
where Emily Baker reviewed it. She completely
categorized the song among the bad ones She claimed
it's something we've seen a million times on
the Eurovision stage. He said it wasn't boring
but It's not exactly good either. Ouch. And then
you have the middle ground perspectives trying
to weigh the production value against the live
execution. Right. The site Weblogs gave it a
solid 7 .7 out of 10 points placing it sixth
overall. Which is pretty respectable. It is.
Meanwhile, Daron Lahav from ESC Bead ranked it
15th out of 37. He praised the Polish production,
but he expressed a very specific anxiety over
how difficult a high -energy techno track like
that would be to sing live while dancing? Which
is a very valid concern. But wait, here's where
it gets really interesting. If the ultimate goal
is to win a contest that relies heavily on consensus
voting from across an entire continent, Doesn't
alienating half the audience with a polarizing
track mathematically guarantee you won't get
the votes needed to take the trophy? You would
think so, yes. Right. How is this gap between
number one relentless club banger and we've seen
this a million times, anything but a strategic
failure for a competition. Because there is a
massive difference between winning a specific
contest and winning the broader market. OK, say
more about that. Well, in the attention economy
of pop culture, a song's value isn't just about
technical musicality or universal likeability.
It is about how effectively it triggers an immediate
emotional response. Oh, I see. You want to evoke
either absolute euphoria or complete fatigue
because both reactions mean you are memorable.
Being forgotten is the real enemy. Exactly. A
song that is universally considered just OK is
a song that people forget to vote for. And more
importantly, they forget to stream it the next
day. That makes total sense. Polarizing art demands
attention. If you're going to lose the consensus
vote anyway, it is a strategic advantage to cultivate
a fierce, dedicated minority who will champion
the track. That makes the stakes for the live
show even higher, then, because Eurovision is,
above all, a visual medium. Highly visual. Having
a song that demands attention means your live
performance has to deliver on that visual promise
in front of millions of people. Which, of course,
brought a whole new wave of behind -the -scenes
drama when they finally got to the Malmo Arena.
Naturally. We know the music video had a specific
sexy aesthetic, but Colleen mentioned before
the contest that they were going to implement
a toned -down version of that for the live stage.
Right. And translating a high tempo conceptual
audio track into a massive visual arena spectacle
is an enormous undertaking. Dan Shipton was appointed
as the creative director for the performance
and the visual vocabulary they chose for this
rave was very distinct. Very distinct. On stage,
Colleen was accompanied by four backing dancers
in black cargo pants. And there was this massive
inverted pyramid prop shooting multicolored lasers
everywhere. It sounds incredibly visually intense.
Very industrial. Yeah, very industrial. But the
primary focus of the performance and where the
real tension emerged was in the high stakes politics
of the fashion. Oh, the fashion. The visual aesthetic
of a pop star is never just about looking good.
It is a highly negotiated corporate arrangement.
Oh, let's talk about the costume drama because
this is wild. Originally, the performance was
intended to feature Kayleen wearing a black mesh
bodysuit designed by Marina Hornman Cedar. Right.
And this wasn't just like a standard piece of
clothing. It was adorned with around 150 ,000
Swarovski crystals. That is an unbelievable amount
of detail. It's nuts. But then, literally right
before the contest during the critical dress
rehearsals, the costume was suddenly changed
to a piece by a completely different designer.
Though it was still paired with a coat by Hormon
Cedar, right? It was, yes. But Hormon Cedar was
reportedly furious, publicly criticizing the
decision after the contest was over. And I just
keep thinking, how do these micro dramas, like
a designer feud, impact the performer's mindset
right before stepping in front of hundreds of
millions of viewers? Well, if we connect this
to the bigger picture, it forces us to look at
the economics of Eurovision fashion. A designer
doesn't just hand over a custom garment covered
in 150 ,000 Swarovski crystals for the fun of
it. No, definitely not. That is a massive capital
investment. It functions as a loss leader. The
designer fronts the extraordinary cost of the
materials and the labor strictly for the return
on investment of having their work seen by an
audience of nearly 200 million global viewers.
Right, it's advertising. Exactly. So when that
exposure is pulled at the last possible second,
it isn't just a bruised ego, it is a ca - financial
and marketing blow to the brand. So the artist
is suddenly caught right in the middle of a corporate
standoff. Exactly. The costume drama proves that
at this level of the industry, fashion is a high
stakes battleground of branding, aesthetic control,
and ego. Yeah. For the artist, it requires an
immense level of psychological compartmentalization.
I mean, you have to leave the fury of a spurned
designer, the financial implications, and the
last minute wardrobe panic in the dressing room,
walk out under the lights, and still deliver
a flawless vocal and physical performance as
if nothing. happened. And to her credit, she
did deliver the performance. She got through
the semifinal, placing ninth with 46 points,
which secured Austria a spot in the grand final.
A huge achievement. For sure. But all of this,
the deep meaning of the rave sanctuary, the algorithmic
tailoring of the demo, the polarizing reviews,
the lasers, the cargo pants, and the crystal
drama, ultimately in the context of the competition.
It comes down to a final mathematical verdict.
The numbers. The numbers. And we have to look
at the mechanism of how those points are actually
awarded. The grand final reality was starkly
different from the semi -final success, honestly.
And the breakdown of the scoring reveals a lot
about how different factions evaluate music.
Right. So performing 26th, which was the final
act of the night, Kayleen finished 24th out of
the competing acts with only 24 total points.
That's tough. It is. That broke down to 19 points
from the professional juries, placing her 20th
in that metric, and a mere five points from the
public televote. placing her 23rd there. Wow.
And to break down those points impartially based
on the data, no country awarded Austria the maximum
12 points. The highest score from the juries
was seven points, which came from Israel. The
high score from the public televote was three
points, also from Israel. Interesting. So why
such a harsh penalty from the juries? And why
didn't the public rally behind a high energy
club track? Well, we have to look at the specific
criteria juries are instructed to evaluate. Professional
juries historically penalize high BPM dance tracks
because they are looking for vocal technicality,
complex instrumental composition, and dynamic
range. A techno track like We Will Rave purposefully
sacrifices traditional vocal acrobatics in favor
of relentless club energy and heavy production.
The juries are grading a rubric that the song
wasn't designed to pass. That makes a lot of
sense. What about the televote? As for the televote,
this is where the strategy of being polarizing
meets its limit in a consensus format. The track
was highly memorable for a specific demographic,
but it failed to capture the broad cross -cultural
base required to amass public points across Europe.
So what does this all mean? I mean, I want you
listening right now to imagine the psychological
weight of this. It's heavy. Imagine working on
a project for months. You pour your heart into
a concept about healing wounded souls. You survive
your work leaking early. You survive management
making you alter it for the algorithm. All the
delays. The delays. Your music video being late,
grueling promo tours, critics telling you it's
both the best and the worst thing they've heard,
and a last minute corporate fight over your wardrobe.
You give it your all on the biggest music show
on earth and you finish near the bottom of the
scoreboard. It sounds crushing. It sounds completely
crushing. But if you look at the actual music
charts, a completely different story emerges.
Yes. This is where we have to fundamentally redefine
what winning actually means in the modern music
industry. Because despite the low placement on
the scoreboard, We Will Rave hit number three
on the Sweden Heatseeker chart. It hit number
18 in Austria. It charted in the UK, reaching
number 23 on both the singles downloads and single
sales charts. That's real commercial traction.
And Colleen's reaction to the Eurovision results
is so telling. She stated she was not disappointed
at all and was simply grateful for the opportunity
to perform at the contest in the first place.
She gets it. Yeah. There's a massive, fascinating
dissonance between her low placement on that
specific Saturday night and her very real commercial
success across European charts. And that dissonance
is the reality of the business today. The scoreboard
is not the territory. I love that phrase. It's
true. What Colleen's reaction shows is a very
mature contemporary understanding of how this
machinery works. Eurovision is no longer just
a finish line where you collect a trophy. It
is a launch pad. Absolutely. The global stage
visibility, the streaming numbers and the international
chart placements often matter far more for an
artist's long term career and financial success
than the specific number of points awarded by
juries who are, frankly, grading on an outdated
rubric. Right. By getting the song onto those
charts, she reached her audience of outsiders
and wounded souls, regardless of the final ranking.
It really is an incredible journey when you step
back and look at the whole life cycle at once.
I mean, from a conceptual healing rave to an
algorithmic adjustment to a polarized, crystal
-studded, laser -filled spectacle that ended
up conquering international download charts despite
finishing near the bottom of the scoreboard.
It is the perfect anatomy of a modern pop song
release. It really is. You see the collision
of art, commerce, and pure endurance. It is a
remarkable case study, but as we wrap up this
deconstruction, there is one final aspect of
this life cycle worth considering. Okay, lay
it on us. Well, we discussed how the song was
altered to conform to the contest parameters,
right, and how the staging and costuming were
changed at the last minute to manage optics and
corporate relationships. It leaves us with this
thought. If a song is fundamentally altered to
fit a format, and its visual identity is changed
to manage brand politics, at what point does
the original piece of art cease to be the artist's
and instead become a product entirely owned by
the machinery of the event itself? Oh, wow. That
is a heavy, fascinating question to leave on.
Where does the artist end and the algorithm begin?
Exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive into the hidden mechanics
of global pop culture. We hope you enjoyed unpacking
the chaos behind the magic as much as we did,
and we warmly invite you to bring your curiosity
back for the next one. Until then, keep digging.