Nineties trip-hop band Hooverphonic returns to represent Belgium at Eurovision.

Most artists entering the Eurovision song contest are usually up-and-coming artists hoping to get some good publicity for their careers. Over the years many well known artists have launched their careers at Eurovision, the most famous being ABBA.

Of course there have also been many famous artists who’ve headed to Eurovision to bolster a flagging career. Katrina and the Waves, Bonnie Tyler, and British boyband Blue all fit into this category.

Hooverphonic found success in the mid-nineties alongside bands like Massive Attack, Portishead, Morcheeba and Sneaker Pimps, as part of the trip hop movement.

The band’s debut LP A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular featured the hit song 2wicky which featured in several films including Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty and the teen thriller I Know What You Did Last Summer. 

This year the band will bring their song Release Me to Eurovision.  

Over the years a few different singers have been out the front of Hooverphonic. Luka Cruysberghs has been the singer since 2018.

Belgium have taken part in Eurovision 61 times, and are one of the seven countries who were involved in the very first competition in 1956.

They’ve only won on one occasion. In 1986 Sandra Kim won with the song J’aime la vie. In the song Sandra sings about being 15 years old, after she was declared the winner it was revealed that Sandra was just 13 years old.  Nowadays participants must be  over 16 years of age, so it’s unlikely the record will ever be broken.

Of the five years that Australia has been in the competition, Belgium have beaten us twice, but in 2018 and 2019 the country didn’t even make it to the Grand Final.

OIP Staff