Who Should Australia Send to Eurovision 2016?

Australia, as you probably know by now we’re heading back to Eurovision in 2016. After finishing fifth last year, it seems that walking fedora Guy Sebastian's performance of "Tonight Again" left an impression. And to be fair it's not an entirely unfunky tune.

But in a fitting twist that we should have seen coming, Eurovision has decided that this time there will be no queue-jumping and if we want to be in with a chance to win, we’ll have to fight our way through the semis.

Sending a pop act like Jessica Mauboy, Delta Goodrem or Scandal'us would be the obvious choice but the Eurovision stage is littered with the dreams of talented pop stars who never made it past the semi-finals. Remember Piero & The Music Stars (’04) or Michael von der Heide (’10)? Exactly. If we want to win, we need to step it up. Here are some suggestions.

Go Full Straya

In a sense Eurovision is all about boiling down your country’s entire identity into one glorious, bedazzled hit. Just like in 2006, when the UK sent Darren ‘Daz’ Sampson, to be danced around by sexy Cockney private schoolgirls.

What does it mean to be Australian? Of course this is a deeply complex question, a debate that broaches race, religion, class and culture. Eurovision is not the place for this kind of nuance. What we need is the song equivalent of a Miss Universe national costume. Let’s give the people what they want, go full Straya, send Client Liaison to perform "End of the Earth".
Give the boys an unlimited pyrotechnics budget, maybe throw in a back-up dancer dressed as a jar of Vegemite and we’ve got it in the bag.

Bring Back Rock

In 2016 it will have been 10 years since Finnish heavy metal band Lordi won with "Hard Rock Hallelujah". Since then pop acts have dominated and we’ve seen everything from folk pop, soul pop, disco pop and pop rock. If Australia sent a rock act at least we'd stand out. Plus there are some pretty great choices on hand: Tame Impala, Courtney Barnett, Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Hell, we could even just send The Drones and tell Gareth Liddiard he can do whatever he wants.

Another option would be to send an Australian 80s pub rock supergroup. Imagine John Farnham, Peter Garrett, Paul Kelly, Jimmy Barnes, Colin Hay, James Reyne, Mark Seymour and Tim Rogers all up on stage together, each singing their greatest hit.

If Pitch Perfect taught us anything, it’s that a mash-up is a sure fire way to win any over-hyped singing contest.
Let Barnesy take the first verse with "Working Class Man". Mark Seymour can have the breakdown from "Throw Your Arms Around Me". Of course, who else could take the chorus other than John Farnham for one final rendition of "You’re the Voice"?

Then again maybe we should just let them all sing over one another to create a beautiful, incoherent cacophony. Not unlike a bunch of blokes at the pub belting out their footy club song.

It’s Soul Time

Okay, so this one would actually be pretty great. What if we sent Hiatus Kaiyote? The future soul quartet puts on an incredible live show and front woman Nai Palm has an on-stage presence that would rival any Latvian pop star.
Plus they are Grammy-award nominees, so we know they can sit around for hours and look interested in other people’s performances.

Last year the group went on tour with Remi, Kirkis, Silent Jay and Jace XL. Seeing that crew on stage together was a really exciting moment for Australian music. All of them are incredible musicians; all make unique music that doesn’t sound like everything else out there.

Let’s be honest, Australia even getting through to the finals is a total Hail Mary. If we’re going to send a competitor, why can’t it reflect the kind of talent that we hope will get more support in our music industry?

Guy Sebastian seems like a nice dude but between commercial radio and The X Factor, he’s probably all good in terms of exposure.

And if any of these seem like obscure choices, I’m guessing you didn’t watch Eurovision 2012 when Russia sent grandmas who baked live on stage.

Australia’s entrant will be revealed in early 2016.

Maddison Connaughton is a Melbourne writer. Follow her @madconnaughton