TVE: Suggestion or Obligation?

As usual, year after year, TVE surprise us with last-minute changes in their plans to select the Spanish entry. This time it is all about the language. This year TVE did not open a call process to receive songs but it was more a kind of open unofficial call for all Spanish artist to send their themes to them, and thus, there were no particular rules on the process (SEE HERE). Weeks after, TVE announces the contestants on the national final and particularly two of them have their songs and almost all their career in English language.

Now, TVE has made public a suggestion to the artists to include Spanish language in their songs. This happens when the artists have already recorded their official versions of the songs and the songs were going to be published this January, affecting specially Barei and Electric Nana since their songs (yes, the ones previously accepted and selected by TVE) are fully in English.

In a recent interview with ABC, a Spanish national newspaper, Barei says,

“yes, we have to introduce Spanish on the song. I don’t have anything against our language, of course, but my project is in English. Like it or not, English is much more international than Spanish within Europe”.

To Electric Nana, the decision feels more like a wish from TVE than an obligation, she says

“I presented my proposal in English and they loved it … It’s hard to mix languages because that makes the song odd and ugly, but if they force us, we must try”.
On the other hand, the artists that have made their song in Spanish sees it like something natural for TVE to send their entries always in Spanish, for instance, Maria Isabel (former JESC winner) says,

“I sang a song in Spanish, and I won”.

To recall the adventures of Spain with the English language we have to go back to 1988 when La década prodigiosa sent a song titled ‘Made in Spain’ to find the first words in English for a Spanish entry. After that we fly until 2002 to find Rosa’s ‘Europe’s living a celebration’ and more recently with D’Nash (2007, ‘I love you mi vida’), Rodolfo Chiquilicuatre (2008, ‘Baila el chiki chiki’), Soraya (2009, ‘La noche es para mi’) and the last one Ruth Lorenzo in 2013 with her theme ‘Dancing in the rain’.

Specially this last one together with Amanecer from Edurne in 2015, have suffered the consequences of translating partly, in the case of Ruth Lorenzo, or fully (in the case of Edurne) their songs, originally composed in English, into Spanish with a clear loss of brilliance.
What do you think about this? Should Spain keep on sending song in Spanish? Should they try to give a shot to English language? Feel free to comment and share your point with us!

Author : Imanol Recio Erquicia

Source : Eurovision Ireland