pop star
Ikke Hipgold at the ESC preliminary round
Singer Ikke Hipgold alias Matthias Distel goes to the preliminary round. photo
© Thomas Frey/dpa/Archive
The ninth starting place for the German ESC preliminary round has been awarded: to Ikke Hipgold. Should he win, Germany would be represented again with a song that is different.
With a hit song that is not meant to be taken seriously, the Ballermann musician Ikke Hipgold won the race for the last ticket for the Eurovision Song Contest preliminary round. With 52 percent of the votes, the Tiktok community clearly voted for the 46-year-old and his ESC contribution “Song with good text”. The producer of the scandal song “Layla” is one of the nine music acts who want to go to the ESC in Liverpool for Germany.
Ikke Hipgold, whose real name is Matthias Distel, was visibly surprised by his victory on Friday evening. At first he couldn’t find the words. When asked about his first ideas for preparing for the decision show in Cologne, the musician finally said: “I have no idea at all. Everything I’ve said in public so far was a lie. Because I didn’t think that it works.” He also thanked everyone “who have the courage to send me onto the stage like this”.
If going under, then with humor
Ikke Hipgold had applied for the ESC preliminary round with a self-deprecating hit video on Tiktok. The text is catchy. “We finally need a song without drinking, we finally need a song without sex, we finally need a song without drugs, finally a song with good lyrics.” Only to sing “La lalala lalalala, lalala”. He sat on a chair, wore orange prison garb and his signature black-haired wig, and had his hands and feet tied with tape and handcuffs. A Tiktok user wrote under the video: “So if we should go down again, then at least with humor.”
Most recently, that had worked quite well for Germany: in 1998, Guildo Horn landed in seventh place with his cheerful, sympathetic cuddle song “Guildo hat dich lieb”. The moderator, musician and producer Stefan Raab even made it to number 5 in 2000 with his nonsense song “Wadee hadde dudde da”.
Ikke Hipgold splits the minds of the ESC fans. This can already be seen in the live show “Everything Eurovision” on Friday evening. According to ARD presenter and ESC expert Alina Stiegler, Ikke Hipgold’s song is not comparable to Guildo Horn’s. Although both are fun songs, they don’t have the same vibe or magic, she said after the announcement. “They just have different levels of magic.” Her co-moderator Stefan Spiegel added that Ikke Hipgold’s songs were also controversial in terms of content, but that the hit genre itself was very relevant. With his participation, Ikke Hipgold makes the preliminary decision more controversial, more exciting and more interesting. “It’s a very good addition and now really completes this preliminary round.”
The decision will be made on March 3rd
Ikke Hipgold will compete with his song against Will Church, Frida Gold, Patty Gurdy, Lord Of The Lost, René Miller, Anica Russo, Lonely Spring and TRONG. One of these acts will represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool in May. Who that will be will be decided on March 3 (10:20 p.m./Das Erste) on the TV show “Eurovision Song Contest 2023 – Our Song for Liverpool”.
For the first time in the German history of the ESC, one of the starting places for the preliminary round was awarded via the social network Tiktok. According to the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), 912 videos were uploaded there under the hashtag #UnserLiedFürLiverpool. The NDR is responsible for the German ESC contribution. Six acts made it into the final selection. The Tiktok community finally decided on the still open ninth starting place by Friday evening.
According to NDR information, more than 121,000 votes were cast within eight voting days, most of them for Ikke Hipgold. With his victory, Leslie Clio, who was also one of the well-known faces of the competition, is also out of the running. The singer/songwriter-artist (“I Couldn’t Care Less”) guest-starred on the TV show “The Masked Singer” in 2022 in the costume of the “Tooth Fairy”. Also in the running were Betül, From Fall to Spring, Jona, Mitchy Katawazi with André Katawazi and Nashup.
Announcement of the NDR application video by Ikke Hipgold on Tiktok German rankings at the ESC