The lowdown on the most metal Eurovision entries of all time

If there’s one place to celebrate the weird, the wonderful and the downright wacky then that place is Eurovision. Since 1956, the Song Contest has provided a platform for European countries (and, later, countries from further afield) to present their most entertaining musicians and performers to an audience which has now spread across the globe. Although each participating country votes en masse for who they think should win, plenty of fans at home place wagers at reputable online platforms to back whoever they think has the best chance of achieving this prestigious accolade.  

2023 marks the 67th edition of the long running competition and it’s shaping up to be a good one. There’s already plenty of chatter about Austria’s pop duo Teya & Salena, Finland’s J-Pop effort from Käärijä, and Sweden’s returning winner, Loreen. However, we’re more interested in Eurovison’s healthy association with all things metal.

There have been moments across the years when the genre has ruled supreme at the event, so we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane to remember the most metal Eurovision entries of all time – and take a closer look at Germany’s entry for this year, Lord of the Lost. 

Lordi 

Of course, we had to start with Lordi, the Finnish horror rockers who certainly made an impression on the audience at the 2006 Eurovision final in Athens. So much so, in fact, that they proved triumphant, taking home the title of winners and securing hosting duties for Finland for the 2007 competition. They were the first ever rock act – or more precisely metal act – to win the Song Contest and they certainly did it with style.  

Their theatrical costumes, make-up and stage show brought more than enough weird to the event and demonstrated their already well-honed skills as a group of performers. They still sit in the top 100 list of best-selling musicians in Finland and continue to perform as a band, though their line-up has changed somewhat since the early 00s. 

Lordi enjoyed a second stint in the international spotlight when they opened the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest Final in Helsinki, reprising their winning song from the previous year. The country felt so proud that there was even a Lordi postage stamp issued in that same month, and somebody opened an entire Lordi-themed restaurant in Rovaniemi called “Lordi’s Rocktaurant”. Sadly, it has since closed. 

The Rasmus 

Remaining in Finland, the spiritual home of death, black and doom metal, we find another metal band entering Eurovision to represent their country. The Rasmus enjoyed considerable commercial success in the charts during the early noughties, but it was only last year that they decided to try their luck at the Song Contest.  

Although they remain in the top 100 best-selling music artists in Finland (and more than just a few places above Lordi), the band wanted to try something new and thought the competition would be a bonding experience. They ended up placing 21st in the Final, a respectable result and one which served to boost their new album release later on in September 2022.  

The band’s style is much softer and less arresting than Lordi’s all-out, guts or glory, shock rock way of doing things, but they still brought a recognisably Scandinavian hint of darkness to proceedings. When asked about their experience of Eurovision, the band said that their participation directly contributed to keeping the band together. It sounds like they had a blast and picked up plenty of new and returning fans along the way. 

Apocalyptica 

That’s right, we’re still in Finland. Can you sense a theme here? We swear that other countries have had metal entries to Eurovision during the competition’s long and varied history, but these are simply the best ones. Apocalyptica present a slightly more refined version of Finnish metal, as four band members play the strings and, more specifically, the cello. Although, they aren’t technically Eurovision entrants. 

They started out as a classical Metallica tribute act, but quickly morphed into writing their own compositions – and have enjoyed widespread success ever since. In 2007, when Finland was the host country for Eurovision, the band were asked to perform during the intervals at the Final. They played a medley of their own work, which balanced out the show nicely after Lordi’s opening rendition of “Hard Rock Hallelujah“. Although they haven’t released any new work for a couple of years, the band are very much still making music together. 

Lord of the Lost 

Now we find ourselves in the present day and moving over to Germany, rather than staying put in Finland. Bringing with them a typically German industrial sound, Lord of the Lost are hopeful that they can come out on top at Eurovision 2023. They are an established and long-running act who first got together in 2007, but this year sees them thrust onto the mainstream stage in front of an international audience.  

The band enjoyed a runaway success at the event to choose who would represent their home country at this year’s Song Contest, so all signs point to them having enough charm and musical skill to satisfy the audience. It still remains to be seen, however, whether metal can once again reach the heady heights of the top spot in such a kitsch and pop music-dominated competition. 

Their song, “Blood & Glitter“, hints at a solid understanding of what is expected from them this May; in other words, plenty of drama, some excitement and, of course, lots of glitz and glamour. Eurovision is as much about the spectacle as it is about the actual music, so acts hoping to win need to give the audience something to talk about. Lord of the Lost’s music video for their song more than fulfills the brief, though we’ll have to wait and see how their performance lands on the night. 

Without giving too much away, we’d say that their incorporation of glam rock styling and plenty of interesting musical choices puts them in line to make it up to the top 10, if not further.