Current Music Competition

The **Current Music Competition** is an online song competition based on the Eurovision Song Contest and the NowNewMusic Contest. Each country's head of delegation gets to select a current entry from their respective country for each edition either by internal or national selection. Then the countries get to vote for each show (semifinal or Grand Final) to determine the qualifiers and the winner of the edition.

## History

### 2018

The contest was founded on March 30, 2018. The first edition took place in June 2018 and was held in Seoul, South Korea, after the nation was internally selected to host the show. The first ever winner was Céline Dion representing Canada with her song "Ashes". On June 13, 2018 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC announced that the second edition would take place in the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The second edition was won by Blackpink's "Ddu-du Ddu-du". which lead to South Korea hosting the contest once again. The winner of the August 2018 edition was India with the song "I Did It". The fourth edition took place in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi and was won by Sweden with Normandie's "White Flag". Edition number five was held in the Friends arena in Stockholm. The winning country were the United States who sent "Sweet But Psycho" by Ava Max. The next edition took place in the MetLife Stadium in New York City and was won by Jasmine Sokko representing Singapore with the song "Hurt". The Singaporean broadcaster RTS exercised its right to stage the contest. The shows were hosted by Narelle Kheng and Lee Teng in the National Stadium. The winner of the seventh edition was Venezuela's Evaluna Montaner who performed the song "Me Liberé".

### 2019

The first edition of 2019 took place the Venezuelan capital Caracas. It was hosted by Daniela Nieves, Evaluna Montaner and Lele Pons. The Zimbabwean entry "Fire In My Soul" by Oliver Heldens and Shungudzo was elected the winner, which lead to the Current Music Competition being held in Africa for the first time. The ninth edition was won by the British singer Fleur East and her song "Favourite Thing". The following edition was presented by the band Chvrches that consists of Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty. 44 countries competed and China's entry "Helios" was crowned the winner with 219 points. The eleventh edition took place in Shanghai in April 2019. The presenters of that month were Fan Bingbing and the Chinese-American drag queen Yuhua Hamasaki. The winning entry was "Watching You" by the Belgian singer Lea Rue. The next edition was held in Antwerps under the slogan "Feel Your Inner Power". The winner of that edition was Australia's Cxloe with the song "I Can't Have Nice Things". This meant that the contest would move down under for the first time. The hosts of the thirteenth edition were Courtney Act and the "Thor" actor Chris Hemsworth.

    Palestine won the contest in June 2019 with the song "Klefi / Samed" by Hatari and the Palestinian singer Bashar Murad. Despite their political conflicts, Israel participated in the July 2019 and won with Dotan's entry "Numb". After three exciting shows with 36 participants, Israel managed to win again, which made them the first country to win the CMC twice and two editions in a row. Since the contests mustn't be held in the same city twice, Jerusalem was selected as the host city of the sixteenth edition. The 17th edition took place in the Sajik Arena in Busan, South Korea, after Everglow gave the country its second victory. This edition was won by Vietnam's Hoàng Thuỳ Linh who competed with "Tú Phu". The November 2019 edition was held in My Dình National Stadium in Hanoi. The winner was Lola Yuldusheva from Uzbekistan. The last contest of 2019 took place in the Navoi Theater in the Uzbek capital Tashkent and was won by the Swedish duo Smith & Thell. "Numb", the winning entry of the 14th edition was voted as the song of the year 2019.

### 2020

The first edition of the new decade was held in Linköping, Sweden. It was hosted by Greta Thunberg in the Saab Arena. The winner of the CMC January 2020 was Latvia's Samanta Tina with her song "Still Breathing", which was later selected to represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest as well. The twenty-first edition took place in Riga and was won by the Ukrainian band KAZKA and their song "Palala". After a one-month break, the contest returned in April 2020 and was held in Praia, Cape Verde. For the first time in the history of the CMC, the contest was not be held in the winning country of the previous regular edition. Cape Verde was chosen as the host country because it was one of the few countries on the world that wasn't affected by the Corona virus yet. Due to Corona, the edition was suspended on April 11th and resumed on July 11th. After three months, Denmark was chosen as the winner, which meant that the next edition would be held in Copenhagen.

## Rules

*→ See also: Rules*

* Every country that is recognized by the United Nations is eligible to participate in the contest.
* The maximum number of participants in one edition is 46.
* The competing artists have to have a strong connection to the country they participate for.
* The relevance of entries must be under two months old.
* (Junior) Eurovision (Asia) Song Contest entries and songs from their preselections are not allowed.
* If a country doesn't vote in time, it will be disqualified from the edition unless the Head of Delegation gives a good reason (disease, death of a close person, ...). Not having time is not a valid reason.

## External links

* Discord server of the CMC
* The official YouTube channel of the CMC