The final piece of the Eurovision 2022 jigsaw is in place. We now have 40 songs lined up and ready to compete on the Turin stage in May. Today saw the Azerbaijani song released online. Nadir Rustamli will perform ‘Fade to black’.
On 30 December 2021, İTV opened a month-long song submission period for interested composers to submit songs. Six songs were shortlisted from around 300 submissions, to be offered to the chosen artist.
The song is a return to importing talent, written by ‘Too late for love’ Swedish composers Andreas Stone and Anderz Wrethov, German 2018 national final drop-out Sebastian Schub, and Swedish Thomas Stengaard – who was one of many behind ‘Adrenalina’ and ‘El Diablo’ last year. It’s another soaring male ballad about good love gone bad – because you can never have enough of those, it seems.
About the artist
Nadir Rustamli was announced for the job on 16 February 2022, during İTV’s breakfast television show.
Born in Salyan, Rustamli received piano training at the Gulu Asgarov Music School in his home town. In 2021, he graduated from the Azerbaijan University of Tourism and Management with a degree in business administration. He’s no stranger to competitions having participated in the Youthvision 2019 International Song Contest, where he finished second.
In 2021, he took part in the second season of ‘The Voice of Azerbaijan’, earning a chair turn from 2011 Eurovision winner Eldar Gasimov (he of the unusually long neck).
Coming soon
With all the songs now in place, OnEurope will kick off the (traditional) Countdown Review, giving you chapter and verse on each of the 40 songs. It all starts tomorrow with Albania.