Home Composed Song Contest 2016

Contest overview

The 2016 Home Composed Song Contest was organised by H.U. from Spain (name redacted at own request) following his victory in the previous year's competition.

To mark the 25th edition of the Home Composed Song Contest, the organiser decided to run an additional competition this year on a one-off basis: the main HCSC (referred to as "Song Of The Year") was accompanied by a bonus "Instrumental Of The Year" contest. Participants were permitted to submit one song to each sub-event. A total of 20 entries were submitted across the two categories.

As usual, the votes of the participants were supplemented by a guest jury and an internet vote, the latter based this time on the number of YouTube views and likes gathered by the entries. The jury members were previous winner Eduard Alexogiannopoulos, Nikos Sofis and the organiser himself, as well as previous participant Giannis Papadopoulos (in the Instrumental of the Year category), while the music magazine Popfection completed the jury with an expert view from "outside" the sphere of the contest.

As you can see from the scoresheet, the guest jury () and the internet vote () were given a bigger weighting than the votes of the individual participant juries.

In an exciting voting, one of the two Finnish entries, "Jäärakkaus" by Tero Aalto's Snowclone project, took the lead and proved to be the favourite of the participants. However, the bigger weighting of the jury vote made the difference in the end, as the early leader was ultimately relegated to third place - and fellow Finn, Bo Söderholm, took the big prize for the second time in recent history with his entry "I Still Keep On Calling You". In doing so, he also became only the fourth person in HCSC history to win the contest more than once.

In the instrumental category, it was a close fight between Spain's Alfonso Daniel and Sweden's Martin Kahnberg, who left the competition some way behind them. The Spanish entry, "Romanza de Sakura", took the victory in the end.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, the participants were also invited to vote on three additional awards. "Denn einmal nur" from Germany, the overall runner-up in this year's main contest, won the awards for Best Music and Best Performance, while "Jäärakkaus" took home the prize for Best Lyrics.

Song Of The Year: Entries and results

Draw	Country	Song Title	Performer	Composer	Lyricist	Position	Points
01	United Kingdom I	I Hate Being In Love With You	Vulnerable	Ray Holt, Martin Faulkner, Andrew Donaldson	Ray Holt	4	101
02	Spain I	Rise	Victoria	Victoria	Victoria	6	80
03	Finland I	I Still Keep On Calling You	Bo Söderholm	Bo Söderholm	Bo Söderholm	1	129
04	Albania	Magjepsje	Ainhoa Feal	Ainhoa Feal	Ainhoa Feal	13	15
05	Sweden	Andas	Martin Kahnberg	Martin Kahnberg	Martin Kahnberg	9	71
06	United Kingdom II	Standing Still	londonvision	Andy Brook	David Graaff	5	97
07	Portugal	Tomorrow	Heitor	Heitor	Heitor	7	78
08	Germany I	Denn einmal nur	Jason	Jason Sherri	Stefan Engel	2	120
09	United Kingdom III	Says I	Jimmy Andrews' Midlife Crisis	Andy Mendelson	Jim Brook	8	74
10	Spain II	Modern Girl	Alfonso Daniel	Alfonso Daniel	Alfonso Daniel	11	52
11	Germany II	König der Welt	Jan Wehner	Jan Wehner	Jan Wehner	13	15
12	Germany III	In The Moonlight (Come To Me Baby)	Lauchmann	Jens Wu	Lauchmann	10	61
13	Finland II	Jäärakkaus	Snowclone	Tero Aalto	Tero Aalto	3	116
14	Belarus	Zvyshnovaja zorka	Spaceboys	Dimitri Kushnikov, Natan Glamatovic, Janar Kinski	Dimitri Kushnikov, Natan Glamatovic, Janar Kinski	12	30

Song Of The Year: Scoreboard

	Juries
																	Total
I Hate Being In Love...	5	5	8		8	12		14	7	5	3	2	7	3	4	18	101
Rise	1	4	1	4	2			20	2	1	6	5	12	8	1	14	80
I Still Keep On Calling You		6	6	1	6	10	12	10	8	8	8	3	2	5	12	32	129
Magjepsje			2		3	8	2										15
Andas	2	12		3	10		3	16	1		1	4	6	2	8	3	71
Standing Still	7	2	4	8	5	4	10	4	3		12	7	4	10	5	12	97
Tomorrow	8	8	10	6		2	5	12	4	2	2		3	4	7	5	78
Denn einmal nur	12	7	3		7	5	6	6	12	10	10			12	6	24	120
Says I	4	1	5	10	1	3	4	5	10	7		8	8		1	7	74
Modern Girl	3	3		12	4	1	7	3		6	5	1		1	2	4	52
König der Welt							1					6	5		3		15
In The Moonlight	6		7	5		6			5	3	7	12			10		61
Jäärakkaus	10	10	12	7	12		8	8	6	12	4	10	1	6		10	116
Zvyshnovaja zorka				2		7				4			10	7			30

Song Of The Year: Media

HCSC 2016 winner: Bo Söderholm - I Still Keep On Calling You

Recap of all HCSC 2016 songs in draw order

Instrumental Of The Year: Entries and results

Draw	Country	Song Title	Performer	Composer	Position	Points
01	Portugal	I Know Now	Rogério Afonso	Rogério Afonso	3	21
02	Germany	Fight For Your Life	Korjun	Korjun	3	21
03	Spain	Romanza de Sakura	Alfonso Daniel	Alfonso Daniel	1	38
04	Finland	Crying Wolf	UFOPOLI	Tero Aalto	3	21
05	Sweden	Hiraeth	Martin Kahnberg	Martin Kahnberg	2	35
06	United Kingdom	Deciduous Armour	GhostAttak	GhostAttak	6	8

Instrumental Of The Year: Scoreboard

	Juries
								Total
I Know Now	4	3	1	6	3		4	21
Fight For Your Life	2	4	4	2		1	8	21
Romanza de Sakura		1	3	4	6	6	18	38
Crying Wolf	3	6	2		1	3	6	21
Hiraeth	6		6	3	4	4	12	35
Deciduous Armour	1	2		1	2	2		8

Instrumental Of The Year: Media

IOTY 2016 winner: Alfonso Daniel - Romanza de Sakura

Recap of all IOTY 2016 songs in draw order