Back in December 2021, the German band Eskimo Callboy released the song “Pump It“, which quickly gained a lot of popularity and raised the interest of many Eurovision fans, who thought that it would be an ideal contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest 2022!

Just three days after the song reveal, the band uploaded a clip on their YouTube channel, which confirmed that they would officially apply to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin this year.

The six final acts that will compete in the German national final “Germany 12 Points”, were revealed this week during a press conference of the German broadcaster NDR and to the surprise and anger of many Eurovision fans, Eskimo Callboy were not among them!

Ever since then, there has been a huge reaction in the German Eurovision media. Fans kept writing Eskimo Callboy’s name in the comments of the German Eurovision pages and most of their current posts show a lot of angry reactions. There has even been a petition, which calls for Eskimo Callboy to go to ESC and it currently has over 75.000 signatures. Eskimo Callboy themselves gave a statement with their video #ECnot4ESC in which they suggest that they weren’t accepted because the song wasn’t radio friendly enough!

However, there has also been some specualtion whether it would be possible to give Eskimo Callboy a wildcard for “Germany 12 Points”, to select them as the 7th act. The German speaking Eurovision blog ESC kompakt asked the broadcaster NDR for a statement and Andreas Gerling, head of the ARD team for the Eurovision Song Contest, gave them the following answer:

“Out of the 944 applications, 26 were shortlisted, and presented themselves in front of the German ESC jury live in Berlin, among them was also the band „Eskimo Callboy“. After long discussions and deliberations of pro and contra, the jury has nominated 6 out of the 26 applicants for the ARD Eurovision day. It is a competition with a jury’s decision, and the applicants knew this in advance.

However, we do take the critics seriously. I want to invite the initiators of the petition, who want to get “Eskimo Callboy” nominated, to a personal exchange over the ESC selection process and what lies in the future. The same goes for ESC fans in clubs, I also want to have a conversation with them.

And now let’s support the six artists, that are in the race for the ESC ticket, with all our powers!

Although it is never explicitly said that there won’t be a wildcard for the German national selection, this statement makes it seem very unlikely that anything will change in the selected line-up.

Listen to Eskimo Callboy’s song “Pump It” here:

What do you think about this matter? Would you have liked to see Eskimo Callboy in the German national final this year? And who is your favorite among the six chosen acts? Let us know your opinion in the comments and don’t forget to vote in our poll!

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