Israel’s ‘Toy’ among most popular Eurovision songs ever

Israel’s most recent win at the global music event is the seventh most-viewed entry on YouTube, unfortunately unaccompanied by the country’s previous hits.

By Naama Barak, Israel21c

It’s no secret that Netta Barzilai’s hit song, “Toy,” is one of the best songs ever to grace the Eurovision Song Contest.

After all, it did win the top spot in 2018 and brought the fabulous competition to Israel the following year.

But now it’s also officially one of the most popular Eurovision songs of all time, according to a recent study.

UK-based price-comparison service Uswitch recently published the results of a study that analyzed global YouTube views for each Eurovision entry to gauge the most popular ones. It found that “Toy” came in at the remarkable seventh spot, having garnered 46.6 million views.

The top spot was occupied by 2009’s “Fairytale” by Norway’s Alexander Rybak, which garnered 108.2 million views. Austria’s memorable 2014 entry, “Rise Like a Phoenix” by Conchita Wurst, came in the 10th spot with 40.3 million views.

As for ABBA’s legendary 1974 entry, “Waterloo,” the study also examined the most listened-to entries of all times on Spotify and found that it comes in fourth place with 172.1 million plays. First place went to The Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence, with his 2019 hit “Arcade” and its 685.6 million plays.

Notably absent from the esteemed list are Israel’s three previous Eurovision wins, Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta’s “A-Ba-Ni-Bi” (1978), Milk and Honey’s “Hallelujah” (1979) and Dana International’s “Diva” (1998).

Israel’s entry to the 2022 Eurovision contest, set to take place in mid-May in Turin, Italy, is Michael Ben-David’s “I.M.” However, there has reportedly been some speculation regarding Ben-David’s participation at the event due to a strike at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Keeping our fingers crossed over here.