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Artist News Media
AleXa wins first American Song Contest
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 10 May 2022
As we gear up for the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend, K-pop singer AleXa has been crowned the first ever winner of the American Song Contest. She represented the state of Oklahoma with her (very Eurovision) song ‘Wonderland’.
Launched in March, and hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg, the competition has seen artists from all 50 US states, five US territories and the capital, Washington, DC, go head to head to have their song named the overall winner. The show followed a similar format to Eurovision, although they stretched the whole thing out to an eight week series.
Last night’s final saw the final ten entrants perform their song one last time, before AleXa was selected as the winner. As with Eurovision, votes are cast by the public and a professional jury – the latter made up of 56 representatives of ten geographic regions from around the US. When the jury vote was announced, it was Washington’s Allen Stone with his song ‘A Bit Of Both’ who was in the lead, but strong public support pushed AleXa ahead in the end.
“I was a little nervous after the jury vote but knowing how the point system works out, I was holding hands with my mother and father, praying so hard for my dreams to come true”, she told Billboard. “Fortunately they did and I was lucky enough to win this competition”.
On her big win, she added: “It felt like my brain exploded because my mother was holding onto my arm and she was crying and shaking and so I cried with her. It was a very emotional experience. Sharing that moment with my team and all [my] American Song Contest friends who were in the crowd meant the world to me”.
Kelly Clarkson said of AleXa: “I knew of her before because my niece is a huge K-pop fan. She is already obsessed with her, and so are many fans. Honestly, that’s why the vote counted, right? Like, Allen Stone was going to take it and America comes in and votes and it’s like, ‘Nope’”.
“I’ve never seen anything like AleXa”, she went on. “That’s her biggest pull. Her performance and her vibe and the fact that she’s from Oklahoma is so funny to me, because I grew up in North Texas and I didn’t see any of that hanging out, like those kind of artists”.
“We think people are boxed into these [categories] and we’re not. It was really interesting to see the 56 states and territories expressing that. There’s a lot of different kind of vibes everywhere and I thought that was really cool”.
What the win means for AleXa’s career now remains to be seen. We’ll also have to wait and see if NBC decides to bring back the ‘American Song Contest’ for a second run. The show has been going up against ‘American Idol’ and pulling in about a third of the viewers, although ratings do seem to have picked up a little towards the end of the series.
Watch AleXa’s semi-finals performance of ‘Wonderland’ here:
