To date, there have been 1,758 entries in Eurovision Song Contest history. As Eurofans, we may only know these artists from one or two songs, but every artist that has performed at the contest has an extensive backlog. This series, Beyond Eurovision, aims to shine a light on some of the That Eurovision Site team’s favourite Eurovision artists’ discographies. Today, we celebrate June 22nd by taking a look at the career and music of Rosa Linn, from both before and since she shot to fame with her Eurovision 2022 song “Snap”.
The Origins of Rosa Linn
Roza Kostandyan started writing her own songs between the ages of 11 and 12, having always been musical, having began playing the piano aged six. Her first foray into the industry was, ironically, the Armenian Junior Eurovision 2013 Pre-selection, where she participated with the song “Gitem”.
NVAK & KING
Rosa would later become a beneficiary of Tamar Kaprelian’s NVAK Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to nurturing young musical talent throughout Armenia, and under the foundation’s label, NVAK Collective, would release her first single “KING” – a bilingual English and Russian song featuring the American singer Kiiara, in 2021.
Okay. We need to talk about Snap.
Usually we wouldn’t give this much (or any) prominence to an artist’s Eurovision entry, but it was Snap that truly took Rosa Linn “Beyond Eurovision” and catapulted her into stardom.
Rosa Linn and “Snap” are to put it one way, Eurovision’s most unlikeliest of success stories. Rosa Linn represented Armenia at Eurovision 2022 in Turin with the song “Snap” – a sweet, if unassuming, indie pop song.
Despite the song not being an instant hit, Rosa and Snap managed to bring Armenia back to the Grand Final for the first time since 2017, and she would go on to place 20th in Italy, but it wasn’t until a couple months later where something really snapped.
TikTok found Snap, and they absolutely loved it. Snap took off in the streaming charts, one by one passing each of the more heavy hitting 2022 entries, before eventually on August 27th 2022 becoming the most streamed Eurovision 2022 song, despite finishing in 20th place in the contest.
The streams kept on coming and just last month the original (we’ll get onto that.) version of Snap surpassed 1,000,000,000 Spotify streams , and she was soon signed to Columbia Records
Under the label, the “SNAP PACK” was released – featuring 6 new versions of the song, including an Italian version, in collaboration with future Sanremo participant Alfa.
Sorry about that. Here’s the bit you’re actually here for.
The wild, largely unexpected viral success of Snap was always going to be hard to follow. So why not, Rosa thought, have your follow up release be a collaboration with the artist behind the only Eurovision song to out-stream yours.
.WDIA (Would Do It Again) was released in collaboration with Duncan Laurence, and follows the story of two former lovers reconnecting and deciding that, despite all the troubles of their former relationship they “Would do it again.” Although the song didn’t chart, it received relative streaming success, totalling 9.5m Spotify streams as of writing.
In 2023, Rosa released her debut EP, “Lay Your Hands Upon My Heart” – featuring six songs = my personal highlight of which being “Never Be Mine” – a beautiful piano ballad on loving someone who will never feel the same way back.
Rosa’s latest single, Universe, is one of my absolute favourite releases of 2024. Produced by Cirkut, who has worked with some of the biggest names in the business, and it shows. On this brilliant pop track, which is a classic Rosa Linn earworm, she tells the story of loving someone that is unavailable to her.
In recent months, Rosa has leant her voice to the song “One Cry” by Swedish electronic duo Galantis, who in turn provided a remix of Universe, She’s also opened tours for both Ed Sheeran, which saw her go across the United States, as well as her frequent collaborator Alfa (who himself has seen a big rise since their first collab) which included a tear jerking return to Turin’s PalaOlimpico. She also ventured back in the Eurovision bubble when she was a guest performer at this year’s London Eurovision Party, where she did a lovely rendition of both SNAP and Universe.
Why you should check her out:
If you’re like me, and love a sad girl ballad, she already has some great ones, and with a great team of producers around her, there will be way more of them to come, so you might as well get in early.
And not only do I love Rosa’s music, but also her attitude. Throughout everything, she’s stayed humble and has always been hugely grateful for every opportunity that has come her way. She might have gone Beyond Eurovision, but she is still in our hearts.
Will you mark June 22nd by streaming Rosa Linn? As always, let us know what you think by commenting below. Also, be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Bluesky for all your Eurovision news!
Photo Credit: Rosa Linn
Euan T