USoS 2020: Semifinal Voting Closed, Missouri Entry, Public Voting

Hello there! As you can see, the voting periods for both Semifinal One and Semifinal Two have ended, so we are busy behind the scenes counting up the points. The twelve songs with the most points from each semifinal will proceed to the Final Round.

Alongside those 24 songs, the 25th song - Missouri - has remained unknown... until today! Because Missouri won last year, the contest has been virtually hosted in Kansas City and they get a free pass to the Final Round.

Last year’s choice for Missouri was essentially a tie between bands Yes You Are's "Blacklight" and Dragon Inn 3's song "Bad Boy". "Blacklight" narrowly edged out DI3 as the choice, and the rest is history. Coming so close but losing so much, Dragon Inn 3 were offered the opportunity to represent Missouri as host entrant in 2020. The only eligible song, “Three Minute Mile,” was not considered strong enough to enter the contest, unfortunately - and did not offer one of the biggest genres of the American south: blues music.

Enter Samantha Fish, an award-winning blues guitarist and vocalist from Kansas City itself. Within the blues world she’s one of the biggest artists of 2019, having won the Best Blues Album Award from Allmusic with “Kill or Be Kind”. She's been in the business for over fifteen years, joining a varied number of artists with that particular acclaim.

We are honored to have her represent Kansas City with her unique vocal range, raw lyrics, and truthful visage. The circus-themed music video is a tongue-in-cheek take on the song title. I mean, yeah, for some people, circuses (and clowns) invoke fear, and everyone's afraid of being killed? It may be a stretch, but we are stretching for content here. Congratulations to Missouri - expect the semifinals results to be released soon.

As for the Final Round - the voting procedures have been pretty constant the last few years: 50% jury votes, and 50% public vote. The public voting methods are changing slightly in 2020 in response to feedback received by our fans. Instead of having voters rank their favorite to least-favorite song in each group of 5, the public voter will have the freedom to rank each song on a scale from 1 to 5. This does technically mean they have the ability to rank each song the same - they could rate each song a 1 and be done with it. But if this happens, their vote will not be counted. We think this will be slightly better because each song is no longer reliant on what group it belongs to. Songs will still be split into five groups of five, but they can rate two or more songs the highest possible rating if they wish to do so.

Public and Jury voting will open on the same date as the release of the Final Round Recap. At that time, voters will have a good 3 to 4 weeks to submit their vote.

As we near the time of year when the contest usually ends, I just want to thank everyone for sticking with us through what has been a pretty challenging year overall. It's frustrating that we once again have to sit out from traveling to the host city, but there are worse things in life.

Anywho, take care! See you at the Semifinal Results announcement!