Joan Franka

Joan Franka, 2012

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Singles

You and Me   NL 7th 03/10/2012 (5 weeks)

Joan Franka (actually: Ayten Kalan ; born April 2, 1990 in Rotterdam ) is a Dutch singer. The daughter of a Turkish father and a Dutch mother became famous for her participation in the talent show The Voice of Holland , the Dutch edition of The Voice . She was the singer and composer of the Dutch contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 You and me . Her Turkish father Ali Kalan died when Joan was two years old. Because she has little contact with her relatives in Turkey, she speaks very little Turkish. She is also fluent in German, Italian, and Croatian.

Joan always cites musicians from the 1960s as musical role models. John Lennon and Yoko Ono in particular made a deep impression on them.

The Voice of Holland (TVOH)

In 2010, Joan was discovered on the video website YouTube and invited to the first edition of the talent show The Voice Of Holland . She passed the so-called blind auditions there and stayed with the show until the third live show.

During TVOH, Joan sang the tracks How You Remind Me ( Nickelback ), Walking in Memphis ( Marc Cohn ) and Foolish Games ( Jewel Kilcher ). Even though the tracks were available for download after the shows, Joan failed to sing her way to the top of the Dutch Top 100 singles.

Eurovision Song Contest 2012

Nevertheless, Joan managed to become one of the six participants in the Dutch preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 . There she first had to assert herself in a duel against the favored participant Raffaëla, who had already achieved respectable successes outside the Netherlands. Joan appeared in an Indian costume including Indian feather headdress, her guitar and four dancers and prevailed against her competitor. While everyone involved in the show later commented positively on the song You and me , her outfit met with great rejection - not only in the Netherlands, but also in the rest of Europe. Joan stated that she didn't want to offend Native Americans with the outfit. Her outfit is explained by her song in which she sang about her first childhood sweetheart, with whom she had constantly played "Indian".

In the superfinal she then met the respective winners of the other two duels, Pearl Jozefzoon and Ivan Peroti. After Joan, Pearl and Ivan had sung their songs again, the expert jury first voted on the songs. At first, Joan fell back significantly. In the subsequent televoting, however, she united so many television viewers behind her that she was selected by a large margin as the Dutch ESC participant. She appeared on May 24, 2012 in the second ESC semi-final in Baku , but could not qualify for the final two days later.

The song You and me entered the Dutch Top 100 the week after the song festival at number 1. Although it was assumed that Joan Franka received a recording contract with 8ball Music from John de Mol , the label does not list the artist among the artists it has signed.

After the Eurovision Song Contest it got quieter for Franka. It wasn't until 2019 that she released a new single called The End .

Web links

• Website Joan Franka

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chart sources: NL
2. ↑ Eurovision Song Contest: Holland sends half-Turkish singer into the race (March 5, 2012): http://www.deutsch-tuerkische-nachrichten.de/2012/03/433574/eurovision-song-contest-holland-schickt- half-turkish-singer-in-the-race /
3. ↑ http://www.joanfranka.nl www.joanfranka.nl
4. ^ Section "Artists". 8ball Music website, accessed May 20, 2013 . 
5. ↑ Home. In: Joan Franka. Retrieved November 26, 2019 (Dutch).