Canada is one step closer to making its Eurovision Song Contest debut. This morning, CBC/Radio-Canada revealed the five finalists competing to represent the country at the 2027 edition of the international music competition, with the public now tasked with choosing who will take the stage in Bulgaria next May.
The shortlist features William Cloutier, Josiane, Rêve, Talk and Tyler Shaw, five Canadian artists with distinct musical backgrounds and styles. Canadians can watch performances from all five finalists and cast their votes through the official Eurovision voting platform. Each person can submit up to 10 votes for their preferred artist before voting closes on November 5 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.
The winning representative is expected to be announced before the end of November.
The five finalists were selected from 325 artists who submitted applications between August 31 and September 9. CBC/Radio-Canada’s music teams first narrowed the field to 15 candidates before a seven-member jury, including music industry professionals and senior executives from the public broadcaster, selected the final five.
The candidates span pop, dance and alternative music, giving voters a range of options for Canada’s first appearance at Eurovision.
William Cloutier, a Québec singer-songwriter, first gained national attention as a child before winning Star Académie in 2021. He has since released two albums and performed more than 360 times as Johnny Rockfort in the French musical Starmania, playing to more than one million spectators across Europe and Québec.
Josiane, born in Dieppe, New Brunswick, won La Voix in 2020. The Acadian singer-songwriter moves between French- and English-language pop, incorporating her Chiac accent into her musical identity. Her debut album, Take Care, arrived in March 2026, following the success of her single “Lose It All,” which has accumulated more than six million streams.
Rêve, the Montréal-born, Toronto-based dance-pop artist, brings a sound influenced by pop, R&B and 1990s Eurodance. Since emerging in 2021, she has accumulated more than 175 million streams worldwide with songs including “CTRL + ALT + DEL,” “Big Boom” and “Whitney.” She won the Dance Recording of the Year award at the 2023 JUNO Awards.
Ottawa-born singer-songwriter Talk broke through internationally with “Run Away to Mars” in 2021. His debut album, Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees, went multi-platinum, and he won the JUNO Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2024. His next album, The Ballad of Ozzy Moon, is scheduled for release in early 2027.
Rounding out the shortlist is Tyler Shaw, a Vancouver-born singer, producer and actor whose career took off with the platinum-certified single “Kiss Goodnight” in 2012. He later reached a wider international audience with “Love You Still” and began his first European tour in 2026, playing sold-out shows in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom.
Eurovision, which brings together performers representing participating countries, attracts millions of viewers and has launched international careers for artists including ABBA and Céline Dion. Canada’s 2027 entry will mark the country’s first participation in the contest, giving the public its first opportunity to determine who will represent Canadian music on its Eurovision stage.
Taylor Swift at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Here’s to 20 Years of ‘Taylor Swift’
It’s strange to think the songs we used to sing from one of the most famous self-titled debut album’s turn 20 years old today. You know the ones I’m talking about. The song in the car, my favorite song, the whispered songs, “Mary’s Song,” “Our Song.” Twenty years ago, Taylor Swift invited the world into the one she built with these melodies.
Taylor Swift wasn’t just the singer-songwriter’s first album that turned her into a rising Nashville star. It was also the first chapter that sealed Swift’s future success as a superstar musician. Within a year of its release on Oct. 24, 2006, the LP debuted at Number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, earned platinum status, and made hits out of singles “Tim McGraw” and “Our Song.” It’s the reason we’re here today, reflecting on two decades into a career so massive, even the curly-haired mess of a dreamer couldn’t fathom it at 15 years old. That teenager grew into a pop goliath, but it’s easier to fathom when you remember that it’s always been about the songs.
With Taylor Swift, a precocious teen met listeners in their own teenage heartache, their deep-seeded loneliness, and that overarching, painful desire to fit in with a collection of country-pop gems. Who hadn’t cried over an unrequited love the way Swift did on “Teardrops on My Guitar” or felt the chilling rejection apparent on “Cold As You,” or the thrill of finding a best friend who lets you show your true colors like on “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” or even known a friend who suffered from eating disorders as discussed on “Tied Together With a Smile”? Here was a voice singing these stories she’d written, each sigh and imperfect note, making the keen observation of the worlds that much more sincere. That’s what connected with audiences and began the success story that we know so well today.
Throughout her self-titled debut, Swift tapped into the country music songwriting tradition of reminding listeners she’s the one with the pen. On the banjo-driven jaunt, “Our Song,” she laments the fact that there is no song to sum up her rosy romance — until she “grabs a pen and an old napkin” and cements the slamming screen doors and surreptitious late-night calls into her own song. With the help of producer Nathan Chapman and co-writer Liz Rose, Swift learned to master this trick.
Her debut single, “Tim McGraw” is the real shining example of this. On its face, the track chronicles a fleeting summer romance, but the wistful tune turns into a knockout that cemented Swift into country music history when she offers a prescient promise, “I hope you think of me.” With that simple line, the musician showed the transportative power of music.
Taylor Swift is also the first time we heard of the tropes that still run through the singer-songwriter’s catalog. The little black dress in “Tim McGraw,” the front seat in “Our Song,” the rain scattered across multiple songs, the photographs in “Picture to Burn,” the numbers 89 and 87 on “Mary’s Song (Oh My, My My).” With every nano-specific detail, Swift built out her own cinematic universe.
You can hear Swift map out the world-building that would turn into her next 12 albums on the self-titled centerpiece, “A Place in this World.” Over an acoustic guitar, she quips, “I don’t know what I want, so don’t ask me” before declaring, “I’m just a girl, trying to find a place in this world.” That’s the kind of sassy, yet uncertain attitude she brought to her very first album. But really, she always knew what she was doing in some capacity, especially if the hidden or “A Place in This World” is any indication. The uppercase letters in a lyric booklet of lowercase ones spell out: “I Found it.”
In a fitting twist of fate, 2026 not only marks a major anniversary for Swift’s self-titled debut album, it’s also the first year she’s eligible to be recognized in two very prestigious institutions: the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. By Monday, the girl who cried all those tears on her guitar will be both the youngest woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall, and youngest-member of the Nashville edition.
During her Songwriters Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Swift reflected on the power of her craft. “As writers, we can only hope to meet people where they are in their lives,” she said. Since 2006, when she was just a high school freshman with a habit of writing songs on her bedroom floor or in math class, she has done exactly that.