Dutch singer Anouk returned to the Netherlands on Sunday after coming ninth in the Eurovision Song Contest, saying she was very happy with her performance.

Anouk, who said she had aimed for a top 10 place with her self-penned number Birds, was the first Dutch entrant to qualify for the finals in nine years. The Russian, Ukraine and Greek entries were her own particular favourites, she said.

The show was watched by an estimated 5.9 million people in the Netherlands, or over one in three of the population.

Plagiarism?

Meanwhile, some people have been commenting on the similarity between the winning number, Only Teardrops, and a Dutch song from 2002 called I Surrender by K-Otic.

The Telegraaf quotes producer and talent show judge Eric van Tijn, who says that while the flute intro is ‘clearly one-on-one’ that is the only similarity.

Eurovision spokesman Sietse Bakker told news agency Novum ‘there is a difference between plagiarism and sounding like another song.’

‘Every year someone says an entry sounds like another song but my experience is that the conclusion is never plagiarism,’ he said.

What do you think?