Now she is also singing the official song for the European Football Championship in the summer: the pop singer Leony from Bavaria is continuing her steep path to success. The 26-year-old, whose real name is Leonie Burger, has gained respect in recent years with her own songs, but also as a songwriter for other artists.
The title for the EM song is still open. According to information from the German Press Agency, it is expected to be officially presented in May.
The singer, who was born in Cham in Upper Palatinate, celebrated her first major success in 2021 with “Faded Love”. With her song “Remedy” she again topped the German airplay charts, i.e. the list of the most played songs on radio, for eight weeks in 2022. According to the official homepage, the song also conquered the airplay charts in Switzerland, France, Austria, Finland and Romania. It now has more than a billion streams worldwide. As a songwriter, she worked on, among other things, the hit “Never Let Me Down” by Vize
Already as a juror on DSDS
“It’s the best thing to be able to make music with your best friends every day, and it’s the greatest privilege for me to be able to do what I love most every day,” says Leony about her work.
More than ten years ago, when she was still a teenager, she took the first steps towards realizing her dream of a music career. In 2014 she took part in the live casting show “Rising Star” as part of the band “Unknown Passenger”. The band broke up – she continued as a solo artist. The first professional songs were created in Sweden, Great Britain and the USA in 2016. In 2017 she released her debut single “Surrender”.
Among other things, Leony was nominated for an MTV EMA in the “Best German Act” category in 2022. Last year she sat on a casting jury herself – alongside Dieter Bohlen, Katja Krasavice and Pietro Lombardi on the anniversary season of “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”. She has also had to take harsh criticism from Bohlen: After a video shoot for the newly recorded Modern Talking song “Brother Louie”, Bohlen called her producer and said: “Leony is good – she has a nice voice, but that’s a bit like that a charisma like a cleaning lady,” said Leony in the program “Music made in Germany” on the private Rhineland-Palatinate radio station RPR1. “But I didn’t hold that against him.”
EM song together with OneRepublic and Meduza
She toured Europe, had her first headlining tour – and is currently on the road again in Germany, but also in Austria and Switzerland. With her album “Somewhere In Between”, which was released last year, she also means herself. “That I am both Leony, the self-confident woman on stage, on television and on the radio, and Leonie, the songwriter and the sweet, sensitive girl from Bavaria . I’m somewhere in between and a lot of things at the same time and that’s exactly what defines me.”
Now the excitement is rising for the EM song. All that is known is that the US band OneRepublic (“Apologize”) and the Italian dance trio Meduza (“Bad Memories”) are involved in the song.
On June 13th, the evening before the European Championships, Leony sings at the opening concert in Stuttgart – probably the European Championship song. When she was booked for the gig, it wasn’t even clear that she would get the song. “We are pleased that it happened this way,” said the organizers in Stuttgart.
