"If Love Was a Crime" is a song recorded by Bulgarian recording artist

Poli Genova Poli Plamenova Genova ( bg, Поли Пламенова Генова; born 10 February 1987) is a Bulgarian singer, songwriter, actress, and television presenter. Genova began her career in 1991, at the age of four, as a member of the Bulgarian ch ...

. Written by Borislav Milanov, Sebastian Arman, Joacim Bo Persson, Johnny K. Palmer and Genova, the track represented

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2016 The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 was the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "Heroes" by Måns Zelmerlöw. Organised by the European Broadcasting ...

. As a result, it came in fourth place in the final, with it becoming the highest placing in the contest for Bulgaria. An accompanying music video for "If Love Was a Crime" was released on 21 March 2016, followed by the launching of the single on 30 March 2016 through the

Bulgarian National Television The Bulgarian National Television ( Bulgarian: Българска национална телевизия, ''Balgarska natsionalna televizia'') or BNT (БНТ), stylized as ·Б·Н·Т· since 2018, is a public television broadcaster of Bulgari ...

(BNT) and

Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a ...

. Upon its appearance in the contest, the recording charted at number 200 on the UK Singles Chart and peaked within the top eighty in Austria, Belgium, Scotland and Sweden. Despite its success, the song was removed from digital music platforms after its initial distribution deal with Universal expired. A campaign by the Pop Activism website saw a new deal struck between the rights holders BNT and distributor Universal in April 2018 with the song returning to digital music platforms.

Eurovision Song Contest

On 19 February 2016, BNT announced that the broadcaster's managing board had internally selected

to represent Bulgaria at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. The song "If Love Was a Crime" was also internally selected for Genova and was presented to the public on 21 March 2016 through the release of the official music video via the official Eurovision Song Contest website ''eurovision.tv''. Genova performed the song during

second semi-final on 12 May 2016, held at the

Globe Arena Avicii Arena, originally known as Stockholm Globe Arena and previously as Ericsson Globe, but commonly referred to in Swedish simply as Globen (; "the Globe"), is an indoor arena located in Stockholm Globe City, Johanneshov district of Stockho ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, Sweden, and qualified for the final as one of the ten countries which received the highest number of points. In the final, on 14 May 2016, after the results came through, "If Love Was a Crime" finished the contest in 4th place with 307 points. It was then Bulgaria's highest scoring entry at Eurovision; it was also the first participation for Bulgaria on the final since 2007.

Track listing

Release history

Chart performance

The track has been streamed over four million times through

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

. Since its release, the official video has been watched almost 15 million times.

Other versions

"If Love Was a Crime" has also been performed by

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

singer Demy in

under the title "Isovia Mazi" (Ισόβια Μαζί", meaning "Life Ιmprisonment Together").

References

{{authority control Eurovision songs of Bulgaria Eurovision songs of 2016 2016 singles 2016 songs Universal Music Group singles Songs written by Joacim Persson Songs written by Borislav Milanov