While competing in Eurovision doesn’t essentially ensure world repute, there’s surely an excellent roster of big-name artists who were given their start thanks to the storied making a song contest.

From Olivia Newton-John to Celine Dion, Eurovision has hosted numerous now-beloved stars who give credit to the competition for placing them on the map stateside. That’s to not say there wasn’t quite a lot of hustling when they took home their spectacular prizes. Benny Andersson, a member of the famed Swedish band ABBA, recalled having to seek out the workforce’s footing after touchdown first position for his or her rendition of “Waterloo.”

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“After we received the Eurovision Song Contest and had a large hit with ‘Waterloo’ all over the place the international, then nothing came about, like steadily is the method with Eurovision Song Contest contenders,” he recounted to What’s On in 2015. “We worked in England and they said, ‘Well not to concern.’ So from sending us big limousines in the ‘Waterloo’ period, the automobiles were given smaller and smaller and we had a Volkswagen bus through the end!”

ABBA, and a lot of the artists under, needn’t have anxious about any career lags for long — there was once quite a few success in the United States (and past!) to come back. Scroll on to see which Eurovision contestants who have since made it big stateside:

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