My No. 1? A Deeply Opinionated Review of All of the Eurovision Winning Songs - part 2
Cont'd from part 1 - look there to see the criteria for the tiers and the explaination of the inclusion of running order positions, the margins of victory by points, percentage of vote and overall ranking in how wide it was compared to the other winners from 1975 onwards (introduction of the familar douze points scoring system) and of the overall no. of points it scored, it's percentage of the overall possible vote and how that ranked in terms of how close it was compared to all of the other winners from 1957 onwards (the point scores aren't available for the first contest)
1986 - Belgium - J'aime La Vie (translated title - I Love Life) - also performed 13th out of 20 songs - margin -36pts,26%,9th - overall -176pts,77.2%,8th. Unlike the juries (which all gave it some points) I do NOT love this and how I do not, let me count the ways! This was the year that made me give up on the ESC and I would not watch another contest for literally twenty years - over actually as I don't think I bothered to watch this one. In fairness it's not just this song, I remember hearing pretty much ALL of the songs and not liking a single one of them. I still remain fairly profoundly unimpressed by them as a collection and have a hard time picking a fav - the Swiss runner up is ok and it gets more interesting when you know it's sung by a woman fed up with being hit on by dodgy blokes but it's still a bit dull musically IMO. It's telling that another one of the other more tolerable ones is by Sweden with a rare for them humourous (the purists get annoyed if you call it a joke one - but it's certainly more in that territory than Sweden's usually polished pop stuff) entry. So that's so awful about this winner in such a bad year (especially in light about me being a bit more forgiving to other winners later on in equally unimpressive years)? Well....some of it is the singing. I remember very distinctively at the time parodying the singer Sandra Kim's very high pitched vocal, which I hated (and I have to choose my words carefully here - so to make clear that my issue is the style rather than Kim's capabilities - I'm not an expert and a failed attempt to land a minor principal role in a school choral event proved to me what I'd always suspected which is that I can't pitch or notice a note properly but I've never heard anyone more knowledgable hint at anything that suggests Kim was literally pitchy) because I heard it as squeeky, I think excessively perky might be fairer. I went to a very Euro-centric school so was on occasion exposed to some pretty awful Euro bubblegum pop - I remember this ghastly song in French that had an accompanying very silly dance, that went 'flick flack c'est facile' that J'aime la vie reminded me of. I wasn't strictly speaking an emo kid but school years were NOT the best years of MY life and I wasn't experiencing much joy d'vivre at this stage. I do think it's telling that I enjoyed Kim reprising this a lot of more as a middle aged adult with a considerably lower pitched voice on the Rotterdam rooftop last year. There's something much more endearing about a middle aged lady loving life than a precocious mid teen and I think especially so since the fandom and the press at the time seems to think it was all so cute (whereas I don't - the media then as nowis too in love with overly euthiastic teens and not enough with middle aged women living their best lives). That said I do think that Kim essentially got away with pretending to be older than she actually was is kinda a compliment to her - she was (and still is) very confident and profient performer who handled herself with a maturity that you don't expect from a mid teen. These days she'd probably be a Junior ESC winner or in the running - maybe even like Destiny returning as a fairly successful young adult. It was a sense sort of Kim's win that lead to the setting up of JESC in the first place. Since the Swiss complained at the time about Kim being so young with a view to getting her disqualified (and rather like some French elements trying to create a storm in a teacup last year it was pretty obviously a ploy to net themselves a win in the process by eliminating their more successful rivals). There was some precedent for kids on the ESC stage, as I said before, the lad from Monaco who came practically third in 69 was 12, the Spainish runner up from 79 had kids on stage with her and the Spainish actually did that quite a bit, the year before Hot Eyes performing for Denmark had a kid on stage too. However none of these acts had won before and the fact that this one did spotlight the elephant in the room. So when France and Israel both independently sent even younger kids than Kim in 89, finally the EBU couldn't ignore it any longer and then you had to be over 16 to get on the ESC stage. You'll get another example of later of where a country pushed their luck and, although they got away with it, an unwritten rule suddenly became written one to stop anyone pulling that merde again. So Kim will always be the youngest ESC winner. My dislike of this song isn't all teenaged bitterness or resentment of high pitched teenage voices though or the fact I was kinda going off pop music in general as the zeitgest moved into IMO much more garbage strewn waters (ironically considering this underwhelming concert was coming from Norway the last mainstrem pop band I'd really care about would actually be A-ha) but it's just that it isn't a great song - it's basic and trite and had it not been such a pee poor year probably wouldn't have won IMO. Yup I think 1986 is actually the worst year ever - and nope it's not just the winner for as you will discover there is one that I actually dislike even more and it's not the one you'd expect...and breathe... F
1987 - Ireland - Hold Me Now - performed 20th out of 22 songs - margin 31pts,22%,13th - overall 172pts, 68.3%,17th. The middle of the successful run of Mr Eurovision - himself. Many prefer this to his first win (which is part of why it's in the 'Best' of list) and although for me it's the weaker of the two it's still not bad. There are a few musical cliches in there but it's still a pretty solid song and this one showcases not just Logan's skills as a singer but as a songwriter (as it turns the first of another double which hasn't been achieved by that many others either). People have always wondered why he was so successful at the contest but not outside of it. Some of it has to do with attitude of the British Isles music scene to the contest. The musical journalists of the 80s even looked down on Depeche Mode for starting of their career with Vince Clark (of would later go on to become half of Yazoo and then Erasure) written pop songs so anything tainted by the ESC never had a prayer with them and I don't think the pop kids really rated it either. The UK winners Bucks Fizz (who had a bit of a pop career and actually had some decent songs during it) gave an interview to a popular magazine Smash Hits about how they were sick of reading in their pen pals section must love Duran Duran and hate Bucks Fizz. However I think it was there wasn't really a lot of traditional of ballads in the 80s in the UK at least (Julio Iglesis became very big in Europe but that was really from the 70s) and the ballads I can think of were by people like Spandau Ballet and George Michael who'd already established themselves as mainstream pop or New Romantic acts. A lot of ballad singers were American and the ESC didn't really have a lot of influence over there. As to where Hold Me Now comes - it's a pretty good ballad well regarded by fans but it's not amongst the ground breaking absolute favs for me so a solid A.
1988 - Switzerland - Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi (translated title - Don't Leave Without Me) - performed 9th out of 21 songs - margin -1pt, 1%, 45th - overall - 137pts,57.1%,40th. I remember hearing about Logan's unique achievement and quite liking the song but I'd completely dropped Eurovision from my radar by the time this happened because trust me I'd remember my country losing by a point if I'd be paying any attention. So you can't really accuse me of sour grapes as it would be years before I'd actually know that Celene Dion had even competed in Eurovision let alone beaten the UK by that narrow a margin. It is perhaps a good thing as it would be take the 90s for me to encounter and loathe Celene Dion as an artist - and I do, always have and always will. People who are going 'you what?' here might want to skip ahead and get more of a feel for my taste here and remember I was coming to musical maturity in a post punk environment so warbling ballad singers who wrench ev...er..y....poss..i..ble....e...mot..ion...ou..t of a...note' were probably never going to be my bag but someone said she isn't even actually that great a singer of that type and Houston and Carey, whose output I have about as much time for as Dion's generally - i.e close to zero, are actually better singers. In the 90s I was convinced Dion was only successful because she posed on her album covers not wearing anything (it was tastefully done but still). I remember hearing someone else in the community voice the opinion that although Dion is a legend, the song isn't all that but hearing it being covered by Jamala and Conchita Wurst in the karoke section of the Will Ferrel Fire Saga film based at the contest actually convinces me of the opposite, that the song is actually pretty good for it's type - and that it's Dion's involvement that sinks it for me. The fact it was the same guys who wrote the entry that almost won in 86 shows they could write. I'm further endeared that one of the them has a Turkish background. The fact that it lost by a point and that neither are in the Best of list below sort of legitimises me talking about it in contrast to the runner up - performed 4th. For what it's worth I think it's a better song than Go which I think is pretty cliche ridden and kinda poor actually but Scott Fitzgerald is a much better singer than Dion - he has a powerful and interesting rich baritone voice which deserved a better song. I guess he didn't have a career for pretty much the same reasons Johnny Logan didn't. I think both rank as an E for me (the mainly relevant winner because of Dion as the song might have got a C or D otherwise but because I dislike her so much I can't bring myself to put this any higher - hey it makes up for all those who think it's a timeless classic because they regard her as an untouchable queen - that's just as much of a bias as my opinion is just in the opposite direction).
1989 - Yugoslavia - Rock Me - performed last out of 22 songs - margin 7pts,5%,39th - overall 137pts,54.4%,46th. It's always interesting to me that I don't remember Go but I remember the UK runner up here - performed 7th - and it's especially funny in retrospect given our track record in the 21st century generally and the 2010s in particular that it was called Why Do I Always Get It Wrong? (that and that we also came second with a song called Rock Bottom which described our results last year). I mention this because I loved that song (it was on kid's tv a lot for some reason at the time stuff like Blue Peter which for some reason I was still sort of watching - maybe I wanted to cling onto the last vestiges of a childhood that was disapearing) and at the time was sooo annoyed that it didn't win. The fact I'm talking about that here and not in the 'Best' Of list shows that I'm kinda over it now and the song hasn't dated that well and is in fact nowhere near as good as I remember it. The funny thing is that I was profoundly unaware of the fact that a) it came second by only 7 pts and b)any awareness of the song that beat it - in fact I wouldn't hear it until cribbing up on winning songs when a much better one reinvigorated my interest in the competition last year. Turns out wasn't missing much on that score as Rock Me is not a rock of ages classic either. It's ok - a nice enough bop and it's good that Yugoslavia got one win before they fell apart as a country and Croatia, who would become the country that often unjustly and usually by a narrow margin failed to qualify for the grand final more often than not, got to host. (There are some rumours that Yugoslavia was already breaking apart at this stage and the juries were encouraged to chuck the Yugoslavs a bone here). It's not even Yugoslavia's best song IMO but it isn't actively annoying, or at least not to me, so that puts it above a few winners in my book. Also from what I've seen whilst 89 isn't the write off of a year that 86 is - it's not exactly an embrassment of riches song wise either. - so it gets a D
90 - Italy - Insieme 92 - (translated title - Together 92) - performed 19th out of 22 songs - 17pts,13%,25th - 159pts,59.1%,34th. Yup that doesn't make it confusing at all that's there's a different date in the title of this song to the one it won in. I will elaborate on this further in the 'Best' of commentary list but 92 IMO is the year where in a fair world Italy would actually won have instead. For me this the awkward middle child of the Italian winners. I've waxed lyrical about No Hon L'Eta (a classic of the early days and the delicate, subtle and sophisticated older sibling) and spoiler alert will be doing so about Zitti E Bouni (the bold, stylish and cool AF younger sibling) when we get there but this isn't a patch of either of those two. It's not a bad song and I think the verses are better than the chrous but don't find that sort of vaguely anthemic soft rock that appealing. I guess I've been further poisoned against it by the fact that there are two songs much better IMO which are in the 'Best' of (this is a bit hypocritical of me considering what I'll say about Ireland in two years time but there you have it) but I don't hate it. I just don't think it's that great and its further shaded by anything it could be compared to both within it's own year and within it's own country (not just the winners but Italy is the country that actually appears most frequently in My 'Best' Of list despite being absent for 13 years). Interestingly it's not a song about the Berlin Wall but about EU Unity hence the date because that's when it was due to happen and did. It's better than Rock Me so - C
91 - Sweden - Fangid Av En Stormwind (translated title - Caught in a Stormwind - given as Storm in West's book - but wind is definately involved there)- performed 8th out of 22 songs - 146pts,57.9%,joint 36th. Tightest of 46 winners since 1975 as this uniquely won on a tie break as it got the exact same number of points as the country that was designated the runner up - which performed just after it - AND honestly since the criteria could have just as easily broken the tie the other way in favour of the French song by different criteria (this won because it got the most number of 10 pts - as they both got the same number of 12 pts - these days the criteria is the greatest number of countries that gave the entry points which would have favoured France instead) I wish they'd done that or declared a tie. I think that the sky wouldn't have fallen and a whole bunch of countries wouldn't have quit like the last time if they had (yes people would have complained about the contest being a merda show but there were enough other cock ups including technical issues during the performance of this song that they'd have done that anyway). A big reason for this is I think the French song that almost won instead is a lot better and also it would have given the poor French a better track record than haven't won since the 70s which is unfair and I'd argue technically wrong. Also they might have hosted and the nation renowed for some of the greatest painters of the Victorian era and early 20th century and its sense of fashion that practically invented the word chic might well come up with something more imaginative staging wise than just having a Viking longship that everyone performed in front of which did not suit some of the songs. This isn't a bad song but I did listen to this with a view to putting it in the 'Best' of list and the starting of it is so dated I just couldn't and wasn't euthiased enough to continue listening to the rest of the song. The chrous isn't bad though and it's grown on me a bit as my first impressions (from a complilation of winner snipets) were even less favourable. The reason I even gave it that fairish shake to begin with is because of Carola .... She is terrific - she's a good singer and a great performer and it's telling that she in a sense would achieve a comparable feat to that of Johnny Logan - like Udo Jurgens she has managed three top five placements from her three appearances at the contest, unlike Jurgens she has done so competing in three different decades, that is impressive especially since her first appearance in 1983 with Framling where she came 3rd she was a teenager! Carola is a big part of why this song prevailed which I agree with West is because of the staging and performance rather than the song itself. Aside from the stellar Ms Haggkvist, there was a wind machine blowing her hair about to get the required storm blown effect and her really good backing dancers which often get more positive comments from reactors than the song does. The way Carola is co-ordinated with them is really fun to watch and quite cute and for keeping going during the technical hitches and doing so like pros that probably helped them impress the juries too. I guess this is the start of really great Swedish staging which would be a feature of the 2010s at least - C (mainly because of Carola and dancers, the song is probably a D on it's own although it is quite catchy)
92 - Ireland - Why Me? - performed 17th out of 23 songs - margin -16pts,12%,31st - overall - 155pts,58.7%,35th. Why indeed. As mentioned previously I think the wrong song won this year and I'll unpack that more in the Best of list but in the comments for the Italian song - performed 19th - that should have won on You Tube there's even an Irish person saying it. That said this isn't bad - Linda Martin is a very good singer (who'd already come second because of that in 1984) and it's a pretty good song. Unlike the previous winner I remember this winning and I remember it got a lot of publicity because it was written by Johnny Logan, achieving a very rare double of writing two winning songs to add to his so far unique feat of two performing two winning songs - it is even more unlikely that anyone will ever top someone doing both even if someone eventually manages to equal his first feat. Interestingly enough it wasn't the first collaboration between Logan as a song writer and Martin as a vocalist at the contest although the previous one (Terminal 3 which came second in 84) has song writing credits listed under Logan's real name of Sean Sherrard. I did wonder if Logan was actually the first person to win twice as a songwriter too but a series of videos on the contest from Alexandrumic actually reveals that it was a French songwriter who wrote the 71 winner and the 72 one Apres Toi although according to Barclay the words only in both cases. As we'll discuss going forward two separate song writers would equal that in the next five years. However back to this song, like Hold Me Now, it's melodically and thematically interesting even if there are elements that in my opinion date it quite badly. West surmises that the self effacation of someone who literally can't believe their luck in finding a loving partner is very much a feature of the more reflective and questioning 90s rather than the brash, assertive 80s and I can see that and how it reasonated with the juries voting for it. In the 60th anniversary program the Irish attribute their success in the 90s to the fact that their songs have a sort of heart felt quality to them. I think they have a point in that they are sincere and they let the songs and sentiments behind them delivered by great vocalists and performers speak for themselves rather than relying on tricks and flashy cheoreography. You can read that comment as being shady to their competitors even inadvertantly though and I do I think that West is right that singing in English also gave them a huge advantage although I also argee that he's right that the sincerity and sweetness of their entries trumped the sort of bombast of the UK ones relagating them to runner ups for this year and the next. - B
93 - Ireland - In Your Eyes - performed 14th out of 25 songs - margin - 23pts,14%,24th - overall - 187pts,64.9%,26th. Like the previous winner this suffers in my eyes (sorry pun not intended) a bit because it's a good song surrounded by ones that are even better that said I think 93 was a bit of annus mirablis and there's a lot of variety and quality there and even the songs that didn't do well aren't actually that bad (except possibly Luxembourg and definately Israel) not even Belgium who came stone dead last with someone who would become a legend for non song related and quite possibly the 'wrong' reasons (although Barbara Dex has very commendably refused to be offended). Some years you get this and I've seen it happen to recent winners who are favourites of mine in similar embrassment of riches years but I'll get onto to talking about later. It is unfair to hold that wah wah wah my favourite didn't win mentality against a song that was still of very good quality especially as deserved is very subjective and - as I'm fond of quoting - the good is NOT the enemy of the better. If I and others don't give bad entries a pass because they often win in ropey years then we shouldn't downgrade good to great winners just because they did so against even better songs in years stacked with quality. This will also be an absolute classic for many I suspect and I don't even have to do that as I've seen one reactor fall utterly in love with this song and performance and have it as one of his fav winners of all time and I get that. Niamh Kavanagh isn't just a great singer, which she is, but she's so expressive it's like she rediates warmth, love and welcome as she performs. She would return in 2010 with a song that expresses the sentiment that if she sung or cried it was for the lonely and she seems so lovely and geunine that you believe it - that song isn't anywhere near as good and it wouldn't do anywhere near as well but it would earn Ireland it's first qualification to the Grand Final in two years which isn't to be sneezed at. Also - unlike someone I will mention in the Best Of' list as she was the only performer in that years top ten I wouldn't put in it from that years top ten - Kavanagh has done or said absolutely nothing to contradict the impression that she's is every bit the throughly nice person that anyone would love to have as romantic partner or bestie that she appears to be. Originally I wasn't actually that impressed with the song that I first heard of it as part of 60th BBC anniversary program I've already mentioned but just after they'd commentated that the juries all roundly ignored the Bosnian entry that the poor guys had literally ran barefoot through gunfire under the cover of darkness to be there in favour of this didn't exactly do it any favours with me. However, although I don't think it's one of the most amazing songs that's ever graced at ESC stage, for it's type it is a very good example of it and by no means an unworthy winner in a very strong year so it gets an A.
94 - Ireland - Rock'n' Roll Kids - performed 3rd out of 25 songs - margin 60pts, 36%, 7th - overall 226pts, 78.5%, 6th. If the Irish were trying to lose by this point they were doing a very bad job at it because this on the other hand I don't just think it is a timeless classic and the best song of the year it competed (Poland - performing 24th - and Hungary - performing 22nd - submitted pretty good ballads this year too and the Hungarian one is especially nice - but I think they aren't quite as good as this but I appreciate opinions vary and ballads aren't my thing) but quite possibly the best thing that Ireland has ever sent to the contest. Like a lot of winners regarded as classics, KIS if you have something of sufficiently high quality to not be forgetable or regarded as boring can work a lot better than flashy staging, complex chereography, eye catching costuming or anything bombastic musically or lyrically, sometimes a well announcated word softly spoken is more effective than a shout and it often dates and lasts a lot better. This also set a bit of precedent for a few other winners (and some other songs that did well) that would just be touching songs with a intimate story that felt personal delivered in an unfussy way vocally and with fairly stripped back instrumentation (this song didn't use the orchestra just relying on the two guys playing the guitar and piano which was fairly unusual at the time) - S
95 - Norway - Nocturne - performed 5th out of 25 songs - margin 29pts, 24%, 11th - overall 148pts,56.1%,42nd - the previous year just wasn't going to go down in history for it's winner or for the first time that you really got Eastern European countries (Poland and Hungary with very good singers with good ballads) achieving top ten results but for it's absolutely iconic interval act (so iconic that 22 years later the Swedish hosts of the Stockholm concert in 2016 would sing in their fun parody history/explanation of the concert that that the interval was every host nation's chance to fail to live up to it) which launched Riverdance upon the world. It was also going to be responsible for inspiring Rolf Lovland (especially according to West the section of dancer Jean Butler performing to a haunting vocal and lone violin) to create one of the most iconic and contraversal winners in the contest's history that would lead him to follow in Johnny Logan's footsteps of writing two Eurovision winners (he'd also written Norway's first winning song). It was also one of the first entries to really bring together elements from various other nations together - and the 'star' would be the one that really set the cat amongst the pigeons as it wasn't the Norweigan singer Gunnhild Tvinnereim but the Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry and despite the woman playing the stringed instrument the Nyckelhar being Swedish that nation were so annoyed that their comments that the song shouldn't be allowed to compete and their lack of votes for it ended up with the Swedish ambassador having to apologise to avoid creating a diplomatic row between the two neighboring countries (you can't help thinking that the Swedes knew they had a strong entry - performing 18th - that ended up coming third might have had something to do with that too). The jurors from Norway's other neighbour Denmark - performing 19th - didn't vote it either (and since they did well too - 5th - then possibly for similar reasons) but practically ever other jury member did. So did it deserve to win? Well yes - it may be effectively a short orchestral piece with a sung introduction and coda but it's a beautiful, sublime and really interesting one (that would be good enough to feature in the major and equally iconic annimated film Shrek in the future) and that rather than the contraversy is what endures. So I think that the EBU were completely right to ignore the Swedish grumbling and let it compete and the juries (Sweden and Denmark aside) were completely right to enable it to win but the EBU were also competely right in promptly writing a rule specifying a minimum amount of sung words to ensure that Nocturne remained a one off and the song contest remained a song contest. [Add this to the Best of list entry - Although it is perhaps ironic that being sparing with its sung content that it would form part of a rare top three where not one word was sung in English that year which wouldn't happen again until 2021] Nether the less it's a still a classic so - S.
96 - Ireland - The Voice - performed 17th out of 23 songs - margin 48pts, 42%, 6th - overall 162pts, 61.4%, 31st - Nocturne is perhaps one of the first examples where you see the influence of the winner upon the next contest as there is a rush for a lot of songs to elimulate it (although the glut of ballads in 94 perhaps can be seen as countries trying to replicate In Your Eyes including it's success) and you ended up with a top three that all had a sort of celtic/nordic medieval theme to them that all sounded like they wouldn't be out of place on a historical, fairytale or swords and sorcery epic film soundtrack. The hosts - performing 12th - started a bit of a mini trend of hosts coming second and proved they could write a good song that actually had a significant amount of words in Norweigan and then the Swedish decided that if they couldn't beat their neighbours they'd join them (their effort Den Vilda -performed last - is in the 'Best' of list). However perhaps it's significant and fitting that the Irish who'd sort of kick started the whole thing were the ones to benefit from it the most. Last year I'd have told you that The Voice is the best thing that the Irish have ever sent to the competition but I'm now a little bit more ambivalent about it although I still think it is among the best things that they have. The fact that I now think that Rock n'Roll Kids is the best Irish entry though is an extreme compliment to Brendan Graham who wrote both and became the third person in the 90s to achieve double ESC success doing so (and both of them are in the top 10 of most comfortable ESC victories of all time). This entry is quite hard to rank as it's haunting and beautiful but it's very stylised in a way - it's sounds sort of mystical and Eimer Quinn's almost flutey vocal give it a great distinctive character but it does mean it's not for everyone (Matt from ESC United does not like it at all) and possibly dates it a bit. It has a great message about respecting the past but also moving towards the future which Chris West thinks was inspired by the peace talks between the republic and United Kingdom over control of Northern Ireland which at the time had stalled but would recommence resulting the so-called Good Friday agreement which still holds today (although there are some justified fears if Brexit and the two countries now having different statuses within the EU and what that means for the border between them around the UK ruled Northern part and if this will reignite the violence between the extremist factions of british unionist and united ireland loyalists again). I'm going to give it a - S/A rank as I do think it's a brilliant entry I'm just not sure how classic I consider it to be and I think it's better than In Your Eyes but not quite as good as Rock n'Roll kids so that feels fair to me.
97 - UK - Love Shine A Light - performed 24th out of 25 songs - margin 70pts, 45%, 4th - overall 227pts, 78.8%, 4th - Of course I remember this one from the time. I have to honest I didn't really like it much then, I suppose I was expecting something like Katrina and the Waves's 80s hit Walking on Sunshine, but now I've changed my mind and I think it's an absolute classic. Chris West is right, Katrina looks like she's having the time of her life on the stage and it is the sort of tune that you would at the time wave your cigarette lighter in the air to (PS - these days in the age of non smoking at gigs - the equivalent is use the torch on your phone). I think it's iconic status was further sealed by becoming the anthem that was adopted during the year the concert was cancelled and almost everyone that year (bleep you Alex of Hooverphonic for not allowing the singer you would eventually sack by text - more on that story in the Best of list - out to play to let Belgium be represented in that one) and also for still almost twenty five years later being the last time we actually won. It's lasted pretty well - it's a sort of great nostalgic anthem to Italy's start of decade meh dated one for me so - S (it's in the Best of list)
98 - Israel - Diva - performed 8th out of 25 songs - margin 10pts,6%,37th - overall 176pts,59.7%,32nd. I remember this too. Mostly because it got a lot of publicity for the reason why I'm glad it won. Dana International would say that her win proved that God endorsed her even if her own countrypeople (or more accurately fundamentalist outspoken elements of it) didn't to the extent where she needed bodyguards and allegedly bullet proof glass to protect her from them and other bigotted extremists. It's depressing how little has changed or even got worse in some places - let people be the best judges of who they need to be and let them live their livies accordingly - it's not political, it's humane and if you can't see the difference then you're not on the side of right. I guess it's appropriate that Dana won in the country that enabled her to be that (she got her gender reassignment surgery in London) which is sadly now know as TERF island (I would say I'm sorry that should be gender critical island but honestly eff not calling a TERF tool a spanner - yes I'm aware that I've used a euthaisasm for the thing that you demonise to add further insult to your supposed injury but yeah I'm happy to pour salt on your self inflicted wounds). So representation aside is the song any good? I'd say yes - it's a pretty memorable, catchy, vaguely anthemic and fun bop and part of the reason why I was familar with it, apart from the ho har of who Dana is, is that it was one of a series of winners covered on a program called Eurotrash (yes really!) by various British indie artists in 'honour' of the contest and it did hold up pretty well. It is however very of it's time and you can tell it's that sort of late 90s/early 00s vaguely poppy song with an EDM beat behind it that would kinda plague the early 00s ESC. It is still for my money still a kinda better example of the type so perhaps aided by it's good intentions and affection for it it gets an A - Viva La Diva indeed!
99 - Sweden - Take Me To Your Heaven - performed 15th out of 23 songs - 17pts,12%,29th - 163pts,61.7,29th. There's a song from the 60s mainstream pop charts that goes 'If paradise is half as nice as the heaven that you take me too, who needs paradise I'd rather have you' well if paradise is half as nice as this load of garbage then I'll know have made some seriously bad life choices and to quote a parody of the Irish classic the Mountains of Morne that my late dad told me I would probably take shovelling crud on the Isle of Capri over enduring this for an eternity. Matt of ESC United says that if he had three minutes he'd stick on this - he seems a considerate type so hopefully he'd use headphones if it was anywhere near me but if he couldn't locate any or insisted on singing along then I know exactly what to retailate with it because it's very loud and aggressive and I love it and he really doesn't. His collegue Roy at ESC United described this as Christmas music but, while I know what he means, I think that's an insult...to Christmas music, some of which I actually like. Seriously one of the reasons I haven't done a list of winners in rank order is that I suspect I'd find it hard to do and would change my mind about it quite a lot and would find it hard to come up with an ultimate winner but one thing would remain consistant and this would be at the bottom. So why I do I hate it so much when it gave and gives others joy? Well...one word springs to mind...bubblegum! But that stuff's harmless, it's fun, it's childlike nostalgia, right? Not if you've had clothes ruined by sitting on its dregs on the bus, or had some bleephead deliberately stick it in your hair or (unlike me this time) had some rubbish service job where you had to scrape it off a surface it stuck like glue to. The soft play area summed it up with getting stuck somewhere else. Bubblegum isn't cute - it's nasty plastic shite that ends up being a nuisance at best and has no value as a foodstuff and whose flavour will fade after you've chewed it a couple of times, that people don't see for what it is because it's assocaited with a shiny innocent good times and pink girliness. So more analogy? Ok calling the spanner a spanner - it's trite - the lyrics are cliche, the tune is cliche, it is the most horribly souless thing that has ever won and one of the worst examples that Sweden as ever sent and they've sent some pap over the years. I find it a bit of a slight on West that he doesn't recognise that sounds much more like a prolefeed song generated by a machine than Diggy Loo, Diggy Ley does. Maybe he doesn't see it because as he points out it's like Waterloo as so it's reflected glory but to me being a bad copy of something good just emphasises the quality of the original and the lack of in the ripoff, if something is going to suck it's much better if it sucks in its own way. I can't bear songs that canibalise much better songs, it just makes me want to go back and listen to the original, it's why I hate a lot of rap that just uses lazy sampling often becoming depressingly succesful in the process or that horrible Call On Me song from the early 00s. If this is like Waterloo, then it is with the glam rock guitars and the fun jangly piano removed. In fact generally it sounds like someone attempted to copy ABBA without understanding what makes them great including replacing the excellent vocals of Anni-Frid and Agneta with someone much less talented, I want to say Disney but honestly that's an insult to Disney who have had some excellent signers over the years and better tunes frankly. Charlotte changing name doesn't have the charm of someone like Agneta or Carola either. Someone praised the staging for being simple and putting Schlarger Charlie front and centre but I don't think it's a compliment to her. You could have an entire circus going on around Carola and you'd still notice Carola. If you did that around Charlotte - she'd just be there as part of the furniture...in her pink pretty blandness in her pink pretty jumpsuit that strategically exposes enough skin to be seen as eye candy but not enough to be provative. She kinda reminds me of a Barbie doll and she's what having done a local pub quiz every week for years and having seen and tried, usually in vain, to indentify an awful lot of women of her type we'd call an indentikit blonde. For good measure I profoundly dislike that this ruddy woman keeps popping up like a wackamole. I effing hated her comeback Hero which was another load of bland trite nonsense that was shoehorned into the final by the juries in 2008 nudging out North Macedonia who'd actually managed to qualify for once instead. And she also pops up with annoying regularity at the Swedish national final Melfest more often than not too from the clips I've seen. What's worse is that unlike with Sandra Kim there were at least two or three significantly better songs or singers that deserved the win way more than this (two of which are in the Best of list and I really wish I'd put Germany - performing in 21st - in there too) and what's worse the two actual queens would have scored first wins for their country and the other option for Estonia might have cleared the way for a better song to win the year they did too. This rant does also mean that I can have a much better Ugly Kid Joe song playing in my head instead 'Some say I've got a bad attitude but that don't change the way I feel about you and if you think it might be getting me down, look again, cos I ain't wearing no frown... I get sick when I'm around, I can't stand to be around, I hate everything about ....you'. Well I did warn you this was going to be opinionated - some of my mates call me a music fascist because I can hate like a douche except what earns my ire the most is the blue eyed, blonde lady so at least I'm not inviting Godwin's Law comparisions. i guess I could be accused of being anti-feminist but TERFs do that to anyone who doesn't go along with their bs and I'm not contractually obliged to support half of the world because they share my gender ID - that's not just unreasonable but unrealistic in my book - let alone like all the music they're a part of. No prizes for guessing that this is an F rank from me -if I could I'd make it an F- or an epic F. And breathe....
2000 - Denmark - Fly On the Wings of Love - performed 14th out of 24 songs - 40pts, 26%, 8th - 195pts,70.7%,14th. If the previous year's, and the second one ever to be purely elected by the televote, winner seemed to prove my mother right when she states that the public just can't be trusted to make good decisions when it comes to judging quality entertainment then this winner would help restore some faith in them especially since it was by a much bigger margin than than the previous winner. Unlike them it doesn't have pretty pink costuming, tacky hooks or resemblences to much better other ESC songs, like them though the staging is stripped back, it's just two middle aged brothers with guitars. This time though they just happen to have a good song (unusually against the grain from what you'd expect from a ESC winner is its in a folky maybe even a bit of a poppy end of country and western style) and they perform it well. They are obviously by now not playing the guitars live as the orchestra and live instrumentation disapeared the previous year but there isn't, I don't think, much instrumentation apart from guitars, which they do play, on the backing track with exceptions being a windwind instrument at the start and a sort of whooshing effect before one of the chrouses. One of the brothers Jorgen Olsen wrote it too and you can tell he was involved with the writing because him and his brother just sing it with such heart and character that you know they mean it. West comments on their maturity constrasting with youthful 17 and 18 year olds from Estonia and Russia (performing 4th and 9th and coming 4th and 2nd respectively) singing about being young and reveals that they used to be in a band that supported The Kinks when they toured Denmark in the 60s. The original lyrics in Dannish spoke of a woman who gets more beautiful every year and West laments that the 'beauty in middle age' (the original version was covered by the 2020-1 Icelandic contestant Dadi Freyer in his Jurodadi videos released on You Tube and no doubt other social media platforms if anyone's interested - I'll discuss an interesting paralel later on and/or the Best of list) theme was toned down in the English lyrics for the ESC but I think the warmth with which I presume Jorgen sings about his love does sort of convey the message this is a mature love between mature people. I think it continues the tradition of Rock n'Roll Kids and the Irish winners generally of fairly simple and simply staged songs performed by great singers and performers with heart and you see it's effective. West states the song stormed into the lead when the voting began and never relinquished it. So obviously it's a step up from the last year but by how much. Well, I think that it's obvious that most people even those who might not have it as their winner don't think it was undeserving but then again few seem to have it as their favourite winner of all time either and whilst as you see I don't bow to popular opinion, I think that while it's an enjoyable and quality winner that it lacks a little bit of the wow factor that maketh a S tier winner. So it's a solid A for me.
2001 - Estonia - Everybody - performed 20th out of 23 songs - margin 21pts,12%,27th - overall 198pts,75%,13th. The previous year Jorgen Olsen had become the first competitor over 50 to win - he held the record for the oldest ESC winner for a year (although to date I think with the other Olsen aged 47 years - the brothers are still the oldest act to have won the contest) as Dave Benton was even older. He was also the first and sadly he remains the only black contestant to have won and he deserved it. Like black guys in general this song is overhated. Neither Benton (some might say it's a bit of a shame he's the sole black guy to have won when fantastic singers like Cesar Sampson or John Lundvik would fail to but they had much stiffer competition) or his fellow singer here Tanal Padar are the best singers to grace the ESC stage (although they are not the worst either) but they are certainly providing entertainment and performing the heck out of the song and they probably won because their enthiasiasm is kinda infectious. The song isn't exactly stellar either but it's not as terrible as some ESC fans would have you believe and it's sort of retooled for the 21st century late 70s funk means it as least is original and makes it standout from everything else that year so if you're not a French ballads fan then only really this and the host entry offer something different from some woman singing over a pulsy EDM track or some electro schlarger fluff which a lot of the ESC fandom seem to prefer but aren't my thing either (I know shocker say all those remembering my 1999 winner review sarcastically in their heads!) and all sound the ruddy same to me. There are some people who have legit affection for this and I'm not going to degrudge them that and it meant a lot to the Estonians to win at the time and get to host a major international event as a newly independent country but I don't think there are many who are saying it's a rock of ages classic winner either. It's fun, it's enjoyable while you're watching it but it's very very very of it's time and it'd be lucky to get past the semis with the standard you get these days. - so it lands a C (mostly elevated from a D by the gusto of Benton and Tanal's performance and for at least being differently bog standard to everything else).
2002 - Latvia - I Wanna - performed 23rd out of 24 songs - margin 12pts,7%,34th - overall 176pts,63.8%,27th. This song only got to the stage because the hosts extended a special invite to their neighbours as neither their performance the previous year or a disqualification from that year qualified them for this one (although the Estonians also invited Israel who this didn't apply to either). This is similar to its neighbour's preceeding winner in being a non stellar but overhated, in retrospect, song of that truimphed in a equally non vintage contest because it at least had a bit more about it than it's rivals unless you're a French ballad lover or fan of bubblegum pop, electro-schlarger or emoting over an EDM dance track and I have to say that I am NOT a fan of sickly sweet bland Maltese song that came second and everything else is quite a bit further back in terms of points. This time we've got a bit of a sort latino Ricky Martin pop thing going on. Like the winning guys last year no one is going to claim Marie N is the best singer (or the best songwriter as she co-wrote and composed the song as too), although she's not the worst (in either case), but she's a very good, engaging and charismatic performer and would go on to be a host the next year. Unlike Everybody it's verses are a lot weaker musically than the chorus but this the start of a run of winners that use really interesting and creative chereography, props and costuming to make them stand out and give the audience something entertaining to look at as well as listen to. It's the start of the ESC becoming as much about putting on a show as singing and performing a song. In this cases it's mainly remembered for taking Bucks Fizz skirt pulling gimic to the next level as Marie in the last chrous goes from wearing a white suit and hat and black shirt which are removed off her to reveal a red dress underneath and watching the whole performance it makes sense as she becomes the latino vixen she's seen dancing with earlier, that she wants to be, which then attracts the attention of the male dancers. Her pronouncation is a bit interesting, West points out that many a viewer is probably confused what exactly Marie wanted to be in the eyes of the person she's addressing, before revealing it's love spark, but I guess that's kinda part of the charm of the song and it's not a misfit with the Mediteranean feel for the song that her English doesn't sound like a native speaker's. I'm giving this the same ranking as Everybody the song isn't as good especially in the verses but the staging is brilliant - so it's a C.
2003 - Turkiye - Everyway That I Can - performed 4th out of 26 songs - margin 2pts, 1%, 44th - overall 167pts,55.7%,44th. There's a bit of upswing in quality to both the contest in general and the winner here IMO. Like with the previous winner I listened to the entire song for the first time to get more of an idea about where to rank it and the verses are better than I Wanna's are but I don't find them that memorable (I guess though if they stick in your brain on first listen they're doing an extraordinarily good job). You got the impression that the Turks got fed up with countries like Latvia stealing their exotic thunder and went all in to take it back and secure their own win. Like with I Wanna the staging is terrific and original and here we have a sort of eastern (appropriate to the country and the song's instrumentation) theme building slightly on the harem theme of the music video, described by West as lush and it is certainly striking. This time the chereography incorporating ribbons and it's noticeable Serteb is one of four winners over the next ten years who took over Sandie Shaw's mantle and performed barefoot. West describes it as an imaginative routine and it certainly was and probably groundbreaking for the time. Serteb was an established star in her own country and is probably a stronger vocalist than Marie too. Like Marie she had a hand in the songwriting too co-composing the music and although she didn't write the words she apparently insisted on singing in English which wasn't popular back home until the song won and then the Turks promptly submitted most of their entries in the language, pretty successfully mostly although this would be their sole winner. West points out the song sold well at the time around the Europe, it apparently reached no.1 in Sweden and Greece as well back in Turkiye and still does well in best of polls but...West was writting that in 2019. While I don't especially rate the dude whose comment thead inspired the Best of...playlist and upcoming comments about that taste he didn't think much of this in comparing it to the bestseller on the billboard for that year and I think it might have actually been the one that provoked the comment about needing better songs..and whilst the reasons for the UK performance being a car crash if true might have impacted this performance too especially vocally it does take the shine off it a bit and it seems that recently that it's started to be reassessed in a much more negative light and it has quietly slipped out of the list of top songs in the great fan poll held at the end of the year to be replaced by another song from that year. However even with the tightness of the victory - (and the stats above aren't even the full story as 3rd place was one point behind the runner up) the fact it achieved it from the earliest performing slot of any winner since the implementation of the televote is a victory that time will probably not take from it especially as the staging gets more elaborate each year. So how does it fair with me. Well...it's sort of solid. It's better than the previous two winners but not as good as some of the ones to come. It's enjoyable to listen to, it's staging is great, it's a slick package especially for its time but it doesn't blow me away as a song and my mind kinda skips it in the list of winners. I can see why it had some staying power and retained it's rep for a while and hasn't sunk to the status of being seen as trash in some quarters like the previous two winners but ultimately doesn't retain it long term. It does nothing really wrong and a lot right but it doesn't absolutely blow you away or have that rock of ages or classic of the time quality and I found it far easier to talk about the history behind the song than the song itself. - I think it's a very obvious B tier for me.
2004 - Ukraine - Wild Dances - performed 10th out of 24 songs - margin 17pts,6%,36th - overall 280pts, 66.7%,23rd - Part of the reason why the previous winner I think has suffered in reputation over the years is that this one just blows it out of the water. This year wasn't vintage but there were a few songs that were absolute classics and this is one of them (why it's victory wasn't that comprehensive is that the runner up was another one). Like it's two precessors it's brilliantly staged but this is more about costuming and performance than props although the battle horn that grabs your attention for the off (and is parodied as such in Love, Love, Peace, Peace which is a tribute to how iconic an opening it is) I suppose counts but everything comes together here with the song as the singer Ruslana and her dancers enter clapping and hey heying and then the main beat kicks in and they all dance energetically with her flicking her hair around with gusto and then she stops and begins belting out the first verse. I've seen reactors' mouths drop open as they wonder where she gets her energy from to move and sing with such gusto. Now admittedly she's pretty clever and does the early blues singer/guitar player trick of pacing herself with the movement so if you watch closely you see she doesn't move anywhere near as much when she's singing, especially during the verses, as she does when she isn't and there's a bit of distracting hairography when she has to be a bit more static and concentrate on the singing but it's still a truly impressive performance and to end up belting out a note flawlessly as you are being lifted onto your dancer's shoulders is a pretty boss move. As with the previous two winners part of the reason why it all works so well together is that Ruslana knows the music enough to make the performance work with it because she wrote it and was even more familar with the rhythm of it as she played the drums on its backing track. As well as like her precedessor Sertab Erener being a big star in her own country she's also a classically trained musician. She talks in the excellent program The Secret Life of Eurovision about her inspiration for the song in the folk traditions of the Carpathian mountains where she grew up and it's the start of something we get quite a bit of Ukraine over the years and I'll go into that with other entries here and in the Best of - the shrewd mix of their traditions with more modern and accessable elements musically. It even has a verse in Ukranian so becomes the first song to win and sets the precedent for their next winner and few other songs that would do well later on of being partly in English and partly in native languages. [might move to Best of list] -The same program also charts the early years of her political activism on her country's behalf that would form part of The Orange Revolution to help free it of Russian influence, she would pass up a lot of opportunities to futher her career and build on her victory to serve in the Ukrainain parliament. Her later efforts in 2013 to resist Russian interference in the Crimeria including camping out with protestors and gettting death threats and then touring Europe to raise awareness in early 2014 would earn her an International Woman of Courage award. As well as loving Ruslana she seemed like a really fun person in the 2020 filmed car pool segment shown in the interval of the 2021 Rotterdam final too so she's a queen. Aside from everything else - the song is such a blast to listen to and dance to and I'm a sucker for culture you can dance and sing along to. No prizes for guessing this is both S tier and in The Best of list.
2005 - Greece - My No.1 - performed 19th out of 24 songs - margin 38pts,20%,18th, overall 230pts,50.4%,52nd - Funny story but because my awareness of this period from the time is that one of my friends talked about a lass winning because she was dressed up like Xena Warrior Princess and it took me encountering the previous winner to realise they weren't talking about the actual Greek one. This is probably a lot of other peoples' No.1. I've seen rankings of winners from the 21st century or a substantial part of it that have it as this. In a poll conducted the year it won to celebrate the contest's 50th birthday it was 4th overall which considering above it were Volare, Waterloo and Hold Me Now is none too shabby and it's dated well too, I can't remember how well it did in the uber fan poll at the end of last year but I'm pretty sure it would have been in that top 50. More musical knowledgable and broad minded in their listening habits folks than me rate this highly too. However it's not mine I'm afraid and not even close but it's certainly closer to being that than my no.70. I think this is a deserving winner (I'll discuss what I think of its rivals in the Best of list but surfice to say they don't blow me away mostly) and I get why it would be a no.1 for a significant amount of people - it's a well constructed boppy song, it has some nice ethnic elements. It continues the run of winners with great staging and cheoreography - espeically with the dancers forming the figure of a number 1 on the stage and one of them lifting singer Helena Paparizou on one of their shoulder to form a stringed instrument that she mimes playing with a bow. Paparizou is fine as a singer and at least pretty good as a performer. She's charismatic and beautiful and she still looked gorgeous returning fifteen years later to perform on the Rotterdam rooftop (even if she was a bit fuller figured especially in the bosom department which is what you'd expect being fifteen years older) where there's some fun footage of the 19 year old Swedish singer that year having himself a great time dancing around to this. However I do find the song a bit bland and generic - I don't mind and quite enjoy it when it's on but I feel compelled neither to fancying listening to it enough to seek it out to play it or to watch the performance independently and it's not in the Best of list for that reason. I don't quite know why - I have one very Greek song in my Best of, I have out and out party bops in my Best of. It does nothing wrong but it doesn't do especially do anything especially right for me either. So for me a solid song that gets a probably highly contraversal B.
2006 - Finland - Hard Rock Hallelujah - performed 17th out of 24 songs - margin 44pts,18%,20th, overall - 292pts,67.6%,18th. If Greece perhaps just wasn't up my alley then this is so much so that it's like it has a neon sign advertising it on walls which have historical significance bedecked in flowers and some cool graffiti art with a lazee boy cloth draped rocking chair with a handy cup holder and a cover keeping off the rain and the sun on on hot days backing onto to a coffee shop/brew pub with table service. This is the concert I tuned in for exactly twenty years after the last one and although mostly I spent a far amount of time wondering why I bothered (I would revise my opinion on some of the songs retrospectively) this made it worth it. I was instantly blown away by this especially since the last thing I expected to see at Eurovision was a heavy metal/rock band in monster make up and costumes that included extending bat wings for the lead singer. My first thought on seeing this was it won't win but if it does it'll be epic and then it did and it was! Someone later would say about something else that they don't trust the taste of anyone who doesn't have this in their top five for the year and yup I feel that way about this and there aren't that many other things I'll accept as a no.1 either for that year either. It's just iconic and so is it's legacy - the band Lordi appeared on postage stamps the next year celebrating the Finnish getting to host for the first and so far only time, the song set a mass karoke singing record it took kids at a kiddie festival organised by a kiddie radio station singing an ubigitious Disney song to beat, a square in the singer Mr Lordi's hometown was named after them. West points out that in a sense that heavy rock/metal for Finland counts as much part of their culture as the elements from the Turkish, first Ukrainian and Greek winners do are part of theirs. I was talking about this for weeks afterwards. I still listen to this song and watch the performance and when the guys reprised this on a rooftop in Rotterdam last year there is footage of not only the Finnish rock band competing there headbanging to it but numerous other contestants including a combined mix of the Norweigan and German singers with backing dancers and band members from Ukraine all forming a small international mosh pit, all joyfully stomping their feet and singing along. Similarly reactors tend to express incredulity and delight when they discover this won - this is the wtf winner I was talking about in the entry - bonkers and brilliant. It has its critics including the UK's sardonic and mostly hilarious broadcaster Graham Norton but a)I have a mountain of evidence that he isn't a rock fan which I will go into in the Best of list as he has turned his savage wit on quite a few of the rock entries there b)he's just wrong and I'll go through why there too. One of my favourite winners of all time - top of S.
(2007 onwards cont'd)
1986 - Belgium - J'aime La Vie (translated title - I Love Life) - also performed 13th out of 20 songs - margin -36pts,26%,9th - overall -176pts,77.2%,8th. Unlike the juries (which all gave it some points) I do NOT love this and how I do not, let me count the ways! This was the year that made me give up on the ESC and I would not watch another contest for literally twenty years - over actually as I don't think I bothered to watch this one. In fairness it's not just this song, I remember hearing pretty much ALL of the songs and not liking a single one of them. I still remain fairly profoundly unimpressed by them as a collection and have a hard time picking a fav - the Swiss runner up is ok and it gets more interesting when you know it's sung by a woman fed up with being hit on by dodgy blokes but it's still a bit dull musically IMO. It's telling that another one of the other more tolerable ones is by Sweden with a rare for them humourous (the purists get annoyed if you call it a joke one - but it's certainly more in that territory than Sweden's usually polished pop stuff) entry. So that's so awful about this winner in such a bad year (especially in light about me being a bit more forgiving to other winners later on in equally unimpressive years)? Well....some of it is the singing. I remember very distinctively at the time parodying the singer Sandra Kim's very high pitched vocal, which I hated (and I have to choose my words carefully here - so to make clear that my issue is the style rather than Kim's capabilities - I'm not an expert and a failed attempt to land a minor principal role in a school choral event proved to me what I'd always suspected which is that I can't pitch or notice a note properly but I've never heard anyone more knowledgable hint at anything that suggests Kim was literally pitchy) because I heard it as squeeky, I think excessively perky might be fairer. I went to a very Euro-centric school so was on occasion exposed to some pretty awful Euro bubblegum pop - I remember this ghastly song in French that had an accompanying very silly dance, that went 'flick flack c'est facile' that J'aime la vie reminded me of. I wasn't strictly speaking an emo kid but school years were NOT the best years of MY life and I wasn't experiencing much joy d'vivre at this stage. I do think it's telling that I enjoyed Kim reprising this a lot of more as a middle aged adult with a considerably lower pitched voice on the Rotterdam rooftop last year. There's something much more endearing about a middle aged lady loving life than a precocious mid teen and I think especially so since the fandom and the press at the time seems to think it was all so cute (whereas I don't - the media then as nowis too in love with overly euthiastic teens and not enough with middle aged women living their best lives). That said I do think that Kim essentially got away with pretending to be older than she actually was is kinda a compliment to her - she was (and still is) very confident and profient performer who handled herself with a maturity that you don't expect from a mid teen. These days she'd probably be a Junior ESC winner or in the running - maybe even like Destiny returning as a fairly successful young adult. It was a sense sort of Kim's win that lead to the setting up of JESC in the first place. Since the Swiss complained at the time about Kim being so young with a view to getting her disqualified (and rather like some French elements trying to create a storm in a teacup last year it was pretty obviously a ploy to net themselves a win in the process by eliminating their more successful rivals). There was some precedent for kids on the ESC stage, as I said before, the lad from Monaco who came practically third in 69 was 12, the Spainish runner up from 79 had kids on stage with her and the Spainish actually did that quite a bit, the year before Hot Eyes performing for Denmark had a kid on stage too. However none of these acts had won before and the fact that this one did spotlight the elephant in the room. So when France and Israel both independently sent even younger kids than Kim in 89, finally the EBU couldn't ignore it any longer and then you had to be over 16 to get on the ESC stage. You'll get another example of later of where a country pushed their luck and, although they got away with it, an unwritten rule suddenly became written one to stop anyone pulling that merde again. So Kim will always be the youngest ESC winner. My dislike of this song isn't all teenaged bitterness or resentment of high pitched teenage voices though or the fact I was kinda going off pop music in general as the zeitgest moved into IMO much more garbage strewn waters (ironically considering this underwhelming concert was coming from Norway the last mainstrem pop band I'd really care about would actually be A-ha) but it's just that it isn't a great song - it's basic and trite and had it not been such a pee poor year probably wouldn't have won IMO. Yup I think 1986 is actually the worst year ever - and nope it's not just the winner for as you will discover there is one that I actually dislike even more and it's not the one you'd expect...and breathe... F
1987 - Ireland - Hold Me Now - performed 20th out of 22 songs - margin 31pts,22%,13th - overall 172pts, 68.3%,17th. The middle of the successful run of Mr Eurovision - himself. Many prefer this to his first win (which is part of why it's in the 'Best' of list) and although for me it's the weaker of the two it's still not bad. There are a few musical cliches in there but it's still a pretty solid song and this one showcases not just Logan's skills as a singer but as a songwriter (as it turns the first of another double which hasn't been achieved by that many others either). People have always wondered why he was so successful at the contest but not outside of it. Some of it has to do with attitude of the British Isles music scene to the contest. The musical journalists of the 80s even looked down on Depeche Mode for starting of their career with Vince Clark (of would later go on to become half of Yazoo and then Erasure) written pop songs so anything tainted by the ESC never had a prayer with them and I don't think the pop kids really rated it either. The UK winners Bucks Fizz (who had a bit of a pop career and actually had some decent songs during it) gave an interview to a popular magazine Smash Hits about how they were sick of reading in their pen pals section must love Duran Duran and hate Bucks Fizz. However I think it was there wasn't really a lot of traditional of ballads in the 80s in the UK at least (Julio Iglesis became very big in Europe but that was really from the 70s) and the ballads I can think of were by people like Spandau Ballet and George Michael who'd already established themselves as mainstream pop or New Romantic acts. A lot of ballad singers were American and the ESC didn't really have a lot of influence over there. As to where Hold Me Now comes - it's a pretty good ballad well regarded by fans but it's not amongst the ground breaking absolute favs for me so a solid A.
1988 - Switzerland - Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi (translated title - Don't Leave Without Me) - performed 9th out of 21 songs - margin -1pt, 1%, 45th - overall - 137pts,57.1%,40th. I remember hearing about Logan's unique achievement and quite liking the song but I'd completely dropped Eurovision from my radar by the time this happened because trust me I'd remember my country losing by a point if I'd be paying any attention. So you can't really accuse me of sour grapes as it would be years before I'd actually know that Celene Dion had even competed in Eurovision let alone beaten the UK by that narrow a margin. It is perhaps a good thing as it would be take the 90s for me to encounter and loathe Celene Dion as an artist - and I do, always have and always will. People who are going 'you what?' here might want to skip ahead and get more of a feel for my taste here and remember I was coming to musical maturity in a post punk environment so warbling ballad singers who wrench ev...er..y....poss..i..ble....e...mot..ion...ou..t of a...note' were probably never going to be my bag but someone said she isn't even actually that great a singer of that type and Houston and Carey, whose output I have about as much time for as Dion's generally - i.e close to zero, are actually better singers. In the 90s I was convinced Dion was only successful because she posed on her album covers not wearing anything (it was tastefully done but still). I remember hearing someone else in the community voice the opinion that although Dion is a legend, the song isn't all that but hearing it being covered by Jamala and Conchita Wurst in the karoke section of the Will Ferrel Fire Saga film based at the contest actually convinces me of the opposite, that the song is actually pretty good for it's type - and that it's Dion's involvement that sinks it for me. The fact it was the same guys who wrote the entry that almost won in 86 shows they could write. I'm further endeared that one of the them has a Turkish background. The fact that it lost by a point and that neither are in the Best of list below sort of legitimises me talking about it in contrast to the runner up - performed 4th. For what it's worth I think it's a better song than Go which I think is pretty cliche ridden and kinda poor actually but Scott Fitzgerald is a much better singer than Dion - he has a powerful and interesting rich baritone voice which deserved a better song. I guess he didn't have a career for pretty much the same reasons Johnny Logan didn't. I think both rank as an E for me (the mainly relevant winner because of Dion as the song might have got a C or D otherwise but because I dislike her so much I can't bring myself to put this any higher - hey it makes up for all those who think it's a timeless classic because they regard her as an untouchable queen - that's just as much of a bias as my opinion is just in the opposite direction).
1989 - Yugoslavia - Rock Me - performed last out of 22 songs - margin 7pts,5%,39th - overall 137pts,54.4%,46th. It's always interesting to me that I don't remember Go but I remember the UK runner up here - performed 7th - and it's especially funny in retrospect given our track record in the 21st century generally and the 2010s in particular that it was called Why Do I Always Get It Wrong? (that and that we also came second with a song called Rock Bottom which described our results last year). I mention this because I loved that song (it was on kid's tv a lot for some reason at the time stuff like Blue Peter which for some reason I was still sort of watching - maybe I wanted to cling onto the last vestiges of a childhood that was disapearing) and at the time was sooo annoyed that it didn't win. The fact I'm talking about that here and not in the 'Best' Of list shows that I'm kinda over it now and the song hasn't dated that well and is in fact nowhere near as good as I remember it. The funny thing is that I was profoundly unaware of the fact that a) it came second by only 7 pts and b)any awareness of the song that beat it - in fact I wouldn't hear it until cribbing up on winning songs when a much better one reinvigorated my interest in the competition last year. Turns out wasn't missing much on that score as Rock Me is not a rock of ages classic either. It's ok - a nice enough bop and it's good that Yugoslavia got one win before they fell apart as a country and Croatia, who would become the country that often unjustly and usually by a narrow margin failed to qualify for the grand final more often than not, got to host. (There are some rumours that Yugoslavia was already breaking apart at this stage and the juries were encouraged to chuck the Yugoslavs a bone here). It's not even Yugoslavia's best song IMO but it isn't actively annoying, or at least not to me, so that puts it above a few winners in my book. Also from what I've seen whilst 89 isn't the write off of a year that 86 is - it's not exactly an embrassment of riches song wise either. - so it gets a D
90 - Italy - Insieme 92 - (translated title - Together 92) - performed 19th out of 22 songs - 17pts,13%,25th - 159pts,59.1%,34th. Yup that doesn't make it confusing at all that's there's a different date in the title of this song to the one it won in. I will elaborate on this further in the 'Best' of commentary list but 92 IMO is the year where in a fair world Italy would actually won have instead. For me this the awkward middle child of the Italian winners. I've waxed lyrical about No Hon L'Eta (a classic of the early days and the delicate, subtle and sophisticated older sibling) and spoiler alert will be doing so about Zitti E Bouni (the bold, stylish and cool AF younger sibling) when we get there but this isn't a patch of either of those two. It's not a bad song and I think the verses are better than the chrous but don't find that sort of vaguely anthemic soft rock that appealing. I guess I've been further poisoned against it by the fact that there are two songs much better IMO which are in the 'Best' of (this is a bit hypocritical of me considering what I'll say about Ireland in two years time but there you have it) but I don't hate it. I just don't think it's that great and its further shaded by anything it could be compared to both within it's own year and within it's own country (not just the winners but Italy is the country that actually appears most frequently in My 'Best' Of list despite being absent for 13 years). Interestingly it's not a song about the Berlin Wall but about EU Unity hence the date because that's when it was due to happen and did. It's better than Rock Me so - C
91 - Sweden - Fangid Av En Stormwind (translated title - Caught in a Stormwind - given as Storm in West's book - but wind is definately involved there)- performed 8th out of 22 songs - 146pts,57.9%,joint 36th. Tightest of 46 winners since 1975 as this uniquely won on a tie break as it got the exact same number of points as the country that was designated the runner up - which performed just after it - AND honestly since the criteria could have just as easily broken the tie the other way in favour of the French song by different criteria (this won because it got the most number of 10 pts - as they both got the same number of 12 pts - these days the criteria is the greatest number of countries that gave the entry points which would have favoured France instead) I wish they'd done that or declared a tie. I think that the sky wouldn't have fallen and a whole bunch of countries wouldn't have quit like the last time if they had (yes people would have complained about the contest being a merda show but there were enough other cock ups including technical issues during the performance of this song that they'd have done that anyway). A big reason for this is I think the French song that almost won instead is a lot better and also it would have given the poor French a better track record than haven't won since the 70s which is unfair and I'd argue technically wrong. Also they might have hosted and the nation renowed for some of the greatest painters of the Victorian era and early 20th century and its sense of fashion that practically invented the word chic might well come up with something more imaginative staging wise than just having a Viking longship that everyone performed in front of which did not suit some of the songs. This isn't a bad song but I did listen to this with a view to putting it in the 'Best' of list and the starting of it is so dated I just couldn't and wasn't euthiased enough to continue listening to the rest of the song. The chrous isn't bad though and it's grown on me a bit as my first impressions (from a complilation of winner snipets) were even less favourable. The reason I even gave it that fairish shake to begin with is because of Carola .... She is terrific - she's a good singer and a great performer and it's telling that she in a sense would achieve a comparable feat to that of Johnny Logan - like Udo Jurgens she has managed three top five placements from her three appearances at the contest, unlike Jurgens she has done so competing in three different decades, that is impressive especially since her first appearance in 1983 with Framling where she came 3rd she was a teenager! Carola is a big part of why this song prevailed which I agree with West is because of the staging and performance rather than the song itself. Aside from the stellar Ms Haggkvist, there was a wind machine blowing her hair about to get the required storm blown effect and her really good backing dancers which often get more positive comments from reactors than the song does. The way Carola is co-ordinated with them is really fun to watch and quite cute and for keeping going during the technical hitches and doing so like pros that probably helped them impress the juries too. I guess this is the start of really great Swedish staging which would be a feature of the 2010s at least - C (mainly because of Carola and dancers, the song is probably a D on it's own although it is quite catchy)
92 - Ireland - Why Me? - performed 17th out of 23 songs - margin -16pts,12%,31st - overall - 155pts,58.7%,35th. Why indeed. As mentioned previously I think the wrong song won this year and I'll unpack that more in the Best of list but in the comments for the Italian song - performed 19th - that should have won on You Tube there's even an Irish person saying it. That said this isn't bad - Linda Martin is a very good singer (who'd already come second because of that in 1984) and it's a pretty good song. Unlike the previous winner I remember this winning and I remember it got a lot of publicity because it was written by Johnny Logan, achieving a very rare double of writing two winning songs to add to his so far unique feat of two performing two winning songs - it is even more unlikely that anyone will ever top someone doing both even if someone eventually manages to equal his first feat. Interestingly enough it wasn't the first collaboration between Logan as a song writer and Martin as a vocalist at the contest although the previous one (Terminal 3 which came second in 84) has song writing credits listed under Logan's real name of Sean Sherrard. I did wonder if Logan was actually the first person to win twice as a songwriter too but a series of videos on the contest from Alexandrumic actually reveals that it was a French songwriter who wrote the 71 winner and the 72 one Apres Toi although according to Barclay the words only in both cases. As we'll discuss going forward two separate song writers would equal that in the next five years. However back to this song, like Hold Me Now, it's melodically and thematically interesting even if there are elements that in my opinion date it quite badly. West surmises that the self effacation of someone who literally can't believe their luck in finding a loving partner is very much a feature of the more reflective and questioning 90s rather than the brash, assertive 80s and I can see that and how it reasonated with the juries voting for it. In the 60th anniversary program the Irish attribute their success in the 90s to the fact that their songs have a sort of heart felt quality to them. I think they have a point in that they are sincere and they let the songs and sentiments behind them delivered by great vocalists and performers speak for themselves rather than relying on tricks and flashy cheoreography. You can read that comment as being shady to their competitors even inadvertantly though and I do I think that West is right that singing in English also gave them a huge advantage although I also argee that he's right that the sincerity and sweetness of their entries trumped the sort of bombast of the UK ones relagating them to runner ups for this year and the next. - B
93 - Ireland - In Your Eyes - performed 14th out of 25 songs - margin - 23pts,14%,24th - overall - 187pts,64.9%,26th. Like the previous winner this suffers in my eyes (sorry pun not intended) a bit because it's a good song surrounded by ones that are even better that said I think 93 was a bit of annus mirablis and there's a lot of variety and quality there and even the songs that didn't do well aren't actually that bad (except possibly Luxembourg and definately Israel) not even Belgium who came stone dead last with someone who would become a legend for non song related and quite possibly the 'wrong' reasons (although Barbara Dex has very commendably refused to be offended). Some years you get this and I've seen it happen to recent winners who are favourites of mine in similar embrassment of riches years but I'll get onto to talking about later. It is unfair to hold that wah wah wah my favourite didn't win mentality against a song that was still of very good quality especially as deserved is very subjective and - as I'm fond of quoting - the good is NOT the enemy of the better. If I and others don't give bad entries a pass because they often win in ropey years then we shouldn't downgrade good to great winners just because they did so against even better songs in years stacked with quality. This will also be an absolute classic for many I suspect and I don't even have to do that as I've seen one reactor fall utterly in love with this song and performance and have it as one of his fav winners of all time and I get that. Niamh Kavanagh isn't just a great singer, which she is, but she's so expressive it's like she rediates warmth, love and welcome as she performs. She would return in 2010 with a song that expresses the sentiment that if she sung or cried it was for the lonely and she seems so lovely and geunine that you believe it - that song isn't anywhere near as good and it wouldn't do anywhere near as well but it would earn Ireland it's first qualification to the Grand Final in two years which isn't to be sneezed at. Also - unlike someone I will mention in the Best Of' list as she was the only performer in that years top ten I wouldn't put in it from that years top ten - Kavanagh has done or said absolutely nothing to contradict the impression that she's is every bit the throughly nice person that anyone would love to have as romantic partner or bestie that she appears to be. Originally I wasn't actually that impressed with the song that I first heard of it as part of 60th BBC anniversary program I've already mentioned but just after they'd commentated that the juries all roundly ignored the Bosnian entry that the poor guys had literally ran barefoot through gunfire under the cover of darkness to be there in favour of this didn't exactly do it any favours with me. However, although I don't think it's one of the most amazing songs that's ever graced at ESC stage, for it's type it is a very good example of it and by no means an unworthy winner in a very strong year so it gets an A.
94 - Ireland - Rock'n' Roll Kids - performed 3rd out of 25 songs - margin 60pts, 36%, 7th - overall 226pts, 78.5%, 6th. If the Irish were trying to lose by this point they were doing a very bad job at it because this on the other hand I don't just think it is a timeless classic and the best song of the year it competed (Poland - performing 24th - and Hungary - performing 22nd - submitted pretty good ballads this year too and the Hungarian one is especially nice - but I think they aren't quite as good as this but I appreciate opinions vary and ballads aren't my thing) but quite possibly the best thing that Ireland has ever sent to the contest. Like a lot of winners regarded as classics, KIS if you have something of sufficiently high quality to not be forgetable or regarded as boring can work a lot better than flashy staging, complex chereography, eye catching costuming or anything bombastic musically or lyrically, sometimes a well announcated word softly spoken is more effective than a shout and it often dates and lasts a lot better. This also set a bit of precedent for a few other winners (and some other songs that did well) that would just be touching songs with a intimate story that felt personal delivered in an unfussy way vocally and with fairly stripped back instrumentation (this song didn't use the orchestra just relying on the two guys playing the guitar and piano which was fairly unusual at the time) - S
95 - Norway - Nocturne - performed 5th out of 25 songs - margin 29pts, 24%, 11th - overall 148pts,56.1%,42nd - the previous year just wasn't going to go down in history for it's winner or for the first time that you really got Eastern European countries (Poland and Hungary with very good singers with good ballads) achieving top ten results but for it's absolutely iconic interval act (so iconic that 22 years later the Swedish hosts of the Stockholm concert in 2016 would sing in their fun parody history/explanation of the concert that that the interval was every host nation's chance to fail to live up to it) which launched Riverdance upon the world. It was also going to be responsible for inspiring Rolf Lovland (especially according to West the section of dancer Jean Butler performing to a haunting vocal and lone violin) to create one of the most iconic and contraversal winners in the contest's history that would lead him to follow in Johnny Logan's footsteps of writing two Eurovision winners (he'd also written Norway's first winning song). It was also one of the first entries to really bring together elements from various other nations together - and the 'star' would be the one that really set the cat amongst the pigeons as it wasn't the Norweigan singer Gunnhild Tvinnereim but the Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry and despite the woman playing the stringed instrument the Nyckelhar being Swedish that nation were so annoyed that their comments that the song shouldn't be allowed to compete and their lack of votes for it ended up with the Swedish ambassador having to apologise to avoid creating a diplomatic row between the two neighboring countries (you can't help thinking that the Swedes knew they had a strong entry - performing 18th - that ended up coming third might have had something to do with that too). The jurors from Norway's other neighbour Denmark - performing 19th - didn't vote it either (and since they did well too - 5th - then possibly for similar reasons) but practically ever other jury member did. So did it deserve to win? Well yes - it may be effectively a short orchestral piece with a sung introduction and coda but it's a beautiful, sublime and really interesting one (that would be good enough to feature in the major and equally iconic annimated film Shrek in the future) and that rather than the contraversy is what endures. So I think that the EBU were completely right to ignore the Swedish grumbling and let it compete and the juries (Sweden and Denmark aside) were completely right to enable it to win but the EBU were also competely right in promptly writing a rule specifying a minimum amount of sung words to ensure that Nocturne remained a one off and the song contest remained a song contest. [Add this to the Best of list entry - Although it is perhaps ironic that being sparing with its sung content that it would form part of a rare top three where not one word was sung in English that year which wouldn't happen again until 2021] Nether the less it's a still a classic so - S.
96 - Ireland - The Voice - performed 17th out of 23 songs - margin 48pts, 42%, 6th - overall 162pts, 61.4%, 31st - Nocturne is perhaps one of the first examples where you see the influence of the winner upon the next contest as there is a rush for a lot of songs to elimulate it (although the glut of ballads in 94 perhaps can be seen as countries trying to replicate In Your Eyes including it's success) and you ended up with a top three that all had a sort of celtic/nordic medieval theme to them that all sounded like they wouldn't be out of place on a historical, fairytale or swords and sorcery epic film soundtrack. The hosts - performing 12th - started a bit of a mini trend of hosts coming second and proved they could write a good song that actually had a significant amount of words in Norweigan and then the Swedish decided that if they couldn't beat their neighbours they'd join them (their effort Den Vilda -performed last - is in the 'Best' of list). However perhaps it's significant and fitting that the Irish who'd sort of kick started the whole thing were the ones to benefit from it the most. Last year I'd have told you that The Voice is the best thing that the Irish have ever sent to the competition but I'm now a little bit more ambivalent about it although I still think it is among the best things that they have. The fact that I now think that Rock n'Roll Kids is the best Irish entry though is an extreme compliment to Brendan Graham who wrote both and became the third person in the 90s to achieve double ESC success doing so (and both of them are in the top 10 of most comfortable ESC victories of all time). This entry is quite hard to rank as it's haunting and beautiful but it's very stylised in a way - it's sounds sort of mystical and Eimer Quinn's almost flutey vocal give it a great distinctive character but it does mean it's not for everyone (Matt from ESC United does not like it at all) and possibly dates it a bit. It has a great message about respecting the past but also moving towards the future which Chris West thinks was inspired by the peace talks between the republic and United Kingdom over control of Northern Ireland which at the time had stalled but would recommence resulting the so-called Good Friday agreement which still holds today (although there are some justified fears if Brexit and the two countries now having different statuses within the EU and what that means for the border between them around the UK ruled Northern part and if this will reignite the violence between the extremist factions of british unionist and united ireland loyalists again). I'm going to give it a - S/A rank as I do think it's a brilliant entry I'm just not sure how classic I consider it to be and I think it's better than In Your Eyes but not quite as good as Rock n'Roll kids so that feels fair to me.
97 - UK - Love Shine A Light - performed 24th out of 25 songs - margin 70pts, 45%, 4th - overall 227pts, 78.8%, 4th - Of course I remember this one from the time. I have to honest I didn't really like it much then, I suppose I was expecting something like Katrina and the Waves's 80s hit Walking on Sunshine, but now I've changed my mind and I think it's an absolute classic. Chris West is right, Katrina looks like she's having the time of her life on the stage and it is the sort of tune that you would at the time wave your cigarette lighter in the air to (PS - these days in the age of non smoking at gigs - the equivalent is use the torch on your phone). I think it's iconic status was further sealed by becoming the anthem that was adopted during the year the concert was cancelled and almost everyone that year (bleep you Alex of Hooverphonic for not allowing the singer you would eventually sack by text - more on that story in the Best of list - out to play to let Belgium be represented in that one) and also for still almost twenty five years later being the last time we actually won. It's lasted pretty well - it's a sort of great nostalgic anthem to Italy's start of decade meh dated one for me so - S (it's in the Best of list)
98 - Israel - Diva - performed 8th out of 25 songs - margin 10pts,6%,37th - overall 176pts,59.7%,32nd. I remember this too. Mostly because it got a lot of publicity for the reason why I'm glad it won. Dana International would say that her win proved that God endorsed her even if her own countrypeople (or more accurately fundamentalist outspoken elements of it) didn't to the extent where she needed bodyguards and allegedly bullet proof glass to protect her from them and other bigotted extremists. It's depressing how little has changed or even got worse in some places - let people be the best judges of who they need to be and let them live their livies accordingly - it's not political, it's humane and if you can't see the difference then you're not on the side of right. I guess it's appropriate that Dana won in the country that enabled her to be that (she got her gender reassignment surgery in London) which is sadly now know as TERF island (I would say I'm sorry that should be gender critical island but honestly eff not calling a TERF tool a spanner - yes I'm aware that I've used a euthaisasm for the thing that you demonise to add further insult to your supposed injury but yeah I'm happy to pour salt on your self inflicted wounds). So representation aside is the song any good? I'd say yes - it's a pretty memorable, catchy, vaguely anthemic and fun bop and part of the reason why I was familar with it, apart from the ho har of who Dana is, is that it was one of a series of winners covered on a program called Eurotrash (yes really!) by various British indie artists in 'honour' of the contest and it did hold up pretty well. It is however very of it's time and you can tell it's that sort of late 90s/early 00s vaguely poppy song with an EDM beat behind it that would kinda plague the early 00s ESC. It is still for my money still a kinda better example of the type so perhaps aided by it's good intentions and affection for it it gets an A - Viva La Diva indeed!
99 - Sweden - Take Me To Your Heaven - performed 15th out of 23 songs - 17pts,12%,29th - 163pts,61.7,29th. There's a song from the 60s mainstream pop charts that goes 'If paradise is half as nice as the heaven that you take me too, who needs paradise I'd rather have you' well if paradise is half as nice as this load of garbage then I'll know have made some seriously bad life choices and to quote a parody of the Irish classic the Mountains of Morne that my late dad told me I would probably take shovelling crud on the Isle of Capri over enduring this for an eternity. Matt of ESC United says that if he had three minutes he'd stick on this - he seems a considerate type so hopefully he'd use headphones if it was anywhere near me but if he couldn't locate any or insisted on singing along then I know exactly what to retailate with it because it's very loud and aggressive and I love it and he really doesn't. His collegue Roy at ESC United described this as Christmas music but, while I know what he means, I think that's an insult...to Christmas music, some of which I actually like. Seriously one of the reasons I haven't done a list of winners in rank order is that I suspect I'd find it hard to do and would change my mind about it quite a lot and would find it hard to come up with an ultimate winner but one thing would remain consistant and this would be at the bottom. So why I do I hate it so much when it gave and gives others joy? Well...one word springs to mind...bubblegum! But that stuff's harmless, it's fun, it's childlike nostalgia, right? Not if you've had clothes ruined by sitting on its dregs on the bus, or had some bleephead deliberately stick it in your hair or (unlike me this time) had some rubbish service job where you had to scrape it off a surface it stuck like glue to. The soft play area summed it up with getting stuck somewhere else. Bubblegum isn't cute - it's nasty plastic shite that ends up being a nuisance at best and has no value as a foodstuff and whose flavour will fade after you've chewed it a couple of times, that people don't see for what it is because it's assocaited with a shiny innocent good times and pink girliness. So more analogy? Ok calling the spanner a spanner - it's trite - the lyrics are cliche, the tune is cliche, it is the most horribly souless thing that has ever won and one of the worst examples that Sweden as ever sent and they've sent some pap over the years. I find it a bit of a slight on West that he doesn't recognise that sounds much more like a prolefeed song generated by a machine than Diggy Loo, Diggy Ley does. Maybe he doesn't see it because as he points out it's like Waterloo as so it's reflected glory but to me being a bad copy of something good just emphasises the quality of the original and the lack of in the ripoff, if something is going to suck it's much better if it sucks in its own way. I can't bear songs that canibalise much better songs, it just makes me want to go back and listen to the original, it's why I hate a lot of rap that just uses lazy sampling often becoming depressingly succesful in the process or that horrible Call On Me song from the early 00s. If this is like Waterloo, then it is with the glam rock guitars and the fun jangly piano removed. In fact generally it sounds like someone attempted to copy ABBA without understanding what makes them great including replacing the excellent vocals of Anni-Frid and Agneta with someone much less talented, I want to say Disney but honestly that's an insult to Disney who have had some excellent signers over the years and better tunes frankly. Charlotte changing name doesn't have the charm of someone like Agneta or Carola either. Someone praised the staging for being simple and putting Schlarger Charlie front and centre but I don't think it's a compliment to her. You could have an entire circus going on around Carola and you'd still notice Carola. If you did that around Charlotte - she'd just be there as part of the furniture...in her pink pretty blandness in her pink pretty jumpsuit that strategically exposes enough skin to be seen as eye candy but not enough to be provative. She kinda reminds me of a Barbie doll and she's what having done a local pub quiz every week for years and having seen and tried, usually in vain, to indentify an awful lot of women of her type we'd call an indentikit blonde. For good measure I profoundly dislike that this ruddy woman keeps popping up like a wackamole. I effing hated her comeback Hero which was another load of bland trite nonsense that was shoehorned into the final by the juries in 2008 nudging out North Macedonia who'd actually managed to qualify for once instead. And she also pops up with annoying regularity at the Swedish national final Melfest more often than not too from the clips I've seen. What's worse is that unlike with Sandra Kim there were at least two or three significantly better songs or singers that deserved the win way more than this (two of which are in the Best of list and I really wish I'd put Germany - performing in 21st - in there too) and what's worse the two actual queens would have scored first wins for their country and the other option for Estonia might have cleared the way for a better song to win the year they did too. This rant does also mean that I can have a much better Ugly Kid Joe song playing in my head instead 'Some say I've got a bad attitude but that don't change the way I feel about you and if you think it might be getting me down, look again, cos I ain't wearing no frown... I get sick when I'm around, I can't stand to be around, I hate everything about ....you'. Well I did warn you this was going to be opinionated - some of my mates call me a music fascist because I can hate like a douche except what earns my ire the most is the blue eyed, blonde lady so at least I'm not inviting Godwin's Law comparisions. i guess I could be accused of being anti-feminist but TERFs do that to anyone who doesn't go along with their bs and I'm not contractually obliged to support half of the world because they share my gender ID - that's not just unreasonable but unrealistic in my book - let alone like all the music they're a part of. No prizes for guessing that this is an F rank from me -if I could I'd make it an F- or an epic F. And breathe....
2000 - Denmark - Fly On the Wings of Love - performed 14th out of 24 songs - 40pts, 26%, 8th - 195pts,70.7%,14th. If the previous year's, and the second one ever to be purely elected by the televote, winner seemed to prove my mother right when she states that the public just can't be trusted to make good decisions when it comes to judging quality entertainment then this winner would help restore some faith in them especially since it was by a much bigger margin than than the previous winner. Unlike them it doesn't have pretty pink costuming, tacky hooks or resemblences to much better other ESC songs, like them though the staging is stripped back, it's just two middle aged brothers with guitars. This time though they just happen to have a good song (unusually against the grain from what you'd expect from a ESC winner is its in a folky maybe even a bit of a poppy end of country and western style) and they perform it well. They are obviously by now not playing the guitars live as the orchestra and live instrumentation disapeared the previous year but there isn't, I don't think, much instrumentation apart from guitars, which they do play, on the backing track with exceptions being a windwind instrument at the start and a sort of whooshing effect before one of the chrouses. One of the brothers Jorgen Olsen wrote it too and you can tell he was involved with the writing because him and his brother just sing it with such heart and character that you know they mean it. West comments on their maturity constrasting with youthful 17 and 18 year olds from Estonia and Russia (performing 4th and 9th and coming 4th and 2nd respectively) singing about being young and reveals that they used to be in a band that supported The Kinks when they toured Denmark in the 60s. The original lyrics in Dannish spoke of a woman who gets more beautiful every year and West laments that the 'beauty in middle age' (the original version was covered by the 2020-1 Icelandic contestant Dadi Freyer in his Jurodadi videos released on You Tube and no doubt other social media platforms if anyone's interested - I'll discuss an interesting paralel later on and/or the Best of list) theme was toned down in the English lyrics for the ESC but I think the warmth with which I presume Jorgen sings about his love does sort of convey the message this is a mature love between mature people. I think it continues the tradition of Rock n'Roll Kids and the Irish winners generally of fairly simple and simply staged songs performed by great singers and performers with heart and you see it's effective. West states the song stormed into the lead when the voting began and never relinquished it. So obviously it's a step up from the last year but by how much. Well, I think that it's obvious that most people even those who might not have it as their winner don't think it was undeserving but then again few seem to have it as their favourite winner of all time either and whilst as you see I don't bow to popular opinion, I think that while it's an enjoyable and quality winner that it lacks a little bit of the wow factor that maketh a S tier winner. So it's a solid A for me.
2001 - Estonia - Everybody - performed 20th out of 23 songs - margin 21pts,12%,27th - overall 198pts,75%,13th. The previous year Jorgen Olsen had become the first competitor over 50 to win - he held the record for the oldest ESC winner for a year (although to date I think with the other Olsen aged 47 years - the brothers are still the oldest act to have won the contest) as Dave Benton was even older. He was also the first and sadly he remains the only black contestant to have won and he deserved it. Like black guys in general this song is overhated. Neither Benton (some might say it's a bit of a shame he's the sole black guy to have won when fantastic singers like Cesar Sampson or John Lundvik would fail to but they had much stiffer competition) or his fellow singer here Tanal Padar are the best singers to grace the ESC stage (although they are not the worst either) but they are certainly providing entertainment and performing the heck out of the song and they probably won because their enthiasiasm is kinda infectious. The song isn't exactly stellar either but it's not as terrible as some ESC fans would have you believe and it's sort of retooled for the 21st century late 70s funk means it as least is original and makes it standout from everything else that year so if you're not a French ballads fan then only really this and the host entry offer something different from some woman singing over a pulsy EDM track or some electro schlarger fluff which a lot of the ESC fandom seem to prefer but aren't my thing either (I know shocker say all those remembering my 1999 winner review sarcastically in their heads!) and all sound the ruddy same to me. There are some people who have legit affection for this and I'm not going to degrudge them that and it meant a lot to the Estonians to win at the time and get to host a major international event as a newly independent country but I don't think there are many who are saying it's a rock of ages classic winner either. It's fun, it's enjoyable while you're watching it but it's very very very of it's time and it'd be lucky to get past the semis with the standard you get these days. - so it lands a C (mostly elevated from a D by the gusto of Benton and Tanal's performance and for at least being differently bog standard to everything else).
2002 - Latvia - I Wanna - performed 23rd out of 24 songs - margin 12pts,7%,34th - overall 176pts,63.8%,27th. This song only got to the stage because the hosts extended a special invite to their neighbours as neither their performance the previous year or a disqualification from that year qualified them for this one (although the Estonians also invited Israel who this didn't apply to either). This is similar to its neighbour's preceeding winner in being a non stellar but overhated, in retrospect, song of that truimphed in a equally non vintage contest because it at least had a bit more about it than it's rivals unless you're a French ballad lover or fan of bubblegum pop, electro-schlarger or emoting over an EDM dance track and I have to say that I am NOT a fan of sickly sweet bland Maltese song that came second and everything else is quite a bit further back in terms of points. This time we've got a bit of a sort latino Ricky Martin pop thing going on. Like the winning guys last year no one is going to claim Marie N is the best singer (or the best songwriter as she co-wrote and composed the song as too), although she's not the worst (in either case), but she's a very good, engaging and charismatic performer and would go on to be a host the next year. Unlike Everybody it's verses are a lot weaker musically than the chorus but this the start of a run of winners that use really interesting and creative chereography, props and costuming to make them stand out and give the audience something entertaining to look at as well as listen to. It's the start of the ESC becoming as much about putting on a show as singing and performing a song. In this cases it's mainly remembered for taking Bucks Fizz skirt pulling gimic to the next level as Marie in the last chrous goes from wearing a white suit and hat and black shirt which are removed off her to reveal a red dress underneath and watching the whole performance it makes sense as she becomes the latino vixen she's seen dancing with earlier, that she wants to be, which then attracts the attention of the male dancers. Her pronouncation is a bit interesting, West points out that many a viewer is probably confused what exactly Marie wanted to be in the eyes of the person she's addressing, before revealing it's love spark, but I guess that's kinda part of the charm of the song and it's not a misfit with the Mediteranean feel for the song that her English doesn't sound like a native speaker's. I'm giving this the same ranking as Everybody the song isn't as good especially in the verses but the staging is brilliant - so it's a C.
2003 - Turkiye - Everyway That I Can - performed 4th out of 26 songs - margin 2pts, 1%, 44th - overall 167pts,55.7%,44th. There's a bit of upswing in quality to both the contest in general and the winner here IMO. Like with the previous winner I listened to the entire song for the first time to get more of an idea about where to rank it and the verses are better than I Wanna's are but I don't find them that memorable (I guess though if they stick in your brain on first listen they're doing an extraordinarily good job). You got the impression that the Turks got fed up with countries like Latvia stealing their exotic thunder and went all in to take it back and secure their own win. Like with I Wanna the staging is terrific and original and here we have a sort of eastern (appropriate to the country and the song's instrumentation) theme building slightly on the harem theme of the music video, described by West as lush and it is certainly striking. This time the chereography incorporating ribbons and it's noticeable Serteb is one of four winners over the next ten years who took over Sandie Shaw's mantle and performed barefoot. West describes it as an imaginative routine and it certainly was and probably groundbreaking for the time. Serteb was an established star in her own country and is probably a stronger vocalist than Marie too. Like Marie she had a hand in the songwriting too co-composing the music and although she didn't write the words she apparently insisted on singing in English which wasn't popular back home until the song won and then the Turks promptly submitted most of their entries in the language, pretty successfully mostly although this would be their sole winner. West points out the song sold well at the time around the Europe, it apparently reached no.1 in Sweden and Greece as well back in Turkiye and still does well in best of polls but...West was writting that in 2019. While I don't especially rate the dude whose comment thead inspired the Best of...playlist and upcoming comments about that taste he didn't think much of this in comparing it to the bestseller on the billboard for that year and I think it might have actually been the one that provoked the comment about needing better songs..and whilst the reasons for the UK performance being a car crash if true might have impacted this performance too especially vocally it does take the shine off it a bit and it seems that recently that it's started to be reassessed in a much more negative light and it has quietly slipped out of the list of top songs in the great fan poll held at the end of the year to be replaced by another song from that year. However even with the tightness of the victory - (and the stats above aren't even the full story as 3rd place was one point behind the runner up) the fact it achieved it from the earliest performing slot of any winner since the implementation of the televote is a victory that time will probably not take from it especially as the staging gets more elaborate each year. So how does it fair with me. Well...it's sort of solid. It's better than the previous two winners but not as good as some of the ones to come. It's enjoyable to listen to, it's staging is great, it's a slick package especially for its time but it doesn't blow me away as a song and my mind kinda skips it in the list of winners. I can see why it had some staying power and retained it's rep for a while and hasn't sunk to the status of being seen as trash in some quarters like the previous two winners but ultimately doesn't retain it long term. It does nothing really wrong and a lot right but it doesn't absolutely blow you away or have that rock of ages or classic of the time quality and I found it far easier to talk about the history behind the song than the song itself. - I think it's a very obvious B tier for me.
2004 - Ukraine - Wild Dances - performed 10th out of 24 songs - margin 17pts,6%,36th - overall 280pts, 66.7%,23rd - Part of the reason why the previous winner I think has suffered in reputation over the years is that this one just blows it out of the water. This year wasn't vintage but there were a few songs that were absolute classics and this is one of them (why it's victory wasn't that comprehensive is that the runner up was another one). Like it's two precessors it's brilliantly staged but this is more about costuming and performance than props although the battle horn that grabs your attention for the off (and is parodied as such in Love, Love, Peace, Peace which is a tribute to how iconic an opening it is) I suppose counts but everything comes together here with the song as the singer Ruslana and her dancers enter clapping and hey heying and then the main beat kicks in and they all dance energetically with her flicking her hair around with gusto and then she stops and begins belting out the first verse. I've seen reactors' mouths drop open as they wonder where she gets her energy from to move and sing with such gusto. Now admittedly she's pretty clever and does the early blues singer/guitar player trick of pacing herself with the movement so if you watch closely you see she doesn't move anywhere near as much when she's singing, especially during the verses, as she does when she isn't and there's a bit of distracting hairography when she has to be a bit more static and concentrate on the singing but it's still a truly impressive performance and to end up belting out a note flawlessly as you are being lifted onto your dancer's shoulders is a pretty boss move. As with the previous two winners part of the reason why it all works so well together is that Ruslana knows the music enough to make the performance work with it because she wrote it and was even more familar with the rhythm of it as she played the drums on its backing track. As well as like her precedessor Sertab Erener being a big star in her own country she's also a classically trained musician. She talks in the excellent program The Secret Life of Eurovision about her inspiration for the song in the folk traditions of the Carpathian mountains where she grew up and it's the start of something we get quite a bit of Ukraine over the years and I'll go into that with other entries here and in the Best of - the shrewd mix of their traditions with more modern and accessable elements musically. It even has a verse in Ukranian so becomes the first song to win and sets the precedent for their next winner and few other songs that would do well later on of being partly in English and partly in native languages. [might move to Best of list] -The same program also charts the early years of her political activism on her country's behalf that would form part of The Orange Revolution to help free it of Russian influence, she would pass up a lot of opportunities to futher her career and build on her victory to serve in the Ukrainain parliament. Her later efforts in 2013 to resist Russian interference in the Crimeria including camping out with protestors and gettting death threats and then touring Europe to raise awareness in early 2014 would earn her an International Woman of Courage award. As well as loving Ruslana she seemed like a really fun person in the 2020 filmed car pool segment shown in the interval of the 2021 Rotterdam final too so she's a queen. Aside from everything else - the song is such a blast to listen to and dance to and I'm a sucker for culture you can dance and sing along to. No prizes for guessing this is both S tier and in The Best of list.
2005 - Greece - My No.1 - performed 19th out of 24 songs - margin 38pts,20%,18th, overall 230pts,50.4%,52nd - Funny story but because my awareness of this period from the time is that one of my friends talked about a lass winning because she was dressed up like Xena Warrior Princess and it took me encountering the previous winner to realise they weren't talking about the actual Greek one. This is probably a lot of other peoples' No.1. I've seen rankings of winners from the 21st century or a substantial part of it that have it as this. In a poll conducted the year it won to celebrate the contest's 50th birthday it was 4th overall which considering above it were Volare, Waterloo and Hold Me Now is none too shabby and it's dated well too, I can't remember how well it did in the uber fan poll at the end of last year but I'm pretty sure it would have been in that top 50. More musical knowledgable and broad minded in their listening habits folks than me rate this highly too. However it's not mine I'm afraid and not even close but it's certainly closer to being that than my no.70. I think this is a deserving winner (I'll discuss what I think of its rivals in the Best of list but surfice to say they don't blow me away mostly) and I get why it would be a no.1 for a significant amount of people - it's a well constructed boppy song, it has some nice ethnic elements. It continues the run of winners with great staging and cheoreography - espeically with the dancers forming the figure of a number 1 on the stage and one of them lifting singer Helena Paparizou on one of their shoulder to form a stringed instrument that she mimes playing with a bow. Paparizou is fine as a singer and at least pretty good as a performer. She's charismatic and beautiful and she still looked gorgeous returning fifteen years later to perform on the Rotterdam rooftop (even if she was a bit fuller figured especially in the bosom department which is what you'd expect being fifteen years older) where there's some fun footage of the 19 year old Swedish singer that year having himself a great time dancing around to this. However I do find the song a bit bland and generic - I don't mind and quite enjoy it when it's on but I feel compelled neither to fancying listening to it enough to seek it out to play it or to watch the performance independently and it's not in the Best of list for that reason. I don't quite know why - I have one very Greek song in my Best of, I have out and out party bops in my Best of. It does nothing wrong but it doesn't do especially do anything especially right for me either. So for me a solid song that gets a probably highly contraversal B.
2006 - Finland - Hard Rock Hallelujah - performed 17th out of 24 songs - margin 44pts,18%,20th, overall - 292pts,67.6%,18th. If Greece perhaps just wasn't up my alley then this is so much so that it's like it has a neon sign advertising it on walls which have historical significance bedecked in flowers and some cool graffiti art with a lazee boy cloth draped rocking chair with a handy cup holder and a cover keeping off the rain and the sun on on hot days backing onto to a coffee shop/brew pub with table service. This is the concert I tuned in for exactly twenty years after the last one and although mostly I spent a far amount of time wondering why I bothered (I would revise my opinion on some of the songs retrospectively) this made it worth it. I was instantly blown away by this especially since the last thing I expected to see at Eurovision was a heavy metal/rock band in monster make up and costumes that included extending bat wings for the lead singer. My first thought on seeing this was it won't win but if it does it'll be epic and then it did and it was! Someone later would say about something else that they don't trust the taste of anyone who doesn't have this in their top five for the year and yup I feel that way about this and there aren't that many other things I'll accept as a no.1 either for that year either. It's just iconic and so is it's legacy - the band Lordi appeared on postage stamps the next year celebrating the Finnish getting to host for the first and so far only time, the song set a mass karoke singing record it took kids at a kiddie festival organised by a kiddie radio station singing an ubigitious Disney song to beat, a square in the singer Mr Lordi's hometown was named after them. West points out that in a sense that heavy rock/metal for Finland counts as much part of their culture as the elements from the Turkish, first Ukrainian and Greek winners do are part of theirs. I was talking about this for weeks afterwards. I still listen to this song and watch the performance and when the guys reprised this on a rooftop in Rotterdam last year there is footage of not only the Finnish rock band competing there headbanging to it but numerous other contestants including a combined mix of the Norweigan and German singers with backing dancers and band members from Ukraine all forming a small international mosh pit, all joyfully stomping their feet and singing along. Similarly reactors tend to express incredulity and delight when they discover this won - this is the wtf winner I was talking about in the entry - bonkers and brilliant. It has its critics including the UK's sardonic and mostly hilarious broadcaster Graham Norton but a)I have a mountain of evidence that he isn't a rock fan which I will go into in the Best of list as he has turned his savage wit on quite a few of the rock entries there b)he's just wrong and I'll go through why there too. One of my favourite winners of all time - top of S.
(2007 onwards cont'd)