1994

What a corker of a contest. Well, perhaps not from the point of view of the excitement-free voting, although I still experience a thrill every time when Hungary gets the first three douzes. Off stage, the hosts’ performance is more highly choreographed than that of most of the singers. It’s such a throwback to the olden days, or to Turkish finals when they were still having them: it’s all about tuxedos, the local Bertie Ahern in the front row and the fans kept well out of sight. I love the way Cynthia and Gerry gaze off to the right when they’re done introducing the postcards.

01 Sweden
B: I love the line “dina tårar blir en spegel av den ensamhet som jag känner”.
A: This is as solid as can be without being super-attractive. Worth a second listen though.
V: I hadn’t realised Roger Pontare was already showcasing his indigenous roots here, probably because it’s so much more toned down than it was in 2000. (Well, slightly more.) Marie Bergman looks like she’s about to devour her microphone, or perform an In Bed with Madonna demonstration with it. Wonderful harmonies and blend of voices.

02 Finland
B: I suppose 'CatCat' seems like a clever play on words when your surname is Kätkä.
A: Credit where it’s due: they tried doing something modern.
V: How much more impressive and effective this might have sounded if they’d considered a programmer an instrument and not tried to orchestrate the whole thing. The intro sounds so weak, like all the life has been sucked out of it (which it has), and the dancers look like they’re off in their own little world, one which bears no resemblance to the one we’re aurally part of. Virpi and Katja's rubbish choreography and outfits don’t help matters, either. As per the majority of Finnish entries, it doesn’t really deserve the result it gets, but you can understand why it got it. It sounds completely old-fashioned, even though it’s the opposite.

03 Ireland
B: What does “I was yours and you were mine” mean in the context of these two singing it to each other reminiscing about being 16-year-old boys?
A: Wonderfully rich composition for something so minimalist.
V: I’m blind to why this won so overwhelmingly; I assume the majority of jury members were the same age and in the same melancholic frame of mind. It’s certainly very accessible. It sports more great harmonies, too, and looks relaxed and effortless... So I guess I’ve solved that conundrum then. I love the look the guitar one gives when he (almost?) fumbles a chord. He has a distinctly Irish set to his mouth.

04 Cyprus
B: I’d never bothered to unearth the lyrics to this until now. Bloody good, aren’t they? “Tremis san pedhi mipos s’ anakalipsun / Vazis ti stoli na mi s’ angiksune / Ta ‘pos’ ke ta ‘yiati’” – brilliant.
A: Relentless. Tremendous. Hard to believe it’s from the same composer as the banal Gimme.
V: Look at all that floppy ’90s hair! Evridiki’s performance is very well attuned. A bit melodramatic perhaps, but who can blame her. A second 11th place finish must have disappointed them.

05 Iceland
B: “Allt það sem enginn sér” is an oddly Icelandic concept that pops up in several of their entries. Well, two. That I can remember.
A: Very experienced team behind this, and another solid production, but more immediately likeable than Sweden.
V: Great backing vocals, which play a huge part in the success of this performance. How can I not love it though when Sigga and composer Friðrik Karlsson were (at least partly) responsible for Nei eða já? I love the way the host refers to them as “Sigga and friends” like it’s some Icelandic kids’ TV show. Mind you, she does look a bit too eager to prove she’s enjoying herself. She should be, with a voice like that! It’s easy to forget that after Finland and Germany, this is about as upbeat as it gets in 1994.

06 United Kingdom
B: Borderline pretentious lyrics here in lines like “Can’t you see the piece of dust / That crumbles in your hand is me”. Then again, it has lines like “...through the clouds and rain / Love has come to stake its claim / In an ugly way” as well.
A: The extended studio version has some sublime moments that don’t all make it onto the Dublin stage, but overall the balance is right.
V: This sounds so good live – you can tell it was composed that way. I’m not sure what Frances Ruffelle has come dressed as. That is perhaps the song’s weak point: it’s wonderful but perhaps a little too highbrow for its own good. Great ending though.

07 Croatia
B: “Za ljubav se bori / A ja nemam snage.” Poor bastard.
A: In hindsight, this sounds like a different song when played by the orchestra: it brings out and highlights a lot of sounds that aren’t as evident in the studio version.
V: Toni really goes for it, but the whole thing feels like it’s out of another era. His backing vocalists seem to be interpreting the silence at the beginning with their own mystical choreography, too. Still, they’re rather good.

08 Portugal
B: Brought to you by the same lyricist as Amor d’água fresca, and you can sense it in lines like “Esta noite vou servir um chá / Feito de... / ...aromas que não há”.
A: This is a fairly ordinary ballad, and yet...
V: ...it’s amazing how gripping someone standing still can be when they’ve got a voice like Sara Tavares’, which raises the song into the ranks of something truly magical. It’s testament to the quality of the performances this year that her wobble in line 4 of verse 1 is about the only weak point of the entire night.

09 Switzerland
B: I like the final lines: “Risplenderà une luce per quelli che sapranno / Cercare il sole nell’oscurità.”
A: Speaking of ordinary ballads, it’s the Swiss entry. Well, more of an anthem really, and not nearly as run-of-the-mill as most of Switzerland’s Eurovision output.
V: The orchestration is fantastic and sounds massive – something Duilio clearly draws on. His voice is not all that easily taken to though; it’s very Italian. Great piano.

10 Estonia
B: I love the back-handed compliment inherent in someone being ‘more loyal than a shadow on a white night’ (“valgel ööl... varjust truum”) almost as much as I love the camp assertion “tean mõnda, mida sa ei tea”.
A: To my mind, Ivar Must produced a very competent piece of music here that makes the most of its allotted three minutes. And yet it just doesn’t grab you, does it? It tries hard to, first in the bridge and then as it spirals towards its inevitable conclusion, but never quite manages it.
V: Purple was not a good colour scheme for this song. The postcard clearly shows that Silvi should never give up singing in favour of acting (and thank god she never did, bless her). I’m glad they chose amber as imagery for Estonia’s debut proper rather than, say, blood sausages.

11 Romania
B: “Nopţi fără vise, întrebări fără răspuns / Imi trezesc din amintire sufletu-mi ascuns” pleases me.
A: Dan Bittman’s voice is absolutely perfect for this song. To me it remains probably the classiest of Romania’s entries to date.* The first two minutes are sublime.
V: Live, it’s when it all gets a bit shouty towards the end that it’s make-or-break time. It does it for me, but clearly not for the juries. The outfits alone are enough to tell you it’s a mid-’90s Eastern European entry. Having said that, I like the Roma influence on Dan’s. If that’s what it is?

*I wrote that back in about 2010, but my opinion hasn’t changed since.

12 Malta
B: “Please God, hear me now / You gotta help me!”
A: This is just so Maltese, from the sentiment to the dodgy English.
V: I hate how uncomfortably deep Moira has to go on the line “Of promises and dreams”. The performance is otherwise good, as are they all, but very little about this shines. Plus Chris & Moira were behind Believe’n Peace, so...

13 The Netherlands
B: The pairing of “Waar is de zon” with “Jij bent de zon” is simple but effective.
A: The arrangement is very cleverly tethered to the lyrics.
V: I adore the way Willeke is the incontrovertible centre of things here. She sings so beautifully and makes it seem so effortless. What the ORF commentator says about her is true: she’s a professional through and through. Unfortunately, the Netherlands picked a brilliant performer and a totally forgettable song, something they’ve been accused of in more recent times as well. It’s delightful, but so easy to overlook.

14 Germany
B: Fnaar at “Am besten alles und nicht bloss irgendwas” and “Um so länger, um so lieber...”.
A: This is much more of a party song than the Finnish entry, which is why it works. Even with that guy who says “...dance!” Ugh.
V: And here we’re into early ’90s western ‘fashions’. Hideous. Virtually everything about this is wrong, but somehow it all works, like a thousand ill-fitting components coming together to form something that functions perfectly. This does sound like the programming survived intact, regardless of the drummer, so I wonder if Finland were given the option after all but made the enormous mistake of choosing the orchestra?

15 Slovakia
B: I love the insistence in the line “Vieš že ti vraví-tak sa vráť, vráť, vráť”!
A: Terrific harmonies, and another great arrangement.
V: The girls have the least hair on stage, but they do have mighty shoulder pads. I love the way the drummer sings along in the background. Martin Durinda and his group really make this work – you get a sense of what’s at the heart of the song and how positive it all is. I hope there’s room for it in my top 10 at the end of all this**, if for no other reason than it’s Slovakia, who I’ve always felt a bit sorry for.

16 Lithuania
B: It’s fantastic that a line as daft looking as “Tik tavo toks gilus dangus” translates as something so charming.
A: I think the problem here is that lullabies are not meant to feature electric guitars. Ovidijus is rough enough around the edges himself without tipping the balance that the inclusion of said guitar is a step too far. In every other respect it’s lovely, with some far more appropriate and beautiful strings.
V: While those leather trousers are truly awful, nothing in 1994 was worth nothing.

17 Norway
B: “Gjennom is finner sangen vei / Til en elv dypt inni meg...” Certainly hits the spot for me.
A: What with composer Rolf Løvland also being behind La det swinge and Nocturne, and Elisabeth Andreassen making the top 10 in each of her four appearances, you wouldn’t think there would be much chance of this going wrong: and it doesn’t. She has a voice I could listen to all day. Yet more fantastic harmonies. Where Sweden works less well as a duet, this succeeds because it’s so much bigger and more emotional. Textbook stuff, without coming across as hackneyed.

V: Incredibly strong performance.

18 Bosnia and Herzegovina
B: “S tobom sam sretno djete / Mada tako ti ne izgledam” makes you wonder where the song’s heading.
A: This is hardly ground-breaking stuff from Bosnia, but it doesn’t sound quite as dated (for a change) as, say, Croatia.
V: An awful lot is made of the orchestration here which is almost indecipherable in the studio version. Harmonies play a huge role again, and our duo really deliver. Alma Čardžić is giving something of a Japanese school girl aesthetic. Dejan, meanwhile, is so deafened by the reception he receives that he’s unsure whether to start singing. It’s really quite moving.

19 Greece
B: Yet more backhanded compliments here: ‘your breath smelled good when you kissed me’!
A: I suppose this is more upbeat than Iceland actually, and even gives Germany a run for its money in terms of getting people up and going for it. It couldn’t come from anywhere other than Greece – even from Cyprus it would seem like they were copying. Completely authentic then, and easy to get into.
V: And yet it maintains an odd distance that tends to negate lines like “Stis agalias su to apanemo limani / Erixa ayira ospu rothise i avyi”. Seeing the drummer in his football kit (or whatever sport it is) makes the postcard for Greece my favourite of the contest.

20 Austria
B: I hate the way they repeat the line “Dafür singe ich euch dieses Lied” as if they’re really out to achieve something. Having said that, the last three lines are unexpectedly good.
A: Cheesy anthem.
V: The sound mix on this isn’t the best, with the music drowning Petra out for most of the first verse. She puts in a competent performance, if a bit static, and clearly the most nervous of the evening: relief is written all over her face at the end.

21 Spain
B: I wonder whether “Ella es la otra, la que me excita / Y quema mi ropa” points to some strange courting ritual they have in Spain. It must get expensive. And cold.
A: This is totally lush in the way the orchestra is offset by the acoustic bits.
V: Alejandro Abad looks a bit odd from some angles, but I find him surprisingly sexy, given he’s not at all my type. There’s something about the way he never quite sounds like he’s pronouncing his words properly, and I love the little finger thing he does on the line “No, ella, ella no es ella” in the middle of the first chorus. Lovely arrangement.

22 Hungary
B: “Könnyek nélkül sírok / A meg sem született gyermekemnek” looks so clumsy as a bridge but sounds so right.
A: I have died and gone to heaven: you can hear every squeak and slide on that guitar; every imploring cry from that oboe; and every gloriously clear and pure note coming out of Friderika’s mouth. And that’s just the studio version.
V: It does not get any better than this.

23 Russia
B: The chorus here is a perfect example of how to turn some very clunky-sounding Russian into something wonderful.
A: If the entire song here was like the verses I’d rate it even more highly, but I still love it.
V: The live version is a tremendous summary of the best bits of the much longer studio version, and is noticeably more uptempo. Youddiph deserved to be massive, but she was completely unknown in Russia before Eurovision apparently, and disappeared back into obscurity after it. Cruel, when this is such a vocal powerhouse and such an acoustic and orchestral masterpiece. And what a fucking fantastic costume!

24 Poland
B: The insistence on using only Polish words that made it not sound very Polish seems cynical, but it sure works – the language has never since sounded so beautiful.
A: This run of songs forms the nearest Eurovision equivalent to a multiple orgasm I have ever experienced. Is it coincidence, do you think, that they all predominantly feature oboe? (He said; it could be cor anglais for all I know.) Edyta Gorniak has another crystal voice, but with such power, too. Phenomenal.
V: That last bit is one of the best in the contest’s history. This is another beautifully orchestrated piece, nothing of the papierowa marionetka the lyrics might suggest it is.

25 France
B: The lyrics here are brilliant, with lines like “J’vais pas rentrer chez moi, lui raconter pourquoi / Pourquoi j’aurais pas dû et comment j’ai pu” standing out for me. I wonder what the EBU would make of her putaining all over the place these days. Alright, she only does it the once, but still. It’d probably go unchecked, just because it’s not in English.
A: Another fantastic song from France. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how accomplished it is as a piece of music: I just know that it is.
V: An unrivalled performance here, in the truest sense of the word, with the added benefit of being well lit and directed. And choreographed: I love the way they all end up back in the same places they started. These last four entries must represent one of the highest-quality runs of songs and performances in Eurovision history.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Cyprus

2 points go to Germany

3 points go to Romania

4 points go to the United Kingdom

5 points go to Norway

6 points go to Iceland

7 points go to Russia

8 points go to France

10 points go to Poland

and finally…

12 points go to...


Hungary!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Austria.

**Almost but not quite (it ended up 12th)

1993

Quite a decent year on the whole. My final 25 might just about have included all the semi-finalists ahead of some of those we did get.

01 Bosnia and Herzegovina
B: All the pain in the world, and you can feel it. Unflinching, grimly beautiful lyrics. Slovenia – probably because it was sidelined in the conflict – eschews navel-gazing for something lighter, but Bosnia didn’t really have that luxury.
A: That said, the chorus here is surprisingly uplifting. Morbid, but uplifting.
V: It’s all very primary colours in Ljubljana, isn’t it. Wonderful vocals, given there’s only three of them doing the singing. I got all excited in a nostalgic kind of way at the beginning there to see the quintessential Bosnian keyboard make an appearance so early on in the piece. [Meanwhile, in Millstreet…] Could have done without the choreography, but I like the echo.

02 Croatia
B: “Tisuće snova dalekih, ruža u srcima zaspalih” makes a lovely opening line.
A: They obviously meant well, but I can’t stand the cheap music box sound of this, and it’s all hopelessly repetitive.
V: I wish the vocals were as coordinated as their outfits in everything but the chorus. The last bit is quite nice though. [Somewhere in Ireland...] Pater Čučak is hot! No wonder he gets a close-up so soon in the piece. Collectively, they still sound ragged in the verses.

03 Estonia
B: It’s not often you get lines in Eurovision like “You can take all my gold necklaces and bracelets and throw them down the well”. And very few Estonian entries have had lines which highlight the relative complexities of the pronunciation of the language as concisely as “Hallitab hõbe ja kahvatub kuld” what with all the palatalisation and such going on.
A: The woodwind, though appropriate, is ever so slightly irritating, as are Janika’s girly vocals. (The way she delivered them several keys lower live at Eurolaul 2002 blew me away, I hasten to add – her voice matured so much in the intervening years.) On the other hand, the acoustic backing is great; pity you only really get to appreciate it during the verses. The whole thing builds nicely.
V: There’s something fidgety and restless about the arrangement here that makes it feel like they all want to get it over and done with as soon as possible, Janika included. It’s only on the last note that she convinces you she can hold one. The audience’s lukewarm reaction says it all, sadly.

04 Hungary
B: I love the way Janika’s ‘bugger it, you might as well be chipper’ attitude is immediately smothered in Ms Szulák’s wet blanket of “Törékeny nekem a boldogság”!
A: Well, it’s very early ’90s. The vocal arrangement in the chorus eschews the line you expect it to take, making the whole thing slightly less dreary. It can’t really avoid this, of course, since it fits the morning feel of it right enough. The ending is lovely.
V: I’m not sure the injection of tempo into some of these songs to squeeze them into their three-minute limit is helping them much, especially here, where it makes the song feel less like the lonely morning of the title and more like the kind of morning where you sleep through the alarm and don’t even have time to notice that the bed beside you is empty. Andrea’s hair and nails are glamtastic in a very ’80s soap opera kind of way.

05 Romania
B: “Doamne, ce-a ajuns viaţa mea!” Gotta love a bit of melodrama. Middle-aged Eastern European women were clearly having a hard time of it in the early ’90s where snagging themselves faithful men was concerned.
A: The composition here is subdued for the most part, but the vocals are overwrought in a way I would only otherwise associate with Italy. The electric guitar was inevitable.
V: Strangely arresting for something without a real hook: it must be Dida’s theatrical delivery. She has a great voice, at least in terms of how powerful it is, and despite – or perhaps because of – how OTT the performance is, I’d probably have liked to see it in Millstreet. The way it feels musically is not all that far away from Dincolo de nori. (The camera wobble and feedback from the microphones are perfect, incidentally.)

06 Slovenia
B: I like the idea in “Kako dobro se zlivam v ta svet ... / ... ki ne obstaja”. Is the lead singer Italian?
A: I would have expected something more introspective with lyrics like those. The guitar’s great, as are the strings (needless to say). I much prefer the verses to the chorus, although it being more upbeat is spot on given the accompanying words. Nice instrumental ending.
V: The bright fashion and cheery choreography are a bit much, but there’s no denying this sounds completely different to everything else so far. Not that that necessarily makes it better, but it does stand out. The guitar-led bits could almost come from a Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe composition. [Elsewhere...] Sheesh, the outfits and lighting are even more garish.

07 Slovakia
B: Ha ha, how perfect is this after Hungary and Romania! “Láska je zázrak, ktorý sa koná bežne / Chalani sú z nej chorí” sounds like a Slovakian take on the hairy palms story.
A: I’m liking the guitar, but it soon descends into Eastern European soft-rock mediocrity. It fails to really go anywhere until the short-lived instrumental break and the introduction of the orchestra towards the end, when you finally get a sense of it making something of itself.
V: The prominence given to said orchestra from the off here boosts the performance, although the song still drags until there’s little more than 30 seconds left of it.

08 Italy
B: There was a lot of pain being shared in 1993, wasn’t there? Even Italy got in on the act. “Svegliaci, sole, facci sentire / Quanto dolore hai portato con te” could be from the Italian version of a Balkan entry.
A: Perhaps appropriately, this fails to really take off for me, although the arrangement is nice. Bar the electric guitar. And triangle.
V: There’s a wonderful easy confidence about this performance that grabs you from the outset. The orchestration is terrific and certainly lifts the song.

09 Turkey
B: “Zaten deliydim / Şimdi divaneyim” sums it up nicely.
A: This runs out of reasons to exist after a minute. I’d forgotten how popular saxophones were in the early ’90s. Very not-Turkish.
V: They can’t click in time, and the backing vocals are barely there, but they do their best to make something out of nothing. Magnificent ears on Mr Aydos, emphasised by the shades.

10 Germany
B: I like combining the lines “Hier ist unsere Wirklichkeit” and “Und was kam dann?”.
A: It’s that bland, echoey rock anthem that was so popular in the late ’80s. The strings would be wonderful if they weren’t synthesised. The chorus is not nearly strong or defined enough in a song striving for anthem status.
V: I bet Münchener Freiheit were all shoulder pads and way too much hair. [Checks] Well, the conductor is. The rest of them are comparatively restrained. As expected, this is rather underwhelming given its pretentions.

11 Switzerland
B: There’s a lovely couplet here in “Et si demain la chance m’appelle / Avant tout, je veux être moi”.
A: Strong chorus. The song verges on 1980s Whitney Houston, albeit without the sustained strength. It really needs to crank things up a notch at the end, but it doesn’t.
V: The crowd love it regardless, and I wouldn’t have minded another Swiss victory with it. I admire the way Ms Cotton just stands there and sings this: it fits the song perfectly.

12 Denmark
B: The chorus is a bit cheesy, but the verses offer up some great lyrics. I particularly like “Jeg sætter mig på kanten af din seng, og du... / ...virker ubeskriv’ligt lille” and “Hvor du end er i fantasi’n, vil jeg altid være her hos dig”.
A: The chorus is a bit cheesy musically and all. The whole thing sounds like an ABBA revival five years too early, only with a misplaced whistling solo. It’s very Swedish-sounding, and very catchy. I think I like it rather a lot.
V: There’s those ever-present backing vocalists again! (Until they weren’t anymore.) The way the arrangement here subtly changes the percussion renders it a bit more pedestrian, and I’m not sure it works as well as it does in studio. The way they’re laid out on stage is nice though.

13 Greece
B: I like the wake-up call these lyrics represent.
A: God, more synthesisers. And how! Bosnia would still sound like this five years down the line. This is another song that does little to distinguish its chorus, but it grows on you, in a cheap and cheerful kind of way.
V: The backing group might be dressed the same as the German lot, but they’ve got 10 times the energy, which makes it a shame that Ms Garbi is – to go all America’s Next Top Model for a moment – so dead behind the eyes. She’s got the voice, and she’s more or less got the moves, but what she’s lacking is an expression that makes you believe her heart’s in it.

14 Belgium
B: Oh the irony of “Dat is het nu juist wat ik bedoel”, as we shall see...!
A: I hope she smiled a lot, because she sounds miserable. [Waits a bit] Argh! How could they get it so wrong? Has someone just died!? You’d have no idea this was the most quintessential of love songs. Nice simple instrumentation at least. [Waits a bit more] Electric guitar!! :(
V: I’ve got no idea she’s pouring her heart out, so what’s the point?

15 Malta
B: “Ooh baby, when I’m alone with you... a holnap már nem lesz szomorú!” Hungary ’98, only slightly less depressing.
A: And without the mouth organ. Not the kind of music I like, to be honest, but it has a good, nay stand-out chorus, and I like the fact that it’s a man singing what would traditionally be a woman’s song.
V: Fine performance, even if the perm is a crime. I see he’s borrowed Fazla’s primary-green sports coat from the semi-final in Slovenia.

16 Iceland
B: “Ef leitarðu til mín / Þá veistu svarið” couches the whole thing effectively.
A: Deceptively odd-sounding but actually quite ordinary timing, and yet more saxophones. It’s quite attractive overall. Despite some forceful sounds, it still comes across as gentle and (appropriately enough) inviting.
V: Now the saxophonist’s got the green jacket! Maybe they only had one. Impressive vocals from Inga, when you can hear her. Was this something of a favourite? The audience seem to get very excited about it before it’s even begun.

17 Austria
B: Props for the sadomasochistic bridge.
A: Almost out of place it’s so upbeat. Fantastic (and at a pinch I’d even suggest real) strings stuck in the background. Terrible key change though, and it’s all a bit tired.
V: Tony Wegas sings this well, but the early energy quickly fades to nothing. The second backing vocalist from the left looks like Tüzmen.

18 Portugal
B: The slightly pissed excitement of the lyrics here is brilliant.
A: This is great, but needs to be about twice the speed. You could get some brilliant dance remixes out of it. I love the arrangement, the [almost hidden] layered key change and the vocal mix. All of it, really.
V: This is still great, and still needs to be about twice the speed. The backing vocals are amazing when you consider there’s only two people providing them, and Anabela’s vocals are effortless. She looks a bit like a children’s TV presenter who also happens to have a lovely voice.

19 France
B: I love the personification in “Elle est comme ses vieilles dames en noir / Qui portent en elles leur histoire”.
A: You can see why this did well for itself, even if it sounds like an ad for a frozen pizza. Mind you, the ingredients are all there and go together perfectly. The chorus seems a bit clunky, all the same, with odd gaps (representing the gulf between Corsica and the mainland?).
V: Ooh, he’s cute!* Pity about the shirt. Brilliant orchestration, highlighting every little nuance of the composition. Great vocals.

20 Sweden
B: “Vår kärlek den är värd ett högre pris” and “Det är inte lätt när man inte kan inse sina fel” are both sentiments I’ve shared at times in my life.
A: There’s no denying the fact that the Swedes know how to come up with an authentic-sounding retro tune. Could be endless other songs*. Strangely, you barely notice that it’s in Swedish.
V: Someone should tell Hugo Weaving the lead singer stole his mouth. Perfectly good performance of a fairly forgettable song.

*Including stuff from Melodifestivalen to this day that ISN'T Arvingarna

21 Ireland
B: Bland lyrics, but they get the point across.
A: Probably the strongest chorus so far. Apart from that, I don’t see much that sets this apart. Taut and together, but not my favourite.
V: All Niamh has to do is stand there and sing this, and that’s what she does. Maybe her feet were actually rather than just seemingly nailed to the floor?

22 Luxembourg
B: The opening lines are the highlight of what is a fairly naff set of lyrics.
A: This builds itself up to a killer chorus only to hold back, but that’s sort of in touch with the lyrics. The electric guitar is of course a no-no. I’d completely forgotten this song though and am [fairly] pleasantly surprised to remake its acquaintance.
V: They sound alright, but can’t have been far behind Barbara Dex in the, er, Barbara Dex awards. The performance underscores the way the song hedges its bets, allowing for a big orchestral arrangement but still being all drums and keyboards. You can kind of understand why Luxembourg gave up, watching it.

23 Finland
B: Great rhythm to “Kuunnellaan, katsellaan, kuljetaan”. The title is done to a very early death, but that goes with the rest of the lyrics: it’s now or never. (Never, in this case.)
A: Is this wilfully old-fashioned or just old-fashioned? The Finnish makes it sound even less contemporary somehow. It could be an entry from 20 years earlier.
V: Hmm, all a bit Willeke Alberti a year early.

24 United Kingdom
B: The words even read themselves to you with an accent from a bygone era. I’m picturing a dance at a Welsh holiday village.
A: Blessed pop relief after the previous 18 tracks. There’s not much going on in it musically, and it’s pretty much self-assembly, but worthy nonetheless of a podium finish.
V: I see they’ve got the usual array of newsreaders on backing vocals. The easiest thing to say about this performance is that it’s plain to see why it did so well, but just as understandable why it narrowly missed out.

25 The Netherlands
B: Any Eurovision song that opens with a verse full of driving instructions as metaphor deserves to win, frankly.
A: As solid a Dutch entry as most, with some great touches to the music and arrangement regardless of the very ’90s programming. The bridge is great, as is the ending, which is very much in touch with what the lyrics are saying.
V: Great vocals (and outfit) from Ms Jacott. The performance is so gloriously Dutch, right down to the backing vocalists and the slightly naff routine – which accounts for more movement in three minutes than we’ve seen all night.

26 Spain
B: “Todos los hombres son tan especiales / Que han conseguido ser todos iguales”! You tell it, sister!
A: Fabulous, obviously. Given the chance, it would have gotten every spurned woman’s and gay man’s televote. However dated it sounds now, it must have seemed frighteningly modern for middle-aged Eurovision. But what does it sound like?
V: My praise for this performance starts and ends with Ms Santamaría’s vocals, which come so easily that it almost looks like she’s miming. How could Finland see a song fall apart like this under the orchestra and still think Bye Bye Baby would be a good idea the following year? Don’t even get me started on the routine. “Es lo normal!”

27 Cyprus
B: I like the message – “Ki an ti zoi ti pligoni sihna i alithia / Mi stamatas” – if not the messenger.
A: Very beige.
V: There’s that green jacket again, on the back of the shiny-haired conductor! [Watches] It’s like they’re trying not to out-sing each other, so they don’t really sing much at all. Easily the most shifty-eyed performance of the night. My interest is momentarily peaked when they start making eyes at each other at the microphone stands.

28 Israel
B: These lyrics are quite meaningful in their own way, and could apply to a lot of places. Estonia for one had its Singing Revolution.
A: But it’s Israeli through and through, in the least appealing and most tedious way possible.
V: Unfailingly awful. At least the Swedes make choreography like that look natural. What’s with the switch to English at the end?

29 Norway
B: “Når du é blant dine venner / Og din trillande latter smelte min hud / Og du late som du aldri har sett meg / Du é som en fjern og kjølig gud / Ingen må se det, bare du og eg vett det” – how can anyone add to that? The honesty is almost overwhelming.
A: Glorious vocals, and the music is just so perfect. One of Norway’s best ever entries, and one of the strongest in the contest’s history if you ask me.
V: Cripes, not nearly the performance I was hoping for. For a start, what else do you have backing vocalists for if not to provide harmonies without the lead having to carry them? And this, of all songs, is not one you encourage the audience to clap along to. The first minute is bliss, but after that the frown lines pile on top of one another at an alarming rate :(


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Denmark

2 points go to Bosnia and Herzegovina

3 points go to Italy

4 points go to Spain

5 points go to Switzerland

6 points go to France

7 points go to the United Kingdom

8 points go to Portugal

10 points go to Norway

and finally...

12 points go to...


The Netherlands!


The wooden spoon goes to poor dear sad old Belgium.

1992

A game of two halves, with the performances really separating the songs into distinct camps.

01 Spain
B: The lyrics are clichéd, but for a recognisable reason. ‘Music’ could be a euphemism for something else entirely in the line “Todo esto es la música que llevo tan dentro de mí”.
A: Serafin’s voice manages to lift his entries above the mediocre they may otherwise be labelled. The bridge in this one is the best bit of the song, followed by the key change. The late introduction of the (Spanish) guitar is a nice touch.
V: An oddly lifeless performance for a song that’s meant to be such a paean. And blind or not, there’s no excuse for that kind of quiff.

02 Belgium
B: I see façades were a recurring theme in 1992. These lyrics are interesting but nerdy – as if the entire younger generation of Europe wanted to put the brakes on progress.
A: Christ, there’s so much about this to dislike. Let’s start with the horrible synthesised everything and Morgane’s irritating voice.
V: Oh look, a close-up on the violins. 11 points was generous. Next.

03 Israel
B: I’m with Dafna when she says “en li shum ratzon lehityafyef”!
A: It’s two-faced of me to slag off one song for being completely programmed only to venerate the next one that comes along, but this is fabulous. The melody’s so easy without sounding lazy, and I love what it’s saying. Amusingly ironic that it came straight after Belgium. Great guitars (not synthesised).
V: Finland must have looked at this and thought, “Why don’t we try something like that in a couple of years? They got away with it.” Of course, they’d have been failing to overlook the fact that they only just get away with it: the music feels like it’s being held together with sticky tape that’s yellowing around the edges. Dafna gives it her not-considerable all.

04 Turkey
B: I love that the Turkish word for ‘storm’ is fortune.
A: “The next entry comes from... 1973!” The basset hound of ballads: hopelessly droopy, yet somehow still likeable.
V: Having said that, I’m not sure any of them realise quite how unattractive a proposition this is live. Not for a moment does Aylin convince me her heart’s in it.

05 Greece
B: I wonder what kind of questions Cleopatra’s children keep asking her that frighten her so and render her unable to provide satisfactory answers.
A: Bombast! Despite employing some musical trickery that was quite new at the time, this still sounds as old-fashioned in places as Turkey. I love the insecurity of the verses though, and the way the music cranks up in the chorus to match the change in tone. The electric guitar comes with the territory, i.e. Greek entries, so I can overlook it here.
V: Whereas Turkey was more 1980s telenovella, this is straight out of Falcon Crest or Knots Landing: Ms Pantazi exudes melodrama from every pore likes it’s the only way she knows how to breathe. She captures my attention in a way the music singularly fails to. (What’s with the orchestra this year?)

06 France
B: This isn’t a very challenging concept as metaphors go, but the way it’s packaged in lines like “Ou pé ké janme swèf” is quite beautiful.
A: When they’re not doing chansons, France isn’t too bad at innovation in ESC. There’s so much... finesse, I suppose, here. It’s mesmerising.
V: Fascinating performance. For most of it you’d swear they’re all hearing music we’re not. The contributions the orchestra make almost feel like an afterthought and are the only thing that remind you you’re watching Eurovision. This is a good thing, but probably explains why it didn’t rate higher with the juries: I’m sure at least some of them would have lost patience with it.

07 Sweden
B: I’m surprised she stayed as long as she did if the condition was “så länge spänningen finns kvar”.
A: Unless this was another misguided Melodifestivalen winner, Sweden can’t have been trying too hard to win at home. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but they could at least have erased the dots after they joined them.
V: Well, it gets the job done. Best backing vocals so far.

08 Portugal
B: “Peguei, trinquei e meti-te na cesta” is such a brilliant bit of imagery.
A: Music and lyrics very much on the same wavelength here. Just about every Portuguese entry is predestined to make the cut, provided they’re not about revolution or Portugal itself. Delightful, needless to say.
V: Portugal being overlooked at Eurovision, part ∞. Studio-perfect vocals.

09 Cyprus
B: I like the line “Se telio ashedio... / Na yinome mia ekriksi brosta sou” and equally realise that might be the overall effect of the song. Or lack thereof.
A: I could understand this being grossly misunderstood. The composition is imaginative, if rather spartan.
V: I suppose if any song was going to benefit from the odd sound of the orchestra this year it would be Teriazume, since every element of the arrangement is exposed. It comes across way more effectively than I thought it would, thanks largely to Evridiki’s command of the camera.

10 Malta
B: Typically mangled Maltese English, but it’s the thought that counts, however saccharine. The line “I’ve come to be tired of the scene” has to have been penned by a gay man, surely.
A: This sort of sounds like Love Shine a Light five years early, so I get why it did well for itself. Musically it’s quite competent, without actually trying very hard.
V: Wonderfully confident performance from Mary Spiteri without milking it for all it’s worth. It’s the second song in a row which sounds good, too. It just makes oodles of Eurovision sense.

11 Iceland
B: “Nei eða já? ... Aldrei mér tekst að tak’ af skarið.” I will: já!
A: Yes, all synthesisers again, but I’m sorry, it’s the second-closest Eurovision ever came to a SAW production – and one of their most competent and gloriously trashy at that.
V: Supremely blonde! Performance of the night, so far.

12 Finland
B: “Ajatuksissamme tuota laatikkoa muunneltiin” – if only in reality they’d modified the song.
A: Preferably by replacing it with something better, which, let’s face it, couldn’t have been that much of a challenge. There’s nothing wrong with the production itself, but it’s... still just wrong. The opening bar (and indeed pretty much all of the opening) is a blatant rip-off of Roxette.
V: In its defence, the vocals are good. It does sound contemporary, too, if unoriginal. Amusingly, the title filters through as ‘crap crap’ in Estonian.

13 Switzerland
B: “It’s incredible – I really did not expect it / ...when I came all alone tonight.” Titter.
A: Switzerland were pretty rubbish at Eurovision for the longest time, weren’t they. This is so boringly predictable. I know it was never meant to make it to the ESC stage in the first place, but even so. I hope she was kicking her clothes off in borderline prick-tease/coquettish fashion throughout.
V: [Watches] Pity. I’m sure she wishes she’d taken up that pole-dancing job instead of settling on a Swiss banker for a husband, a couple of kids and singing show tunes in her knickers while hoovering.

14 Luxembourg
B: These lyrics are less than inspired, but I like the line “’T get end aner Welt / ... Iwwer on eege Grenzen”.
A: The music is less than inspired, too. In fact the same could be said of Luxembourg as was just said of Switzerland, by and large. Here at least they have a stab at an arresting chorus. Bland, but palatable.
V: The frustrated housewives keep coming. And like Switzerland, despite everything, they somehow get away with it: the whole thing sounds a hell of a lot better than it ought to.

15 Austria
B: Why is there half a line of Italian and half a line of English amidst the German?
A: That violin (or whatever it is) is wonderfully mournful, and the copious echo seems to fit for once. There’s a lot about the rest of the composition I should probably dislike, but the lyrics make it work somehow.
V: Who’s the supermodel playing the cello with her hair caught in the strings? Must hurt. Tony Wegas looks like the broad-shouldered lovechild of Scooch and Milli Vanilli. I like the final note, but the rest of the performance tends to pass me by.

16 United Kingdom
B: The only slightly clever or interesting thing about these lyrics is trying to pinpoint which of the protagonists is the eponymous step out of time.
A: Michael Ball’s clearly a talented artist, and there’s little about the music you can take aim at – it’s very together, with a great ending – yet it does next to nothing for me. It seems outdated even for 1992, and little more than an attempt to do a Johnny Logan. So I guess they came as close as they could in the circumstances.
V: Mr Ball’s mastery of the cameras is positively Swedish. His performance is consummate, but it reads all over his face and is something of a turn-off. I like the little swivelling-hips thing he does though.

17 Ireland
B: Now these lyrics are clever. I love the disbelieving honesty of wondering why someone ‘chooses to feel the way they feel about you’.
A: Beautifully composed. I love the way the idea embodied in the title is turned on its head, even though the music would just as successfully have carried something more negative or pessimistic. A clearer winner than In Your Eyes as I see it, without it (again) being a particular favourite.
V: Poised but understated in a way that makes Michael Ball look even more self-satisfied. It has W.I.N.N.E.R. stamped all over it. Flawless backing vocals.

18 Denmark
B: I was unfortunate enough to catch Kenny’s hair (and the fashion black hole it’s inexorably being drawn into) while getting these lyrics. I especially like the line “Det’ er om at turde, mens man tor det”.
A: It’s like three minutes of Benny Hill at Eurovision. Cheap as chips, but relentlessly and rather inappropriately boppy, given they’re meant to be worried about getting caught. It comes across as a spoof, but I’m happy to go with it.
V: Good harmonies, and great vocals generally, but neither of the leads looks like they’d be singing such a song if they had any say in the matter. The whole thing sounds forced, as though they’re sticking to the pattern just ’cause they know it’ll give them a decent result.

19 Italy
B: Amazing lyrics.
A: Mia’s voice, like grazed knees pitted with gravel, fits this perfectly: it’s like she’s bearing her soul. Strange (or not) that it could almost be an ABBA song.
V: Engrossing.

20 Yugoslavia
B: I admire the fact that the lyrics as a whole are one great double entendre/analogy/whatever.
A: Despite this being the kind of thing I’ve fallen head over heels for in innumerable Balkan finals over the years, to hear it as an entry proper is somehow shocking. It’s charming but can’t quite work, although it does get better as it goes along.
V: Love the dress. Love the performance, too, such as it is. That said, I can’t believe the bookmakers in the UK had this down as a favourite.

21 Norway
B: “Vi hoster bare det vi sar” indeed.
A: Clichéd. Twee. Very, very wrong. But at least it tries for an accessible melody.
V: The compact Ms Trøan produces some great vocals here. It’s astonishing how disco it comes across live once it all kicks off.

22 Germany
B: Granted, the lyrics here strive to be meaningful...
A: ...but the whole song is like one of those simulations where you can see what’s coming up around the next corner and prepare for it. Compare it and the likes of Yugoslavia and Norway to, say, Italy: it’s embarrassing they were in competition together, frankly.
V: They do with it what they can, but it’s just so lame.

23 The Netherlands
B: “Leer me te zien dat het anders kan” as the bi-curious husband said to the plumber while his wife was at her sister’s for a few days.
A: I feel I ought to like this more than I do, but it doesn’t hang together quite as well as most Dutch entries. While this kind of goes – unintentionally, I’d wager – with the lyrics, it’s a bit much by the end.
V: Nicely controlled vocals. Not sure about the choreography, but as part and parcel of the whole thing I can see how it found itself in the top 10 come the end of the night.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to the United Kingdom

2 points go to Greece

3 points go to Cyprus

4 points go to Israel

5 points go to Malta

6 points go to France

7 points go to Portugal

8 points go to Ireland

10 points go to Iceland

and finally...

12 points go to...


Italy!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Belgium.

1991

Not the best of contests, what with one thing and another...

01 Yugoslavia
B: I love the fact this contains the lines ‘Take it all off / Take your pants off’! (And that ‘take it all off’ in Serbian is ‘skini sve’!)
A: Now I know why so many songs like this have cropped up in Serbian semi-finals ever since. What can I say about it? Upbeat and oh so Yugoslav. There’s something about the arrangement that makes me think it’s going to do a Finland ’94 and sound terrible live, stripped of its programming.
V: Well, it certainly got the performance it deserved. Ms Dol looks like it’s all she can do not to collapse in a heap.

02 Iceland
B: Why are they both singing about Nina? Are they a throuple?
A: Iceland gave us a string of mid-tempo piano-led pop ballads around this time, none of them to much effect, however together they were. I’m not surprised they’ve never returned to them. There are some nice touches to this one, particularly the harmonies, but the tune itself doesn’t go anywhere that hooks you.
V: Good lord, those outfits! Did he really think the purple headband would offset his turquoise jacket? Nice vocals, but it’s all so Icelandic.

03 Malta
B: “Our lines of love ain’t rhyming and the rhythm is all gone” – but surprisingly for Malta these lyrics aren’t at all garbled. Still bog-standard though, and a precursor for the saccharine onslaught to follow.
A: The lyrics might be decent, but Paul Giordimaina’s accent is awful, so this might as well be in Maltese. As their first entry since the abortive attempts of the early ’70s it’s pretty shrewd, and I can see why it did well. Not that I like it much.
V: They look like two characters out of a soap opera. Works pretty well live.

04 Greece
B: Poetic lyrics with a pleasing fnaar-fnaar twist here and there.
A: Bit of a fanboy favourite, this, unless I’m mistaken. I know it’s only 1991, but not surprisingly for Greece this still sounds very ’80s with those synths, that saxophone solo and the slightly overwrought vocals. Comes together quite well as a whole, probably because it’s accessible.
V: The cast of Dynasty continues, this time with the rich bitch stepmother.* Fantastic vocals. Did the old boy on the sax have a collapsed lung?

05 Switzerland
B: How many entries in Italian does that make which feature the words ‘stringimi forte’? I see that songs in the language came 1st and 2nd in the Swiss national final that year. It’s like they knew which country was hosting...
A: Bless the composer for signposting just about everything in the song. Not exactly challenging, is it? Except that Sandra sounds like she’s entered a karaoke competition during social night at the residential school for students of Italian as a second language.
V: *Followed by the glamorous daughter of the rich mogul, who is beautiful but fragile and has ridiculous dream sequences. This sounds a lot better than it perhaps ought to, so I get its appeal.

06 Austria
B: “Stilles Begreifen und Sehnsucht nach mehr” could well have been used to describe their numb scrutiny of the scoreboard during the voting.
A: However mediocre a song might be, nothing ever truly deserves to end up at the bottom of the scoreboard with no points at all. It’s understandable why they do, when they’re as pedestrian as this, but still. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it that should set it apart from at least two or three songs so far; I’m assuming the performance must have sealed its ignominious fate.
V: It’s outrageous that he’s wearing mauve eye shadow. I mean, come on, it’s a good decade at least since it was last fashionable.

07 Luxembourg
B: The English translation of the lyrics paints them in a very unflattering light that sees me yawning and rolling my eyes from about the second line. I wonder if they’ll sound any more palatable in French.
A: Nope. I still feel like I’m being preached at, so there’s no saving it. You can give me Austria over this dated tripe any day. The arrangement in the middle eight is a lifeline too late, especially with that electric guitar in the final chorus.
V: Was purple really that big in 1991? Giant silver earrings obviously were. This comes across about as convincingly as I expected it to. The vocals are almost entirely drowned out after the bridge, which is possibly a good thing. The orchestra make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear throughout.

08 Sweden
B: Love the shaggy dog look Carola’s got going. “Det är dags att ge sig av / För stunder som har flytt kommer aldrig mer” might have come back to haunt her after failing to conquer all in Athens.
A: What a breath of fresh air this is! No pun intended. You can see why juries would have sat up and taken notice. It’s no more early ’90s than Greece is, and certainly no more inspired or complex, but it has an energy about it you can’t deny.
V: Wind machine! Huge vocals from the start. The choreography is hilariously bad. During the verses it sounds like there’s a drum and not much else happening in the music. Vocally this is a winner, but overall it doesn’t stand out the way I thought it might.

09 France
B: These lyrics are rather deep, but a bit clunky in their everything-must-rhymeness. Perhaps they’ll come across better when I hear them sung.
A: Of course they do. Love it! Not as much as some of France’s similarly interesting and more left-field entries, but it stands out a mile from everything else we’ve had so far (and are likely to get after it). It coming 2nd is a bit Lane moje having to bow to Wild Dances.
V: Now that’s choreography. Très classy.

10 Turkey
B: Under the circumstances, wouldn’t it have made more sense to call it Üc dakika?
A: It’s dumbfounding how much this sounds like a UK entry from the early ’80s, right down to the vocals, and it says a lot about the juries that this was one of the country’s more successful entries (as relative a term as that was) pre-1997. It leaves me completely cold.
V: Apart from the language, this is about as non-Turkish as Turkey ever got in their pre-victory era. They really should leave this stuff to Israel.

11 Ireland
B: Lyrics so middle of the road you don’t need lane markings.
A: The opening bars are enough to tell you this comes from the fingers of Liam Somewhere in Europe Reilly. How sad for Ireland that it sounds like a Maltese entry. (Even this year’s Maltese entry!) At least it shows that the rot set in well before the end of the decade.
V: Initially, I had this down as being better than Luxembourg.

12 Portugal
B: Another wonderful set of lyrics here from the Portuguese, especially in lines like “Eu não... pedirei perdão / Quando gozar o pecado / E voltar a dar de mim”. I love how they can put fado on such a pedestal most of the time and then come up with something like this! Makes me understand now why Sabrina was such a schlager princess.
A: Powerful vocals here which still have a lightness of touch. This is better than just about anything else and has the best chorus of the contest to this point, showing once again that Portugal was hard done by pretty much forever at Eurovision back in the day. (So saying, I’m not a big fan of the mouth organ.)
V: The big hair and dangly earrings are back! Fantastic arrangement for the orchestra.

13 Denmark
B: Another set of say-nothing lyrics. Was it the overarching theme for 1991 (along with all the backing singers standing in a line)?
A: If it wasn’t for its very easy-listening chorus – which sounds like endless others, admittedly – this would go precisely nowhere. But then it does sound like a lot of the pop that made the charts in the late ’80s, so maybe it’s doing something right. Perhaps surprisingly, the Danish sounds like the least foreign foreign language of the contest.
V: Is that the world’s tallest man on backing vocals?

14 Norway
B: I quite like what these lyrics are giving. And who’d have thought you’d get thematic resonance between this and Turkey, or anything and Turkey!
A: OK, it might be the ‘extended version’, but that intro at least shows that this is well-produced. I can only repeat what I said about Denmark: it certainly sounds like something you’d have seen on any chart show around at the time, and perhaps even a little more contemporary. The vocals work well together.
V: Bit of a fish out of water on stage, thrashing about with a very dead kind of energy. Good vocals though.

15 Israel
B: Confirmation that when they aren’t doing boring anthems, outdated love songs or brainless bops, they’re almost always defending their rights.
A: There’s an engaging arrangement here, inspired instrumentation and some fantastic harmonies, but they all still scream ISRAEL!!! from the rooftops. Could be a winning entry from the ’70s.
V: I quite like the motif running through their outfits, which for a change aren’t hideous to look at. The dance routine is as Israel-at-Eurovision as it could get. Everything comes together very nicely.

16 Finland
B: From a linguistic point of view, this is a great song to showcase the similarities between Finnish and Estonian: “Rauhaa sydän mulle anna ei” > “Rahu süda mulle ei anna” et al. But I can’t think of anything else to say about it.
A: From a linguistic point of view, this is also a great song to showcase how awful Finnish sounds, to my ears at least. (Did they seriously think the word yö or anything that rhymed with it deserved a prominent place in any chorus?) I can’t see any other reason the country’s entries were so completely overlooked for 40 years, and it doesn’t explain Portugal, but there you go. Here, a ponderous composition means the chorus tries to take off, but only manages it in the same way that a chicken is technically capable of flying.
V: A static performance that underscores the problems with the song.

17 Germany
B: Nice to see that Ralph & Berndt didn’t have a complete stranglehold on the cheesy anthem market in Deutschland.
A: Hate it from the first line. Woefully German in every way.
V: Ned Flanders sing-diddly-ings for Germany! What with the line-up and the knitwear (or is it appliqué?), Atlantis 2000 look like a Bible studies group. Their song sounds absolutely huge live, without having any right to, since the vocals are fake and lacklustre.

18 Belgium
B: What happened to the Netherlands in 1991? Nice of this lot to roll up with a bit of Flemish in their stead.
A: This vaguely resembles Sister in the chorus, and goes a long way to explaining the kinds of things that often turned up in Belgian pre-selections. It’s much more attractive as a piece of music than I would have expected it to be. The chorus sounds exactly like something else I can’t put my finger on.
V: Red skin-tight pants! There’s a sense of fun between these two a la Re-Union.

19 Spain
B: Romantic lyrics, even if I don’t understand whether Sergio is telling us he’s a pole dancer. The rhymes in the second to last verse are simple but effective.
A: Did this get lots of points chucked at it by Yugoslavia? He has the kind of voice which makes me think it should have. [It got 8.] Plenty of scope for this to go places live, but it’s a little flat in studio, and it just kind of stops.
V: Alas, it doesn’t make all that much of itself. What was it with Spanish male artists dressing for Eurovision in the early ’90s like they were expected at the altar?

20 United Kingdom
B: Samantha Janus was great in Pie in the Sky. “Every day is a compromise for a grain of corn” sounds like it’s alluding to the songwriters trying to make anything of this paper-thin anthem.
A: My god, those opening lines! Atrocious.
V: Borders on disastrous from the off, but somehow they keep it together. I’m fascinated by the way she blinks.

21 Cyprus
B: The Greek/Cypriot Eurovision bubble is a very small one, isn’t it. This is another trite anthem, although at least Elena admits she hasn’t got a clue what to do about the state of the world.
A: And here’s another very predictable arrangement to go with it. Irritating chorus. Irritating everything, frankly.
V: She looks like she’s airing her fingers for the nail polish to dry for most of the song. Until the beat comes in halfway through the chorus it all sounds way too slow, and even then. I hate the backing vocalists’ “I’m leaning forward while rooted to the spot, so I must have something important to say” stance.

22 Italy
B: It’s nice to see (and hear) an Italian dialect in Eurovision. There are so many double letters you’d almost think it was Finnish.
A: Lush arrangement from the opening bars, and it certainly makes a name for itself in the opening verse. Come the chorus though and it all gets a little bland. As much as I like it, there’s an underlying sense of it not being as good as it ought to be.
V: This sounds better live than it does in studio. It sounds wonderful live, in fact. Peppino is definitely in the music.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Iceland

2 points go to Denmark

3 points go to Norway

4 points go to Israel

5 points go to Belgium

6 points go to Greece

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to Sweden

10 points go to France

and finally...

12 points go to...


Portugal!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Ireland, although there were plenty of contenders.

1990

Hardly a classic year, but one with the odd flash of brilliance.

01 Spain
B: “Que el fuego de tu amor sea como un volcán” – don’t we all wish that, love. Typically passionate Spanish lyrics.
A: Synthesisers ahoy! Trashtastic 1989 sound, like Bananarama trying to reinvent themselves but getting stuck on Black Box. Do they ever actually sing anything? Positively Turkish introduction in how long it is. [Eventually] Oh, there they go. They sound like Las Supremas de Móstoles. There’s an awful lot happening here, but none of it is doing anything for me.
V: The ultimate false start. How humiliating for the performers and the producers! Poor things. The two lasses make an impressive comeback, with faultless vocals. Turns a bit shouty at the end, but they otherwise hold it together.

02 Greece
B: Seemingly quite meaningful lyrics. Are they about someone who’s dying and leaving their loved ones in anguish and bereavement?
A: The interesting and not altogether successful vocal arrangement in the verses gives way to something much more accessible in the chorus. The late ’80s obsession with brass is there for all to see. It sounds like he falls off a cliff at the end.
V: That’s Lister out of Red Dwarf, isn’t it? Thumbs down to the backing vocals in the verses: it’s as though they’re chipping in for the hell of it. This takes two and a half minutes to do anything, so it’s ironically appropriate that ‘horis skopo’ should mean ‘serving no purpose’. 

03 Belgium
B: Lovely lyrics in lines like “C’est un tournesol émigré dans la vigne”, and the whole thing is obviously very appropriate to the setting. Not that the Yugoslav jury rewarded him for it!
A: Yes, it sounds like a song someone might write for their wife. The hum-hum bits add a touch too much gravitas for my liking. The timing in the chorus catches you off guard, which is good, since the rest is enough to send you to sleep. It sounds like a work in progress.
V: If Philippe pulls his yellow (!) trousers up any higher he’ll be wearing them as an off-the-shoulder number. That said, I wouldn’t mind being his Macédomienne the way he stares down the barrel of that camera.

04 Turkey
B: ‘Seagulls inside of me’ would make an interesting twist on gerbilling.
A: This is rather solid, and presses a lot of Eurovision buttons. The accordion and percussion make it seem not very Turkish for some reason. I quite like it. It’s definitely the only thing with a decent tune so far.
V: Sounds a thousand times slower than it should and goes nowhere, but Kayahan is clearly a seasoned performer.

05 The Netherlands
B: I love the word doodloopt. These lyrics are an accurate account of going into a relationship with your eyes open. I especially like the lines “En als jij me wilt vertrouwen / Dan delen we de pijn” (and not for the fnaar-fnaar quality, for once).
A: I’m liking the chorus despite myself; the rest of the song feels a bit self-important. The words alone, if you understand them, should be enough to convey the point that the song’s saying something without having to contrive some pompous tune to do it for you. The verses are a bit of a drag, too. Listenable though, all told.
V: A straightforward performance from Alie and Doetie that is as professional as it is unexciting.

06 Luxembourg
B: Things I can think to say about these lyrics: N/A.
A: Where does one song end and the next begin? They’re already starting to sound as though most of them came from the same late-’80s production team. Like Greece and the Netherlands, this one is rescued by its chorus. It’s another one that gets better as it goes along, as they crank it up for the finale, but it never needed to be longer than three minutes. I’m not sure I understand what all that echo adds to it either. (Or to any song, for that matter.)
V: Was 1990 the European Year of Hair? And I’d forgotten long gloves were so popular in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The girls on the keyboards are completely of their time, too. Not the most convincing vocal performance from Ms Carzo, who looks slightly annoyed at even having to be there.

07 United Kingdom
B: No comment.
A: Not even the Junior entries along these lines are quite so torturous. ‘Woeful’ has a new definition.
V: Fittingly, everyone looks and sounds awful. The choreography serves as much point as that ear they once grafted onto a mouse’s back.

08 Iceland
B: Sigga! Nei eða já! Nætur! Lyrically though it’s a very aimed-at-Eurovision kind of song.
A: This is kind of Sweden-meets-Yugoslavia-at-ESC, isn’t it. Cheery enough, but pretty empty. And see what I mean about the ’80s brass thing? The electric guitar, too, which at least here is actually being played rather than programmed.
V: Great vocals from Grétar and Sigga, matched by the harmonies in the chorus. They fill the screen without any difficulty, and I’m not surprised the crowd in Zagreb lap it up, but it comes across as a bit desperate.

09 Norway
B: Overdoes it on the Brandenburger Tor bit, our Ketil. I bet this isn’t a patch on Romeo.
A: That goes without saying. There are occasionally admirable attempts to eschew an ordinary arrangement in the vocals, but the rest is average stuff at best. The song stretches itself to snapping point to get to the three-minute mark, and the little-drummer-boy interlude is more irritating than it needed to be.
V: Ketil wins the sartorial elegance award hands down to this point. The song has a lot more energy live than it does in studio, and said interlude works a lot better, too.

10 Israel
B: Very bittersweet number this. I love the lines “Laboker haze yesh ta’am shel khofesh zar / Kmo shel mavet o brakha, ki halakhti mimkha”.
A: Not before time, a composition that doesn’t sound like its only aim in life was to mimic everything else being made at the turn of the decade. The initial pull and mystery of it (sleigh bells?) is largely lost as soon as they introduce a beat, but it’s streaks ahead of pretty much everything else so far.
V: Hair aplenty on Rita’s bonce! She gives such an impassioned performance that she sounds about half a key for much of it. Very classy otherwise.

11 Denmark
B: This is a remarkably different take on the same kind of situation from the one Israel gave us.
A: Hang about, I thought, surely this is the Icelandic entry; and if not, Norway’s, since it sounds like a forerunner to My Heart Goes Boom. No surprise then to find it coming out of Denmark. They did a very dependable job of this kind of thing in the ’70s and ’80s: upbeat pop that gets you bobbing or tapping some part of your body in time to it without you even realising. In a contest like this, that’s pretty much all I need.
V: Are the lady dancers Greco-Roman wrestling there at the start? Slightly ‘oh my god, somebody stole my legs’ performance from Lonnie, who looks like she just got out of the shower and only had time to give her hair a quick frizz. Good backing vocals from the lads.

12 Switzerland
B: Run-of-the-mill ‘music is my life’ lyrics.
A: Switzerland years out of time yet again. For a song about someone saying how much music means to them, it lacks any kind of punch. He might as well be singing anything, as it comes across as one huge cliché anyway. Not even the strings impress me when they’re so crassly cut off by that key change.
V: “Must be Switzerland, I’ve seen a cheese,” says Terry Wogan, aptly enough. (I love the “we call him the singing duvet” quip, too: that all-white outfit really is terrible.) Despite the ‘look, I can sing and play an instrument at the same time’ set-up, the whole thing’s so lifeless that the words barely make it from Egon’s mouth to the microphone.

13 Germany
B: This is is a two-a-penny anthem, although at least they had a reason for it with the fall of the Berlin Wall (and it’s interesting to note that this fared marginally better than Austria singing about the same subject, albeit without name-checking it, and much better than Norway, which did). “Nehmen, geben – ist es so schwer?” is clearly a question someone asks when ‘versatile bottom’ turns out, yet again, to be a lie.
A: Yes, well, it’s two people singing a song. Not one of our Ralph’s more melodious efforts, but the chorus is enough to anchor the rest of the song around.
V: Isn’t that Sigourney Weaver and Alec Baldwin? Could be any German entry, like, ever. Everything on Chris Kempers looks like it’s been inflated, including her hair.

14 France
B: I like the potted history of this song on Diggiloo. It probably deserved to win for having Serge Gainsbourg behind it alone: there’s nothing “treize à la douze” about these lyrics. Coming straight after Germany, it shows what a true anthem should be like, on paper at least.
A: It’s astounding that it took 34 years for a Black woman to sing for France. All the better then that the song fits as well as it does: it’s fascinating, if not quiet as fantastic as it might be.
V: A performance you actually want to watch through to the end for a change. The instrumental break is brilliant and could come from any recent contest. Ms Ursull wins the Big Hair title hands down.

15 Yugoslavia
B: I like the lines “Ne moraš biti snažan i grub / Da budeš sav moj svijet”.
A: More Yugoslavian retro fare, and it’s better than the song they won with if you ask me. Up to 2005 at least Bosnia clearly always took their cue from this period in Yugoslavia’s Eurovision history. I’d even go so far as to say this one’s quite catchy and well composed. It’s basically what Roxette made their name with.
V: I take that back – it’s like Croatia’s answer to Sonia. The boppy routine is fun, but the live arrangement outdates the song more successfully than the studio version.

16 Portugal
B: It doesn’t bode well for Portugal that the lyrics paint this as such a bog-standard anthem; very rarely when they’re not singing about pine nuts and prairies do things work out for them.
A: Woo-hoo! This must be about as close as Portugal has ever come to giving us trash of its time. It will come as no surprise that I love it. The arrangement is pleasingly familiar without explicitly copying anything, although the bridge is a bit Eye of the Tiger.
V: Is Nucha letting out a scream at the state of her nails mid-song? Or perhaps she’s only just seen what she’s wearing. There’s some very Swedish clapping going on. I’m a bit underwhelmed by this, all told.

17 Ireland
B: It’s funny how European list songs always overlook the Nordic countries. The words ‘Amsterdam’ and ‘canal’ are a clunky fit for these lyrics. 
A: This perhaps lacks a certain something, but the last 30 seconds or so are quite rousing, and it’s easy to see why it did so well for itself. I’m surprised the Irish onslaught didn’t begin a couple of years earlier, to be honest.
V: Apart from Liam looking a bit anaemic, this has pretty much all the elements of a winning Irish performance. The chorus works a treat.

18 Sweden
B: “Som en vind, sveper inom mig” – a couple of Espumisan should fix that.
A: This ticks a lot of the boxes you might expect of a Swedish winner, and is solidly put together, but it fails to convince me.
V: Awful outfits on everyone (see also: Italy, only doubly so), and the way they keep exchanging glances is way too cheesy. The music and vocals seem to be competing against each other rather than working together for most of the song.

19 Italy
B: As anthems for a European song contest go, they don’t really come any more thorough than this.
A: I see the appeal here, both as an anthem and as a piece of music written at the start of a new decade, and won’t argue that it doesn’t do exactly what it’s meant to. But it gets boring quickly, and doesn’t seem all that accomplished.
V: The Turkish guy’s just grown his hair out, hasn’t he? Rousing chorus that strikes just the right note live.

20 Austria
B: Probably unlucky coming straight after Italy, but just as well intended. I quite like the lines “Gegenwart kommt in Fahrt / Sie muß um jeden Preis”.
A: For something that only got through because the winner was disqualified, this isn’t at all bad. The string intro promises more than it will ever be able to deliver in a song produced in the shadow of the ’80s, and perhaps is just a concession to the orchestra that will be presenting it. Simone’s vocals are a bit ‘waaaaaagh’ at times, but all in all this is a decent effort from the Austrians. Nice ending, too.
V: Christina Applegate sings for Austria! I like the way the line-up disperses at the beginning. Simone overdoes it a bit with the eyes and what have you.

21 Cyprus
B: Rather barbed lyrics. I can’t speak for the Greek ones, but the English version conspicuously eschews any identification of gender in a way that has me going “aye aye!” for obvious reasons. The lines “Pou tha me vgali i istoria mou me sena / Oso s’ akolutho” ask a question that is probably pertinent to many a relationship.
A: Stockopolous, Aitkeniki and Watermanolou!!
V: Yay!!!

22 Finland
B: Interesting (or perhaps insensitive) message, given what many of the other songs have been banging on about. The only time there have been two songs in Swedish in one final isn’t much to write home about though, on the whole.
A: Flat vocals for much of the song, but it’s much more melodious and upbeat than I would have expected it to be. I’m glad to see the super-cheap programmed everything curtails itself after a mere two-and-a-third minutes.
V: That quasi-Caribbean thing the Finns love so much is there again. As suggested by the studio version, the vocals here are the weak link.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Yugoslavia

2 points go to Austria

3 points go to Spain

4 points go to Ireland

5 points go to Italy

6 points go to Portugal

7 points go to Denmark

8 points go to France

10 points go to Israel

and finally...

12 points go to...


Cyprus!


What a tragic tart I am. And what a turnaround! The wooden spoon is split in half and shared by Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

1989

Bit of a dodgy year, all told. I can manage three or four favourites, but after that it’s much of a muchness. Thankfully, the hosts are hilarious: I wish their acting skills were as good as their language skills.

01 Italy
B: Great lyrics – “Ma l’orgoglio non è mai veloce / È soltanto un pretesto per coprire un errore”; “Quella ruga sul viso che chiamavi ‘espressione’ / Ora è il letto di un fiume” – as per the majority of Italian entries.
A: God, I’d forgotten we were still in the Electric Eighties. Sounds like a Meatloaf song. Anna has a lovely voice but Fausto has the kind I’ve never been a fan of.
V: Can’t argue with their professionalism, but the performance itself (and for that matter the song) just makes me shrug.

02 Israel
B: These lyrics start out interestingly enough, but you soon realise what they’re a front for (“El hayekum esa az tfila”!!).
A: Composition-wise, this is scraping the bottom of a very nearly empty barrel.
V: Where were the child labour inspectors, part 1. It’s like the babysitter and the kid she’s picked up ­(after his class at the expensive stage school with the embittered, dried up, cruel-for-their-own-good tutor) who she’s being forced to look after and pander to until both of his parents get home from their demanding high-powered 1980s jobs. Which is to say: appalling. Decent enough vocals, but: appalling.

03 Ireland
B: “If there’s a reason or meaning / Then I ain’t been told” indeed.
A: I know it’s only 1989, but this sounds very 1987. It could be something SAW did as a demo for some talentless TV star that/who never came to anything. I hope it did sufficiently badly, as above all else it’s as boring as fuck. Finding enough songs for a top 10 (and only one candidate for the wooden spoon) is clearly going to be a tough task this year.
V: The synthesisers lend this an unflattering contemporary significance. Kiev and his passengers are wholly unconvincing, not least because the song seems to be sung within a range of about four notes.

04 The Netherlands
B: The sentiment is nice enough, I suppose, if a bit monotone. “Blijf jezelf, verander niet” only underscores the point.
A: Normally, as a focal point of energy and emotion and whatever, a chorus is designed to bring the other parts of a song together into a seamless whole. This one just plods along, which is perhaps in keeping with what the lyrics are saying, but still. Justine tries to lift it a bit towards the end, to little avail.
V: It’s nice to see they’ve actually rearranged this for the orchestra: coming straight after the Irish entry it could have been another example of how not to sound. It’s more understated, but that works in its favour, and makes the fact that she cracks at the end endearing rather than potentially embarrassing.

05 Turkey
B: “Bir ömür böyle geçmez.” Tell me about it.
A: Turkey goes off the deep end. It’s 10 years or more too late, if there was ever a time for it, but at least it’s different to everything else so far.
V: Melodrama! The audience is clearly up for some, and you’ve got to hand it to Pan: it’s not an easy song to sing.

06 Belgium
B: I like some of what this is saying. “En ik zou willen schreeuwen / Maar ik kan alleen zingen” is inviting ridicule if the exact opposite turns out to be true.
A: Bland music.
V: Ingeborg has such an annoying voice. Nothing to do with this song or performance reflects the months of preparation that presumably went into both: it’s like they’ve randomly picked some dowdy housewife and told her to get up on stage and sing whatever song they could be arsed chucking her way.

07 United Kingdom
B: I’m sure the idea of someone being both your one and only weakness and your one and only regret would ring true for a lot of people.
A: Chris de Burgh sings for the United Kingdom! Only without the Belinda Carlisle vocal effects. At the start, anyway. If Ireland was ’87, this is definitely ’86. There’s a distinct sense that the words to the chorus were in place well before the music. Even if the studio version I have wasn’t from crackly 7” vinyl, it has that feel about it anyway. Stands out to this point, but that’s not saying much.
V: How I wish this would crank up a notch or 10. Since it’s not going to, however, I’ll have to make do. Thankfully, it’s the strongest song and performance yet, although the backing vocals are a bit half-hearted. And I’m not sure I’d try to compensate for male pattern baldness by growing a ponytail.

08 Norway
B: I’ll be buggered if I know what she’s on about through most of this.
A: Almost everything seems to be striving to sound exactly the same so far. This comes together OK by the time it changes key, but musically it remains very dull.
V: God, everything’s so unpityingly slow. At least Britt overcomes her hideous outfit and gives a decent rendition of her less than thrilling song.

09 Portugal
B: I love the idea of “todo um povo / Guiado pelos ceus”. Portugal has one of the richest histories in Europe to pick from, and here it works quite well as a metaphor.
A: Still not much to write home about musically, but it’s more immediate than almost anything else to this point, so thumbs up for that. You can hear every note in the chorus coming a mile off, but it works.
V: The mysteriously monickered Iei Or is eclipsed by her female backing vocalists here, but the arrangement outshines everything and sounds fantastic.

10 Sweden
B: “Allt det vi söker, det finns här intill” – no arguments from me.
A: This manages to sound like everything else and completely Swedish at the same time, so it gets an extra gold star for that alone. (It rather strikes me as being the point.) Much more accessible than most so far. Actually, it sounds like a winner.
V: What an about-face after Conquistador: the orchestra sucks every last breath out of this like it’s on the verge of oxygen starvation. Whoever’s on drums sounds like he only has one good arm. It’s such a shame, since it’s a strong song and an even stronger vocal performance. In better news, backing vocalist Jean-Paul Well is probably the best-looking man in the contest.

11 Luxembourg
B: I like the way the central character is so scornful and yet shows herself to be just as deluded.
A: I want to say, about five seconds in: I know I’m going to hate this. But I should give it a chance. [Gives it a chance] Well, it sure is irritating, but it’s not as bad as Ireland.
V: Decent enough performance, but I’m trying to figure out when exactly it was that Luxembourg lost the plot. Yet again the brass is too low in the mix.

12 Denmark
B: “Sidder du stadig derinde?” That whole bridge reads like a serial masturbator being simultaneously chastised and condoned.
A: Love it! Funny how it only really sounds like Danish in said bridge.
V: Sounds amazing. Camp as a row of tents, of course, so the gimmick with the conductor works a treat. They must have had high hopes for this, and you can understand why.

13 Austria
B: “Und die Waffen werden Blumen irgendwann” is surely one of the most awful lyrics ever written.
A: Ditto initial Luxembourgish misgivings. Makes me think of Ich Troje, right down to the delivery. Why do all these would-be anthems employ so much echo?
V: A triumph of mascara, mauve lapels and cans and cans of hairspray. As late ’80s anthems go, this doesn’t sound too bad. Thomas makes a decent fist of it.

14 Finland
B: Some lovely stuff here, including “Sateenkaari kun taivalla taipuu / ...(on) Rauha sielussa rikkomaton”.
A: Something different at last! The guitars are fabulous. I’d like there to be a little more emotion to it, but you can’t have everything. I imagine it all coming across 100 times more powerful live.
V: [Does it?] More or less. It has the sound of a song you’d have thought the juries would go for. Anneli is wonderfully statuesque, but/and therefore far too static. Great vocals though.

15 France
B: Oh dear. “J’ai grandi ortie sauvage / Sure des ecorces de goudron” is all well and good, but poodlesque Nathalie is way too young to be peddling something like this.
A: Musically it’s rather good, with some nice touches to it, but I’m still struggling to get past the underagedness of it all. Lovely ending.
V: How wrong this is, on any number of levels! Ms Pâque will clearly be graduating from the same school of cheesy children forced to smile all the time as the Israeli kid. To her credit (as it was to his) she has very good vocal control.

16 Spain
B: So pathetic; so painful and delusional: the kind of lyrics I fall for, for some reason. I love the couplet “Llevo en mi piel la primavera / ...Y mucho mas amor del que quisera”.
A: Strings – at last! I’d like it to be a bit more hopeless and less lovely, but still.
V: I’d forgotten it takes us until song #16 to get to the first big ballad of the night. Under the circumstances, the Spaniards must have thought they were a shoe-in. Nina certainly does them proud, managing to keep it just the right side of completely OTT. The warm reception it receives is entirely deserved.

17 Cyprus
B: Is it just me or there only about five different lines in this song?
A: Hopeless keyboards. The bridge gives this the lift it so desperately needs, but it’s way too little, way too late. I just want to throttle them for their fakeness and failure to seem at all convincing.
V: And for their awful dress sense: Fanny, in a perfect example of nominative determinism, looks like a twat. By rights, she and Yiannis should be stood on top of a wedding cake because, let’s face it, singing at weddings is pretty much all they’re good for.

18 Switzerland
B: Who needs Andorra when you’ve got Switzerland singing in Romansch? “Cartessel strusch da vegnir veglia sut da quellas cundiziuns” – me neither: I’d be constantly scratching my head trying to figure out whether it was German, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian or Latin. In fact the only language in the group it doesn’t resemble to some extent is Portuguese.
A: As usual though, they seem to be aiming at a Eurovision sound rather than an inspired piece of music.
V: Princess Diana’s stunt double singt für Switzerland. This is workmanlike, but not bad. The three guys on backing vocals are a bit harsh in a how-low-can-you-go kind of way.

19 Greece
B: Positively Turkish in its (lack of) lyrics that repeat over and over. With a touch of Enya to them.
A: Not very exciting, but pleasant enough.
V: Nice flute.

20 Iceland
B: “Og þú færð að sjá það sem enginn sér” is a bit of a mouthful.
A: I wouldn’t have said this was worth zero, but boy is it boring. There are some early ’80s, late ABBA touches, particularly in the chorus.
V: I fail to see what distinguishes this as being worse than many of the other entries this year. (Perhaps that’s the problem.) Daníel seems to think that in the absence of a cummerbund he might as well just pull his pants up a bit further.

21 Germany
B: I sympathise with what Nino’s saying, but it’s the hours of refuelling I’m nostalgic for rather than the flight itself. Wink wink.
A: Doesn’t he know he’s on a hiding to nothing? At least there’s some passion to the melody and his delivery.
V: Not surprisingly, this and Austria are two peas in a pod – the only difference being that this has a beat. Very dependable turn from the squintastic Mr de Angelo.

22 Yugoslavia
B: “Nije važno sta je” – Yugoslavia must win!
A: Given there were much better stick-out numbers in 1989, I can’t see why this uninspired offering took the trophy. It’s not the most diabolical of winners, but it comes close.
V: I hadn’t realised those lights in the back did anything other than be on. I suppose this has a kind of poor man’s Cyndi Lauper appeal, but there were much stronger performances, so I still fail to see why it won.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Italy

2 points go to Austria

3 points go to France

4 points go to Portugal

5 points go to Germany

6 points go to Spain

7 points go to Finland

8 points go to the United Kingdom

10 points go to Sweden

and finally...

12 points go to...


Denmark!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Cyprus.