917 songs have been sung in the Eurovision Song Contest between 1956 and 2003. In this blog I go through these songs in a random order and tell you what I think of them. What song would you like me to review?
The Eurosong 269 makes me think of the salty sea and the foggy and damp harbour. although the song does not talk about the sealife at all. With the help of translate.google.com I've found out that De oude muzikant, the Dutch entry from 1973 tells a story about an old grey musician going the streets of Paris and playing accordeon. That's all there is to it, the song itself has nothing much to remember it for.
To get you in the mood, the lights in the Eurovision stage of Luxembourg in 1973 were dimmed for the Dutch entry, sung by Ben Cramer. Unfortunately it didn't help much, as the song is one of the least memorable songs of the 1970's Eurovision song contest.
To make matters worse, the dreadful sound mix of the 1973 contest lost about two thirds of the elaborate string arrangement of the song, all one hear is the singing voice, the bass and the occasional percussion and horns. Even the accordeon, the instrument of de oude muzikant, is barely heard. The song is one of many completely ruined by the sound mixer of the Luxembourg television, who seems to have gone for a two hour long coffee break during the contest.
This song leaves me completely indifferent. The juries seemed to agree, as Ben Cramer reached only the 14 place (of 17 songs taking part).
As I've mentioned earlier, the portuguese entries are usually recognizeable by their national influences. Often this has meant a serious and passionate fado-ballad that shakes the heart and warms the mind. The Eurosong 786, requested by a reader of this blog Jukka Kangasjärvi, presents proudly the porgtuguese culture in a more up tempo manner.
Alma Lusa was a group that was put togeher by the composer José Cid to perform his composition first in the portuguese selection and then in the international final of the Eurovision Song Contest 1998. Cid had taken part in the contest already 18 earlier with a poppy Um grande grande amor receiving one of the best placings ever for his country, 7th place among 19 participants.
His 1998 entry is much different from the 1980 entry. Instead of a pop, Se eu te pudesse abraçar is a happy folk song about, as portugues entries often are, love and home country. Cid can been seen among the group as playing accordeon.
The song is breath of fresh mediterranean air in this, sometimes rather pompous contest. The singer Inês Santos, who since then has become a major actor in the portuguese music and theatre scene, is a delight to both watch and hear and the positive energy from the whole group gives smile to at least my face. This song (reaching 12th place among 25) was certainly the most positive entry from the 1998, a contest where the most attention was paid to more overblown entries like the winner Dana International and the german clown Guildo Horn.
The Dame Fortune draw me the Eurosong 439. A song, that not lot of people remember, but at least to me is a happy re-encounter. The Dutch entry from 1982 was jolly, well performed and good composition, that just failed to stand out from the crowd.
A brief visit to Wikipedia.org did not make me much wiser about Bill van Dijk, the singer that represented the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982. Apart from singing this entry, he has done some voice acting for childrens tv series, and portrayed Cyrano de Bergerac in the musical version of the legendary tale, both in Broadway and the Netherlands. Apparently he has been more active in theatre than in the music business.
The composer Dick Bakker is much more familiar to the Eurovision fans, as he had composed the 1975 winning entry Dinge dong and served his country as an arranger in 1978, 1980 and 1984 and a conductor from 1996 to 1998.
Jij en ik was no Dinge dong, however, and after receiving only eight points it ended 16th in the final results (among 18 participants). To me this song was better than I remembered, a good song with competent arrangement (apparently by the composer himself) which made the live performance much punchier than the recorded version. With his actor skills Bill van Dijk makes the song fun to watch and easy to listen to. This was not enough for the song to stand out from the other entries, so it was mainly forgotten.
The 1982 Dutch entry is like an old friend that you are happy to meet again with some guilt that you haven't been contact with him for a long time. I'm sure I will come across much more songs like this in the near future.
In Eurovision there have been plenty of classic entries, that the Eurovision fans still remember fondly. There has, however, been much less so called evergreens, songs that have expanded their success also outside the Eurovision circles. The Eurovision entry 160 is one of them.
Vicky Leandros is a Greek-born singer who moved to Germany when she was 9 years old. Her career as a singer began in mid 1960's and she still is major star in his adopted home country. However, so far she has taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest only twice representing Luxembourg. Both times with remarkable results.
In 1967 17 years old Vicky (as she was called) got to sing a song by veteran French composer André Popp, who had won the contest already in 1960 with Tom Pillibi. Popp is one of my favourite Eurovision composers creating also excellent entries for France in 1964 (Chant de Mallory by Rachel) and Monaco 1975 (Une chanson c'est une lettre by Sophie).
Vicky did her best for L'amour est bleu, but her recording never got the commercial success than it would have deserved. The song that reached 4th position in the 1967 results became huge world wide hit, when conductor Paul Mauriat released an instrumental version of the song ith the english title Love is blue. Since then the song has become one of the most covered, if not the most covered, Eurosong ever.
To me the best version is still the original one, even though I find the recorded version better than Vickys slightly shaky live performance. She got her act together five years later, when again representing Luxembourg she won the Eurovision Song Contest with Après toi.
The song itself is a love song with enduring quality. Very simple, even naively simplistic lyrics manage to convey all the colours of love, from the fresh start to the bitter end. André Popps eternal melody, good arrangement and Vicky Leandros's passionate delivery makes the whole work better than any cover version I have heard.
After a very controversial local selection procedure Finland chose one of the most loved actors, comedians and singers to represent it's colours in Hague in 1980. The 394th Eurosong was composed by the celebrated songwriter Aarno Raninen (who had composed the Finnish entry three years back) and on paper it looked very promising indeed. In reality the hopes were not that high.
Vesa-Matti Loiri was, and still is, one of the most popular actors in Finland. He became also famous as a singer of old poetry set to contemporary music. Apart from this he also is a competent jazz flutist. This versatility of talents was vey useful when he was asked to participate in the Finnish selection of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980 with a song Huilumies (= The flute man), which combined schlager and jazz tunes with a hint of comedy added.
The two part selection in Finland caused loud outcry as the people's favourite artists and songs failed to proceed from the semifinal to the final. The lineup of the final consisted of more artsy and jazzy songs, none of which were worthy of the international final (according to the loudest protesters). When Vesa-Matti Loiri was chosen, the general public was unanimous, Finland was not to expect high points in the international final.
Despite of this Vesa-Matti Loiri and his backing team managed to put some fire on the final performance, which is much better than the version in the Finnish selection or on the record. The song is well arranged and the conductor Ossi Runne is clearly enjoying himself during the instrumental break (check the video above from 2:00 on). Hardly no-one was surprised, that Finland received its fourth last place.
To me time has healed the wounds and the performance by the team Finland is fun to watch and to listen to. The last place in Hague did nothing to Vesa-Matti Loiri's career, he continues to act and sing to this day to enthusiastic audience.
The 1988 Eurovision Song Contest is remembered for being one with the tightest and most exiting votings ever in the Eurovision history. Right until the last jury the UK and Switzerland were head to head, and even though the UK at some point seemed to run away with the victory, Switzerland came back from the behind. Before the last jury the UK were only five points ahead, and when the Yugoslav jury gave six points to Céline Dion and none to Scott Fitzgerald, the UK saw the victory flee from their hands by just one point.
Unfortunately the voting thriller of the 1988 has overshadowed both the songs in question. Céline Dion would become one of the best selling singers of all time, but few fans of hers even know the song Ne partez-pas sans moi. Scott Fitzgerald suffered crueller fate. Go reached only 52th place in the UK singles charts, and his career never recovered.
I've never really understood how such a unremarkable ballad ever got so high in the contest. It has been only recently that I have understood and started to like the song, which to me is not the kind of Euroballad to do well in the contest. Scott Fitzgerald delivers the song professionally and the string arrangement of the live version makes it much better than the blunt studio version. Definately not one of the best songs in 1988 and not worthy the second place, but still a pleasent ballad that should have been treated better.
The Eurosong 821 was requested by Asko Murtomäki, the former Eurovision expert of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE. Ping Pong was a israeli pop group that took part in the local selection as a joke. When chosen to represent Israel they made controversial changes to their act and made the israeli authorities withdrew all their support from the entry.
The opening song of the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest looked quite a haphazard entity. A group of strangely dressed young people jumping and running around, singing something that sounded vaguely like a tune and shouting the title Be happy among the otherwise hebrew lyrics. No wonder the song received only handful of points and 22th place (among 24 participants) in the final results list. The controversial lyrics (apparently, as very few of the audience understood hebrew) and the waving of Syrian flags caused some controversy, but mainly within the Israeli delegation. For others it was just a fun number easily forgotten.
The melody of the song is actually quite good and the bridge (where the soloists sings about her lover in Damascus) alters the mood nicely. The song has an interesting structure and works well as the opener of the contest. The group, however, manages to make a total mashs out of the performance so this is definately not one of the better songs from the 2000 contest. If interested, I'd suggest you find the recorded version of the song (with the hebrew title Sameach) which gives you better idea what the song actually is like.
My points 2/5
PS. is there a Eurovision entry that you would like me to write about? Comment on this blog or send me a tweet (to mikko_suhonen) and I'm sure to put your song in my list. The only condition is that the song has taken part in the Eurovision song contest between 1956 and 2003.
It is difficult to be funny. It is difficult to be funny in the Eurovision and even more difficult to make a song that sounds funny even after 26 years of the first performance. Israel failed in all accounts in 1987, at least if you ask me. The 521st Eurosong was, is and will be an irritating three minutes which I jump over every time I watch or listen to the Eurovision entries from Israel.
The duo singing the song Shir habatlanim were not really singers, but two actors who came to do what they were commissioned to do. To sing and act this piece, which hardly can be called a song. Datner & Kushnir are not to blame, they use their craft the way they can and even seem to have some fun on stage. The juries seemed to agree at least to some point, the song received a horredeous 73 points and totally undeserved 8th place in the final results.
Some people call me a dull and maybe I am. I cannot find anything remotely funny in this song and the performance irritates me to death to find any musical value in it whatsoever. Next song please, and quickly.
Italy has been a prolific participant of the Eurovision since the beginning of the contest. Even though the Italians still prefer their local San Remo competition, the country has sent quality entries from year to year with only few mediocre entries and almost none real stinkers. During the first decades Italy sent also their biggest stars to Eurovision. Such was Claudio Villa who represented his country twice. The first one, the Eurosong number 89 took part in 1962. The song might be a good way to explain why Italy has not won the contest more often their quality of songs should entitle.
The song Addio addio (composed by Domenico Modugno) could be called a prototype of an Italian entry of the 1960's. A song that starts slowly, does not capture you at first but if you are patient enough the song will reward you with a rousing finale. And of course, the singer is first class. There were lot of Italian songs like this in the Eurovision, songs that need patience and probably several listenings before they give you the goodies they have to offer.
Unfortunately Eurovision does not work well for entries like this, at least not in the 1960's with no preview shows not to mention YouTube to check the song beforehand. The juries liked the Italian entries to some extent, the songs fit usually within the top 10 or close to it. However they could not beat the easier entries that got to you instantly during the first listening and before the second half of the song. So far, Italy has won the contest only twice and placed in the top 5 only 14 times during their 40 year run.
Claudio Villa placed 9th in the 1962 contest. His song has stood the test of time much better than rest of the song from that rather dull Eurovision year. This goes to show, that often the Eurovision scoreboard has nothing to do with the quality of the music itself.
In a Twitter discussion I asked Jaana Pelkonen, the presenter of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest and current member of the Finnish parliament to choose a song for my blog. She was kind to contribute with a Eurovision classic, the 263rd song to be sung in the contest. "The song needs no explanation. It touches me." Pelkonen reasons her choice. Eres tú became one of the biggest international hits ever from the contest even though the live performance left a lot to be desired.
The simple but effective lyrics lists things that the singer wants to compare her lover to. You are like a promise, fire in my heart, like a poem, a fresh rain, a guitar in the night and so on. With a beautiful melody by Juan Carlos Calderón no more is needed. The song became an instant classic, which went to be one of the rare Eurosong (or a song sung in spanish) to ever reach the top 10 of the American singles chart.
In the contest the song had many problems. The audio mix of the 1973 contest was horrible and the beautiful string arrangement was completely left out of the mix. We don't know if it was the bad sound or the wrecked nerves, but the lead singer Amaya Uranga had real problems keeping her act together especially with the higher notes. The singing group Mocedades (still active though with several line up changes during its 44 year career) did their best to support poor Uranga, but the overall performance was severly affected.
Even with these difficulties the result was still the second place (among 17 participants) with only four points less than the winner, so we can only guess what the result would have been like if the sound had been what it should and the soloist had kept her cool.
To hear the song in it is full glory I'd suggest you to go to Spotify to hear the recorded version of the song. That way you can hear the song as it is, one of the greatest classics ever to come from the Eurovision Song Contest.
In my book it is seldom a good idea to change the language of the song before the grand final. It is ok to present the song from the beginning in English, but if you first choose a song in your own language and then change it, you usually lose more than you gain. That happened to among others to the eurosong 881, which represented Denmark in 2002.
When I first heard the song Denmark had chosen as their representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2002, I liked it a lot. Vis mig hvem du er was a mystical ballad with good performance by Malene Mortensen. The danish lyrics made the song even more enchanting. The song was a favourite for many Eurovision fans like me.
But Denmark had the song re-written in English for the final in Tallinn as Tell me who you are. Gone was the mystique of the song, which turned out to be your usual love song with nothing to make it stand out from the others. To make matters worse, Malene Mortensen seemed not at ease on stage and her performance was far from perfect.
I was not the only one to spot the difference. Against all predictions Denmark finished last among 24 countries. The song was not that bad to have such a faith. But still, there is a lesson to learn here.
For the next song you can thank a Eurovision fan Antti Salmela. He chose the Eurovision Song Contest entry 303, which would be the first song ever for its country. The song did not become a big hit nor did it receive many points, but Eurovision fans still remember this song fondly.
17 year old Semiha Yanki took the big responsability to be the first artist to represent Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest. Her young age did not affect her perfomance, which combined vulnerability and strength with the traditional type of Turkish melody and lyrics.
Once again the juries were not interested in new, strange and exotic. Only the monegasque jury awarded Seninle bir dakika three points while most of the juries preferred a typical eurosong à la Dinge dong from the Netherlands. It would take more than 20 years before the Eurovision juries started to appreciate the Turkish music, when Dinle raised Turkey up to the third place in 1997.
This song has however become a firm favourite among the Eurovision fans, and the single release of the song is one of the most sought after Eurovision gems for the collectors. To me this song has not aged so well, I think it is ok, but not one of my favourite songs from 1975.
Back to random choises. www.random.org draw the number 19, so we go way back to the first years of Eurovision. Austria took part first time in the Eurovision Song Contest in its second year 1957 with a less memorable song.
I have very little to say about the song Wohin kleines Pony. The first Austrian entry was a jolly song about a pony and its rider who asks his steed where it wants to run today. Nothing more.
Not the worst song in Eurovision but it certainly does not belong to the most memorable ones, not even among the 1950's entries. Bob Martin did his job as he is supposed to, but that didn't convince the juries even then, with three points this song came last among ten participating countries. No studio recording of this song was ever made.
The next song was hinted to me by a Eurovision blogger and enthousiast Tobias Larsson (check his blog Tobson in euroland). According to him the 377th Eurosong is positive and forgotten pearl performed by a shining artist, who would have deserved happier Eurovision experience. I agree and want to add to Tobias' description that if Micha Marah so much hated the song she performed, she manages to hide it beautifully.
It isn't just once when a singer has been sent to the Eurovision Song Contest to sing a song that he/she hates from the bottom of his/her heart. It is then up to the professionalism of the artist to not let the audience spot the animosity. Can you tell that f.eg. Mary Hopkin detested her 1970 entry Knock knock who's there? I don't.
You definitely cannot see any aversion in the sparkling eyes of Micha Marah when she sings Hey Nana. The peppy performance of this cheery song is bettered by the beautiful orchestral arrangement and the good job done by the Israeli tv orchestra. The audience is entertained but the jurors were not convinced enough to give points to the pretty set. Only five points and shared last place was all that Micha Marah took home from Jerusalem.
After the bad result Micha Marah was allowed to move on and forget the song he detested completely. The only recorded version of the song was done by the composer Charles Dumolin. The blunt synthesizer backed recording lacks everything that made the Eurovision version likeable. No strings, no excitement and worst of all, no Ms Marah to give the final glitter to the song. But who needs the recording when there is a perfect live version to watch and listen to?
Portugal has never been afraid to let its own national colours shine in their Eurovision entries. Already in the 1960's and 70's a portuguese entry was as easily recognized as a balkan ballad is today. Unfortunately despite of strong entries that still stand out, the juries seldom saw the qualities of the portuguese entries. The 324th Eurovision song, the entry representing Portugal in the 1976 contest, did relatively well.
Carlos do Carmo was 36 years old when he took part in the Eurovision. For some reason his looks and styling made him look much older, and the impression was strengthened by his fado way of singing.
That does not matter, however. Uma flor de verde pinho starts with striking orchestral opening, but soon the song settles down to a gentle and eloquent ballad. Do Carmo is on the top of his game interpreting a love song to his home country. The appealing melody grows from the beginning to the finish as, at least to me, the most effective song in the entire 1976 contest.
The song received points from only five different countries, but the top 12 points from France secured Portugal 12th place (out of 18 contestants). It would take 20 years before Portugal received 12 points from any country again.
The 761st song sung in the Eurovision Song Contest happens to be the first real stinker in this blog. The Bosnian entry used every cheap musical trick from finger snapping to repetitious singalong chorus (not to mention the oh-oh-ohs) to gain votes, but deservedly came 18th (out of 22) in the final results.
Song Goodbye was definately not one of Alma Čardžić's finest hours. She apparently is a big star in the Balkan area, and by watching her performance of the song in Dublin in 1997 you can see that she is not enjoying the moment one bit. As a watcher of the contest, I am not enjoying it either.
Luckily this dreadful song is not the only Eurovision memomory of Ms Čardžić. In 1994 she and Dejan Lazarevic represented the war torn Bosnia Herzegovina with a gloomy but effective ballad Ostani kraj mene, the song that got the biggest applause of the evening (but not the most votes, however).
This time I drew from the hat number 116, which leads us to year 1964 (one of two Eurovision Song Contests that there is no video recording available) and the song from Monaco.
French singer Romuald (né Romuald Figuier) was a minor star, who took part three times in the Eurovision Song Contest twice representing Monaco and once Luxemburg. He was (and I guess still is) a strong singer, but for some reason if you search for him in the Internet or Spotify, not much information can be found. It seems that he left his marks in some other field than music.
Instead, the composer of the Monegasque entry from 1964 is one of the most succesful (if not the most succesfull) composers ever to take part in Eurovision. Francis Lai is primarily known as a movie composer and his best known score is the music for Love story ("Where do I begin...") which he won a Golden Globe and Oscar for. In Finland his theme for the film Un homme et une femme is often heard in the commercials of a ferry company Silja Line.
Où sont elles passées may not be Francis Lai's best composition, but an ok ballad. In the first part of the 1960's there was no shortage of French ballads in Eurovision, so this song was very much forgotten, even though it came third (out of in the 16 entries).
A friend suggested me this next song, that was 795th song performed in the Eurovision Song Contest. 19 year young charmer Koit Toome reached the 12th place (among 25 songs) with this tender ballad, which melt hearts at least here in Finland
The 1998 Eurovision song contest was remarkable in three ways. It was the last contest with full orchestra and obligatory use of official language of the country. Both these factors gave the estonian entry appealing quality. Full orchestral backing made the song float effortlessly as a beautiful love song, to which the beautiful estonian language provided with the necessary tenderness.
The real asset was the young artist himself, who managed to sound vulnerable and innocent but at the same time convincing in his performance.
The third remarkable thing of the 1998 contest would eventually bring this song down. For the first time in 1998 the votes from most countries were based on televoting, not the juries. Maybe that was the reason that the estonian song didn't fare any better than it did. The juries, who were obliged to listen to the songs more than once, would probably have given more credit to the beautiful melody and the gimmickless performance than the televoters, most of whom heard the song for the first time.
In Finland this didn't matter. We have a special relationship with our southern neighbor and the estonian language sounds specially attractive to our ears, so it was no surprise that Finland gave the song its only 12 points in 1998.
Composer Lasse Holm dominated the Swedish Eurovision scene in the mid 1980's. Between 1982-1986 he wrote four succesfull entries for Sweden and the 496th eurosong was no exception.
Kikki Danielsson was almost as succesfull as a singer. After several second places she managed twice to be chosen to represent Sweden on the Eurovision stage, both times with a song written by Lasse Holm. When the contest was held on the home ground in 1985 team Holm-Danielsson provided Europe with a song that was the purest prototype of a Swedish Eurosong of the 1980's.
It was catchy, it was jolly, it was well performed, and finally it did better in the results than anyone had expected. Third place was the best result that Lasse Holm would ever get in Eurovision. Bra Vibrationer combined everything that one could expect from a Swedish Eurosong in the mid 1980's.
To me it sounds too polished and planned a package. Every expression and movement (not to say the choreography by the background dancers) seems too perfect and too rehearsed to me. Even the double meaning of the title sounds very calculated (the presenter Lill Lindfors thought it best to explain to the english speaking audience that the title means "Good vibrations" and had nothing to do with ladies undergarments).
Eurovision classic, for sure, but not really my cup of tea. At least not anymore.
To fill a friends request, the second song in my blog is the 320th
song to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, a song that for us
Finns represent the high expectations and the big disappointments that so
often has plagued our entries. Apart from that it was a fun song with
more good feeling and humour than all the other Finnish entries put
together.
Fredi (real name Matti Siitonen) was a big singing star in Finland in the mid 1970's, famous for his beautiful love songs and well trained tenor voice. He had taken part in the Eurovision song contes already in 1967 as a new young artist in Vienna with a dramatic Varjoon suojaan.
In 1976 Fredi surprised the home audience presenting not a love song but a fast paced song of bumping the bottoms. This fun song, written by Mr Siitonen himself, was first supposed to be a duet between the composer and Marion Rung, but after the Finlands number one female singer declined, Fredi decided to form a group of "Friends" to sing the song with.
In the local selection Pump Pump was a runaway winner. After developing the stage show and translating the lyrics to English a success was almost given in the international final of Hague. With expectations like this, the resulting 11th place (of 18 countries taking part) was a big disappointment.
However, Pump pump was certainly a song not easily forgotten by the audience. The good humour of the Finnish selections tranferred well to the Eurovision final and the show was as fun to look at as it was to listen to. Considering the overall success of Finlands entries, the final result was not bad at all.
Matti Siitonen returned once more to the Eurovision final by composing the Finnish entry of 1979, Katson sineen taivaan.
A random number generator chose as the first entry in my
blog the Dutch entry from 1958, the 26th song ever to be sung in the
Eurovision song contest. In the third year of the contest only 10
countries took part (one fourth of the number of contestants nowadays).
In the early years of Eurovision it was usual that the same artist represented his or her country several years in a row. Corry Brokken
took the responsability to represent the Netherlands during first three
years of the Eurovision history experiencing both the victory and the
defeat.
After her victorious performance of Net als toen in 1957 she took the Eurovision stage again when the contest was arranged by the Dutch television in 1958. The song was in many ways similar to Net als toen as far as borrowing some melody passages from the winner of the previous year. Still, the result was last drawn last place with Luxembourg with only one point.
However, I find this song a charming ballad in the 1950's vein giving the singer possibility to sing both with tenderness and force. To me this is one of the better songs of the 1950's Eurovision Song contests.
It would take 18 years for Corry Brokken to appear on the Eurovision Stage again, and even then she did not sing a note as she took the responsability of the presenter of the 1976 contest in Hague.
Welcome to my new blog. Couple of years ago I took a huge task of listening every song ever sung in the Eurovision Song Contest from the first song of the 1956 until the new songs from the forthcoming Oslo contest in 2010, 1195 songs in total. The number of eurosongs have since increased to 1319 (until and including the 2013 contest). The experience of listening these songs in order from De vogels van Holland by Jetty Paerl until Satellite by Lena Meyer-Landrut was surprisingly rewarding and already then I started thinking, I should write a blog about my feelings towards these songs. It took me three years, but here I am at last.
I may be a kind of euro fossil, because I remember fondly the "better" old times, when there was only 20-25 countries taking part every year in the Eurovision Song Contest. The songs from these old times were necessarily not better than the songs sung today but they were however easier to get to know as the number of songs was smaller each year. Now I'm having difficulties in getting to know all the 38-45 songs before the actual contest takes place. After couple of years have passed, there are many songs that I don't remember anymore.
That is why I limit this blog to the years before the semifinals were introduced to the ESC in 2004. Between 1956 and 2003 Eurovision set stage to 917 different songs, and I have some kind of knowledge about all of them (which as I said is not true about all the 402 songs presented between 2004 and 2013).
So I'm going to plunge into the sea of Eurovision entries and try to give you my impression of them. Going through the list in a chronological order felt boring, so I shall be choosing songs in random without personal preference. If you have a suggestion to make, please contact me by twitter (@mikko_suhonen) and I will gladly add your favourite song to the list. I would also be more than happy to have your views on the songs I am presenting. If you see any factual errors, please let me know.
Soon will se what song Lady Luck has chosen me as the first entry to review. Enjoy the ride.
