History

UEFA 2020: day 4

Again, three matches will be played today. We start with the first one: Scotland versus Czech Republic. Both countries once sent a song or a singer with a touch of their national identity. In 1966, Kenneth McKellar appeared on stage for the United Kingdom. He sang his song “A man without love” in a Scottish based costume. It was in 2009 that the group Gipsy.cz sang “Aven Romale”. Not the cloths but the music had something of the gipsy identity. By the way, both songs did not really do well. Poland and Slovakia play the second match of the day. Poland had slightly more succes than Slovakia did. But both once sent a ballad that did not score very well, but is very popular among Eurovision fans. Both are 90s songs. In 1995 Justyna Steczkowska represented Poland with the song “Sama”, which means “Alone”. The song seems to be sung a-tonal. It was Katarina Hasprová who sang “Molita” (prayer) in 1998 for Slovakia. The last match will be between Spain and Sweden. What do you think of boybands? Both countries sent one or more. Do you remember D’Nash, who represented Spain in 2007 with “I love you, mi vida”? Or do you remember Arvingarna? They took part in this years Swedish Melodifestivalen, but in 1993 they represented Sweden with the song “Eloise”.

UEFA Euro 2020: day 3

Today, we already have the third day of the European soccer chiampionship, UEFA Euro 2020. Let’s dive into the Eurovision history again with the countries that play today: First of all we have England against Croatia. England is, and Croatia was, part of a larger country. We take a look at former winners from both the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. Bucks Fizz won for the UK in 1981; not really because of their singing skills, but especially because of the act. The boys ripped off the girls’ skirts. Three of the four members of Bucks Fizz were English; Mike Nolan originates from Ireland. The only ever Yugoslav winner is a band from Zadar, Croatia: Riva. They won with “Rock me”. Singer Emilia Kokić is still active and participated in Croatian national finals many times. Austria and North Macedonia will compete too. Both countries had their biggest success with a diva singing a beautiful ballad. In 2014, Austria won the contest with Conchita Wurst and her song “Rise like a phoenix”. Tamara Todevska did not manage to win the entire contest for North Macedonia in 2019, but she won the jury vote with her song “Proud”. And the third match will be between Ukraine and The Netherlands. That could have been the big battle of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest as well. Maruv, who won the Ukrainian final with the song “Siren song”, was one of the favorites rightaway. But Ukrainian tv decided to disqualify the singer, due to political reasons. The contest was left without a favorite until Dutch Duncan Laurence presented his song “Arcade”. And we all know what happened with thát song….

UEFA Euro 2020 started!

With a year of delay, Euro 2020, the European soccer chiampionship, has started. The fun thing for a Eurovision fan is that a lot of matches remind us of Eurovision Songs, because it’s with (partly) the same countries. Yesterday, Italy won the match from Turkey. Many people on the internet mentioned Måneskin (of course) and Sertab (of course). But the match reminded us of another performance. You see Italian host Toto Cutugno (1991) learning Turkish. The Turkish contestants are Can Uğurluer, İzel Çeliköz & Reyhan Karaca singing “Iki dakika”. That is a hard one to pronounce for Toto. Today, Wales meets Switzerland. Wales is a part of the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest. But did you know that a Welsh woman almost won Eurovision? She became 2nd in 1970 and her name was Mary Hopkin. Also for Switzerland we chose someone who became 2nd: Daniela Simons in 1986. Both ladies have in common that in their years, one contestant could impossibly be defeated. In 1970 it was Dana and in 1986 Sandra Kim. Denmark meets Finland this year. Opposites attract, that’s what people say. We have a Eurovision winner from both countries. A ballad, sung by two man in their 40s from Denmark: “Fly on the wings of love” by the Olson Brothers. And a rock song from Finland, sung by Lordi, dressed as monsters: “Hard rock hallelujah”. And last but not least, Belgium meets Russia. They did so too in 2003. Turkey (as mentioned), Belgium and Russia struggled for the first place. Belgium became 2nd with Urban Trad, with a song in a non-existing language. Russia became third with the famous duo t.A.T.u. and their “Ne ver’ ne boysia”. Who is going to win? We put our money on Måneskin. Or were you talking about soccer?

How a British rejected song became a hit

It was 1980. The United Kingdom had a national selection for Eurovision with no less than 12 songs. It was a close call: in the end, there was a tie between two songs, only a revote could bring a decision.But in this field of participants there was also a lady with the name of Sonja Jones. She sang the Tony Colton/Jean Roussell song “Here we’ll stay”. She ended up quite anonymous at the 11th place. The song would have been long forgotten. However, things went different. Abba’s Frida released a solo album, “Something goin’ on”, produced by Phil Collins. And of course it was inevitable: a duet between the two stars. And guess what! They chose the flopped Eurosong “Here we’ll stay”! However, Collins wasn’t credited on the song. So when Frida’s record company decided to release “Here we’ll stay” as the next single, he didn’t want to be associated with it at all. A solo version of “Here we’ll stay”, by Frida only, was made for the occasion. The success of the song was not as big as the first singles from the album, “I know there’s something goin’ on” and “To turn the stone”. It reached the charts in The Netherlands and Belgium. Okay, and in the United Kingdom: 1 week, on the number 100 spot. But many people know the song, either from the album or from the single version. And who could have said thát when Frida had never added it to her album……

Belgian Reynaert passed away

Singer Joseph Reynaerts, known as Reynaert for Eurovision matters, passed away last night. He was hospitalized last week, affected by COVID19. Reynaert represented Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988 in Dublin with “Laissez briller le soleil”. Ten years earlier, he had won, ex-aequo the French songcontest in Spa. Reynaert wrote his song “Laissez briller le soleil” after the Belgian ship MS Herald Of Free Enterprise capsized and sank moments after leaving Port Zeebrugge in Belgium, causing many victims. The song won the 1988 Belgian preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest. In the international final in Dublin, Reynaert was less successful. He became 18th. After the contest, it became more silent around Joseph Reynaerts. He gave performances every now and then and worked together with Pierre Rapsat, Philippe Anciaux, Philippe Lafontaine and Steve Houben to honour George Brassens ten years after he passed away.At the end of the 1990s, Joseph Reynaerts became the director of the Centre Culturel de Flémalle. He resigned for health reasons in 2008. source: rtbf.be

41 countries in Rotterdam: one was never absent

As you might have noticed, today the participating countries for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest are announced. Exactly the same countries that were already on the list for Rotterdam 2020, will be back in 2021. We would like to give a shout out to one country in particular: Germany. This country has had an entry at all of the Eurovision Song Contests so far. That means that, including the 2 entries in 1956 and the entry for this years cancelled contest, we will be able to greet the 67th German entry. Only one time, the German entry did not manage to reach the Eurovision stage. In 1996, the songs first had to go through an audio preselection as only 23 countries could take part. Poor Leon, the singer who was supposed to represent Germany, did not make it to the best 23. An unexpected failure, as the Germans were pretty sure Leon’s “Planet of blue” was going to do very well in the contest. Leon, whose real name is Jürgen Göbel, did another attempt to represent his country in 1997, but became 2nd in the national preselection. But, final or not, there wás a German entry in 1996. Let’s look forward to the 2021 entry, whatever and with whoever it is…

Iceland: winner of the 2020 contest?

It was 1986 when Iceland first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Eurovision fans were anxious to know what this new country would bring. And they brought three of their stars, singing the song “Gleðibankinn”. They became 16th, which seemed to be their destiny in the beginning. Also the previous two years, Iceland became 16th. In 1989, they even got no points at all.Things all changed in 1990. Sigriður Beinteinsdóttir and Grétar Örvarsson, also known as Stjórnin, sang “Eitt lag enn” and reached the 4th place. It was celebrated at the island as if it was a victory. Another time Iceland came very close to a victory was with Selma in 1999. She was the first one to sing in English for Iceland. “All out of luck” was in the lead for some time, but in the end Sweden was the winner. This remained the best score for Iceland, shared with the 2009 contestant Johanna. Iceland’s songs are often chosen via a national final called “Söngvakeppnin”. Although in some years, Icelandic broadcaster RÚV decided not to have one. One time, back in 1994, the winner of Söngvakeppnin dit not enter Eurovision. RÚV decided that the original singer, Sissa, was not the right person to perform the song, so she was replaced by her colleague Sigga.Iceland is not ashamed to send controversial songs. In 2019 the BDSM act of Hatari, “Hatrið mun sigra”, appeared on stage. RÚV received a fine because Hatari waved a Palestine flag in the greenroom. Also the 2020 contestant Daði & Gagnamagnið caught a lot of attention with their green shirts and their anti-hero performance. It was not the number 1 at the bookmakers, but nobody would have been surprised if their entry “Think about things” would have been the first Icelandic entry to win the contest. Unfortunately, we all know why that didn’t happen. But who knows what Iceland will do next year. We are looking forward to it!

Andorra and the Eurovision Song Contest

In this article, we want to look back at the participation of Andorra in the Eurovision Song Contest. Andorra is the only country that took part but never reached the final. Andorra took part in the contest a total of five times. The entries were all sung in Catalan, sometimes mixed with English. When Andorra started going to Eurovision in 2004, they took it very seriously. They chose Marta Roure and the duo Bis a Bis to participate in their national selection. It took six rounds and two semifinals to select, in the end, two songs. The winner was Marta Roure, who sang “Jugarem a estimar-nos”. The second contestant for Andorra was a Dutch woman, living in Andorra: Marian van de Wal. Her song was chosen out of three, all sung by Marian herself. The three following years, Andorra decided not to have a national selection. The songs were all chosen internally. The most succesful one was the young and enthousiastic band Anonymous in 2007. They made it to the 12th place in the semifinal. It was the closest to the final that Andorra came. A year later Andorra did not make it to the final, but at least they won a prize! Dressed as a beautiful queen bee, Gisela won the Barbara Dex Award! Was it the right choice or do you think it’s the wrong decision? Judge for yourself! The last participation of Andorra was in 2009. Out of three songs, all sung by different artists, Susanne Georgi was chosen to represent the country. Georgi was not completely unknown at all. As the half of the duo Me & My, together with her sister, she scored a world wide hit, “Dub i dub”. It is the same Susanne Georgi who wants Andorra to be back in Eurovision. For this, she contacted Andorran tv-station RTVA. At first, they didn’t want to say yes or no, which sounded hopefull. However, in a later stage they stated Andorra will not return in 2021. Georgi does not give up: she claims to have a sponsor that makes participation of Andorra possible. Somehow, we got the feeling this is to be continued….

Albania: song contest addict since 1962

Photo Anjeza Shahini: tomboy30, wikimedia commons It was 2004 when Albania first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Already in december 2003 they had it’s national final, Festival i Këngës. The winner was Anjeza Shahini with the song “Imazhi yt”, a song that exceeded the 3 minutes, and not a little bit. A new, English, version was written and the song got the title “The image of you”. The song reached the final and even became 7th. A good start. But when it comes to song contests, this was not at all the start for Albania. Festival i Këngës, nowadays the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, already exists since 1962. Back in those days, Albania wasn’t a free country. Enver Hoxha was the leader of the country. There was no democracy. The country has even completely closed it’s borders for years. Festival i Këngës was in fact their ‘bread and circuses’. The first contest was won by Vaçe Zela, who won Festival i Këngës no less than 11 (!!) times. Can you imagine anyone, winning the national final in their country thát often? Although the songs in the beginning were pretty neutral, it later became a tool of the communist party to send their message to the audience. In 1972 some of the composers and singers felt the freedom to let the audience here a different story. Dictator Enver Hoxha therefore decided to prosecute the organizers and call them ‘enemies of the public’. Things started to relax a bit since 1984, when Hoxha died. Step by step, lyrics began to change.And then there was the Eurovision Song Contest! Albania decided to have Festival i Këngës as their national final. However, very often the arrangement of the song is completely changed. The best scoring song so far for Albania was Rona Nishliu. A special story about Rona and her song “Suus” can be read here. Rona and Anjeza are still the only two participants for Albania who made it to the top-10, but we are pretty sure that will change soon. Maybe in Rotterdam next year?

Jahn Teigen passed away

Yesterday, 24 february 2020, Norwegian singer and entertainer Jahn Teigen passed away in Ystad hospital in Oslo.Teigen is known to the Eurovision fans and audience for his three participations in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1978, he sang the entry “Mil etter mil” and received no points at all, getting him the nickname Mr. Nul Points. Four years later, he was on stage again but not alone: he was accompanied by his former wife Anita Skorgan to sing the beautiful duet “Adieu”. One year later, she was a backing vocal for him when he sang the cheerful song “Do re mi”.Teigen took part numerous times in the Norwegian final Melodi Grand Prix, the first time in 1974 and the last time in 2005. Teigen was 70 years old.