Kate Ryan (Katrien Verbeeck) from Belgium started her singing carreer in 2001, and found fame with a string of dance hits. These included covers, mostly. In 2006, she represented Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Athens, Greece. Unfortunately she didn’t make it to the final, but with “Je t’adore” she gave us a great contribution to our summer party.
We would like to introduce you to our new column: After the Eurovision fame. Today we put Scott Fitzgerald in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 28th, 1948. He began his career on the GTO label, releasing the singles “Judy Played The Jukebox” in 1974 and the title track to glam rock movie “Never Too Young To Rock”in 1975. Fitzgerald’s greatest success was with “If I Had Words”, a duet with Yvonne Keeley and also featuring the St. Thomas More School Choir. It reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1978, and later went on to be a hit in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, selling more than one million copies. The song also featured in the score for the 1995 film BabeIn 1999, the band Westlife collaborated with the Vard Sisters to record the song. In 1988, he was the first ever artist chosen by telephone vote to sing the UK’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Go”. The song was written and composed by Julie Forsyth, daughter of the entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth. Forsyth joined Fitzgerald on stage at the contest in Dublin, alongside her husband Dominic Grant (also of Guys ‘n’ Dolls) and Des Dyer (formerly of Jigsaw), to perform backing vocals. Ronnie Hazlehurst conducted the live orchestration. Fitzgerald came second in the contest, by one point, to Switzerland’s winning entry performed by Celine Dion. “Go” reached number 52 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1988. Fitzgerald reunited with Yvonne Keeley in 1992 for the single “United We Stand”, which was released on Red Bullet Records. In 2010 Fitzgerald and Keeley reunited for the final time in an all star version of ”If I had words” for Charity in the Netherlands which featured Gordon, Patricia Paay, Thomas Berge and many others. His album from 1988 ” The wind beneath my wings” has recently attracted interest again, and can be heared on Spotify and is for sale on Amazon. Fitzgerald is married to Shereen Fitzgerald and has three children, Liam Paul Patrick McPhail (passed away in 2020), Neeley Fitzgerald and the singer-songwriter Ki Fitzgerald, an original member of the UK boy band Busted and hit-songwriter to artists around the world. Ki co-wrote Monsters for Saara Aalto’s Finland 2018 entry into Eurovision Song Contest, adding to the family’s Eurovision history. Fitzgerald’s Eurovision experience was allmost forgotten until he decided to embrace his past and performed at a number of party nights in 2021 to celebrate the contest.
We are getting closer and closer to the final of UEFA 2020, the European Soccer Championship. Today we will have two quarter finals. The first match will be between Spain and Switzerland. In the sixties, both countries had a song with a double title. In 1965, Conchita Bautista brought the song “Que bueno, que bueno” for Spain. In 1969, Paola Del Medico sang “Bonjour, bonjour” for Switzerland. For the second match, Belgium vs Italy, we look at duos. Belgium sent quite a few, but the most outstanding one was the duo Nicole & Hugo in 1973. Their song was “Baby, baby”, but they are particularly famous for… well have a look yourself. In 1985, Al Bano & Romina Power represented Italy. They had Europe wide fame already when they sang “Magic, oh magic”.
We already go to the second day of the eighth finals in the European Soccer Championship. The first match is between Czech Republic and The Netherlands. For this match, we go back to 1968. The Czech Republic did not participate, but one of the most popular Czech singers, Karel Gott, represented Austria. He sang “Tausend Fenster”. The Netherlands were represented by one of their most popular singers: Ronnie Tober. He sang “Morgen”. During and after Eurovision, the two became friends. They remained so until Karel Gott passed away in 2019. The other match of today will be between Belgium and Portugal. We have only one song here that combines both countries. In 2005, Belgium was represented by Nuno Resende. The singer was born in Porto but moved to Belgium with his family when he was 12.
It’s day 11 of the European Championship soccer already. Today, no less than four matches will be played. To start with Ukraine against Austria. Both countries once had an act containing a burning fake piano. It was Mélovin who played the piano in his song “Under the ladder” in 2018. He was not the first one to do so. In 2015 The Makemakes had a piano burning during the performance of “I am yours”. The second match is between North Macedonia and the Netherlands. Both countries once had a song about darkness and light. The 2012 North Macedonian entrant Kaliopi sang “Crno i belo”, which means black and white. The Dutch sisters of O’G3NE sang “Lights and shadows” in 2017. Russia will meet Denmark tomorrow. It was back in 2000 when Russia and Denmark ended up in the top, Denmark as the winner, Russia as the number 2. When The Olsen Brothers won with “Fly on the wings of love”, Alsou was the runner up with “Solo”. Another match will be the the one from Finland against Belgium. In 1977, both countries were favorites to win the contest. Both ended up disappointed. Finnish Monica Aspelund and her “Lapponia” ended up in 10th place, while Belgian Dream Express brought their “A million in one, two, three” to a 7th place.
We already face the 7th day of UEFA 2020. Again, three matches will be played. The first one will be Ukraine against North Macedonia. Both countries have had a contestant who faced troubles because of his or her identity. Gaitana sang “Be my guest” in 2012. The song is a soccer anthem, with the music being based on the vuvuzela. Yuriy Syrotyuk, politician of a nationalist political party, said that with this contestant people might think Ukraine is an African country. Gaitana is half Congolese. 2021 North Macedonian contestant Vasil faced a petition because in the video, something that looked like the Bulgarian flag was shown. Vasil also has the Bulgarian nationality. The second match is Denmark vs Belgium. We all know that the only Belgian winner, Sandra Kim, was a 13 year old child. But it was also a child star who participated in the 1985 contest for Denmark. It was Leah Bundgård, the 8 year old daughter of Søren Bundgård. Søren was the male half of the duo Kirsten & Søren. The third and last match will be between The Netherlands and Austria. That reminds us of 2014, when it was either one of them to get the win. It was the duo Common Linnets for the Netherlands coming second with “Calm after the storm”. It was Conchita Wurst for Austria winning with “Rise like a Phoenix”. But hey, you published “Rise like a Phoenix” before? Touché, but who minds watching Conchita’s performance twice?
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?
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……
Eurovision is over, but Eurovision season is definitely not. There are some awards to be given after the contest. We would like to recommend you to vote for the Barbara Dex Award. The annual award is given to the artist or group wearing the most remarkable clothes. Our friends of songfestival.be are the organizers of the prize. Two years ago, Portuguese Conan Osiris won the prize. You can find an overview of all the winners, including their videos, here. You can vote for this year’s award here. Barbara Dex, the namegiver of the award. Another Award is especially interesting for our Dutch and Belgian visitors: the Eurovision Artists Award. Our friends of Eurovision Artists award the prize to a person, persons, an organization or initiative from the Netherlands or Belgium who has or has promoted the Eurovision Song Contest in the media in a special way. It is an annual prize. Due to COVID19 it was not awarded last year. Two years ago it was won by the website Eurostory, a literary-journalistic site about the Eurovision song contest. For this years award you can vote here.
The results of both the semifinals are known. Malta won the first one and Switzerland the 2nd one. Where the qualifiers of the 2nd semifinal were very clear (number 11, Denmark, follows with a distance), it was a close call at the first semifinal. Norway was 10th with 115 points while Croatia was 11th with 110 points. The full results are: 1st semifinal Malta, 325 pts. Ukraine, 267 pts. Russia, 225 pts. Lithuania, 203 pts. Israel, 192 pts. Cyprus, 170 pts. Sweden, 142 pts. Azerbaijan, 138 pts. Belgium, 117 pts. Norway, 115 pts. Croatia 110 pts. Romania, 85 pts. Slovenia, 44 pts. Australia, 28 pts. North Macedonia, 23 pts. Ireland, 20 pts. 2nd semifinal Switzerland, 291 pts. Iceland, 288 pts. Bulgaria, 250 pts. Portugal, 239 pts. Finland, 234 pts. Greece, 184 pts. Moldova, 179 pts. Serbia, 124 pts. San Marino, 118 pts. Albania, 112 pts. Denmark, 89 pts. Austria, 66 pts. Estonia, 58 pts. Poland, 35 pts. Czech Republic, 23 pts. Georgia, 16 pts. Latvia, 14 pts. photo credits: EBU
Kate Ryan (Katrien Verbeeck) from Belgium started her singing carreer in 2001, and found fame with a string of dance hits. These included covers, mostly. In 2006, she represented Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Athens, Greece. Unfortunately she didn’t make it to the final, but with “Je t’adore” she gave us a great contribution to our summer party.
We would like to introduce you to our new column: After the Eurovision fame. Today we put Scott Fitzgerald in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 28th, 1948. He began his career on the GTO label, releasing the singles “Judy Played The Jukebox” in 1974 and the title track to glam rock movie “Never Too Young To Rock”in 1975. Fitzgerald’s greatest success was with “If I Had Words”, a duet with Yvonne Keeley and also featuring the St. Thomas More School Choir. It reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1978, and later went on to be a hit in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, selling more than one million copies. The song also featured in the score for the 1995 film BabeIn 1999, the band Westlife collaborated with the Vard Sisters to record the song. In 1988, he was the first ever artist chosen by telephone vote to sing the UK’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Go”. The song was written and composed by Julie Forsyth, daughter of the entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth. Forsyth joined Fitzgerald on stage at the contest in Dublin, alongside her husband Dominic Grant (also of Guys ‘n’ Dolls) and Des Dyer (formerly of Jigsaw), to perform backing vocals. Ronnie Hazlehurst conducted the live orchestration. Fitzgerald came second in the contest, by one point, to Switzerland’s winning entry performed by Celine Dion. “Go” reached number 52 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1988. Fitzgerald reunited with Yvonne Keeley in 1992 for the single “United We Stand”, which was released on Red Bullet Records. In 2010 Fitzgerald and Keeley reunited for the final time in an all star version of ”If I had words” for Charity in the Netherlands which featured Gordon, Patricia Paay, Thomas Berge and many others. His album from 1988 ” The wind beneath my wings” has recently attracted interest again, and can be heared on Spotify and is for sale on Amazon. Fitzgerald is married to Shereen Fitzgerald and has three children, Liam Paul Patrick McPhail (passed away in 2020), Neeley Fitzgerald and the singer-songwriter Ki Fitzgerald, an original member of the UK boy band Busted and hit-songwriter to artists around the world. Ki co-wrote Monsters for Saara Aalto’s Finland 2018 entry into Eurovision Song Contest, adding to the family’s Eurovision history. Fitzgerald’s Eurovision experience was allmost forgotten until he decided to embrace his past and performed at a number of party nights in 2021 to celebrate the contest.
We are getting closer and closer to the final of UEFA 2020, the European Soccer Championship. Today we will have two quarter finals. The first match will be between Spain and Switzerland. In the sixties, both countries had a song with a double title. In 1965, Conchita Bautista brought the song “Que bueno, que bueno” for Spain. In 1969, Paola Del Medico sang “Bonjour, bonjour” for Switzerland. For the second match, Belgium vs Italy, we look at duos. Belgium sent quite a few, but the most outstanding one was the duo Nicole & Hugo in 1973. Their song was “Baby, baby”, but they are particularly famous for… well have a look yourself. In 1985, Al Bano & Romina Power represented Italy. They had Europe wide fame already when they sang “Magic, oh magic”.
We already go to the second day of the eighth finals in the European Soccer Championship. The first match is between Czech Republic and The Netherlands. For this match, we go back to 1968. The Czech Republic did not participate, but one of the most popular Czech singers, Karel Gott, represented Austria. He sang “Tausend Fenster”. The Netherlands were represented by one of their most popular singers: Ronnie Tober. He sang “Morgen”. During and after Eurovision, the two became friends. They remained so until Karel Gott passed away in 2019. The other match of today will be between Belgium and Portugal. We have only one song here that combines both countries. In 2005, Belgium was represented by Nuno Resende. The singer was born in Porto but moved to Belgium with his family when he was 12.
It’s day 11 of the European Championship soccer already. Today, no less than four matches will be played. To start with Ukraine against Austria. Both countries once had an act containing a burning fake piano. It was Mélovin who played the piano in his song “Under the ladder” in 2018. He was not the first one to do so. In 2015 The Makemakes had a piano burning during the performance of “I am yours”. The second match is between North Macedonia and the Netherlands. Both countries once had a song about darkness and light. The 2012 North Macedonian entrant Kaliopi sang “Crno i belo”, which means black and white. The Dutch sisters of O’G3NE sang “Lights and shadows” in 2017. Russia will meet Denmark tomorrow. It was back in 2000 when Russia and Denmark ended up in the top, Denmark as the winner, Russia as the number 2. When The Olsen Brothers won with “Fly on the wings of love”, Alsou was the runner up with “Solo”. Another match will be the the one from Finland against Belgium. In 1977, both countries were favorites to win the contest. Both ended up disappointed. Finnish Monica Aspelund and her “Lapponia” ended up in 10th place, while Belgian Dream Express brought their “A million in one, two, three” to a 7th place.
We already face the 7th day of UEFA 2020. Again, three matches will be played. The first one will be Ukraine against North Macedonia. Both countries have had a contestant who faced troubles because of his or her identity. Gaitana sang “Be my guest” in 2012. The song is a soccer anthem, with the music being based on the vuvuzela. Yuriy Syrotyuk, politician of a nationalist political party, said that with this contestant people might think Ukraine is an African country. Gaitana is half Congolese. 2021 North Macedonian contestant Vasil faced a petition because in the video, something that looked like the Bulgarian flag was shown. Vasil also has the Bulgarian nationality. The second match is Denmark vs Belgium. We all know that the only Belgian winner, Sandra Kim, was a 13 year old child. But it was also a child star who participated in the 1985 contest for Denmark. It was Leah Bundgård, the 8 year old daughter of Søren Bundgård. Søren was the male half of the duo Kirsten & Søren. The third and last match will be between The Netherlands and Austria. That reminds us of 2014, when it was either one of them to get the win. It was the duo Common Linnets for the Netherlands coming second with “Calm after the storm”. It was Conchita Wurst for Austria winning with “Rise like a Phoenix”. But hey, you published “Rise like a Phoenix” before? Touché, but who minds watching Conchita’s performance twice?
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?
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……
Eurovision is over, but Eurovision season is definitely not. There are some awards to be given after the contest. We would like to recommend you to vote for the Barbara Dex Award. The annual award is given to the artist or group wearing the most remarkable clothes. Our friends of songfestival.be are the organizers of the prize. Two years ago, Portuguese Conan Osiris won the prize. You can find an overview of all the winners, including their videos, here. You can vote for this year’s award here. Barbara Dex, the namegiver of the award. Another Award is especially interesting for our Dutch and Belgian visitors: the Eurovision Artists Award. Our friends of Eurovision Artists award the prize to a person, persons, an organization or initiative from the Netherlands or Belgium who has or has promoted the Eurovision Song Contest in the media in a special way. It is an annual prize. Due to COVID19 it was not awarded last year. Two years ago it was won by the website Eurostory, a literary-journalistic site about the Eurovision song contest. For this years award you can vote here.
The results of both the semifinals are known. Malta won the first one and Switzerland the 2nd one. Where the qualifiers of the 2nd semifinal were very clear (number 11, Denmark, follows with a distance), it was a close call at the first semifinal. Norway was 10th with 115 points while Croatia was 11th with 110 points. The full results are: 1st semifinal Malta, 325 pts. Ukraine, 267 pts. Russia, 225 pts. Lithuania, 203 pts. Israel, 192 pts. Cyprus, 170 pts. Sweden, 142 pts. Azerbaijan, 138 pts. Belgium, 117 pts. Norway, 115 pts. Croatia 110 pts. Romania, 85 pts. Slovenia, 44 pts. Australia, 28 pts. North Macedonia, 23 pts. Ireland, 20 pts. 2nd semifinal Switzerland, 291 pts. Iceland, 288 pts. Bulgaria, 250 pts. Portugal, 239 pts. Finland, 234 pts. Greece, 184 pts. Moldova, 179 pts. Serbia, 124 pts. San Marino, 118 pts. Albania, 112 pts. Denmark, 89 pts. Austria, 66 pts. Estonia, 58 pts. Poland, 35 pts. Czech Republic, 23 pts. Georgia, 16 pts. Latvia, 14 pts. photo credits: EBU
Kate Ryan (Katrien Verbeeck) from Belgium started her singing carreer in 2001, and found fame with a string of dance hits. These included covers, mostly. In 2006, she represented Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Athens, Greece. Unfortunately she didn’t make it to the final, but with “Je t’adore” she gave us a great contribution to our summer party.
We would like to introduce you to our new column: After the Eurovision fame. Today we put Scott Fitzgerald in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 28th, 1948. He began his career on the GTO label, releasing the singles “Judy Played The Jukebox” in 1974 and the title track to glam rock movie “Never Too Young To Rock”in 1975. Fitzgerald’s greatest success was with “If I Had Words”, a duet with Yvonne Keeley and also featuring the St. Thomas More School Choir. It reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1978, and later went on to be a hit in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, selling more than one million copies. The song also featured in the score for the 1995 film BabeIn 1999, the band Westlife collaborated with the Vard Sisters to record the song. In 1988, he was the first ever artist chosen by telephone vote to sing the UK’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Go”. The song was written and composed by Julie Forsyth, daughter of the entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth. Forsyth joined Fitzgerald on stage at the contest in Dublin, alongside her husband Dominic Grant (also of Guys ‘n’ Dolls) and Des Dyer (formerly of Jigsaw), to perform backing vocals. Ronnie Hazlehurst conducted the live orchestration. Fitzgerald came second in the contest, by one point, to Switzerland’s winning entry performed by Celine Dion. “Go” reached number 52 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1988. Fitzgerald reunited with Yvonne Keeley in 1992 for the single “United We Stand”, which was released on Red Bullet Records. In 2010 Fitzgerald and Keeley reunited for the final time in an all star version of ”If I had words” for Charity in the Netherlands which featured Gordon, Patricia Paay, Thomas Berge and many others. His album from 1988 ” The wind beneath my wings” has recently attracted interest again, and can be heared on Spotify and is for sale on Amazon. Fitzgerald is married to Shereen Fitzgerald and has three children, Liam Paul Patrick McPhail (passed away in 2020), Neeley Fitzgerald and the singer-songwriter Ki Fitzgerald, an original member of the UK boy band Busted and hit-songwriter to artists around the world. Ki co-wrote Monsters for Saara Aalto’s Finland 2018 entry into Eurovision Song Contest, adding to the family’s Eurovision history. Fitzgerald’s Eurovision experience was allmost forgotten until he decided to embrace his past and performed at a number of party nights in 2021 to celebrate the contest.
We are getting closer and closer to the final of UEFA 2020, the European Soccer Championship. Today we will have two quarter finals. The first match will be between Spain and Switzerland. In the sixties, both countries had a song with a double title. In 1965, Conchita Bautista brought the song “Que bueno, que bueno” for Spain. In 1969, Paola Del Medico sang “Bonjour, bonjour” for Switzerland. For the second match, Belgium vs Italy, we look at duos. Belgium sent quite a few, but the most outstanding one was the duo Nicole & Hugo in 1973. Their song was “Baby, baby”, but they are particularly famous for… well have a look yourself. In 1985, Al Bano & Romina Power represented Italy. They had Europe wide fame already when they sang “Magic, oh magic”.
We already go to the second day of the eighth finals in the European Soccer Championship. The first match is between Czech Republic and The Netherlands. For this match, we go back to 1968. The Czech Republic did not participate, but one of the most popular Czech singers, Karel Gott, represented Austria. He sang “Tausend Fenster”. The Netherlands were represented by one of their most popular singers: Ronnie Tober. He sang “Morgen”. During and after Eurovision, the two became friends. They remained so until Karel Gott passed away in 2019. The other match of today will be between Belgium and Portugal. We have only one song here that combines both countries. In 2005, Belgium was represented by Nuno Resende. The singer was born in Porto but moved to Belgium with his family when he was 12.
It’s day 11 of the European Championship soccer already. Today, no less than four matches will be played. To start with Ukraine against Austria. Both countries once had an act containing a burning fake piano. It was Mélovin who played the piano in his song “Under the ladder” in 2018. He was not the first one to do so. In 2015 The Makemakes had a piano burning during the performance of “I am yours”. The second match is between North Macedonia and the Netherlands. Both countries once had a song about darkness and light. The 2012 North Macedonian entrant Kaliopi sang “Crno i belo”, which means black and white. The Dutch sisters of O’G3NE sang “Lights and shadows” in 2017. Russia will meet Denmark tomorrow. It was back in 2000 when Russia and Denmark ended up in the top, Denmark as the winner, Russia as the number 2. When The Olsen Brothers won with “Fly on the wings of love”, Alsou was the runner up with “Solo”. Another match will be the the one from Finland against Belgium. In 1977, both countries were favorites to win the contest. Both ended up disappointed. Finnish Monica Aspelund and her “Lapponia” ended up in 10th place, while Belgian Dream Express brought their “A million in one, two, three” to a 7th place.
We already face the 7th day of UEFA 2020. Again, three matches will be played. The first one will be Ukraine against North Macedonia. Both countries have had a contestant who faced troubles because of his or her identity. Gaitana sang “Be my guest” in 2012. The song is a soccer anthem, with the music being based on the vuvuzela. Yuriy Syrotyuk, politician of a nationalist political party, said that with this contestant people might think Ukraine is an African country. Gaitana is half Congolese. 2021 North Macedonian contestant Vasil faced a petition because in the video, something that looked like the Bulgarian flag was shown. Vasil also has the Bulgarian nationality. The second match is Denmark vs Belgium. We all know that the only Belgian winner, Sandra Kim, was a 13 year old child. But it was also a child star who participated in the 1985 contest for Denmark. It was Leah Bundgård, the 8 year old daughter of Søren Bundgård. Søren was the male half of the duo Kirsten & Søren. The third and last match will be between The Netherlands and Austria. That reminds us of 2014, when it was either one of them to get the win. It was the duo Common Linnets for the Netherlands coming second with “Calm after the storm”. It was Conchita Wurst for Austria winning with “Rise like a Phoenix”. But hey, you published “Rise like a Phoenix” before? Touché, but who minds watching Conchita’s performance twice?
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?
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……
Eurovision is over, but Eurovision season is definitely not. There are some awards to be given after the contest. We would like to recommend you to vote for the Barbara Dex Award. The annual award is given to the artist or group wearing the most remarkable clothes. Our friends of songfestival.be are the organizers of the prize. Two years ago, Portuguese Conan Osiris won the prize. You can find an overview of all the winners, including their videos, here. You can vote for this year’s award here. Barbara Dex, the namegiver of the award. Another Award is especially interesting for our Dutch and Belgian visitors: the Eurovision Artists Award. Our friends of Eurovision Artists award the prize to a person, persons, an organization or initiative from the Netherlands or Belgium who has or has promoted the Eurovision Song Contest in the media in a special way. It is an annual prize. Due to COVID19 it was not awarded last year. Two years ago it was won by the website Eurostory, a literary-journalistic site about the Eurovision song contest. For this years award you can vote here.
The results of both the semifinals are known. Malta won the first one and Switzerland the 2nd one. Where the qualifiers of the 2nd semifinal were very clear (number 11, Denmark, follows with a distance), it was a close call at the first semifinal. Norway was 10th with 115 points while Croatia was 11th with 110 points. The full results are: 1st semifinal Malta, 325 pts. Ukraine, 267 pts. Russia, 225 pts. Lithuania, 203 pts. Israel, 192 pts. Cyprus, 170 pts. Sweden, 142 pts. Azerbaijan, 138 pts. Belgium, 117 pts. Norway, 115 pts. Croatia 110 pts. Romania, 85 pts. Slovenia, 44 pts. Australia, 28 pts. North Macedonia, 23 pts. Ireland, 20 pts. 2nd semifinal Switzerland, 291 pts. Iceland, 288 pts. Bulgaria, 250 pts. Portugal, 239 pts. Finland, 234 pts. Greece, 184 pts. Moldova, 179 pts. Serbia, 124 pts. San Marino, 118 pts. Albania, 112 pts. Denmark, 89 pts. Austria, 66 pts. Estonia, 58 pts. Poland, 35 pts. Czech Republic, 23 pts. Georgia, 16 pts. Latvia, 14 pts. photo credits: EBU
Kate Ryan (Katrien Verbeeck) from Belgium started her singing carreer in 2001, and found fame with a string of dance hits. These included covers, mostly. In 2006, she represented Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Athens, Greece. Unfortunately she didn’t make it to the final, but with “Je t’adore” she gave us a great contribution to our summer party.
We would like to introduce you to our new column: After the Eurovision fame. Today we put Scott Fitzgerald in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 28th, 1948. He began his career on the GTO label, releasing the singles “Judy Played The Jukebox” in 1974 and the title track to glam rock movie “Never Too Young To Rock”in 1975. Fitzgerald’s greatest success was with “If I Had Words”, a duet with Yvonne Keeley and also featuring the St. Thomas More School Choir. It reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1978, and later went on to be a hit in Australia,
We are getting closer and closer to the final of UEFA 2020, the European Soccer Championship. Today we will have two quarter finals. The first match will be between Spain and Switzerland. In the sixties, both countries had a song with a double title. In 1965, Conchita Bautista brought the song “Que bueno, que bueno” for Spain. In 1969, Paola Del Medico sang “Bonjour, bonjour” for Switzerland. For the second match, Belgium vs Italy, we look at duos. Belgium sent quite a few, but the most outstanding one was the duo Nicole & Hugo in 1973. Their song was “Baby,
We already go to the second day of the eighth finals in the European Soccer Championship. The first match is between Czech Republic and The Netherlands. For this match, we go back to 1968. The Czech Republic did not participate, but one of the most popular Czech singers, Karel Gott, represented Austria. He sang “Tausend Fenster”. The Netherlands were represented by one of their most popular singers: Ronnie Tober. He sang “Morgen”. During and after Eurovision, the two became friends. They remained so until Karel Gott passed away in 2019. The other match of today will be between Belgium and Portugal.
It’s day 11 of the European Championship soccer already. Today, no less than four matches will be played. To start with Ukraine against Austria. Both countries once had an act containing a burning fake piano. It was Mélovin who played the piano in his song “Under the ladder” in 2018. He was not the first one to do so. In 2015 The Makemakes had a piano burning during the performance of “I am yours”. The second match is between North Macedonia and the Netherlands. Both countries once had a song about darkness and light. The 2012 North Macedonian entrant Kaliopi sang
We already face the 7th day of UEFA 2020. Again, three matches will be played. The first one will be Ukraine against North Macedonia. Both countries have had a contestant who faced troubles because of his or her identity. Gaitana sang “Be my guest” in 2012. The song is a soccer anthem, with the music being based on the vuvuzela. Yuriy Syrotyuk, politician of a nationalist political party, said that with this contestant people might think Ukraine is an African country. Gaitana is half Congolese. 2021 North Macedonian contestant Vasil faced a petition because in the video, something that looked like
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
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
Eurovision is over, but Eurovision season is definitely not. There are some awards to be given after the contest. We would like to recommend you to vote for the Barbara Dex Award. The annual award is given to the artist or group wearing the most remarkable clothes. Our friends of songfestival.be are the organizers of the prize. Two years ago, Portuguese Conan Osiris won the prize. You can find an overview of all the winners, including their videos, here. You can vote for this year’s award here. Barbara Dex, the namegiver of the award. Another Award is especially interesting for our
The results of both the semifinals are known. Malta won the first one and Switzerland the 2nd one. Where the qualifiers of the 2nd semifinal were very clear (number 11, Denmark, follows with a distance), it was a close call at the first semifinal. Norway was 10th with 115 points while Croatia was 11th with 110 points. The full results are: 1st semifinal Malta, 325 pts. Ukraine, 267 pts. Russia, 225 pts. Lithuania, 203 pts. Israel, 192 pts. Cyprus, 170 pts. Sweden, 142 pts. Azerbaijan, 138 pts. Belgium, 117 pts. Norway, 115 pts. Croatia 110 pts. Romania, 85 pts. Slovenia, 44