A Swede who lives in Finland and who is lost in Euroland - the wonderful world of Eurovision
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Monday, April 9, 2012

Nul points: Norway 1981

The old saying goes that thunder never hits the same spot twice, which is both true and not true.

The shock of a country failing to score had just about ebbed out when the very same country failed to score a second time. What was up with Norway? What made them fail not just once but twice?

In 1978, Jahn Teigen had managed to turn failure into success and build himself a neat career thanks to his failure.

Finn Kalvik had done the complete opposite - he had managed to build a very firm career in both Norway and Sweden and had a prestigious collaboration going on with Benny Andersson of Abba (who had produced Finn's album as well as his entry - Agnetha and Frida sang the backing vocals on the studio version).

He had stood up against Abba's famous record label manager Stikkan Andersson, insisting to go to Eurovision with "Aldri i livet" and no other song. He had everything to lose from this devastating result and his career never fully recovered afterwards.

Nul points?

Absolutely not. 1981 is not a particularly strong year, but none of the songs in the line-up would have deserved a no-score. Finn's song is gentle, poetic and melodic, but suffering from a visually lacklustre and vocally uninspired performance.

Finn lets his own song down, but the juries were still way harsher than what was called for.



Finn Kalvik - Aldri i livet (Norway 1981)

1 comment:

  1. In contrast to Jahn Teigen's song, the recorded version of this song is simply beautiful. The production by Mr Andersson and the backing vocals by Ms Fältskog and Ms Lyngstad have a big part in it, but the song in itself is also better than whar the zero point label suggests.

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