Preview clip: Germany 1994

Since Ralph Siegel is back in the game (was he ever really gone?) I thought I'd have a look back to when Uncle Ralphie still had a bit of a finger on the pulse and came up with things that felt happening.

It was, admittedly, an easy thing to seem youthful and happening in the neverending stream of more or less passionate ballads that filled the line-up of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, but this explosion of colour and happiness seemed pretty real and genuine in the preview show of that year.



MeKaDo - Wir geben 'ne Party (Germany 1994 preview)

This is Siegel by the numbers and the last time that the old formula worked flawlessly. Just like with Dschinghis Khan in 1979, he assembled an attractive and energetic group, out of session singers and lesser known solo singers he had worked with before, to suit the song he wrote. One of the girls, Melanie Bender, was the daughter of one of the Dschinghis Khan members.

The song is full of little hooks and clever ideas and the chorus is a way of getting around the rule stating everybody had to sing in their own language - the phrase "Wir geben 'ne Party" is sung to sound more or less exactly like the english title "We're giving a party".

In Dublin, the whole package felt less fresh than the clip. The girls were still energetic enough, but the styling - as well as the backing singers - gave this an air of "old people trying to produce whatever young people may like". A review in newspaper The European said it sounded like a pop song remixed by a bunch of grandmothers.



MeKaDo - Wir geben 'ne Party (Germany 1994)

The entry managed to achieve a respectable third place in Dublin but was a commercial flop and the group soon disbanded.

There were stories in the press that the first choice of German television would have been to send punk legend Nina Hagen - who declined the offer - to Dublin. I can't help but wonder what kind of commotion she could have created had she gone to the ESC.

MeKaDo's blond member - the lovely Kati Karney - almost made it to Eurovision again eight years later when she suddenly resurfaced in the national final of Bosnia-Herzegovina together with Boris Režak. Their song ended in fourth place.



Boris Režak feat Kati Karney - Ti i ja smo mogli sve (Bosnia-Herzegovina national final 2002)