A 7th place is no good in Sweden

You didn't really expect Sweden to just sit back and take it easy for a couple of years just because Loreen won two years ago, did you? SVT would love to snatch back the trophy and show who is in charge - and Sanna Nielsen being a big favourite with the OGAE network suits the Swedes perfectly.

After last night's jury final - the important rehearsal that the juries watch before they cast their votes - the Swedish press seems to be truly on the train as well, whispering about a possible victory on Saturday night.

This is where it is getting problematic. If they are wrong and my gut feeling is right, that is. If "Undo" really is a tiny bit too polished and pleasant to grab the really high ballad points and that perhaps a 7th place seems reasonable and most possible.

In many countries a 7th place would be celebrated like a victory. If Portugal or Montenegro or Finland came home with a 7th place there would be huge happy headlines, and the general feeling that somebody added an extra day of Christmas. Not in Sweden, however.

If Sanna ends in 7th place, the Swedish press will call it a miscalculation if they are in a kind mood. Somebody will call it a fiasco. Somebody will surely question if this will have negative consequences on Sanna's career and so on.

This is what being fairly successful does to your expectations. There is definitely nothing wrong with Sweden's ambitions - I applaud them - but when you get used to doing well you expect that every time.

Sanna is surely not the only one with this kind of pressure. I wonder how the UK press would react to a 7th place for Molly - would they cheer for the best result in five years or would they label it a disappointment and ignore her from that point on?

I'm afraid I know what I think.

Nobody's favourite but mine, part 3

What fun it has been making the list of songs I thought I was the only person alive under God's divine sky to like and enjoy. Part 1 and Part 2, however, taught me many people share my odd taste so here we go with five more songs that somehow seemed to appeal to the mainstream of eurofans.



Rikki - Only The Light (United Kingdom 1987)

I was only 11 years old at the time and didn't really understand what the Swedish commentator meant when he implied the UK was in an outright downhill and no longer delivered anything really convincing to Eurovision. I thought this song was fun and catchy, and Rikki's backing group provided dance moves even I could manage. What was there not to love?

Besides, the Swedish commentator had no idea what a REAL downhill looks like, and neither did the UK until some twelve-thirteen years later. Rikki did end in a 13th place - the worst UK placing until then - but somewhere in Liverpool a real disaster called Jemini was just waiting to happen.



Marty Brem - Wenn Du da bist (Austria 1981)

This is actually a really lovely little song. Gentle, sensitive, heartfelt. It is well sung and is overall a rather catchy ballad. It just tries really hard to distract anyone from noticing. The composer was quoted as being unhappy with the confusing arrangement in the beginning of the song. Had I been him I would have worried a whole lot more about the performance as such. Where do I begin?

I would have loved to have a look inside the head of the Austrian choreographer. What can he have been thinking? Some heavy dancing would be nice. Backwards dancing would be even better. And somebody has to wear a helmet. Dancing has never been stranger.



Pas de Deux - Rendez-vous (Belgium 1983)

When the expert jury overwhelmingly voted Pas de Deux as winners of the 1983 Belgian final it would be a real understatement to call the studio audience enthusiastic. They whistled, booed and most left the hall before the winner's reprise was over. I guess Belgian audiences prefer heartfelt ballads about mothers to more experimental stuff.

And experimental it was, made to annoy rather than please, with it's distinct rhythm, it's intense brass arrangement and its constant repetition of one single line that doesn't really mean anything. It is close to what Greece is doing this year - presenting a set of rhythms and hooks rather than an old-fashioned song - but back in the early 1980's it was far too avant-garde to go down particularly well. At least the Spanish jury liked it and gave it eight points.



Baby Doll - Brazil (Yugoslavia 1991)

Just to make one thing very clear: there isn't the slightest hint of irony here, no tongue in cheek. I really think this song is fun and happening and that Baby Doll is a most spectacular performer. If you are looking for fine singing this will perhaps be slightly disappointing but it is not likely do bore you at least.

Since Yugoslavia had done well four years in a row I was convinced this one would be top ten material and was a bit shocked to see it end second last with only one point from Malta, beaten by a whole bunch of soporific ballads.



Vlado Janevski - Ne zori, zoro (FYR Macedonia 1998)

Not too surprising that a televoting audience that had lived through endless ballads with flute and violin and pretty harmonies and an Irish win-athon would go for something more cheerful and upbeat when they finally got the power in their hands, but it is a shame that they overlooked this last song on the night. Vlado is a really cool cat who wrote himself a really good song - a sort of Leonard Cohen of the Balkans - that would have deserved a lot more attention than this. At least they would have deserved a neighbourly top mark or two.

Borrow like the Danes do

Many people seem to think Tanja from Estonia may have borrowed just a tiny bit too much from Loreen's 2012 Eurovision entry. First of all, I don't think these two songs are too similar. Germany's entry from last year was a much more obvious copy of Loreen if so.

You can also borrow quite a lot from other songs without anyone of importance reacting too strongly. There have been some rather spectacular occasions where people have borrowed famous fragments or complete melody lines without any kind of action taken against them.

Or how about this one? When the ESC was held in Gothenburg in 1985, the home entry went down well both with the audience and the juries and ended in 3rd place. No wonder since it sounded and looked professional, with a catchy hook and a good dance routine.



Kikki Danielsson - Bra vibrationer (Sweden 1985)

A Danish team got really inspired and decided to borrow a couple of elements for their own entry for the 1986 national final. The melody line was a bit similar, so they borrowed some or the arrangement. Or most of it, actually.

And as for the performance, wouldn't it be nice to have a male and a female dancer, just like the Swedes? Or why not the same dancers? If they are good once, they must be good twice. And that the female lead decided to choose a pink outfit similar to Kikki's? Pure coincidence, surely.



Lise Haavik - Du er fuld af løgn

You can win, but can you host?

Winning the Eurovision Song Contest was always a slightly sweaty affair since a victory also gave you the responsibility to host next year's event as well. More challenging for some than for others, but not effortless for anyone.

I was really happy when, in Baku 2012, the EBU finally put their foot down and said they wanted the event to grow smaller in coming years. Smaller venues, fewer delegates and less money spent. Partially due to the financial situation in Europe, of course. It doesn't look good that obscene amounts of money are spent on a tv-show as people struggle to get by in their everyday lives.

But a smaller format for Eurovision also makes it possible for more countries to host. There is already the requirement that any host city must be able to offer a certain amount of quality hotel rooms (the figure 3000 comes to mind but I'm not sure it's correct), which already makes it really hard for some countries to host.

Are we ready to make some sacrifices for a good cause? Could we content ourselves with a lower standard of hotels? With a considerably smaller venue? With a considerably lower amount of accreditations given out? For one year?

Or do we have to just face the music and realise that if some countries win, they will probably not be able to host? Countries like Iceland, Slovenia, Cyprus? Could Malta pull it off? Or this year's bookmaker favourite Armenia?

For me, the Eurovision Song Contest is - and should be - one of the biggest unifying factors in Europe that make countries come together and feel equal. What happens to that idea if a number of participants are already out of the running in advance?

I can just imagine the outcry in 2006 if Finland - after finally winning on its 40th attempt - would have been deemed to small to host and the EBU would have handed the honour to, say, Germany instead. An anticlimax like that is nothing I would wish any participating country, really.

I hope we can see finals in Reykjavík, Ljubljana, Valletta in the future, even if they are smaller than the ones we have grown used to. In the end, the most important aspect should be that the final product looks good on television anyway.

Nobody's favourite but mine, part 2

It seems you good people didn't quite agree with me being the only one to like either of the songs in the first part of this series. Well, I guess I wouldn't be myself if I didn't push my luck and tried to challenge you with five more songs that I sometimes think I'm the only one in the world to care for. Am I?



Gemini - Dai li dou (Portugal 1978)

After a couple of years with serious songs with political undertones, Portugal suddenly decided to send in a wonderfully (annoyingly, according to some) bouncy little song about a kite flying high in the sky. Simple and catchy (or possibly repetitive), performed by another one of these groups of four people, clearly modelled on Abba.

The verses may be a bit clumsy but the chorus is so happy in all its simplicity and the choreography is probably so easy not even I could make a mess of it. Cute.



Cocktail Chic - Européennes (France 1986)

Things weren't exactly running smoothly in France at this point. There had been almost ten years since their last victory and the contest changing hands from TF1 to Antenne2 had resulted in a national final nobody wanted to be part of or associated with. So the best thing they could come up with this year were a bunch of popular backing vocalists who would finally have their big chance of performing as a group.

With styling as impeccable as their vocal delivery (some of those notes are really rather wobbly), the French girls didn't stand a chance during the voting and ended in a pale 17th place while the three other countries singing in French - Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg - all made top three.



Gunvor - Lass ihn (Switzerland 1998)

Through the years I have often been better at predicting the last place than picking a winner but this was a nul-pointer I never saw coming. I thought Gunvor had written herself a nice little ditty, perhaps a bit average but still catchy and retainable enough. It even featured Egon Egemann and his white violin, that would surely make an impression?

Despite being up against real non-songs like Spain and Greece, Gunvor somehow managed to cling to her zero points all the way through the voting. Her career, already deeply affected by local scandal newspapers and their shameless publication of pictures and details of some less glamourous aspects of her life, never recovered from this and Gunvor decided to retire from the spotlight. A real shame. And her song wasn't even bad to start with.



Christina Simon - Heute in Jerusalem (Austria 1979)

Eurovision is a circus full of glitter and happiness and more or less obvious attempts at attracting points from all directions. There is nothing wrong with that and I want it to be like that, but it does make it a less suitable arena for people who are actually trying to say something.

Austria thought the final in Jerusalem would be the perfect place to tell the world they would prefer peace instead of war and employed Christina Simon to be their voice in this slow and demanding jazz number. Of course it didn't stand a chance and as Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty right before the final it even felt less relevant also lyrically. Last place was still really unfair and my question remains the same as ever: what's the point of having juries if they can't recognise quality?



Aleksandra & Konstantin - My Galileo (Belarus 2004)

At first I had no idea how to react to this. Was it really in English? Were those real words? Is it supposed to sound like this? I didn't know what to expect from Belarus in the first place but I most certainly did not expect this. Despite being reluctant at first, it started growing on me with it's odd folksy sound and before Eurovision week in Istanbul was over I had sung this song in front of a small crowd at the Belarusian party and my friend had kissed Aleksandra's feet. A regular day at the Eurovision Song Contest, you know.

Nobody's favourite but mine, part 1

Sometimes I get the impression there is a certain kind of eurovision fan who only watches the contest in order to get to criticise as many things as possible. To just slam every song they hear and rip them to shreds.

I admit it can be great fun to do just that. When you find something that is really terribly bad and you manage to find just the right words to explain why something makes your ears bleed and your heart cry.

It's just that I'm so incredibly fond of liking things. I can often find redeeming factors in most really weird entries and in general I like so many more things than I dislike. So just to prove my point I will present you a number of songs only I like. Here are five songs I like very much to most people's honest surprise and incomprehension.



Afroditi Fryda - Clown (Greece 1988)

Famously, the jury in the national final selected a winner only after pointing out how underwhelming all candidates were and recommending the national tv company to pull out of the competition instead of sending either one to a sure defeat in Dublin. If that anecdote is true - it has been attached to a number of Greek national finals through the years - the jury were not entirely wrong as the song received a grand total of ten points.

I disagreed with juries - business as usual - and found an attractive sadness in between all the compulsive laughter. When I finally saw a translation of the lyrics I realised it was all in my head as there wasn't the slightest trace of ambiguity or darkness. I still love it anyway. Ha ha ha ha!



George Nussbaumer - Weils dr guat got (Austria 1996)

Eurovision and gospel music has always been a hard nut to crack. Quite a few entrants have tried through the years without really getting it right. It becomes a bit too polished and soft and harmless to leave any real traces or reveal any deeper emotion. Except perhaps for this bunch of crazy Austrians.

The song is perhaps not all that remarkable in itself and I wasn't really blown away by the preview clip, but the live performance is the closest thing we ever came to a perfect re-enactment of a tropical hurricane. The backing group - including Stella Jones and Bettina Soriat who both represented their country as solo singers in the 90's - become so incredibly animated and worked-up that you suspect the hall will run out of oxygen before the song is over. Not everyone's cup of tea but I find it irresistible.



Oleksandr - Hasta la vista (Ukraine 2003)

Isn't it strange that Ukraine - famous for doing everything right in the ESC - would start out by getting more or less everything wrong in their debut entry? The cheesy lyrics, the old-fashioned arrangement, the Kermit-the-frog-at-the-opera vocals and the most peculiar dancer in the background. It is all so puzzling. What were they thinking? Were they convinced they had a winner on their hands? The worst part still is that I've grown remarkably fond of it over the years. For all the wrong reasons, mind you. But very fond all the same.



Modern Folk Trio & Aysegül - Dönme dolap (Turkey 1981)

I'm surprisingly easy at times, I have to admit to that. Shake a piece of homemade disco muzak Made in Turkey in front of me and my knees will turn into jelly. If it is performed by three distinguished gentlemen in white, accompanied by a cheerful lady, performing a choreography that should be simple but that seems to pose a real challenge for the group, I'll be even happier. If you top it with a shockingly nonsense set of lyrics - stating that life is a merry-go-round as it goes up and then down again - I'll just roll over and admit I'm defeated.



Daisy Auvray - Mister Music Man (Switzerland 1992)

This is what I suppose happened: Poor Daisy didn't get out much and this time she decided to really live the moment to the fullest. She had enjoyed a glass of wine or two and felt lovely and vibrant and alive and wanted the whole world to know. She grabbed a microphone, decided to put her happiness into song and asked the band to strike up an old-fashioned sound that would suit her perfectly. How was poor Daisy to know this was not a karaoke bar at all but the Swiss national final?

Seriously, though. This was so violently out of sync with any kind of musical trend or fashion back then, but time has been really kind to this in comparison to many other entries from the same year. Perhaps not the best song there ever was, but the whole performance is sweet. And endearing. And that must be worth something too.

Nobody can smile like Paola

I'll be brutally honest with you. I don't think Sebalter from Switzerland will have the shadow of a chance in his semi final in Copenhagen. Perhaps he is cute, perhaps the violin makes him stand out, perhaps the whistle is a clever hook. I even heard someone say he could qualify because he has such a nice smile.

Dear people - his smile is nice but when it comes to smiling widely and beautifully no Swiss person will ever get close to beating Paola del Medico, who beamed like Mother Sun from the Eurovision stage twice.



Paola - Bonjour bonjour (Switzerland 1969)

If you are not really to believe Paola is truly happy to see you during this cheerful greeting set to music, then you won't believe many things in this world. The wide smile and the cheerfulness turned into Paola's special trademark and when she came back to represent Switzerland a second time eleven years later she had fine-tuned her art into perfection.



Paola - Cinéma (Switzerland 1980)

I can hardly imagine how a song could be bouncier than this and Paola made it into an honourable fourth place out of nineteen countries. As her singing career faded a bit, her winning personality made its way into television instead where she for many years presented light-hearted entertainment shows together with her husband Kurt Felix.

She also made two attempts at representing Germany at Eurovision - in 1979, she made it to third place with the elegant Vogel der Nacht and in 1982 she was the only one giving Nicole a real run for her money in the national heat. But perhaps Peter Pan would have been a bit too bouncy, sweet and smiley even for Eurovision?



Paola - Peter Pan (Germany NF 1982)