Intro Post

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Sorry this review took so long! I went on my big trip of this year (to Germany) a few weeks ago, during which I temporarily lost interest in writing Eurovision posts. Then I made a video about an event I went to during the trip. But now I’m back in the saddle, and hopefully I can balance this project with my MLP reviews (and real life of course).

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Introduction

When the historically unlucky Norway finally got to host Eurovision, they went all out and splurged tons of money to make the best show they possibly could. They set up elaborate events throughout the week and invited some of the country’s royal family, a first in Eurovision history. For the presenter, they chose Norway’s 1966 singer famed for her deep, soothing voice: Åse Kleveland. Five Norwegian cities bidded to host the contest, and the winner was Bergen—the northernmost host city in Eurovision history. The easiest way for the record to be broken is if Iceland someday won the contest.

Oh, that’s right! Speaking of Iceland, this contest was the first time they got to participate. They were the last newcomer until the influx of ex-communist countries that began in 1993. Yugoslavia and the Netherlands returned after skipping last year, Greece withdrew after sending an entry, and Italy withdrew without an entry. The winner was both a first timer and record breaker: Belgium with Sandra Kim’s “J’aime la vie”, the youngest winning singer at 13 years old. A controversy surrounding her age almost got her disqualified, as we’ll later learn. However, contestants of any age were still allowed to perform for a few more years. The age limit of 16 wasn’t enforced until 1990.

As for the opening of the contest, the little multilingual song Åse sings is so goofy but so sincere. Her speech afterwards is sincere in the right way too. She says in English that the most important part about international contests is to participate, but it’s undeniable that nothing tastes sweeter than victory. Then she says the same thing in French. She loyally followed the guidelines for presenting the contest but still gave it some of her own personality, which I admire.

The postcard format combines a frequent theme—scenery throughout the host country—with literal postcards, like the kind you’ll send a friend when on vacation. It’s the only contest to take the term “postcard” this literally. Yet again, I watched the contest with Terry Wogan’s British commentary.

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Luxembourg: L’amour de ma vie

Artist: Sherisse Laurence

Language: French

Key: A major in the verses, D major in the chorus

This is a romantic ballad, but something about it is a little unlike others of its breed. Maybe it’s the country-esque chord progression, which I actually quite enjoy. I would like it more if I couldn’t pick up on an English accent (she’s an English-speaking Canadian). This accent is most prominent in her pronunciation of “é” and “o” as diphthongs, something that English speakers struggle not to do. I shouldn’t be too hard, because her French is decent otherwise, but this is a strange pattern with Luxembourg.

Yet again, the Eurovision juries care less about English accents in French songs than I do. This song got third place, and in fact, all of the top three this year were in French. However, not all songs in French scored highly. France itself got 17th place out of 2020.

Yugoslavia: Željo moja (Жељо моја)

Artist: Doris Dragović

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)

Key: D major, E♭ major

The British commentator and Norwegian presenter both claim this song’s title means “love is like fire”, but that’s a bit misleading. The title translates to English as “my wish”, whereas the English version is called “Love Is Fire”. This somber ballad is about the singer’s romantic interest who left her, but who she still considers her own. The English lyrics seem more direct than the original, saying that her fiery love burns to ashes and makes her heart cold. It has French and German versions too, but I’m not interested enough to talk about them.

I’m more interested in reflecting on the Yugoslav entries I’ve heard so far. This Slavic country’s approach to Eurovision was dominated by gloomy ballads, of which this song certainly qualifies. When they weren’t being gloomy, they usually imitated another country’s style, like France or Italy or even Sweden. However, they occasionally sent something upbeat in their own style like “Jedam dan” or their three two years later. Yugoslavia is lucky they got to win the contest before they stopped existing!

France: Européennes

Artist: Cocktail Chic, a girl quartet

Language: French

Key: E major, F major

In a year where the top three songs were all in French, it must have hurt hard for France itself to land near the bottom—17th out of 20. I can see why this song scored low, because it’s very mediocre and not French-sounding at all. Just an unenergetic 80’s pop song with muffled voices. Also, it’s starting to annoy me when songs drop a bunch of place names, like this does.

Norway: Romeo

Artist: Ketil Stokkan

Language: Norwegian

Key: A major, B major

This song is about a man who wants to charm his love interest like the Shakespearean character Romeo did. It’s got a bit of an 80’s rock vibe, but it’s missing an extra touch of greatness that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe the composition just needed to be a little more flashy. The staging certainly tries to be flashy, with the drag queen left of the lead singer. I’m pretty sure that’s the first drag queen in Eurovision.

United Kingdom: Runner in the Night

Artist: Ryder, not to be confused with the legendary Sam Ryder

Language: English

Key: D major

The UK really seemed to lose steam after they won in 1981. This time, they sent a band made solely for Eurovision whose song was criticized as a weak and unfitting entry. It landed 7th place, which by British standards of the time was a shamefully low position. This sounds an awful lot like first world problems, don’t you think?

This is a decent enough 80’s rock song heavy in synths, but it doesn’t have any progression or buildup throughout. It ends pretty much the same as it started. Plus, the band members don’t seem to acknowledge each other’s existence on stage. It’s clear that they barely know each other at all. So far, I’m kind of disappointed in this year. Let’s see if the newcomer country will change that!

Iceland: Gleðibankinn

Artist: ICY (Pálmi Gunnarsson, Helga Möller, Eiríkur Hauksson)

Language: Icelandic

Key: E minor and E major in alternation

Icelandic stands out among Europe’s languages in several ways. It uses the unique thorn and eth letters, it prefers inventing its own words for modern technology over loaning from Latin, Greek, or English, and when spoken, it has an ethereal whispering sound. How can you not love Icelandic? It’s worth noting that Iceland once went 16 years without an entry in Icelandic: until 2013, their last native-language song was in 1997. However, since then, they’ve had a resurgence of Icelandic entries, as we’ve seen in 2013, 2019, and 2022. Considering that Iceland has one of the highest levels of English proficiency in Europe, that warms my heart. Take notes from them, Germany. Your language has 300 times as many speakers!

When the presenter welcomed Iceland in Icelandic, the audience cheered and we saw a few fans waving Icelandic flags, something that would be done more flagrantly as time progressed. They really got lucky, debuting in a contest hosted by one of their Nordic buddies.

It feels weird that Iceland’s debut entry is so shamelessly 1980’s. It owns up to the pumping 80’s sound so hard, both in the minor and major key sections. It’s better than the others before and a good debut for Iceland, and their enthusiasm on stage helps sell this song. However, it doesn’t quite hit that wow factor for me. Maybe my standards have risen?

Netherlands: Alles heeft ritme

Artist: Frizzle Sizzle, a teenage girl quartet

Language: Dutch

Key: E major, F♯ major right at the end

This time, the Netherlands gave us a laid-back pop song saying that everything has rhythm. Every time the song sounds like it’s about to pick up the pace, it reverts to being laid-back. And considering the groovy bassline throughout the song, I don’t actually mind that. In fact, the bassline is so groovy that it makes the song stand out among what has so far mostly been a forgettable slop. It’s common for songs to end with repeating the last line a few extra times, but this song strangely does that together with a key change. Why have a key change if it’s only for the last few measures? I wondered if the song was originally longer and truncated for Eurovision, then I looked up the studio version and was proven wrong.

I could happily put this song on the background, but I don’t think much else of it, considering we’ve had far better songs in 80’s Eurovision. On the other hand, Terry Wogan really loved this song and even thought it had a chance at winning. Sometimes people have the strangest tastes, I’m telling you.

On a broader topic, while watching these old contests has made me better acquainted with (for example) German, Portuguese, or Israeli music, I still have no idea what makes a song sound Dutch. If there’s any genre that I associate with the Netherlands in Eurovision, it would be the music of their former (or current) colonies: Indonesia, Suriname, and all those Caribbean islands.

Turkey: Halley

Artist: Klips ve Onla

Language: Turkish, with a few phrases in English, French, and Italian

Key: D minor

This band achieved Turkey’s highest position at the time (9th place), but not much else is known about them. They presented Europe with yet another round of Turkish funk, because what else did you expect? I can’t say this blows me away either, but it does have some nice trumpet parts and vocal harmonies. Plus, the theme about Halley’s comet is nice. Contrasting against the UK, the band members interact with each other a lot and even bow together at the end.

Among the easternmost Eurovision countries of the time, I find it interesting that Turkey and Israel both embraced their own styles of music year after year, whereas Greece and Cyprus didn’t so much. I’m pretty sure I’ve made this exact observation before, but cut me some slack. Saying things about songs is hard sometimes.

Spain: Valentino

Artist: Cadillac, another band

Language: Spanish

Key: E minor

Maybe I shouldn’t have said Iceland embraced the pumping 80’s sound, because this song does it WAY more (and better). Pumping energy, drumbeats that vary between the verse and chorus, loads of synths, vocal harmonies, a section where they sing unaccompanied… this song has the whole package. It’s not something I would have expected from Spain, but I mean this in a good way.

Even though the composition doesn’t sound traditionally Spanish, the lyrics are as Spanish as can be. They tell a romantic story where the singer won a girl’s heart against someone named Valentino, with whom he wants to start a movie-style rivalry.

Switzerland: Pas pour moi

Artist: Daniela Simmons

Language: French

Key: G minor in the verses, G major in the chorus

The Norwegian presenter pointed out (in French) that Switzerland was one of three countries with perfect attendance in Eurovision. The other two were Belgium and Germany. Unfortunately, all their attendance streaks would be broken in the next decade: Belgium in 1994, Switzerland in 1995, and most controversially, Germany in 1996.

Given that it’s a “minor key verses, minor key chorus” song, you might expect me to find this song obnoxious or rant about how much cooler the verses are than the chorus. You couldn’t be more wrong! This song’s big saving grace is that before the first verse, the song’s intro is in major key. It’s a courteous forewarning that the song will alternate between major and minor, so that I don’t get annoyed when the chorus starts.

Another thing this song does right is that it transitions between major and minor keys very elegantly. In the pre-chorus (“moi, je veux un amour écrit…”), you can sense a little leadup to major key, which really helps with the song’s flow. This also matches with the song’s lyrics, which can be summed up as “affairs and one-night stands are not for me (the title); I want real, fulfilling love, the way it used to be”. The verses sound sassy and aware of what the singer doesn’t want, while the chorus sounds dreamy and represents what the singer does want. Best of all, the song doesn’t waste time giving the last chorus a key change! It lasts only two and a half minutes but still feels complete.

However, the biggest reason I enjoy the song so much might be that I have a soft spot for girls on piano. Daniela looks so confident and stylish on the piano, even more so when she gets up for the final chorus. All in all, this is a very well-composed and classy song.

This song finished second place behind Belgium, by a margin of 36 points. If I’m interpreting the stories I’ve read online correctly, Swiss fans were so salty that they didn’t win that they tried to overturn Belgium’s victory, using “Sandra Kim lied about her age!” as an excuse. That should tell you how much they loved this song.

Israel: Yavo Yom (יבוא יום)

Artist: Moti Giladi and Sarai Tzuriel

Language: Hebrew

Key: A minor, B♭ minor

Another classic 80’s Israeli style entry, fast and in minor key with lots of vocal harmonies, but with one important difference: it landed second last place, at only seven points. I’m guessing it’s because the singers sounded a bit shaky? Still, you’d think a song as energetic as this would earn more points. It came right after a song that truly wowed me, so I don’t have enough energy to rant about its low result.

Ireland: You Can Count on Me

Artist: Luv Bug

Language: English

Key: E♭ major, F major

This obviously only got fourth place because it’s in English. The bland, vaguely sugary instrumental and incessant repetition of “you can count on me” makes me keep forgetting it’s supposed to be a breakup song. At least the bridge section is nice, even if it leads to a boring key change.

Belgium: J’aime la vie (the winner)

Artist: Sandra Kim, a 13-year-old who claimed to be 15 years old

Language: French

Key: B minor in the verses, A major in the chorus

We’ve finally arrived at the most stereotypically 1980’s sounding Eurovision winner of all time. A controversy arose after this song won, because even though the commentators claimed Sandra Kim was 15 years old, and she said so in the lyrics (moi j’ai quinze ans et je te dis), she later turned out to be only thirteen. As I said earlier, this gave an excuse for salty Swiss fans (or juries?) to try in vain to overturn the result. If it was fans who tried to nullify Belgium’s win, then all I have to say is, come on, you guys. You were the first winners of Eurovision, and Belgium had to wait 30 years for this moment, so why rain on their parade? Fortunately, Belgium’s parade is covered in transparent umbrellas made of Teflon, so rain won’t affect it.

As a composition, I really love this song! It’s the kind of pumping 80’s synth song that genuinely goes super hard, as cheesy as it may be. The verses and chorus transition beautifully into each other, showing that not all “minor key verses, major key chorus” songs are bad. The instrumental bridge builds up well into the final chorus too, without being too drawn-out. It perfectly fits the super-positive lyrics, which are about how much the singer loves life (“I love life” is the title). Sandra Kim sells this song well, giving a performance that’s utterly goofy and utterly charming. A pink bowtie, an 80’s hairstyle, extravagant dancing… what more could you ask for?

While writing these Eurovision reviews, I can’t help but read other people’s thoughts on the year I’m reviewing. One reviewer in particular pointed out something that I really wish I could unhear: Sandra actually sang “j’aime le vie”, getting the grammatical gender of “vie” wrong. If you’re that reviewer and are reading this, I would like to say: Fuck you for making me notice that. I would also like to say, I trust that you know it’s a lighthearted “fuck you”. Now it’s impossible for me to ignore this flagrant error. Teenage Sandra Kim, was it so hard to move your jaw a little further down to sing “la” instead of “le”?

Despite this gaping annoyance, I do think this is a very cute song and I’m glad Belgium got their moment of glory. With this victory, Belgium was the last of the 1956 participants to win the contest. The oldest participating country yet to win would then be Finland, until 2006.

Germany: Über die Brücke geh’n

Artist: Ingrid Peters

Language: German

Key: A major, B major

The postcard to Germany misspells “Grüße” (greetings) as “Grüsse”, which is an acceptable spelling in Switzerland since they abolished the sharp S. Still, it’s the thought that counts!

This song has some cool harmonies in the chorus, and a nice message about crossing bridges and understanding other cultures, but otherwise it’s too slow and repetitive for me.

Cyprus: Tóra zo (Τώρα ζω)

Artist: Elpida Karayiannopoulou, who represented Greece in 1979

Language: Greek

Key: G major, A♭ major

Yes, thank you Cyprus for sending something upbeat! This song does a surprisingly good job blending Mediterranean ethnic music with pumpy 80’s pop music. The entrancing bongo drums blend smoothly with the synths and brass riffs, all tied together with a strong, dramatic voice. Elpida has one of the strongest voices in this competition, so how the hell did this song get last place?! I thought these kinds of voices were what juries liked. I mean OK, Greece wasn’t there to give Cyprus 12 points, but still, four points for this song is far too few!

Some last place results in Eurovision are completely understandable. This is not one of them. It’s human nature to want explanations for everything, which makes it frustrating that I’m hard-pressed to think of a reason Cyprus scored low.

Austria: Die Zeit ist einsam

Artist: Timna Brauer

Language: German

Key: B major

With its slow tempo and structure of “gentle, dramatic, back to gentle”, this song would fit great in a romantic movie but is out of place in a 1980’s Eurovision contest. In Eurovision, slow dramatic songs either strongly hit home for me or don’t at all, and I’m afraid this one doesn’t. Maybe that’s because the songs’ order was randomized? In a deliberately chosen order, there might have been a place where this song fit well, but that doesn’t change that something is off about her delivery in the middle section.

Sweden: É dé det här du kallar kärlek?

Artist: Lasse Holm and Monica Törnell

Language: Swedish

Key: F major, F♯ major, G major

Did these singers time travel from 2006 to show us what Eurovision would look like 20 years later? Everything about this performance is so insanely goofy and over the top that I can’t help but love it. The dramatic shouty lyrics, the backing singers in all sorts of weird outfits, and even a gratuitous somersault. I mean seriously, somersaults on stage?! What decade are we supposed to be in?

At the same time, there is so much genuine passion in this performance. The two lead singers of this song both sing this song with so much joy, both Lasse (who composed this song and several prior Swedish entries) and Monica (who was new to Eurovision). I also love the call and response they do with each other, and with the four backing singers. All this is put over a memorable blues rock instrumental. It really seems like back then, Sweden cared a lot more about having fun in Eurovision. These days, they prefer keeping their eyes on the prize, while their Nordic neighbors go out of the box.

One other way this song is peak Eurovision is that against the bouncy instrumental, the lyrics (going by a translation) are about the torturous experience of longing for a love interest. Considering how much fun the singers are having on stage, you’d think they’d be singing about a jazzy dance, or something inane like that. Dissonance between lyrics and performance is one of Eurovision’s biggest tropes, especially when the language rule was abolished.

Denmark: Du er fuld af løgn

Artist: Lise Haavik

Language: Danish

Key: E major, F major, F♯ major

This is Denmark’s answer to “La det swinge” (Norway) and “Bra vibrationer” (Sweden) from last year. An upbeat swing song with at least one key change, sung by a girl with flamboyant 80’s hair that probably looked sexy back then, but now looks like the weird drunk aunt that most people have at least one of. In all three songs, the singers are dressed in a color ranging from magenta to pink. It would’ve been really funny if all three were performed in the same year. All three are very similar in spirit; Norway is the slowest, Sweden is the fastest, and Denmark is in the middle. Norway’s song has two singers instead of one, which very obviously symbolizes the Norwegian language’s two writing systems.

Overall, I’d say this song is closer to “Bra vibrationer” than to “La det swinge”. This and Sweden’s song both have one singer, a key change (or two) near the end, and a duo of extravagant backing dancers who make this performance ten times more memorable. The male backing singer wears a full suit, while the female one has her underwear visible. I don’t know whether her legs are bare, or covered in skin-colored tights. If you think only women show off their underwear in Eurovision, the guys from Let 3 (Croatia 2023) should prove otherwise.

I should probably talk about the song itself, putting aside comparisons. Though it mostly sticks to the Nordic dance formula, it’s got a pinch of that Danish sappiness you’d expect from that time. Considering the title means “you are full of lies”, you might expect it to be a song about cheating, but it’s much lighter than that. The singer says her love interest keeps pretending they’re just friends, which she knows is a load of nonsense. It doesn’t click with me quite as much as the two I’ve compared it to, but it’s still a very charming song.

Finland: Never the End (originally Päivä kahden ihmisen)

Artist: Kari Kuivalainen

Language: Finnish. Don’t let the title fool you.

Key: D major

Wow, apparently this was Ossi Runne’s 20th time conducting for Finland! Big props to him. He conducted every Finnish entry since 1966, so it would be the 21st time if Finland hadn’t skipped in 1970.

Kari must have thought that throwing a few English words (only “the end” at the end of each chorus) into his melodramatic ballad, and giving it the title of the English version, would make him score highly. He was wrong; this song ended up 15th place. He very obviously would have sung in English if he could, and I’m sorry, this song works a lot better in English. This song feels like Finland is trying to get out of quicksand by making their song as English as possible, instead of embracing what sounds good in their own language (which they did to enormous success in 2023).

Portugal: Não sejas mau p’ra mim

Artist: Dora Maria Reis Dias de Jesus, or just Dora

Language: Portuguese

Key: E major, F♯ major, briefly A♭ major at the end

The singer gives us plenty of enthusiasm on stage, but she also sounds amateurish, and what the hell is that skirt? Musically, it’s a simple 80’s love song without very much to it. I guess it has nice saxophone solos? Terry Wogan snarked that you should keep your eyes peeled when Dora’s outfit becomes the next fashion trend.

Greece: Wagon-lit (Βάγκον λι) (withdrawn)

Artist: Polina Misailidou

Language: Greek

Key: D major

You have no idea how pissed off I am that this song was withdrawn. It was all because the contest was held the day before an Eastern Orthodox holiday, not even on the holiday itself. This is an awesome 80’s rock song whose lyrics sound completely and utterly Greek. It’s exactly the kind of song I love to discover from Eurovision: a genre I’m familiar with, in a language I’ve never heard it in. It feels like an original song written in Greek, not a Greek cover of a song in some other language. Why are the best 80’s Greek entries the rejected ones? I’m telling you, sometimes life isn’t fair.

As with all rejected Eurovision entries, it’s entirely possible it could have been butchered with a bad performance, or in this era, an unfaithful orchestration. But in this song, those sick-ass guitar solos would definitely have to be kept.

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Who’s my favorite?

If Sandra Kim hadn’t flagrantly disregarded grammar and sung “J’aime le vie” like ten times, she might have been a contender against the runner-up for me. Given that most other songs ranged from garbage to kinda good, my award goes to the classiest song of the contest: Switzerland, Pas pour moi.

• Austria, 1
• Belgium, 1
• Denmark, 1
• Finland, 2
• France, 1
• Germany, 4
• Ireland, 2
• Israel, 1
• Luxembourg, 2
• Netherlands, 6
• Norway, 2
• Portugal, 2
• Sweden, 3
• Switzerland, 1
• Turkey, 1
• United Kingdom, 1
• (13 winners)

At least it wasn’t a hard decision this time! Not like the gut punch of choosing just one favorite from 1985. Italy is now the only one of the first seven participants not on my list.

General thoughts:

I’m glad Norway got to host Eurovision and go extravagant on showcasing their country. They picked a great presenter who, unlike Germany’s host three years prior, presented in multiple languages without making it a slog. With all that said… my god, this was such a mixed bag of a year. The second half was way more interesting on average than the first half, which shows the problems with randomized order. If there’s any recurring theme of the songs, it’s that they sound stereotypically 1980’s, which works well with some songs like Belgium or Denmark, but others just sound boring.

The most successful musician to arise from this contest wasn’t any of the contestants, but the interval act’s singer: Sissel Kyrkjebø. She sang an orchestrated medley of Norwegian folk songs set to videos showcasing Bergen, one of the strongest interval acts yet. In a year where an interval act stands out the most, I can never decide whether this says more about how good the act is, or how bad the entries are. Either way, the point of interval acts is to stop TV viewers from changing the channel, and sometimes they’re a little too good at it.

Considering she was a teenager who just won a song contest, it’s no surprise that Sandra Kim exploded with happiness when she earned the prize. She will turn 51 years old two weeks from now, so she’s about the same age as my parents. Thankfully, when performing the song as an adult, she correctly sings “j’aime la vie”.

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See you next time as Johnny Logan arises as a double winner amidst a trainwreck of Belgian broadcaster drama.

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