Intro Post

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After Belgium and Cyprus, Greece today was the third country to choose their singer for Eurovision 2024: Marina Satti, a singer of ethno-pop music who some fans have wanted in Eurovision for years. Going by her discography, she’ll most likely send a song in Greek, which is exciting!

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Introduction

“And welcome to the 32nd running of the Eurovision Song Stakes. Songs from 22 countries, vying to be the one to carry off the Grand Prix, and then never to be heard of again.” Oh, how I missed Terry Wogan’s British commentary.

Just as Monaco is the only country to win Eurovision but never host it, Croatia is the only country to host it but never win. Yugoslavia was still a country back then, but the contest took place in Zagreb (the Croatian capital), the presenters were both Croatian, and the intro film and most of the postcards took place in present-day Croatia. Perhaps that’s an omen for Yugoslavia’s imminent collapse? Furthermore, the contest featured a mascot designed by a Croatian animator called Eurocat.

This contest featured the exact same 22 countries as 1987 and 1989. Malta wanted to rejoin the contest, but the limit of countries was capped at 22. Luckily, Malta would get that chance next year when the Netherlands skipped, and they’ve never missed a contest since then. This year had a clear theme among its entries: songs about the huge, sweeping changes going on in Europe. Communist regimes were dismantled one by one, the Berlin Wall collapsed, and the lid holding Yugoslavia together was soon to burst. The former communist countries weren’t interested in joining just yet, but in 1993, they would start pouring in. Italy won the contest for the second of three times, having sent a song about the anticipation of European unity.

Although this contest was the first to require the contestants to be 16 years or older, the UK technically sent a 15-year-old to the contest. That was apparently allowed because she would turn 16 later in the year. Otherwise, I don’t have much to say about the contestants, so let’s begin!

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Spain: Bandido

Artist: Azúcar Moreno (Antonia and Encarnación Salazar)

Language: Spanish

Key: E♭ minor, E minor

Terry Wogan claimed this song couldn’t be anything but Spanish, but considering what Finland sent last year, I wouldn’t be so sure. Eurovision loves to send surprises. Some of these surprises, as you surely know, happen by accident. The song’s performance began with a minute of awkward silence, then the backing track turned on in the middle of the song. The orchestra was very confused, the playback performers on stage stood blankly but then started pretending to play, and the funniest part was the performing sisters. They walked onto the stage, looked confused for a second, then shrugged and walked away. Maybe they assumed it was a test run?

Anyway, after this notorious mishap, the contest begins with Spain’s second attempt at a flamenco entry. Their first was “¿Quién maneja mi barca?” seven years prior, which flopped because it was too inaccessible. This, on the other hand, is more of what that song should have been: an energetic blend of traditional Spanish flamenco and accessible 90’s pop that doesn’t compromise either genre. Those are exactly the kinds of ethnic songs that fans adore, the kind that persists in the contest to this day.

The performance, the composition style, and the lyrics are all utterly Spanish. The sisters sing about a bandit who stole their love and left them with pain and sadness, then a bunch of analogies involving hurricanes and volcanos. The key change is placed at the second verse, which is unusual for this style of Eurovision song, but it works well and steps up the intensity. The one thing this song lacks is a sense of progression; it ends with the same tone that it started in. It could have used more variance in its chord progression, but it’s still a strong start. Plus, for a song that started with a mishap, fifth place is impressive!

Greece: Horís skopó (Χωρίς σκοπό)

Artist: Christos Callow

Language: Greek

Key: C major in the choruses, maybe G major in the verses? Or B minor? It’s hard to say. Then D♭ major in the final chorus.

The chord progression in the verses is kind of interesting, but otherwise this is just another ballad that goes in one ear and out the other. Clearly I’m not the only one bored of this type of ballad; this song got 19th place out of 22.

Belgium: Macédomienne

Artist: Philippe Lafontaine

Language: French

Key: A minor

I had to go to French Wikipedia to realize the title isn’t a misspelling of “Macédonienne”, but a pun on “macédonienne” (Macedonian, female) and “mienne” (mine, female). The song was written in tribute to the singer’s wife, who is reportedly Macedonian. Whether she’s from the region of Greece called Macedonia, or the Slavic country that’s today called North Macedonia, isn’t clear to me. People from both regions proudly call themselves Macedonians.

As a song, this is a mellow minor key romance ballad that sounds a little different from other ballads. I think it has a small amount of rock elements to set it apart. Unfortunately, the abrupt ending annoys me. I felt vindicated when the British commentator remarked the song ends with a whimper.

Turkey: Gözlerinin Hapisendeyim

Artist: Kayahan Açar

Language: Turkish

Key: E minor

Compared to last year’s chaotic ethnic entry, this sounds Mediterranean in a much subtler way. You got accordions and guitars, some nice minor key 2-5-1 chord progressions, and lyrics about the pain of a romantic desire. Instead of being hyper-ethnic, it’s a mellow relaxed tune with a pinch of Turkish sound, and sometimes a pinch is all you need. It’s probably my favorite entry so far. When hearing this song, I can imagine walking through markets in a Turkish city.

I love how the singer kisses his guitar at the end. It’s almost like he’s saying the song was not about his love for a human, but his love for his guitar.

Netherlands: Ik wil alles met je delen

Artist: Maywood (Aaltje and Doetje de Vries). One sings lead, the other is on piano.

Language: Dutch

Key: G minor, G♯ minor

Every postcard begins with a little Eurocat animation themed upon the country. When I saw the cat shaving, I thought, “wait, that doesn’t seem very Dutch”… then it turned out the razor was powered by a windmill. It’s always windmills, I’m telling you.

Considering the title means “I want to share everything with you”—easy for me as a German speaker to decipher—when the song started in minor key, I expected it to turn into major key at the chorus. I’m glad it didn’t, because I’m sick of when power ballads do it. It’s so crazy, because when she sings “dan delen we de pijn”, it totally sounds like a change to major key is approaching. The song does eventually go to major key, but only in the final chord. It’s like someone is holding all their pee in while watching a movie, then pees their pants right when it ends.

Being entirely in minor key makes this a lot more interesting as a ballad. It makes it sound like the singer is ready to not just share good times with her lover, but also all the inevitable tears and pain, which is exactly what the song is about. Maybe it sounds a little too gloomy fully in minor, but I’d rather have that over entirely in major, or minor key verses, major key chorus. Actually, major key verses and minor key chorus might suit this song too.

Luxembourg: Quand je te rêve

Artist: Céline Carzo

Language: French

Key: B minor

This is a minor key power ballad for most of its duration, but for the last 30 seconds, it switches to a pumping pop song. This may seem odd, but there’s an explanation: the song was originally four minutes long, with the first half a ballad and the second half a pumping pop song that goes into crazy guitar solos. They just shortened it for Eurovision in a really dumb way. This is why it’s better to send songs that are originally under three minutes, so they don’t have to be truncated like this. Or alternately, be smarter about which parts you cut, as we’ll see later in this post.

The problem is, not everyone watching Eurovision will find out the full cuts of all its songs. I’m sure I have missed some too; I just found out from researching online that this song had a longer cut. This means most people binging Eurovision will see this as a ballad that gets fast in the end for no reason, which is a shame.

United Kingdom: Give a Little Love Back to the World

Artist: Emma Louise Booth, the resident 15-year-old

Language: English

Key: A♭ major in the verses, E♭ major in the chorus, F major in the final chorus

I know the song is a message for environmentalism, but the whole song sounds a lot more like a romantic ballad from a musical. Maybe it would have helped if the lyrics were more direct about it? Or would it have made the song too on the nose? It does have a nice, rousing chorus at least. Terry Wogan was very excited about this entry, so in the voting he was surprised it only reached sixth place.

Iceland: Eitt lag enn

Artist: Stjórnin (Grétar Örvarsson and Sigríður Beinteinsdóttir)

Language: Icelandic

Key: E major, F major

After last year’s zero points, Iceland soared up to fourth place in this contest. It’s the highest any song in Icelandic has scored in Eurovision. How did they score so much higher, you may ask? Oh, it’s simple: they copied the upbeat swing formula from their fellow Nordic countries. The people in charge of selecting Iceland’s entry probably asked themselves why they hadn’t tried this sooner.

This entry is the Nordic dance formula to a T. Upbeat rhythm, a key change at the second verse and nowhere else, lyrics about swing and dance music, what more could you ask for? I also like that the intros to each verse are in minor key but quickly transition into major key. The singers look like they’re dressed for a formal dance, which is nice, but I’m not sure how I feel that the woman’s outfit is much more revealing than the man’s. Regardless, this song proves that scoring zero points was a wake-up call for Iceland.

Norway: Brandenburger Tor

Artist: Ketil Stokkan, returning from 1986

Language: Norwegian

Key: C major

It’s a little funny that three different countries sent a song about the fall of the Berlin Wall this year, but it makes sense: this was a huge historical event. Out of the three songs related to this event, Norway’s is the most direct. It explicitly talks about the unification of Berlin and the ability for everyone to see the Brandenburg Gate.

Compositionally, this sounds like the payoff song at the end of a movie. The verses are reflective in tone and use ballad instrumentation, then the song becomes rousing and celebratory in the chorus. It’s also got an orchestral interlude to lift the song’s spirits before the final chorus. Then the song slows down right at the end, in case it didn’t feel enough like a movie ending song.

I think anyone can tell from the instrumentation and the repeated phrase “Brandenburger Tor” that this song is meant to celebrate the end of an era. And yet, this didn’t seem to get through to juries because it tied with Finland for last place. I have no idea why that is. This song actually made me feel something, more than anything else before.

Israel: Shara Barkhovot (שרה ברחובות)

Artist: Rita Yahan-Farouz

Language: Hebrew

Key: C minor at first, then a bunch of other dramatic key changes I’m too lazy to list

This time, Israel switched from their two most common styles (minor key dance music and rousing hymns) in favor of pure drama, sun by a woman in a black dress. The whole song is a dramatic orchestral ballad heavy in piano, telling the story of a woman who left her love interest behind while singing in the streets. It’s a well-composed song, and while I like when songs surprise the listener, this one sounds too unpredictable. It doesn’t really have any recognizable hooks to keep the listener’s attention. Maybe the title, but even that’s a stretch.

Denmark: Hallo Hallo

Artist: Lonnie Devantier

Language: Danish

Key: D major, E♭ major

Hey, it’s yet another upbeat Nordic dance song! Not that I mind at all—since the mid 1980’s, they’ve consistently been among the highlights of each contest. It’s one of the fastest Nordic dance songs we’ve ever seen yet. The carefree instrumental has some interesting friction against the sorrowful lyrics. Lonnie sings about her impatience to see her love interest who won’t pick up the phone while she’s waiting in the cold. Put against a lively backing track, it’s clear that the song’s mood is meant to be lighthearted.

I’m really sad that Lonnie sounds so breathless performing on stage, not to mention a bit out of tune. She sounds like she overslept and hurried to get on stage in time. Remember, I judge Eurovision entries by both the song and the performance. When I can sense something off about a Eurovision performance, it’s always refreshing to check out the song’s studio version and find that the problem has vanished.

Switzerland: Musik klingt in die Welt hinaus

Artist: Egon Egemann

Language: German

Key: D major, E♭ major, E major

This song, whose title means “music rings around the world”, is quite an eccentric blend of genres. The instrumental is half techno, half orchestral with violin lines interspersing the verse. Meanwhile in the chorus, the vocals sound exactly like a classical German-language choir piece. Maybe this blend exactly the idea, since the song is about the universal joy of music.

The key changes in this song are quirky too; the first key change comes right before the violin solo, and the second is right after. This made me realize that double key changes were falling out of favor in this era of Eurovision, which is relieving to me. These days, even single key changes are falling out of favor. The 2023 contest had zero key changes, if you can even believe that.

Germany: Frei zu leben

Artist: Chris Kempers and Daniel Kovac

Language: German

Key: G major, B♭ major, C major

I’m counting this among the three songs about the collapse of the Berlin Wall. I recognize it might be a stretch, but the title means “free to live”, the lyrics mention tearing down walls and crossing borders, and the song is from Germany, so it was probably at least written with this event in mind.

If Daniel Kovac’s voice sounds like a Slavic immigrant to Germany, that’s because he is (though I’m sure his last name gave it away). He hails from Slovenia, back then part of Yugoslavia, whereas Chris is a native German. Their different nationalities fit the theme of the song, but hearing accented German harmonize with unaccented German is a little jarring. Also, since this is a male and female duet, I wish they harmonized more, especially in the verses. As with Norway, this sounds sort of like a movie ending song, but more of a regular ballad that could function as a movie ending.

France: White and Black Blues

Artist: Joëlle Ursul

Language: French, with a few phrases in English

Key: B major

The frustrating part about being from a Big Five country* is that you know that your country has the potential to be one of the strongest in Eurovision, but they don’t put in the effort to realize that potential (except for Italy). All the Big Five countries have a big music industry and tons of recognizable genres, so in theory, automatically qualifying to the final should be an advantage, but instead it impedes all of them… except for Italy. Some fans think voters are just biased towards Italy, and maybe they are a little, but Italy puts by far the most effort into Eurovision out of the five.

Of course, the Big Five weren’t a thing back then, but this is how French Eurovision fans must have felt in the 1980’s. With a few exceptions, France in the 80’s scored around the middle or bottom half and sent songs that barely anyone talks about. Luckily, in the 1990’s, France really stepped up their game. From 1990 to 1995 and in 1997, they got in the top 10 every time. This year, they tied with Ireland for second place, and in 1991, they would have won if the tiebreaker rule was different.

Co-written by the legendary Serge Gainsbourg, France kicked off the 90’s with a calypso sort of piece in a 3/4 time signature, heavy in percussion and light on instrumentation otherwise. The lightness of the instrumentation draws attention to what it does have: tons of drums, funky chords, and lyrics about the experience of being of African descent in France—both the difficulties and the pride of her heritage. France had never sent anything like this before!

This entry is such a breath of life into France’s history in Eurovision. It serves as a celebration of the ethnic minorities that are just much part of French culture as the native Europeans. It also has a lot of complex choreography, the level of which we normally only saw in Nordic dance songs back then. This song was intended to score highly, and it paid off! I look forward to seeing what else France has to offer in this decade, because I really dig this song.

* I actually live in the United States, but for the sake of Eurovision, I consider Germany my country.

Yugoslavia: Hajde da ludujemo (Хајде да лудујемо)

Artist: Tajči (Tatjana Matejaš) plus a backing band

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)

Key: E♭ major, E major

Even though the breakup of Yugoslavia was rapidly approaching, its biggest language would remain prominent in Eurovision. In fact, every Eurovision contest since 1986 has had at least one song in Serbo-Croatian, except for one year: 2017.

Anyway, the last Yugoslav entry in their 1987-1990 style, which is upbeat rock with a female lead, is something of a cult classic. It took decades for Yugoslavia to settle on a style that isn’t derivative of other countries, but I’m glad they did. This song is famous for the singer’s sexy outfit and enticing performance, especially when she touches the band members’ faces in the final chorus. The lyrics are exactly what you’d expect from the performance: flirting with the listener and inviting him to kiss the singer. It’s a bit too sugary for me to really love it—the lyrics mention chocolate (čokolada), which even English speakers can recognize if they try—but it’s got an infectious chorus and great guitar solo.

Portugal: Há sempre alguém

Artist: Nucha (Cristina Isabel dos Santos Baldaia Trindade)

Language: Portuguese

Key: D major, E♭ major

The most interesting thing about this song is that in the last few measures before the verse, the song sounds like it’s about to turn into minor key, but that’s really just a lead-up to the chorus. Otherwise, it’s an alright early 90’s pop song that I have no thoughts on. I feel bad for the singer getting only 9 points, but this is exactly the kind of song that won’t get many points.

Ireland: Somewhere in Europe

Artist: Liam Reilly, who died in 2021

Language: English

Key: C major

Don’t you dare think that songs in English are exempt from my name-dropping pet peeve. Liam sings about his hope to meet with his love interest somewhere in Europe, and proceeds to list only locations in western Europe. You know, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy… maybe Belgium and Ireland too. These countries form the entirety of Europe! In all fairness, including a more diverse amount of European locations wouldn’t have solved my pet peeve. It would just make the song seem like “Irelande Douze Pointe”.

Fortunately, my annoyance with this song only extends to the lyrics. Musically, it’s a very nice piano ballad, the kind that would obviously score high with the juries. I just don’t think it deserved to score exactly the same as France.

Sweden: Som en vind

Artist: Eden-Ådahl, two pairs of brothers

Language: Swedish

Key: A major, B major, D♭ major, E♭ major

Fun fact: This is the only Eurovision contest with two songs in Swedish. The other one is Finland’s entry.

This is another ballad that I’ll forget about when it ends. I already wasn’t feeling Sweden’s recent ballads as much as their upbeat pop songs, but those at least had a good amount of drama, whereas this doesn’t at all. Also, it has way too many key changes. I’m thankful that Sweden returned to the upbeat dance formula next year.

Italy: Insieme: 1992 (the winner)

Artist: Toto Cutugno, who died two months ago

Language: Italian, plus a few phrases in English

Key: B♭ major

We’ve now reached Italy’s second of three victories! The first was in 1964, the latest was in 2021, and all three are by particularly famous names in the Italian music scene. And yet, unlike most other winners of this era, I still have never heard this song in full before. Let’s change this right now!

The song is most famous for its subject, which is about the then-upcoming European Union. The title means “together: 1992” because that was the year the EU was scheduled to begin operations and replace the European Economic Community. The lyrics express a sense of unity that Europe had never felt before, which was exactly Eurovision’s original goal: to unite the continent through music.

I probably wouldn’t have expected this song to win, nor to score so much higher than all the other unity anthems. However, it’s a well-composed song with a structure that keeps the viewer engaged. It begins with a dramatic choir, then becomes an Italian pop ballad in the verses. The choir intro is important because it tells the listener that the choir will return later, and thus the first verse builds suspense. The payoff comes in the chorus, which doesn’t just bring back the choir, but adds some memorable guitar and brass riffs.

The second verse and chorus are cut out from the studio version to keep it under three minutes. The Eurovision performance skips straight to the final chorus, so its structure is less “verses and choruses” and more “first half, second half”. This is a much better way to shorten the song than Luxembourg’s entry. Instead of lazily cutting out the whole last minute, this song kept the most essential portions.

This is the kind of song that Italy specializes in: artistic tunes that convey a mood through composition. In this case, the mood is preparedness for a bright future. I’m not sure how I feel about the repeated “unite, unite, Europe”, but it’s a solid song otherwise.

Austria: Keine Mauern mehr

Artist: Simone Stelzer

Language: German, with phrases in English, French, and Serbo-Croatian

Key: F major

This song’s title means “no more walls”; I’m sure you can guess which wall it’s about. I’m just surprised it was Austria that sent this song, instead of Germany.

The slow orchestral intro gave me false expectations. What follows is a pumpy pop song about the freedom that comes from walls collapsing, with tense verses and a triumphant chorus. It’s also got a bombastic ending, the kind that feels like braking after riding a bike downhill: you hadn’t realized how fast you were going. It’s not quite as heavy-sounding as Italy’s entry, but both songs are more dramatic than the low-scoring “Brandenburger Tor”, so that could be why Norway got so few points. The other unity anthems got points instead. This song achieved tenth place, which isn’t too bad!

This song goes out of its way to pick English and French phrases that rhyme with the title: “no walls anywhere” and “tombe les barrières”. This makes me disappointed that the Serbo-Croatian phrase “nema više zidova” does not rhyme with the title. It was probably a last-minute addition to pay homage to the host country, but I’m sure they could have made it rhyme.

Cyprus: Milás polý (Μιλάς πολύ)

Artist: Haris Anastasiou

Language: Greek

Key: F major, G major. I think so, anyway.

This sounds so much like a Rick Astley song, it’s scary. However, for such a song to really work, the singer needs a really good voice, and his is just average. The lyrics are a questionable fit for this brassy hyper-80’s instrumental: he says that his love interest talks too much and never listens, and thus wants to break up with her. I appreciate that they put effort into choreography, but it just looks like a tacky 2000’s song.

I feel like this song is trying to be serious when it’s totally goofy at heart. To truly click with me, it would have either had to commit to being serious, or embrace being kitschy. Instead, it’s somewhere in between.

Finland: Fri?

Artist: Beat. Yes, that’s the name of the band.

Language: Swedish

Key: A major, B♭ major

It’s easy to forget that Finland has not one, but two equally official languages: Finnish and Swedish. This means they were allowed to sing for Eurovision in Swedish, but never did it until this year. Then they did it again in 2012.

The story behind Finland’s official languages is really interesting. Centuries ago, the upper-class language of Finland was Swedish, whereas Finnish was seen as the language of peasants. If history had gone differently, Swedish could have become the dominant language throughout the country, and Finnish would be an endangered minority language like Irish. It’s very common for an Indo-European language to overtake a country’s indigenous language, but fortunately, Finland avoided this. However, Swedish had become the dominant language in a few coastal parts of Finland, so as a compromise, the country made both languages official.

From my research (by which I mean opening Beat’s Finnish Wikipedia article and running it through a machine translator), this band’s songs are mostly in English and Finnish. This song has English and Finnish versions too. Since the Finnish version repeats the word “free”, I’m almost certain it was written in English first. They must have thought that performing this song in Swedish would make them score better than Finnish, which it didn’t. This tied with Norway for second-last place.

I love when countries choose unusual languages, so I’m sad this song isn’t much to write home about. It has a nice minor key pop instrumental, but the singers don’t try very hard. Fortunately, Finland’s next entry in Swedish is a lot more interesting!

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Who’s my favorite?

Denmark’s bouncy dance song could have been a contender for my favorite of the year, if her performance was up to snuff. Luxembourg could have been one too, if the song hadn’t been shortened in the worst way possible. This leaves the most out of the box entry of this year as my winner: France, White and Black Blues. My second favorite is probably Turkey’s song.

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

My streak of not choosing the contest’s winner continues for the ninth year! But in 1985, it really hurt me to have to choose between the winner and two others.

General thoughts:

From this contest, I can tell that 1990’s Eurovision will be a lot of fun to review. Just as the contest didn’t keep up with contemporary pop music in most of the 1960’s, it stagnated just as much in the 1980’s. This decade is when Eurovision really started taking its modern form. This year had tons of entries about the events of the time period and was a step up in variety from the previous decade. Soon after, we’ll get a boatload of new countries, even more entries about real-world events, and near the end of the decade, two massive rule changes: the retirement of the orchestra and the dropping of the language rule. No matter whether you agree with these changes, they were both crucial to making Eurovision what it is today.

While the entries were a lot better overall than the late 1980’s, the presenters were a lot worse. They stuttered a lot and the two-minute speeches one third and two thirds of the way through the songs were pointless. The postcards hammered in that 1990 was the European Year of Tourism, which was also showcased in the interval act: a film of scenery and events in Yugoslavia. The point of an interval act is to entertain viewers as they wait for the votes, but Terry Wogan had already seen it and thought it was boring. So to make it more entertaining, he brought Emma (the contest’s British representative) in his booth for an interview, then talked about which songs were his favorites and his overall views on the contest. I can’t blame him for doing this at all.

The voting sequence was another one that came down to the wire, which is always fun to watch. As usual, Terry Wogan snarked all over it. He got more and more sarcastic every year he commentated Eurovision. This was the first contest since 1986 where no country got zero points: the lowest score was 8. This is nice, because it means every song appealed to someone in the jury.

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See you next time for the notorious tiebreaker between Sweden and France.

>> 1991: Possibly the Most Controversial Year