Intro Post

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Please enjoy my first Eurovision review of the new year! I wonder how far I’ll get when the 2024 contest happens? I don’t think I’ll catch up, but maybe I’ll reach 2015 or so. Remember, I’ll be in Malmö and/or Copenhagen during the contest.

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Introduction

An audience filled with flags, cheerful hosts accompanied by electronic music, a stage full of flashy light effects, seemingly endless pleasantries before the contest properly begins… yep, the first Eurovision contest after I was born isn’t far from what we know it as today.

Eurovision 1999 took place in Israel just as it would twenty years later, in its capital city of Jerusalem just as it did twenty years earlier. The number of participating countries was reduced from 25 to 23, so seven countries were relegated (Finland, Greece, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland) and five rejoined (Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania). Lithuania had last participated in 1994 and Hungary wouldn’t rejoin until 2005. Perhaps this decrease in participants was done to allow for commercial breaks between the songs, which were filled by mini-interval acts for the live audience and non-commercial broadcasters.

This year featured two massive changes to the rules: (1) the orchestra was abolished and (2) just like from 1973 to 1976, the language rule was abolished. Technically, the orchestra wasn’t fully abolished, but broadcasters could now opt out of providing one, which is what Israel did. From this point onwards, all Eurovision entries were sung entirely over a backing track.

The first winner of post-orchestra and post-language rule Eurovision was none other than Sweden with “Take Me to Your Heaven”, who would become the biggest power player till the present day. Iceland scored second place with another pop song in English, and Germany combined four languages to reach a respectable third place. One more fact: This was the first Eurovision with three presenters, which would be the most common amount from 2010 onwards. One of them sang Israel’s entry in 1992, “Ze Rak Sport”.

I frankly don’t have high expectations for these next few years of Eurovision. I’m bracing myself for a bunch of cheesy Eurodance, painfully off-key singing, and nonsensical English lyrics. Maybe Terry Wogan’s commentary will make it more bearable, we’ll see.

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Lithuania: Strazdas

Artist: Aistė Smilgevičiūtė. A diacritic-heavy name.

Language: Samogitian, a maybe-dialect of Lithuanian

Key: D major

I’m relieved to know Terry Wogan is just as confused by the postcards as I am. They feature bizarre animations of scenes from the Bible which transition into landmark locations in Israel.

You’d think that after scoring zero points in Eurovision, Lithuania would return to this contest with an accessible English-language pop song. But apparently they weren’t ready for that yet and wanted to send something in an exotic language instead. Their national final this year consisted entirely of native language songs, but the same held for Sweden and Slovenia and that didn’t stop them from changing their song’s language for Eurovision. It’ll be fun to compare the languages of this year’s national finals.

This song is interesting not just for its unusual language. It’s also got an eccentric 9/8 (or maybe 9/16) time signature. Normally songs in a nonuple meter have the beats neatly divided into three groups of three, but in this song the division isn’t clear until the bass kicks in. I would have loved to hear an orchestra bring this song to life, but the backing track sounds decent enough. The lyrics are slow and don’t have many words, and they tell a short story of a blackbird. An exotic start to this contest for sure. It scored 20th place out of 23, a bit better than Lithuania’s last effort.

Lithuania would not send a native language song again for the next two decades. Most of their other songs afterwards are in English (sometimes with bits of other languages), but their language would return in all its glory in 2022.

Belgium: Like the Wind

Artist: Vanessa Chinitor

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor, G minor, G♯ minor

The Belgian national selection for Eurovision 1999 had a mix of songs in English and Dutch, plus one song in Spanish. However, most non-English songs were eliminated in the selection’s semifinals, so the final had seven songs in English and one in Dutch.

Thanks to the first two entries, a viewer watching this contest blind might expect this year to consist of atmospheric songs like 1996 and 1997. This song is in a hearty 12/8 time signature and, as with the last one, I would have loved to see it orchestrated. This song would have sounded so badass with an orchestra, but over a partly electronic backing track it sounds a bit more quirky. I like the general composition, but Vanessa’s singing is a little too mumbly and the second key change is unnecessary and awkwardly placed.

Overall, this is a decent attempt at an atmospheric song but it’s no “The Voice” or “Den vilda”.

Spain: No quiero escuchar

Artist: Lydia Rodríguez Fernández

Language: Spanish

Key: G♯ minor, B♭ minor

Although it scored last place with only one point, musically this isn’t bad at all. It’s a decent laid-back 90’s pop song, heavy in synth pianos and minor seventh chords. It’s just that Lydia’s vertical rainbow dress is extremely distracting and does not fit this song at all. It almost looks as if Spain was purposely trying to get the Barbara Dex award this year, which they did. Why couldn’t Lydia have dressed in black like her backing singers?

Croatia: Marija Magdalena

Artist: Doris Dragović, returning from 1986

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)

Key: C♯ minor, D minor

From 1999 to 2011, Croatia’s Eurovision national final consisted entirely of native-language songs, though they’d sometimes change the language for Eurovision. Then from 2012 to 2018, they either selected their contestant internally or didn’t participate. From 2019 onwards, the national final allowed songs in other languages but still has a high concentration of native-language music.

This song caused a controversy when the EBU realized it was performed with pre-recorded backing vocals, which broke the rule of backing tracks being instrumental only. Croatia was punished for this rule breach in a rather unusual way. They were allowed to keep their final score of 118 points (fourth place), but a third of the points would be deducted for the sake of calculating which countries were relegated in later years. Despite this, Croatia never got relegated from the contest afterwards, so their punishment didn’t affect anything. The contest allowed backing vocals to be pre-recorded starting 2021.

Anyway, as for the song itself, it reminds me of last year’s “Diva” in a few ways. Both are dramatic Eurodance songs in harmonic minor key with a particularly rousing chorus. I can see why it’s still a fan favorite today and it’s the most enjoyable song so far, but Eurodance just isn’t my thing (except when it is).

United Kingdom: Say It Again

Artist: Precious, a short-lived girl group

Language: English. Who would have guessed?

Key: E♭ major, F major

After three strong, memorable entries in a row, the UK’s dark age in Eurovision has begun. This song scored 12th place, their second worst rank behind 1987, and it would only get worse from there. We’ll have to savor their bright spots in 2002 and 2009.

This is exactly the kind of cheesy early 2000’s pop that really doesn’t do it for me, and which I fear will dominate these next few years of Eurovision. The swing drum rhythm and record scratches annoy me, the singers don’t harmonize well at all, and their choreography can’t save it. British fans were lucky other countries hadn’t stepped up their game yet, because this song would have scored at the bottom a decade later.

Slovenia: For a Thousand Years

Artist: Darja Švajger, returning from 1995

Language: English

Key: C♯ minor, D minor. Key change at the second verse.

As with the other former Yugoslav countries this year, Slovenia’s national final was all in their own language, but its winner was changed to English for Eurovision.

I listened to the song’s original Slovenian version (Še tisoč let) first, then watched its performance in Eurovision. The Slovenian version sounds very much like all those dramatic, dreary ballads we’ve heard from this part of Europe, so it’s a bit weird to hear this kind of song adapted into English. Regardless of the language, this is a very decent cinematic ballad. It’s not the genre that excites me the most, but in an era of Eurovision filled with cheesy annoying pop, it serves as a bright spot.

Turkey: Dön Artık

Artist: Tuba Önal and Grup Mistik

Language: Turkish

Key: C minor

Turkey is now in their phase of trying to imitate the success of “Dinle”. They did this by trying to find the right balance between sounding Turkish and sounding accessible, until they won the contest in 2003. This leans a little too much into the Europop style, but it’s very Turkish and decently fun to listen to. This song only got 16th place, but Turkey would keep prodding on. Terry Wogan correctly predicted it would get twelve points from Germany.

Norway: Living My Life Without You

Artist: Stig van Eijk

Language: English

Key: B minor

A singer with a Dutch-sounding name who was born in Colombia sings for Norway. Where else would you find this but Eurovision?

As you’d expect from a country up north, Norway was more than prepared to sing in English. Melodi Grand Prix allowed English songs in 1998, even though they had to switch to Norwegian for Eurovision. Their national final this year consisted entirely of songs in English, as was the case every year until 2003.

I’m sorry, but I don’t like this style of early 2000’s pop music at all. Plus, Stig van Eijk is out of key a lot, almost like a piano that hasn’t been tuned in two years. At least I’m glad I didn’t get my hopes up for this contest.

Denmark: This Time I Mean It

Artist: Michael Teschl and Trine Jepsen

Language: English

Key: F♯ major, A major, B major, E major, G major, A major, B major

Unlike Norway, Denmark’s national final this year was still all in Danish. This song was originally called “Denne gang”, which means “this time”. Don’t be fooled by the long list of keys: this is a very normal-sounding song.

Even though Eurovision in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s started off sounding like the prior decade’s music, most of this contest so far already sounds like the 2000’s. This is a contemporary boyband-sounding pop song, heavy in guitar and romantic lyrics. It sounds like it could have been released as late as 2008. It’s not really my kind of song, but I could put it in the background and not want to turn it off. In other words, it’s very radio-friendly. I’m informed that Denmark would keep sending this style of radio-friendly music for the next two decades.

France: Je veux donner ma voix

Artist: Nayah (Sylvie Mestres)

Language: French

Key: C major, D major

France had a streak of unique and memorable entries that started 1990, but sadly it didn’t continue this year. This is just an average 1990’s sounding ballad with all the 90’s pop instruments you’d expect like acoustic guitar, electric piano, and a loud drum beat. A showoffy long high note at the end doesn’t make your song interesting either.

It’s worth noting that France’s national selection contained two songs mixing France with another language (Breton, Hebrew), one song entirely in Arabic, and one entirely in Basque. The other eight were entirely in French.

Netherlands: One Good Reason

Artist: Marlayne Sahupala

Language: English

Key: D♭ major

The Dutch national final this year was entirely in English, because at this point their broadcaster saw no value in sending Dutch-language music to Eurovision. That would eventually change 23 years later.

I feel the same way about this song as I do about Denmark—too safe and radio-sounding to be my kind of song, but I wouldn’t shut it off. That’s more than I can say about most songs so far. Still, I watch Eurovision for songs that are creative and out of the box, not radio-friendly pop songs. If I wanted to listen to radio-friendly songs I could just turn on the radio.

Poland: Przytul mnie mocno

Artist: Mietek Szcześniak

Language: Polish

Key: B major

The singer’s echo effects are built into the microphone, not part of the song’s backing track. I know that because his “thank you” at the end also echoes. I’m not sure why we have two violinists on stage where the violin parts aren’t central to the song, or all that easy to hear anyway. This is an average 90’s pop ballad whose only distinguishing factor is that it’s in Polish. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like Poland has any later entries that are as big fan favorites as “Ale jestem”.

After this song comes a mini-interval act, where the two female hosts sing a cute Israeli-sounding drinking song in a mix of English and Hebrew. It’s far better than most of the actual entries so far, which is really not a good sign.

Iceland: All Out of Luck

Artist: Selma Björnsdóttir

Language: English

Key: E major

This is one of two times Iceland reached second place in Eurovision, the other being 2009. They still haven’t won the contest, but most fans believe they would’ve won in 2020.

I can see why this song scored so high. As someone who isn’t much into Eurodance, I actually quite like this song, so it must appeal even more to those who do love Eurodance. I like this song for the same reasons as “Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit” three years prior: it’s so perky and upbeat, as well as a little quirky, that it overrides my distaste for Eurodance. Selma is a charismatic performer and her song is filled with catchy melodies, both in the lyrics and instrumental.

It helps that unlike so many other English-language songs in this contest, this one has a lot of Icelandic musical character. I tend to associate Nordic countries with this type of cheerful synth-heavy dance music, especially Sweden. If you showed me this song and I had to guess which country the singer is from, I’m not sure Iceland would be my first guess, but after being told she’s Icelandic, I would think “ah yes, that makes sense”.

What this contest so far lacks is a song that piques my interest and doesn’t feel derivative of another famous entry. “Maria Magdalena” is another “Diva”, “All out of Luck” is another “Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit”, but when will we have a good song that does something new? Don’t worry, I already know we’ll hear one near the end.

Cyprus: Tha’ne érotas (Θα’ναι έρωτας)

Artist: Marlain Angelides

Language: Greek

Key: C minor at the start, D minor in the rest

This starts as an average ballad and gradually turns into average Eurodance. Despite being in Greek (as were all songs in Cyprus’s national final), this doesn’t have any Greek or Cypriot musical character, in contrast to Iceland’s entry. It only scored two points, likely an effect of Greece not participating. I would say it’s a shame it was sandwiched between the two highest scoring entries, but most of this contest’s songs really aren’t great.

I’ve read that in the 2000’s and most of the 2010’s, Cypriot fans were more interested in Greece’s entries than their own, which makes perfect sense. Greece has a lot of fan favorites in this era, whereas nobody talks much about the 21st century Cypriot entries before “Fuego”.

Sweden: Take Me to Your Heaven (the winner)

Artist: Charlotte Nilsson (now Perrelli)

Language: English

Key: E major, F♯ major

The postcard briefly features a guy in a vest playing violin. Could this possibly be foreshadowing Alexander Rybak? Also, if you’re wondering, Melodifestivalen still required songs to be in Swedish back then.

My first time hearing this song was when I was curious to find out which song won in the year I was born. I immediately noticed a lot of parallels with ABBA’s “Waterloo”: both are major key songs in a swing rhythm, both were from Sweden and sung in English, both were shortly after the language rule was lifted, and “Waterloo” won in the year my dad was born. While ABBA impacted Eurovision’s dominant style for the rest of the 1970’s, this song’s influence is more specific to Sweden’s entries. It set the stage for Sweden to continue sending flashy, accessible pop songs and proved they’d be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.

I vastly prefer this song’s Swedish version, called “Tusen och en natt” (a thousand and one nights). It just sounds so much more natural to me. The title has one less syllable than “take me to your heaven”, but that’s because in Swedish, the title ends the first line of the chorus. When translated to English, it loses some of its personality, but this is still one of the better songs so far. I don’t love this song and I’m not even sure if I like it, but it’s very easy to sing to and has some inherent cheerfulness. I like Iceland’s song a lot more and it would have made a better winner.

Honestly, I could have imagined this song’s Swedish version winning too. How different would Eurovision history have looked if this song won in Swedish? Would it have mitigated the dominance of English-language music in Eurovision, or would a streak of winners in English have followed anyway? It would have definitely made Sweden less reluctant to sing in their own language.

Portugal: Como tudo começou

Artist: Rui Bandeira

Language: Portuguese—their national final still required it

Key: D major, E major

It seems like Portugal was still checked out of Eurovision this year—their only points were twelve from France, presumably due to diaspora. This is yet more middling radio pop that happens to be in Portuguese. I know that at this point instruments on stage are only for decoration, but the lack of an organist or drummer when we see two guitarists and a bassist prevents any suspension of disbelief.

Ireland: When You Need Me

Artist: The Mullans, a pair of sisters

Language: English, though the national final had one song in Irish

Key: C major, E♭ major

At the start and end of this song, Terry Wogan sounded slightly disappointed when he said this song didn’t seem like a winner. Though he was extremely biased towards British entries as a commentator, his opinions on his home country’s entries were more honest.

I don’t think Ireland has realized yet that without an orchestra, their ballads just aren’t the same. The harmonies are pretty good, but otherwise this puts me to sleep. It doesn’t have any real buildup and keeps the same level of instrumental depth throughout.

Austria: Reflection

Artist: Bobbie Singer (Tina Schosser)

Language: English

Key: E major

More radio guitar pop that sounds the same as Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. If I wasn’t born in 1999, I would have called this post “The Year of Radio Guitar Pop”. These songs are even more samey than all the dreary chansons in the grayscale years. If nothing else, it’s got a cute charming singer and they put a more believable set of mime instrumentalists on stage than Portugal did.

Israel: Yom Huledet (יום הולדת) (also called Happy Birthday)

Artist: Eden, an Israeli vocal group

Language: Hebrew, with random English phrases thrown in K-pop style

Key: B♭ major, C major, D major

From 1999 to 2014, Israel’s entries were most often in a mix of Hebrew and English, sometimes with a third language mixed in. I haven’t heard most of them, so I’ll see for myself how good they are. I expect a lot of them to be overly chaotic.

Aside from being a birthday song that I’m told people in Israel hear a lot, this is just more cheesy Eurodance. Because apparently we haven’t had enough of that in the contest so far. Why couldn’t the hosts’ drinking song have been Israel’s entry instead? That would’ve been so much better.

Malta: Believe ‘n Peace

Artist: Times Three, a girl trio

Language: English, like all of Malta’s national final (unsurpringly)

Key: D major

I’m running out of words to describe all this bland Eurodance. All of them have the same damn repeated snare before each chorus and the same drums and electric pianos and synths and everything. Also, the chorus is repeated at the end a fuck ton of times because the composers couldn’t be assed to add a bridge section.

Germany: Reise nach Jerusalem

Artist: Sürpriz

Language: German, Turkish, English, and Hebrew

Key: D minor, then a surprisingly slick transition to F minor

Since this song is in four languages, it’s quite fitting that the postcard features the Tower of Babel story. That and Israel’s story about the Promised Land are the few postcards that seem at all related to the performing countries, but Germany is probably a coincidence.

Anyway, since this is my country and we’re in their era of renewed interest in Eurovision, I’d like to go deep dive mode again. Now that Germany had sent the iconic performance of Guildo Horn, they were prepared to send their A game once more.

For Eurovision 1999, Germany’s national final was almost evenly balanced between songs in German and in English. In later years their national final would be more and more biased towards English, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The winner of the national final was “Hör den Kindern einfach zu”, a lovely song about listening to the optimistic words of children, but it turned out to be a German cover of an existing song from 1997 and was disqualified. It’s an excellent moving tune that would have scored highly, but instead the runner-up (yet another Ralph Siegel composition) made it to Eurovision. That was quite a sürpriz, don’t you think?

Some sources list this song as “Reise nach Jerusalem – Kudüs’e Seyahat” or “Journey to Jerusalem”, but since this is the entry from Germany, I’m calling it by its German title. It’s not quite as wowing as “Hör den Kindern einfach zu”, but it’s a lot more out of the box and Eurovisiony. Terry Wogan said it was a blatant attempt to curry local favor, and considering its twelve points from Israel and Turkey, I have to agree. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all—it’s so lovely to see Germany to vary their style! It’s especially cool that they’re showing music of their ethnic minorities that have influenced their culture, like France and the Netherlands sometimes did in the 1990’s.

As a composition, this is a perfect blend of German and Turkish music, the right balance between accessibility and cultural flair. Its most memorable part is the chorus melody, which is both sung and played by the instrumental and manages to work well in all four languages (with some rhythmic adjustments). Speaking of the languages, this song demonstrates what I consider the best part about abolishing the language rule: the creative language combinations. Normally when Eurovision songs mix languages, they just combine the national language and English, but occasionally songs like this will go the extra mile and provide us some delightful language soup. Or should I call it a language kebab? Language hummus, perhaps? Shit, now I’m hungry for Middle Eastern food.

This song could be better in a few ways. The singers sound a little muffled at times and some have strong Turkish accents, which gives the song some cultural charm but also makes the lyrics harder to understand. And maybe it could be a bit less dominated by the chorus melody. Still, songs that combine languages or genres are a joy to pick apart. It always makes me happy when my country brings a splash of life into a boring year.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Putnici

Artist: Dino Merlin and Béatrice Poulot

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian) and French

Key: A minor

It turns out this contest has two unusual language combos, if you define an unusual language combo as anything other than “English + native language”. The French sections of this song are mostly verb conjugation lessons, but it’s still a sizable amount of the language.

Dammit, is this another year where all the good stuff is at the end? We had this exact same problem in 1994. I like the mellow vibe in this song as well as the Balkan instrumentation—you can’t go wrong with a balalaika and violin. It’s not one of my favorites of all time and I wish it had more Bosnian singing instead of rapping, but the rapping has a bit of charm regardless. The song feels like it’s over before it’s fully explored all ideas, but it’s still far preferable to most others this year.

Estonia: Diamond of Night

Artist: Evelin Samuel and Imbi-Camille Tam

Language: English

Key: D♭ major

Estonia was another country quick to allow English songs in their national final. Six of their ten songs were in English and the winner made it to Eurovision, no language change needed. This song begins Estonia’s stretch of top ten finishes, from 1999 to 2002: 6th, 4th, 1st, and 3rd place in order.

This is a nice atmospheric song to close the night, but it would have sounded better with an orchestra. Maybe also in Estonian, but it doesn’t have an Estonian version as far as I’m aware. Evelin’s lyrics sound too slurred to fit the English language, like every word blends into its neighbors instead of sounding distinct. Still, this is again a hell of a lot better than everything before. It loosely reminds me of “I evighet” from 1996, which even happens to be in the same key. I would’ve really preferred if these last three entries were spread throughout the contest to prevent stretches of drivel, but this works well as a closer.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: I’m pretty sure this song contains the first ever instance of the cliched Eurovision rhyme, “fire” and “desire”. The lyrics have a few other janky parts, like “voices are calling whilst stardust falling”. I’ll have to get used to grammatically strange lyrics for the next decade or two of Eurovision.

EDIT: Turns out the first fire/desire rhyme was in “Love Is…”, the British entry from 1985. It was foreshadowing a drearily overused rhyme, wasn’t it?

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Who’s my favorite?

Not a hard question at all. There really weren’t many songs I liked this year. Estonia is compositionally good but held back by janky lyrics, and Croatia and Iceland are decent for Eurodance but still Eurodance. The only remaining one with wow factor is confidently my winner: Germany, Reise nach Jerusalem. Iceland is probably my second favorite.

• Belgium, 1 (1976)
• Denmark, 1 (1963)
• Finland, 3 (1968, 1983, 1989)
• France, 3 (1977, 1990, 1991)
• Germany, 4 (1956, 1979, 1982, 1999)
• Iceland, 1 (1992)
• Ireland, 4 (1970, 1980, 1993, 1994)
• Israel, 1 (1987)
• Italy, 1 (1958)
• Luxembourg, 4 (1961, 1965, 1972, 1988)
• Netherlands, 7 (1957, 1959, 1964, 1967, 1969, 1975, 1998)
• Norway, 4 (1960, 1966, 1973, 1995)
• Portugal, 2 (1971, 1984)
• Sweden, 3 (1974, 1985, 1996)
• Switzerland, 1 (1986)
• Turkey, 2 (1978, 1997)
• United Kingdom, 2 (1962, 1981)
• (17 winners)

Right now, three of the four German entries on this list are composed by Ralph Siegel. Will another non-Siegel entry make the list? We’ll just have to wait and see.

General thoughts:

The interval act was an electronic dance piece featuring Dana International in the second half. It was more entertaining than most of the contest’s songs, but interval acts aren’t the same without an orchestra. It’s a visual spectacle, but the audio is too Eurodancey for me.

The two female hosts were enthusiastic and had good chemistry together, but the male host had an annoyingly monotone voice and we didn’t see him much outside of the voting, which he handled solo. The contest would have been more enjoyable with just the ladies hosting.

Speaking of the voting, every year the spokespersons got more off topic, the bloc voting got more blatant, and Terry Wogan got more befuddled about it all. He especially snarked at eastern European countries voting for each other, with remarks like “How far is Lithuania from Poland?” There’s no denying he was biased against songs from the countries further east. This mindset would plague western European fans throughout the 2000’s, especially when they started blaming winners on bloc voting. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Let’s just say that if most songs in a year are crap, then of course the voting will seem random.

Yigal Ravid (the male presenter) must have felt so awkward when he addressed the Austrian and German spokespersons in fluent German and they responded entirely in English. The final results seemed very close, until they suddenly weren’t. Second last to vote, the Bosnian voters awarded their twelve points to Sweden and put them in a lead by 15 points. Everything afterwards was anticlimactic.

As for the songs, I was prepared for an onslaught of cheesy Eurodance, but I wasn’t prepared for all this cheesy radio pop. The abolition of the orchestra and language rule dented the quality of the songs this year, but later years would prove that both changes were ultimately beneficial. I expect the contest to improve again starting 2003, the year with the legendary narrow three-way race.

I was wrong about “Nocturne” being the last time the winner’s reprise changed the language. Charlotte Nilsson sang the final chorus in the superior Swedish version, props to her! After that came a choral cover of “Hallelujah” in tribute to the victims of the Kosovo war, which is an odd choice of song but it’s the thought that counts.

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See you next time as the new millennium begins with even more Eurodance and some downright painful songs. If you say “um ackshully, the millennium didn’t start until 2001”, then you need to touch grass.

>> 2000: The (Second) Year of Radio Guitar Pop (a better year than I expected!)