Intro Post

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A few hours after this post is published, we’ll find out who Ireland will send to Eurovision 2024. National final season is shaping up!!! (Please tell me they won’t send Next in Line.)

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Introduction

Eurovision 2002 began a brave journey through first-time host countries, which meant a lot of smaller, less experienced broadcasters were put up to this task. The first to take on this daunting challenge was Estonia’s ETV, who hosted the contest in its capital of Tallinn. It seemed uncertain at first whether ETV could host the contest, but they pulled through thanks to fundraisers and a loan from the Estonian government.

Once they were certain they could host the contest, Estonia decided to have some fun with it and themed it upon fairy tales, as we’ll see in the postcards. It was the first contest to have an official slogan, which is “A Modern Fairytale”. The rules of the contest were mostly the same as 2001, with one small change: the recap after all the songs were performed was done in reverse order, to reduce bias towards entries performed late.

All countries that were relegated from 2001 (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, North Macedonia, Romania, Switzerland) got to return this year, and six countries were originally going to be relegated this year: Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland. However, Portugal withdrew from the contest, which meant Latvia got to participate after all. Latvia went on to achieve the unlikely feat of scoring first place with one of the least popular winners in Eurovision history.

This year as a whole is something of a black sheep. It doesn’t have many uploads online compared to others in the 2000’s—I could only find British and Spanish commentary, so I went with Terry Wogan—and most of its songs aren’t well-remembered. I’ll come in with an open mind so we can find out together if this year was as bad as everyone says. The hosts are genuinely enthusiastic this time, which is a welcome change of pace.

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Cyprus: Gimme

Artist: One (a boyband). How fitting that they’re first!

Language: English

Key: C minor, C♯ minor

Unlike the Netherlands in 2001, the beginning is the perfect spot to place this song. It’s an electronic song with a strong driving beat that gets the audience hyped and makes them anticipate what’s next. I think the solo singer is overly shaky in the verses, but in the chorus they sound nice together. This isn’t something I want to keep, but it makes me subconsciously think the rest of the year will be a bunch of fun party songs that I can quickly blast through.

United Kingdom: Come Back

Artist: Jessica Garlick, but it would’ve been so much funnier if it was a band called Two

Language: English

Key: F major

This is one of the UK’s two major bright spots in the gruesome stretch between Imaani and Sam Ryder—the other is Jade Ewen’s song in 2009. The second spot in the running order is usually called the death slot, but since Jessica scored third place, in this contest it was more of a life slot. It helped that the recap was in reverse order this year.

I’m sure that British fans at the time expected their song to win and were unhappy it was performed second, but I’d argue the running order came to its benefit. If you put the right kind of song after the opener, it can elude the curse of coming second. This power ballad in 6/8 time is a great choice to put after Cyprus’s dance song. It’s got a strong singer, a heavy-sounding instrumental, and a push and pull felt whenever the instrumental pauses. I feel similarly to this song as I do about “Je n’ai que mon âme” last year. It doesn’t really wow me in isolation, but when put in the right context it punches me in the gut.

Unlike with so many other British entries, Terry Wogan wasn’t artificially excited about this song, but genuinely hoped it would do well. He said at the end, “That’s our best song for many a year, I’d say. Let’s hope we get the votes.”

Austria: Say a Word

Artist: Manuel Ortega

Language: English

Key: A major, B major

This is an alright 2000’s pop song, thankfully not cheesy Eurodance, but the chorus is repetitive and sucks the energy out of me. Actually, the whole song is repetitive and ends abruptly. A bit of a letdown after the first two songs, I’d say.

You know the lyrics were written by a German speaker when they can’t tell apart the vowels in “friend” and “hand”. In all fairness, the letter N likes to muck around with the sound of vowels in English and the singer pronounces both words similarly, but I greatly prefer it when rhymes are exact.

Greece: S.A.G.A.P.O.

Artist: Michalis Rakintzis

Language: English

Key: C minor

Greece, what kind of drugs were you on this year?! This is completely out of place among all the Greek entries from 2001 to 2015. It’s just… how do I even begin to describe this? The sci-fi astronaut outfits, the fake echoing that doesn’t actually get quieter, the repetition of the Greek word for “I love you” spelled in English letters, everything about this is just so bizarre. It’s not even that good musically: the instrumental sounds like off-brand NSYNC and the singer drifts off key a lot.

At least Greece decided not to send something like this again and returned to danceable songs with Greek flair for the next 15 years. You can’t say that about the next time Greece sent a bizarro song, which was in 2016. After that, Greece decided Greek music wasn’t cool anymore and turned into Sweden (although 2024 is looking to be their year of de-Swedification).

Spain: Europe’s Living a Celebration

Artist: Rosa López

Language: Spanish, plus a repeated phrase in English

Key: E major (intro and chorus), D♭ major (verses), F♯ major (final chorus)

I almost thought this year would mark the end of cheesy Eurodance, but this song proved me wrong. This song feels like I was pulled out of a peaceful, quiet walk in the park and dragged into an ultra-hectic dance party against my will. And the end of this song feels like me walking out the door once everyone’s backs are turned. I’m sorry, this is just too hectic for me and doesn’t hype me up enough for its hecticness. Also, it relies way too much on the English phrase.

Croatia: Everything I Want

Artist: Vesna Pisarović

Language: English

Key: D minor

This is just an average 2000’s pop song that lost its personality when translated from Croatian into English. Also, “happiness” and “loneliness” is such a lame rhyme. The Croatian version isn’t that great either, but at least it sounds more natural.

Russia: Northern Girl

Artist: Premyer-Ministr (Prime Minister)

Language: English

Key: D minor

This song’s Russian version is called “Devochka s severa” (Девочка с севера) and, as I expected, it sounds so much more natural than the English version. I’m really glad the trend of changing native language songs to English for Eurovision has simmered down. The last time it was done was “Fallen Angel” from 2021, which was originally sung in Norwegian as “Ut av mørket”.

Oh god, the singers’ English is almost incomprehensible here. Look Russia, I get you wanted to win Eurovision, but your English shouldn’t be this janky. I think Russia realized this next year, when they came extremely close to winning with a Russian-language song. Language aside, this is a decent 2000’s pop song with a supremely catchy chorus, as Russian entries of the time tended to have.

Estonia: Runaway

Artist: Anna Sahlene, who is actually from Sweden

Language: English

Key: F♯ major, A♭ major

This song has two strange things about it. First off, it was originally going to be sung by Eda-Ines Etti, who represented Estonia in 2000, but she dropped out. The composers of this song instead recruited a singer from Sweden for some reason. Second, even though it shares third place with the UK, if the tiebreaker rules of the time were used to determine all rankings, then the UK would have scored fourth place. That’s because Estonia got twelve points from two countries, and the UK only from one.

As a composition, this isn’t a strange song at all: a regular upbeat 2000’s pop song. I think it scored highly for two reasons: the singer gave an energetic performance at the front of the stage, plus she’s total eye candy. This performance concludes Estonia’s strong streak in Eurovision. Next up we have an Estonian dark age, which culminates in 2008 with an infamous joke entry. But I’m hyped for the masterpiece they sent in 2009.

North Macedonia: Od nas zavisi (Од нас зависи)

Artist: Karolina Gočeva

Language: Macedonian

Key: D minor

Finally another native language song! North Macedonia’s national final still required their songs to be in Macedonian, and as a big name in her home country, Karolina saw no reason to localize her song to English.

North Macedonia finally brings something properly Balkan-sounding, with a good singer even! Plus a mid-song outfit change, reminiscent of “Neka mi ne svane” but not as dramatic. This is a very lovely fusion of the Balkan ballad style with 2000’s pop. It combines the styles much better than “Sto posto te ljubam” two years prior, because it properly fuses the genres instead of alternating between them. It’s a very honest effort from this unlucky country, but it only reached 19th place. Why could that possibly be?

Some people might say this song scored low because it’s in Macedonian, but we’ve seen that a song in any language can score well if it’s appealing enough. Plus, I’m a big language nerd and I think all Slavic languages sound near indistinguishable, so they must be even more indistinguishable to non-language nerds. And when you consider that other Balkan ballads like “Lejla” and “Molitva” scored so highly… there must be another factor at play. The problem with this song is that it doesn’t have a catchy hook to draw the listener in. That’s crucial to making any type of song, no matter which language it’s in.

Don’t be fooled by my small criticism: this song deserved so much better than 19th place. I like it FAR better than anything else in this contest so far. It’s got so many delightful jazzy chords and string riffs and I can totally see myself revisiting it. I don’t even feel an instinct to check the translated lyrics as I listen, which is how I know it transcends language barriers.

I’ve said this many times before, but Balkan ballads are fucking awesome and so much better than regular ballads. Normal ballads all sound pretty much the same, but each Balkan ballad brims with a distinctive personality. Most countries didn’t appreciate this song, but the Romanian juries had good taste and gave it twelve points.

Israel: Light a Candle / Nadlik Beyahad Ner (נדליק ביחד נר)

Artist: Sarit Hadad

Language: Hebrew and English

Key: C minor (verses), C major (chorus)

I was so excited when I heard the dramatic minor key verses. This was shaping up to be a gorgeous minor key ballad, but then the chorus just HAD to sound like a completely generic power ballad. This made me realize it’s been a long time since the last minor key verse, major key chorus song. At least it doesn’t have a key change, but that’s not much consolation.

Switzerland: Dans le jardin de mon âme

Artist: Francine de Jordi

Language: French

Key: C major

This is just another Swiss chanson/ballad, except Francine screams her lungs out through the entire song for some reason. Because louder equals better as far as she’s concerned. I’m not surprised it caused Switzerland to be relegated yet another year.

Sweden: Never Let It Go

Artist: Afro-Dite

Language: English. No Swedish version this time.

Key: F minor (verses), E♭ minor (chorus), E minor (final chorus)

2000’s Eurovision had way too many songs named some variant of “never let you go”, seriously. As a song this is just yet more Swedish Eurodance, but at least it has a groovy chord progression in the chorus. The chord progression means I kind of like this, but only kind of. Also, the abrupt ending annoys me.

After this song comes a mini-interval act where the hosts show off their singing skills, which is actually pretty good. Also, “sentimental” and “gentle” is an amazing rhyme.

Finland: Addicted to You

Artist: Laura Voutilainen

Language: English

Key: D minor, E♭ minor

For some reason, Finnish viewers were confident this year was their time to shine. In the audience, you can even see a sign with Finland’s flag saying “Suomen aika voittaa” (Finland’s time to win). But they only scored 20th place, causing them to be relegated yet again. Only four more years, Finland—your time to shine would come soon enough.

This is quite similar to Sweden’s song: a 2000’s Europop song with a bit of groovy flair that I kind of like. And yet, Sweden scored 72 points and Finland got only 24.  I think it was disadvantageous to came right after Sweden, whose song is similar but a bit flashier.

Denmark: Tell Me Who You Are

Artist: Malene Mortensen

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor

This radio pop song scored last place with only seven points, which is at least better than other last places. I can see why most people didn’t vote for this: the singer has an un-confident performance. She looks either scared to be on stage, or antsy to get this over with. Maybe both.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Na jastuku za dvoje (На јастуку за двоје)

Artist: Maja Tatić

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian) and English

Key: F major

In earlier Eurovision decades, it felt so refreshing to hear a fast song, but in this contest the fast songs aren’t doing it for me. This is just an average 2000’s rock-ish song that fades into the background for me. Also, I’m not a fan of this song’s style of language mixing, which is yet again native language in the first half, English in the second half.

Belgium: Sister

Artist: Sergio and the Ladies

Language: English

Key: C major, D major

This is another one of the better songs so far, even if it’s a bit too American-sounding for Eurovision. It’s a pumping and uplifting rock song and Sergio gives a super energetic performance. It doesn’t grip me to the point of wanting to regularly relisten, but if I do revisit it I’ll definitely have a fun time. Too bad this song shares its title with one of the most embarrassingly bad German entries.

France: Il faut du temps

Artist: Sandrine François

Language: French

Key: G major, G minor, A major

Just like last year and like the UK this year, France sent a power ballad in an honest attempt to restore their old glory. It scored fifth place, which wasn’t enough to appease French fans. It seems like France gave up on trying to score well for most of the next decade—this was their last top ten placement until 2009, and their last top five until 2021.

To me, this song falls into the shadow of “Je n’ai que mon âme” last year. She can certainly sing, but this isn’t as powerful of a composition as France’s last effort. I do like the minor key bridge section though.

Germany: I Can’t Live Without Music

Artist: Corinna May

Language: English, because apparently singing in German isn’t cool anymore

Key: C minor, C major, D♭ major

As you can see from signs in the audience, German fans were excited to finally see Corinna May in Eurovision, since she was almost going to represent Germany in 1999. Disappointingly, this song is nothing like “Hör den Kindern einfach zu”. It’s just a bunch of generic Eurodance with inane lyrics that completely blends in with the other 2000’s entries. She sounded so confident and powerful when singing “Hör den Kindern einfach zu”, but she just sounds awkward here. God dammit, what a huge letdown.

This is the first Ralph Siegel entry of the 21st century and I don’t have a good feeling about his later ones. After 2000, he composed (in order) two entries for Germany, one for Switzerland, one for Montenegro, and five for San Marino. Out of his five San Marino entries, only one qualified for the final and it scored 24th place. This is the same guy who composed “Dschinghis Khan”, the song that should have won 1979! But he’s also the same guy who composed half of Germany’s generic inspirational ballad phase.

Turkey: Leylaklar Soldu Kalbinde

Artist: Buket Bengisu and Group Safir

Language: Turkish and English

Key: G minor

We’re one year away from Turkey’s first victory! They’re still trying to replicate the success of “Dinle” and while this song certainly sounds Turkish, it’s overall way too restrained. The singer is afraid to give it her all and the instrumental is hesitant to go full ethno-bop. Also, the English section is barely comprehensible to me, because the melody doesn’t fit the rhythm of English at all.

Malta: 7th Wonder

Artist: Ira Losco

Language: English

Key: F major, G major, A major

This song is Malta’s best result in Eurovision history: second place by a margin of 12 points. Malta also scored second place in 2005, but the winner scored 38 more points.

I can see why this song scored highly: it’s a contemporary pop song whose mood is a mix of perky and hopeful, and it’s got a super rousing chorus. The lyrics are about a woman who hopes her love interest is into her and the composition suits it well. I’m not sure how to feel about rhyming “wonder” (the verb) with “wonder” (the noun). I can think of a few other words that rhyme with wonder: under, thunder, blunder, plunder. The second key change is super cheesy, but I have to admit the fake ending is clever.

Romania: Tell Me Why

Artist: Monica Anghel (eliminated in 1996) and Marcel Pavel

Language: English

Key: G minor

This year is where Romania’s luck starts to shift. They scored ninth place this year (first top 10!) and would later score two third places: in 2005 and 2010. Turns out all it took is a male/female duet ballad. I like the bits of classical-sounding piano and that it’s in minor key, so for a ballad it isn’t too bad.

Slovenia: Samo ljubezen

Artist: Sestre, a drag queen trio

Language: Slovenian

Key: G major

Here is one of those Eurovision songs that didn’t score particularly well (13th place) but ended up being historically significant. It’s the first ever drag queen entry in Eurovision (unless you count the 1991 interval act) and boy oh boy, it will be far from the last. Slovenia isn’t a country I would have expected to send drag queens to Eurovision, but that’s part of the charm of this song. It demonstrates that LGBT culture exists everywhere in the world, not just in countries that people think of as “culturally liberal” like Sweden or Australia. This message of drag queen culture existing everywhere is helped by the fact that the song is in Slovenian.

Musically, this is a pumping disco song with a bit of a blues chord progression in the chorus, which means I have a soft spot for it. The title means “only love” and in the lyrics, the singers offer to gift the listener their love, which is all that they have.

This song doesn’t have an English version, but it has a German version called “Wahre Liebe” (true love). It turns out the melody fits German just as well as Slovenian! They sing in German quite well, which makes sense because Slovenia has a relatively high portion of German speakers.

Latvia: I Wanna (the winner)

Artist: Marie N (Marija Naumova)

Language: English

Key: G minor

Near the end of this contest, we have Latvia’s great moment of triumph! This is one of the most hated winners in Eurovision history and I’d like to dive into why that is, then provide a defense of this unpopular song.

You might have heard of the annual fanmade Eurovision ranking called ESC250. In the detailed statistics, you can see how many points every single song in Eurovision history got,* except the 166 songs that fans gave zero points. Therein lies proof of “I Wanna’s” unpopularity. Most 21st century winners did quite well in the rankings, usually earning at least a thousand points. Yet “I Wanna” made it nowhere close to the top 250, at only 88 points. The only winners that scored lower were those of 1956-1960, 1962, 1966, and 1969 (UK).**

It’s not hard to see why people dislike this song. The lyrics in the verses are very janky and awkward, and at times hard to understand. The text has a lot of strange word choices and awkwardly placed repetitions, which clearly aren’t written by a native English speaker. And the composition is a little repetitive, so fans who don’t like this style of Spanish-sounding bop would feel the same way that I do about most Eurodance entries. When you consider Marie N’s complex, gimmicky performance, complete with a gradual outfit change near the end, fans who don’t like this as a composition have a further reason to hate it: they’ll insist that the performance is the only reason it won.

I think a lot of people dislike a work of media when the flaws outweigh the good parts. But for me, this song is the opposite: the positives outshine all the negatives. Sure, the lyrics of the verses are weird and stilted, but the rest of the song doesn’t have that problem at all. The chorus is insanely catchy and singable and has a clear message: it’s about the singer’s desire to be in charge of her romantic relationship.***

Compositionally, this is a totally engaging bop from start to finish. It’s got the perfect mix of trumpets, groovy piano chords, and funky bass. I particularly love the chords in the pre-chorus, as well as the pause before the second verse accompanied by “ay ay ay”. Marie N sells this song with one hell of a confident, snazzy performance. You can hear the audience cheering during the outfit change, and she ends with a very nice dress.

A lot of fans don’t give this song the credit it deserves, especially in terms of its influence. I believe this song’s elaborate performance inspired other countries to step up their staging, so that they’d have a shot at winning too. From this year onwards, staging became a more and more integral part of the Eurovision success formula. Now that the orchestra is gone, the best way to bring a song to life on stage is to give it exciting choreography.

After reading this review, you might still dislike this song, and that’s totally fine. But I hope I opened your eyes to its impact on Eurovision history. Since Latvia won only two years after their debut, it’s likely that their victory gave other countries a burst of encouragement. After this year, six more countries in a row would win for the first time. I think this warrants “I Wanna” at least a little credit.

* Includes non-qualifiers from 1993 and 1996!

** The lowest winner is “Dors, mon amour” from 1958, at 8 points. “Volare” from the same year got 630.

*** I will admit, I tend to mishear “love spark” as “livestock”.

Lithuania: Happy You

Artist: Aivaras Stepukonis

Language: English, ostensibly

Key: G major

I was willing to forgive the janky English in Latvia’s song, but not this. Oh god no, this is so ridiculously amateurish. “Happy I ‘cause happy you” is a particularly infamous line. As a song this is just bland 2000’s pop, but at least the bridge section is slightly interesting.

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Who’s my favorite?

This time, I have two eastern European contenders for my favorite: North Macedonia and Latvia. North Macedonia sent an enchanting Balkan ballad, but it sorely lacks a sticky, catchy melody. Latvia sent an incredibly catchy bop with an awesome performance, but its janky lyrics make me think North Macedonia would be a more refined choice. After thinking about it, I’ve decided Latvia, I Wanna is more fun to listen to regardless of the stilted lyrics.

• Belgium, 1 (1976)
• Denmark, 3 (1963, 2000, 2001)
• 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)
• Latvia, 1 (2002)
• 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)
• (19 winners)

Finally, one of the countries that joined from 1993 onwards has made it onto my list! I expect that to happen a lot in 2000’s Eurovision. Going by the length of its review, it was probably obvious I’d choose Latvia.

General thoughts:

Since my 1999 review, I’ve been alternating between “this year was a total slog” and “this year wasn’t as bad as I expected”. I’m not sure if it’s because the last few years have been alternating in quality, or my brain merely alternates in expectations. Either way, this year most certainly wasn’t as bad as I expected. I noticed a rise in rousing choruses this year, and North Macedonia marked the dawn of Balkan ballads (the best type of ballads). And you can’t forget about Latvia’s awesome winner. Screw the haters, “I Wanna” is a fucking banger.

In terms of presentation, this year pleasantly surprised me. The presenters were a lot more sincere than the last two pairs and the postcards showcased Estonia (except the animated ones) while keeping a consistent theme. The postcards even made me interested in visiting Estonia, which proves they did their job well. The interval act features a children’s choir and folk dancing, sort of like an Estonian counterpart to Riverdance (though not quite as good). Now I’m interested to see the next few host countries’ interval acts, particularly Ukraine and Greece.

The voting was far from entirely televote this year: since some countries used juries and some used a mix of jury and televote, 37.5% of the points came from juries. I think the results reflect this, especially since the UK and France made the top five. The voting sequence itself wasn’t that exciting, just a race between Malta and Latvia. It’ll become more fun to watch next year, when the auto-sorting scoreboard is introduced.

Though it’s a far cry from those stellar years of the mid-1990’s, 2002 wasn’t too bad of a year. It has two songs that I think are absolute bangers, which is more than you can say about some years. North Macedonia really deserved better.

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See you next time for the year with t.A.T.u, an imaginary language song, and Turkey’s first victory.

>> 2003: An Ultra-Narrow Three-Way Battle