Monthly Archives: February 2024

Cookie Fonster Researches Eurovision 2007 (Final): Triumph for the East, Trainwreck for the West

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Intro Post

< 2007 Semifinal | 2007 Final | 2008 Semifinals >

Happy leap day 2024! Today begins a three-day storm of new songs for Eurovision 2024. On March 3, the day after the song storm ends, I’ll probably write “Unorganized predictions and hopes for Eurovision 2024 (Volume 3).” Here is volume 1 and here is volume 2.

Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2007 was dominated by eastern Europe, both in participants and in points. Aside from the Big Four and the host country of Finland, the only other western European finalists were Ireland and Sweden. The highest scorer of these seven was Finland, at 17th place out of 24. To me, these results show that western Europe needed to wake up and take the contest more seriously, but a lot of viewers took the results to mean Eurovision had deteriorated to bloc voting hell.

The top three in this contest were all Slavic countries. Serbia won the contest with a native-language song, continuing the streak of new countries winning but breaking the streak of winners in English. The winner is renowned among fans, but not as iconic as the runner-up from Ukraine which might be my favorite Eurovision song of all time. (EDIT: After finishing this blog post series, I’ve decided “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” is in fact my favorite Eurovision song of all time.) Russia continued their strong streak with third place, no doubt helped by their overpowered bloc voting.

We don’t have an exuberant opening act this time. Lordi simply reprises their winning song, first with an opening film then live on stage, then the hosts give a snappy introduction and the contest begins. We’ll be guided by Terry Wogan’s British commentary, in his second last year of the job.

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Cookie Fonster Researches 2007 (Semifinal): A Near-Complete Map, but at What Cost?

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Intro Post

< 2006 Final | 2007 Semifinal | 2007 Final >

Introduction

Seven cities in Finland submitted bids to host Eurovision 2007, and the winner was unsurprisingly its capital city of Helsinki. Most of the bidding cities were on or near the southern coast, but two cities far north offered to host—one was even north of the Arctic Circle! The northernmost Eurovision host city remains Bergen and will probably stay that way unless Iceland wins. In case I forget to mention it later, Lisbon (2018) is the westernmost Eurovision host city, narrowly beating Millstreet (1993).

This contest featured the second largest number of countries to ever participate at Eurovision, a whopping 42. Hungary and Austria returned after skipping 2006, Monaco left the contest till the present day, and four new countries joined: Czechia, Georgia, and the newly separate countries of Serbia and Montenegro. This contest featured almost the entire map of Europe! The only significant gaps were Italy, Slovakia, and Luxembourg. A participant map with so few holes is unthinkable these days.

The huge amount of countries raised a problem: the semifinal consisted of 28 countries and was going to an absolute bloodbath. That’s the largest number of countries that have ever competed in a single night of Eurovision. All ten qualifiers were from eastern Europe—we’ll see for ourselves if that was a coincidence. I’ll review the 18 non-qualifiers in this post. Argh, I’ll have to wait so long before I get to “Dancing Lasha Tumbai”. Oh, and I watched this semifinal with German commentary.

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Unorganized predictions and hopes for Eurovision 2024 (Volume 2)

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We’ve had tons of songs confirmed for Eurovision 2024 over the course of this month and we have quite a few more to go! In my previous predictions post, only six entries were released; now the number is 20. I have 14 songs to recap in this post, so I’ll use numbers to make sure I don’t forget any.

I already made a post about Germany’s song (1). I’m so jealous of all those other countries that are sending native language songs this year, especially our fellow Germanic country of Norway. I’m getting spoiled with all those native language songs, but at the same time I feel so left out! Maybe if a native language song wins the contest in 2024, then Germany will be forced to accept that non-English songs are cool again. Because they are cool again! We are living in a time where more and more people are listening to music that isn’t in their native language or English. Even here in the US, Spanish-language music is experiencing a surge in popularity.

I was excited for other countries to imitate the success of “Cha Cha Cha” and send danceable electronic songs in their native languages, and two countries did exactly that: Estonia (2) and Lithuania (3). Both their songs are totally up my street and I’m confident they will do well. These are exactly the kind of songs I wish Germany sent this year, instead of boring radio pop.

Latvia (4) didn’t follow the trend of the other two Baltic states and went for a power ballad in English (though it does have a Latvian version). It’s not as much to my taste as the other Baltics, but it’s well-composed and I hope it breaks Latvia’s non-qualification streak. Speaking of which, I badly want Ireland to qualify this year. “Doomsday Blue” is their best entry in ages! It’s full of personality and much better suited to Eurovision than anything they’ve sent the past few years. I’m rooting for you, Bambie Thug!

Let’s discuss the rest of the Big Five. I didn’t say much about France in my last post, but now that more songs have been confirmed, I’m confident they made a strong choice this year. It’s slower-paced but powerfully sung, so it’ll stand out against the dance songs. I’m not sure how well Spain (5) will do—as we saw from songs like “Øve os på hinanden” and “The Ride”, Eurovision fans aren’t too receptive to this pumpy 80’s inspired pop. Still, their song has a passionate fanbase and distinctive personality. Italy (6) is sending a song that’s Italian in a fresh way, and finally sending a woman again. I have no doubts she will do well.

And now for Norway (7)… hot DAMN, THEIR SONG IS SO FUCKING AWESOME!!! As I said in my 2006 final review: I had a hunch they would bring one of the best entries in 2024 and I was right. But I’m so surprised they sent a native language song! I’m not sure if I like it more than Luxembourg’s boppy bop but I think it has the potential to win. Speaking of winner potential, I still think Ukraine (8) is most likely to win. Their song combines what worked in their last two winners (“1944” and “Stefania”) and is very powerful and dramatic. I just hope that if Ukraine wins this year, the country will be safe enough to host in 2025.

God dammit, the more I write about all the confirmed songs for 2024, the more jealous I get because Germany’s song is so disappointing. But at least we’re not alone in sending radio pop that sounds like it could belong to any country—I don’t think Denmark (9) will break their non-qualification streak with their repetitive radio pop song. Poland (10) and Moldova (11) probably won’t qualify either: they’re just regular electronic songs, not competitive or distinct enough. Maybe Moldova could save their song with good enough staging.

I didn’t say anything about Czechia and Slovenia previously except that their songs don’t do much to me, and unfortunately that’s still true. The Czech entry sounds like a first draft and Slovenia sent one of those songs that had a lot of effort put into it but doesn’t make me feel anything.

Malta (12) is a “SloMo” copycat, but that’s exactly why I think it’ll safely reach the finals. It makes sense for Malta to send a genre that’ll safely qualify, because they didn’t qualify for the last two years. Belgium (13) finally released their song after being the first country to select their artist. It’s a regular good song, but I admit it’s not that easy to remember how it sounds.

Finally we arrive at Finland (14), the runner-up of 2023. Their song is televote bait through and through, but as we saw in the national final results, it’s also jury repellent. I was hoping Finland’s entry would appeal to both halves of the voting, or that they’d continue the momentum of native language songs, but on the other hand this kind of hectic dance song fits Eurovision like a glove. I don’t think I can provide a full verdict on this song till I see it live from the Malmö Arena.

Oh yeah, that’s right. I’ll be in the Malmö Arena during the evening rehearsal of semifinal 1. I’m particularly excited to see Ireland, Lithuania, and Luxembourg live. I’m looking at the lineup of songs for the semifinal and I am so excited I could just burst.

We have 17 songs left for this contest—16 if Israel withdraws, which I frankly hope they do because their presence has caused so much drama. That means I’ll make two more unorganized predictions posts, the first in early March and the second when all songs are confirmed.

Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Final): The Victory of Halloween Costumes

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Intro Post

< 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final | 2007 Semifinal >

Introduction

As with the last two years, the grand final of Eurovision 2006 (in Athens, Greece) featured 24 songs, ten of which had qualified from the semifinal. Overall the semifinal qualifiers scored much better than the finalists: ten of the top twelve (all but 4th and 9th place) had to get through the semifinal first. This was an early hint that the one-semifinal system needed an adjustment.

This year featured two changes to the voting. First, the countries voted in randomized order, which had only been previously done in 1974 and would be done every year up to 2010. Second, to speed up the voting sequence, the spokespersons announced only their eight, ten, and twelve points. Unfortunately, some spokespersons still were keen on hogging up their time in the spotlight, so this shortened the contest’s runtime only by 23 minutes. In all fairness, a lot of time was taken up by the extravagant opening acts. Greece did not hold back with those!

Finland scored their first ever victory this year with the iconic “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. In second place came Russian’s Dima Bilan, who would win two years later. And in third place was a Balkan ballad from Bosnia and Herzegovina, their highest result to this day. This is the second of four years in a row where all Big Four countries scored in the bottom half: the highest was Germany at 14th place. Although at least one Big Four/Five country has reached the top ten since 2009, these countries still have a less than great reputation in Eurovision (except Italy).

I couldn’t find the German commentary for this year, so I went back to Terry Wogan’s British commentary. I expect him to go extra-snarky once the voting begins. One more random fact: this was the first year in which the host country used the euro as their currency.

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Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Semifinal): Begin the Trio of Jokefest Years

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Intro Post

< 2005 Final | 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final >

Germany selected their Eurovision entry for 2024 yesterday and I don’t like it at all. I wrote my thoughts on that entry here and I would say more about the new native-language entries here, but it’s better to save that for a separate post.

For now, just know that all those semifinal posts are very quick to write. Makes sense because they’re always about 10 to 15 songs, like all the early Eurovision contests. Then I always get a big burst of motivation to write about the grand final and the cycle continues.

Introduction

It’s fitting that the title of this post uses a word of Greek origin (chronicles), because Eurovision 2006 took place in Athens, Greece. Some politicians argued that since Athens got to host the 2004 Olympics, a different Greek city deserved to host Eurovision, but the new infrastructure and stadiums built for the Olympics meant Athens was perfect for the job.

Three countries who participated in 2005 withdrew this year: Austria because their broadcaster was pissed, Hungary due to financial issues, and S+M (Serbia and Montenegro) after having a song ready due to a storm of political drama, though strangely enough S+M was still allowed to vote this year. This means that until 2023 introduced rest of the world voting, this was the only year where a non-participating country could vote in the contest. Serbia and Montenegro became two separate countries just a month after this contest. Armenia made their debut this year, which began the Caucasus trio and continued the 2003-2008 streak of years with newcomer countries. I’ll also continue my streak of watching German commentary this year.

To present the contest, the broadcaster ERT picked a Greek singer named Sakis Rouvas (who competed in Eurovision 2004 and 2009), and a Greek-American TV host named Maria Menounos. If you’re an American fan (like me) and feel weird about being this obsessed with Eurovision, just remember that your country is home to one winner (Katrina Leskanich) and two hosts (the other is Daniela Ruah). If you’re wondering whether Maria Menounous can speak Greek, she can! Can one of my Greek commenters tell me how well she speaks the language?

I wondered why the opening film for this semifinal was so short, then I got my answer. As an opening act, Greece showed the world how happy they were to win the contest with an extravagant medley of iconic Eurovision songs (which included Dschinghis Khan) performed by people dressed as Greek gods. This over-the-top campy presentation style is still what pops into most people’s minds when you say “Eurovision”, but I’d argue the contest has evolved in personality since then—more polished and professional, but thoroughly camp when a song demands it.

This time the semifinal had 23 songs, so we have one reject and 13 non-qualifiers to get through.

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My initial thoughts on the German entry for Eurovision 2024

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I’m making a post dedicated to the German entry because it’s my country (at least in the Eurovision sense) and I’m salty about the choice. Defying my expectations and hopes, they went with “Always on the Run” by Isaak. It sounds like a 2010’s UK entry and you know how well those did.

It’s generic and beige radio pop with zero personality that sounds like something I’ve heard hundreds of times before and proves NDR has learned nothing. This is exactly the kind of song I wanted Germany to stop sending. The national final was overloaded with songs of this type so it was inevitable that would happen. Not a single one of these songs gripped me or inspired me, but I would have been at least somewhat happy if they sent one of the two German-language songs, because I feel very strongly that Germany needs to stop pretending their language doesn’t exist. But I’ve said that like a million times in my Eurovision blog post series.

I wrote some notes about the final on paper (listed in italics from here on out) and my ranking was: Undream You > Naiv > Oh Boy > Katze > Forever Strong > Tears Like Rain > Always on the Run > Scar > Love on a Budget. The German-language songs are bold.

  • “Undream You” is better than the rest because it has actual personality. It’s a sweet and delicate song and the singer feels the lyrics very much.
  • “Naiv” is the only song that has a clear German musical identity, aside from Germany’s tendency to send this bland radio pop. It would have continued the momentum of songs that sound recognizably German after “Blood & Glitter”.
  • “Oh Boy” is jury bait-y, a little like “Tout l’univers”, but it really feels anonymous when you get down to it.
  • “Katze” is silly fluff that takes too long to build up. It’s not as out there and futuristic as the singers seem to think it is, going by their monologue before the song.
  • “Forever Strong” is a decent effort and Max Mutzke is a great singer as ever, but it’s very ballady and I wish he sent one of his German-language songs.
  • The other four are completely forgettable radio pop.

Basically, the part of the national final that I enjoyed the most was the members of Lord of the Lost saying that even though they scored last place in 2023, they absolutely loved participating in Eurovision and it boosted their career. I think Chris Harms (the lead singer, whose last name I keep misspelling as Hams) said “Wir haben nichts verloren und alles gewonnen” (we lost nothing and won everything). He seems like such a nice guy and I respect him a lot. If you can speak German, maybe check out his reactions to the entries of Das Deutsche Finale; if not, I wrote a summary in English. He kept saying that none of them gave him goosebumps but tried his best to be polite and respectful.

Germany’s approach to Eurovision is completely broken. But if there’s one thing I learned from binging every Eurovision contest (I finished 2005 a few days ago), it’s that eventually a country will redeem itself. Think about how delighted everyone in Norway was when they won in 1985! Or when Turkey scored third place in 1997 after years of poor results, then won six years later. Still, I’m jealous of all those other countries that are sending a cool and exciting song this year.

One thing is for certain: when I’m this frustrated with my country’s approach to Eurovision, that’s how you know I have completed my transformation into a Eurovision fan. I wonder if it’s been amusing or annoying for friends of mine to witness the Eurofanification of cookiefonster.

Also I just got a ticket for Lord of the Lost’s concert in Malmö, during Eurovision week.

Cookie Fonster Looks Back on Eurovision 2005 (Final): Greece’s Turn to Triumph!

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Intro Post

< 2005 Semifinal | 2005 Final | 2006 Semifinal >

I worked my ass off reviewing Eurovision 2004 and 2005, as you can tell from the speed at which I’ve been releasing my posts. To compensate, I’m going to pause these posts for a week or so before I start reviewing 2006.

Introduction

Out of the 25 participants in the semifinal, ten of them got to join the 14 automatic qualifiers for the grand final of Eurovision 2005, hosted in Kyiv, Ukraine. We’ve got quite a lot to look forward in this final: the first ever winner from Greece, fan favorites from Switzerland and Hungary, and a three-time participating band’s debut for Moldova. But this contest also has some unlucky results for longtime participants: the bottom four consisted of Spain, the UK, France, and right at the bottom Germany. Was this proof that the Big Four weren’t trying hard enough, or proof that Europe hates them? We’ll have to see for ourselves.

The voting system for the final was mostly the same as 2004, but with a few differences. Monaco, Andorra, and Moldova didn’t meet the minimum number of televotes and thus had to use backup juries. And instead of alphabetical country code order, the votes were gives first by the non-qualifiers and then by the finalists, all in performance order—exactly the same order in which I’m reviewing these songs. With 39 countries who each announced their one to twelve points in order, the voting sequence was getting notoriously long and thus was shortened the next year.

Once again, Peter Urban’s German commentary will guide us through the contest. I wonder how he’ll react to Germany scoring last place?

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Cookie Fonster Looks Back on Eurovision 2005 (Semifinal): The Year of Overcomplicated Staging

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Intro Post

< 2004 Final | 2005 Semifinal | 2005 Final >

We have such an exciting variety of songs confirmed for Eurovision 2024, and we’ve still only heard 13 songs out of 37. That means we’re only a third of the way through! Right now I think Ukraine is most likely to win, followed by Italy. If Ukraine wins the contest, I really hope the country will become safe enough to host in 2025.

Introduction

We’ve now reached the 50th annual Eurovision Song Contest! Less than nine months ago I was reviewing the first ever Eurovision, and now here I am at what’s unquestionably a modern Eurovision. It’s got hosts in colorful outfits, extravagant self-deprecating opening acts, a black stage full of fancy light effects, an overview of the televoting system in English and French, and it’s even broadcast in widescreen! Aside from the 3D visual design of the screen captions, this looks very close to the Eurovision we know today.

Eurovision 2005 was one of two contests to take place in Ukraine, both of which were hosted in its capital city of Kyiv. This year, Ukraine had freshly come out of the Orange Revolution, so the country hoped that hosting Eurovision would boost its relations with the EU. But hosting the contest wouldn’t be easy for them. While Istanbul had a hefty stadium available with over 10,000 seats, in Ukraine the best available arena needed a lot of renovation and ended with only 5,000 seats. Tourists also had a lot of problems with hotels in Kyiv, with many bookings getting abruptly cancelled, but I’m sure that when it was all finished, Ukrainians were proud to have hosted Eurovision.

This year’s contest featured all 36 countries that appeared in 2004, plus three more: Bulgaria and Moldova made their debuts, and Hungary returned after skipping the last six years. The last major gap in Europe was the Czech Republic, which would join the contest in 2007, though Italy, Luxembourg, and Slovakia were still on Eurovision hiatus, and tiny little San Marino was still yet to debut. Crazy enough, Lebanon was almost going to participate this year and even had a song ready, but unsurprisingly for an Arab country, they withdrew because of Israel.

This time the semifinal featured 25 countries, ten of which would qualify to the grand final. Are any of the 15 non-qualifiers worth listening to? We’ll find out together, with some German commentary to guide us.

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Cookie Fonster Retells Eurovision 2004 (Final): Ethno-Bops, Balkan Ballads, and Future Hosts

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Intro Post

< 2004 Semifinal | 2004 Final | 2005 Semifinal >

Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2004 featured 24 countries that can be split into three groups: the Big Four, the top ten non-Big Four countries from 2003, and the top ten countries from the 2004 semifinal. The running order of the first two groups was determined before the semifinal, so the qualifiers were slotted into the remaining spots.

All 36 countries that participated in the contest televoted in this year’s final, even Monaco which used a backup jury in the semifinal. It was the only grand final in Eurovision history where all the points came from televoters. Ukraine won the contest for the first of three times, Serbia and Montenegro (S+M) made a strong debut with second place, and Greece scored third place for the second time. The top three countries all came from the semifinal, and the bottom three were all automatic qualifiers. This makes sense because the semifinal filtered out the less popular songs while the automatic qualifiers had no such filter.

As an opening act, Sertab Erener performed the reliable combo of last year’s winner and her latest single. I still far prefer the orchestral rearrangements of the previous winner, but this opening act reminds us that Sertab’s career has shined bright since winning the contest.

I won’t lie, I’ve started to warm up to Peter Urban’s commentary. He still sounds like he’s reading from a script at times, but he does what he needs to as a commentator and provides plenty of trivia and side remarks. Maybe that’s why he stuck around as the German commentator for so long. I already discussed the history behind this contest in my semifinal post, so there’s not much else to say—let’s get on with the songs!

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Cookie Fonster Retells Eurovision 2004 (Semifinal): A One-Night Event No Longer

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Intro Post

< 2003 Review | 2004 Semifinal | 2004 Final >

We’re well into national final season now and holy fuck, we’re being absolutely SPOILED with all those native-language songs. As well as the return of Petra Mede as a host! The more native-language songs a contest has, the more likely one of them is to win. This is shaping up to be such an exciting year.

Introduction

After Turkey won the contest in 2003, the enormous city of Istanbul had the honor of hosting a very special edition of Eurovision. It was the first whose copyright belonged to the European Broadcasting Union rather than the host broadcaster, the first to use the standardized Euro♡ision logo, and most importantly, the first to take place over multiple evenings: a semifinal and a final. Featuring a whopping 36 countries, it was the largest Eurovision contest up to this point, even if you count the non-qualifiers from 1993 and 1996 as participants.

This contest featured all 26 countries that participated in 2003, all five countries that were relegated after 2002, one country (Monaco) we hadn’t seen since 1979, and four newcomers. The new guys in this contest were Albania, Andorra, Belarus, and Serbia and Montenegro (which I’ll refer to as S+M to avoid confusion with the two countries it would later split into). S+M is a special case because they participated in 1992 under the name Yugoslavia but were then kicked out due to the Yugoslav wars. Yugoslavia renamed itself to “Serbia and Montenegro” in 2003 and by that point, tensions with the rest of Europe were cooled down enough to let S+M into Eurovision.

Fourteen countries—the Big Four and the top ten non-Big Four countries from 2003—made it directly to the final. The other 22 countries had to compete in the semifinal for ten slots in the grand final. In this post, I’ll discuss the twelve entries that didn’t make it to the final.

Two more fun facts: This contest was the only one where the semifinal took place three days before the final, instead of two and/or four. And this was the only contest from 1999 and 2010 not to take place in a country’s capital.

Even though I said I’m not a fan of Peter Urban’s commentary, I’ve decided I’ll give him a chance this time. This means I’ll be watching both parts of this contest with German commentary.

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