Intro Post

< 2002 Review | 2003 Review | 2004 Semifinal >

Remember: every Eurovision contest from 2004 onwards will get two posts: one about the non-qualifies from the semifinal(s), and one about the final. Except for 2020, which I’ll split between the two cancelled semifinals.

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Introduction

After winning last year, Latvia was put to the task of hosting Eurovision 2003. It seemed like a tall order and many people doubted it was possible, but just like Estonia, this little Baltic country managed to pull through. Predictably, Latvia chose to host in its capital city of Riga.

For presenters, LTV picked two of Latvia’s previous contestants: Marie N (2002) and Renārs Kaupers (2000). I’m surprised at this decision, because the last time a country picked two former contestants to host, it was so disastrous that some fans wanted Italy to never host again. Let’s hope the Latvian hosts do a better job!

This was the first Eurovision contest to feature 26 countries, which is today the standard number of countries in the grand final. Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, North Macedonia, and Switzerland were relegated. Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Portugal returned from 2001. Ukraine made their debut at long last, and would prove themselves a power player starting next year.

Turkey won this contest for the first time with an ethno-pop song, a genre that commonly won in the 2000’s. They won with 167 points, but two other countries came incredibly close. Belgium got 165 points with an imaginary language song, and Russia sent their famous girl duo t.A.T.u. and earned 164 points. Predictably, the Russians were not happy about losing to Turkey, but will I be happy about it? We’ll just have to see for ourselves. Terry Wogan’s commentary will once again guide us.

This contest is the end of three eras: it was the last one copyrighted by the host broadcaster instead of the EBU, the last one with a unique yearly logo, and the last one to take place over one evening. 2004 to 2007 had one semifinal, and 2008 onwards have two semifinals. This is good news for all the gaps in the map of Europe, because far more slots were now open. But it’s also the start of an era: this is the first contest where the scoreboard sorted automatically, which made the voting a hell of a lot more exciting.

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Iceland: Open Your Heart

Artist: Birgitta Haukdal Brynjarsdóttir

Language: English

Key: E major, F♯ major

Ooh, I like this contest’s style of postcards. I love when postcards feature the contestants exploring the host country, and since I don’t know much about Latvia they tell me a little more about what the country’s like.

This contest opens up with some normal 2000’s radio pop. It’s well-produced as far as this genre goes, with a rich amount of instruments like guitars and strings, but it’s nothing I’ll regularly revisit. It would fit better near the end of the contest than the beginning. Also, her accent is distracting.

Austria: Weil der Mensch zählt

Artist: Alf Poier

Language: Bavarian German (Styrian dialect)

Key: E major

It’s always fun when the postcards relate to the song about to be played, whether coincidental or not. This song’s postcard features Alf Poier exploring a zoo, which fits the song’s theme: humans care only about other humans, not any other animal species. The title means “because the human matters” and as someone not well-versed in German dialects, I can understand the lyrics well enough to get the meaning.

But this isn’t a regular activist entry, oh no. This year, Austria had enough of being normal and decided it was their turn to send a joke entry. I think Alf Poier’s intention here was to parody all those activism and peace entries by making a song about a topic that most people prefer not to think about. This would be a better parody song if most of the lyrics didn’t sound like they’d belong in a kids’ TV show. The chorus starts off as “little rabbits have short noses and little cats have soft paws”, which is repeated three times in the song. It gets in the way of the lyrics making fun of humans.

As a composition, this isn’t that fun to listen to either, which is an important part of joke entries. I’m amused by the switches between kids’ show music and aggressive rock, but the whole song is too disjointed for me. And yet, the audience was cheering throughout this song and it even scored sixth place with 101 points. This proves what I had suspected in my 2002 review: when the recap is done in reverse order, the death slot turns into a life slot.

For me, activist entries come in four quadrants: good sincere (e.g. Russian Woman), bad sincere (e.g. A Million Voices), good ironic (e.g. Love Love Peace Peace*), and bad ironic (e.g. Weil der Mensch zählt). Note that in this context, “sincere” means “non-satirical”. When I say good and bad, I don’t mean how good it is as a composition, but how much it works as an activism or sarcastic activism entry. However, those two traits do tend to go hand in hand. In later posts, I’ll have a lot to say about the contrast between “A Million Voices” and “Russian Woman”.

* “Love Love Peace Peace” is an interval act that I’m not spoiling myself on, but fans universally love it so I’m using it as an example.

Ireland: We’ve Got the World

Artist: Mickey Harte

Language: English

Key: D major, E major

It’s not a ballad, but this still isn’t great. It’s basically just a knockoff of “Fly on the Wings of Love”, even sung in the same keys, but without all the little touches that make that song work. I don’t know why the audience is cheering and clapping so loudly.

Turkey: Every Way That I Can (the winner)

Artist: Sertab Erener

Language: English, a first for Turkey

Key: A minor

This song on the other hand totally deserves all the cheering and clapping. I’ve heard it in full before, but nowhere near as often as other entries of the time, so when I watched it just now, I squealed like a little girl at the end and shouted “that was awesome!”

You did it, Turkey, you finally did it! After almost 30 years of rocky attempts, and a bright spot in 1997, Turkey has finally given a winner to Eurovision. It was a huge moment of triumph for the Turks, and even was seen as a step forward in Turkey’s relations with the European Union. This song is even better than “Dinle”, which was already a total banger. I don’t mind at all that it’s in English, because as a composition it’s thoroughly and indulgently Turkish. It’s so up my street that I’m going to analyze its composition from start to finish.

This song grips you right at the start with a simple yet brilliantly sticky Middle Eastern-sounding melody, which Sertab then sings in the first verse. Then we get to the slightly more pop-sounding pre-chorus and chorus, while the Turkish drum beat continues. And then when Sertab finishes the chorus, the instrumental resumes and indulges in that melody I mentioned earlier. After the verse and chorus repeat, Sertab gives us a rap interlude and bridge which are as awesome as what came before.

The final chorus doesn’t have a key change: instead, it strips the instrumentation down a little, then returns to form to increase the hype. The instrumentation is stripped down in the good way, which is by simplifying it to guitar and strings. I’m trying to imagine if this song did have a key change, and it just would feel so weird. “Every Way That I Can” is too cool for key changes. I’m not too big on the abrupt ending, but by this point who cares? This song is totally awesome either way.

I think another reason Sertab won the contest was her performance. Last year, Latvia showed how much an elaborate performance can bring a song to life, and Turkey followed suit here. Sertab has four backing dancers attached to her using pink ribbons, then she shoos them off near the end to represent her desire to handle romance by herself. The stalker-like lyrics are a little silly, but they’re not what I focus on when I hear this song. What I care about is the awesome composition and performance.

This is truly the perfect first winner for Turkey—it’s totally Turkish in an accessible way, it fills viewers with hype, and it’s got an iconic performance. Turkey would remain a power player afterwards—all but three of their songs from 2004 to 2012 reached the top 10, but unfortunately they’ve quit participating since then. I’m worried the next few songs will seem like drivel in comparison, but at least I have Belgium to look forward to.

Malta: To Dream Again

Artist: Lynn Chircop

Language: English

Key: D major, E major

And now we’re back to forgettable 2000’s pop, and this time Malta wasn’t even rewarded for it. I’m annoyed that Lynn gets off the piano at the first verse. I think the piano was unnecessary anyway, because that instrument wasn’t focal to the song. How many times do I have to say it: if you’re going to have playback instruments on stage, at least make them believable! Or do a ghost piano gimmick like “Bridges” from 2023, that was really clever. I think I can guess why this song got second last place with only four points: pretty much anything after Turkey would’ve seemed like a dud in comparison.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ne brini

Artist: Mija Martina Barbarić

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian) and English

Key: D minor, E♭ minor, E minor, F major

Terry Wogan says this song is sung in Bosnian, but Wikipedia lists this song as Croatian because Mija Martina is a Bosnian Croat. Yet people still insist these are different languages because of nationalism. I’m telling you, the Serbo-Croatian language debate will never not confuse me.

Musically, this is a typical Slavic pop song except the singer is off key a lot, the language switch annoys me, and it has too many key changes. Not my thing at all. Also, it seems like this is the year when “thank you” messages at the end of songs became normal.

Portugal: Deixa-me sonhar

Artist: Rita Guerra

Language: Portuguese and, as a first for Portugal, English

Key: F major

I feel like I’ve been transported back to the ballad soup of 80’s and 90’s Eurovision. It’s pretty decent for a power ballad and I like the switching camera shots that match the rhythm, but power ballads still aren’t my thing, neither is the language switching. Pick one language or the other, god dammit. I would’ve thought Portugal had learned from Ireland that power ballads aren’t cool anymore.

Croatia: Više nisam tvoja

Artist: Clauda Beni

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian) and English

Key: E♭ minor, E minor

Weirdly enough, all three songs that switch to English midway through are next to each other. You already know what I’m going to say: this is why I hate randomized order.

Apparently Croatia’s broadcaster hosted a poll on whether Clauda Beni should sing her song in its original language or English. Even though the Croatian version won overwhelmingly, she switched to English at the end of the song in Eurovision. Again, you know what I’m going to say: just pick one language or the other.

I think Claudia’s revealing outfit is supposed to be sexy, but it completely fails to be sexy—instead, it’s prime Barbara Dex award material. As a song this is actually pretty decent, a little Britney Spears-esque and 2000’s sounding in a fresh way. But I don’t like the switch into janky English lyrics at all, nor the fact that the switch occurs at the key change. It’s totally unnecessary because the song stands out as is.

Cyprus: Feeling Alive

Artist: Stelios Constantas

Language: English

Key: E minor

Musically, this is very similar to “Die for You”: a disco pop song with a touch of Greek flair. This makes it weird that it only earned 15 points (take a wild guess who twelve of them are from). Maybe it’s because Stelios’s singing isn’t the greatest and the chorus isn’t quite as rousing as “Die for You”? Or were the audience just more focused on the other songs?

After the song ended, we saw a crowd of fans in Nicosia holding flags of Cyprus and the European Union. I presumed this meant Cyprus had just joined the EU, but then I looked it up—Cyprus joined in 2004, on the same day as eight other countries.

Germany: Let’s Get Happy

Artist: Lou (Louise Hoffner)

Language: English, but at least we have two songs in German this year

Key: E♭ minor (verses), E♭ major (chorus)

I lowkey feel the same way about Germany singing in English as those elitist French politicians do about France singing in English. I mean, if the song is actually good like “Satellite” or “Blood & Glitter” I don’t mind as much, but still… all those German entries in English feel like Germany is trying to blend in with everyone else and stripping away their songs’ German identity. Why can’t the German national finals have a rule where at least half the songs are in German? Wait, I know why, it’s because NDR is still fixated on radio pop.

This song isn’t too bad in itself—it’s nice and bouncy and the “minor key verse, major key chorus” trope is done in an acceptable way. But despite being composed by Ralph Siegel, there’s nothing particularly German about it. If I was watching in 2003, I would’ve hoped that Germany singing in English was just a short phase, but I’d have been so wrong. Also, the singers’ outfits are much more Barbara Dex award worthy than the song that follows.

After this song, we briefly see the audience in Hamburg, one member of whom is waving the flag of Russia. I can only guess they’re one of the many t.A.T.u. fans outside of Russia. Someone is also waving a banner that says “peinlich” (translation: embarrassing) for some reason. Could they be embarrassed that Germany isn’t singing auf Deutsch?

Russia: Ne ver, ne boysia (Не верь, не бойся)

Artist: t.A.T.u. (Lena Katina, Julia Volkova)

Language: Russian

Key: B♭ minor

Turkey wasn’t the only country with their eyes on the prize this year. Russia took their typical strategy of sending some of their biggest names so that fans would vote for them. These two girls are known for tons of hits in Russia, plus a few English-language songs like “All the Things She Said”, and they were a tantalizing three points away from winning. The nice thing about Russia sending all those big names to Eurovision is that it gives fans who aren’t familiar with Russian music (like myself) a small who’s who of the Russian music industry—some of whom are controversial figures, to say the least. I’m especially happy that Eurovision made me discover Little Big, because I fucking love their music so much.

You have to understand that t.A.T.u. are extremely popular names even outside of Russia. One piece of evidence is that their fans love to debate about the girls’ sexualities, and whether Julia is really homophobic—it’s only natural to want to give someone whose work you admire the benefit of the doubt. If you look at YouTube comments on most Russian-language music, the comments will be almost entirely in Russian, but that’s not quite the case with Tatu’s songs. Russian comments are still the most common, but you’ll also see plenty in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and many other languages.

t.A.T.u. tends to get mentioned among the most famous artists to ever participate in Eurovision, but although “Waterloo”, “Ne partez pas sans moi”, and “Zitti e buoni” are among the most famous songs of their respective artists, “Не верь, не бойся” really isn’t Tatu’s best work. They have plenty of other songs that are super catchy and melodic, whereas this one is too focused on shouting and they sound nervous on stage. It gets in the way of the instrumental’s dark techno sound, which I actually quite like. If Tatu sent one of their better songs (“Досчитай до ста” is pretty great, I just heard it when writing this post), they would have probably won the contest.

Someone please tell me why Lena and Julia won the Barbara Dex award this year. They just wore regular jeans and white shirts with the number 1 on them. Is it just because Tatu is that popular? Croatia and Germany have much worse outfits and I’m sure there’s more to come, since we’re not even halfway done. Sometimes the choices of who gets this award are so strange, I have to wonder if Barbara Dex herself would have gotten the award if it existed in 1993. Maybe fans would’ve been like “hurr durr let’s vote for the Greek lady’s sexy dress because it’s loosely stitched on the sides!”

Spain: Dime

Artist: Beth (Elisabeth Rodergas Cols)

Language: Spanish

Key: B minor, C♯ minor

Maybe this song is why Cyprus scored so low this year—the voters interested in this style of song went with Spain instead (except the Greeks). This is a guitar-heavy disco pop song, very much like a Spanish counterpart to “Die for You”. Both songs ranked the highest of their respective years in ESC250. Props to Spain for keeping this song in Spanish and letting the musical genre speak for itself. It’s one of the better songs so far, but it’s still a bit Eurodancey for me and Turkey is damn hard to surpass.

Israel: Words for Love / Milim La’Ahava (מילים לאהבה)

Artist: Lior Narkis

Language: Hebrew, with phrases in English, Greek, French, and Spanish

Key: G minor, G♯ minor

When was the last time Israel sent a song that sounds this Israeli? This song is full of the composition tropes that I associate with Israeli music: minor key, an upbeat and slightly mischievous tone, 2-5-1 chord progressions, a brief peek into major key. It’s surprisingly fun to listen to, like a return to Israel’s style in the 1980’s with a modern twist. I never realized how much I missed those Israeli entries!

With the flashy choreography and the fast-paced, ever-changing structure, this almost sounds like it could be the theme song to a TV show. Or rather, like a shorter version would be a TV theme song, and this is the extended version that only obsessive fans know about.

I’ve seen so many Hebrew lyrics when reading the text of Eurovision songs that I’ve nearly memorized the Hebrew alphabet. Unfortunately, because so many letters have multiple pronunciations and vowels aren’t written (except when they are), you can’t know for sure how to pronounce a Hebrew word unless you actually learn the language. The best Hebrew letter is lamed (ל) because it makes only one sound, is the only letter that sounds like L, and does not have any alternate shapes. Why can’t the other letters be more like lamed?

Netherlands: One More Night (no, not the Maroon 5 song)

Artist: Esther Hart

Language: English

Key: D♭ major, E♭ major

And now we’re back to plain old Europop. It’s got a fairly rousing chorus and at least it’s not Eurodance, but it’s still not the kind of song I watch Eurovision for. There aren’t even any janky English lyrics to snark about, since the Dutch tend to have a good command of English.

United Kingdom: Cry Baby

Artist: Jemini (Chris Cromby and Gemma Abbey), who are known for nothing else

Language: English

Key: A minor, B♭ minor

Fun fact: Jemini was originally a trio called Tricity, but one of their members left before the British national selection was finished. Clearly this was foreshadowing of the misfortune that would await them. Also, I’m peeved that this song is called “Cry Baby” because it should be called “Cry Cry Baby”.

Anyway, welcome to the UK’s “what the fuck are you doing, your music is so much better than this” phase, which will last a really fucking long time. For some goddamned reason, both times the UK scored in the top five between Imaani (1998) and Sam Ryder (2022), they forgot everything they learned the next year and sent an infamously terrible performance. Don’t get me started on how much I despise “That Sounds Good to Me” (2010).

I’m afraid I don’t have anything contrarian to say about this song—it completely deserved zero points. Even if the singers weren’t extremely off key, I think this would’ve scored near the bottom, because it’s just a mediocre Europop song that blends in with the rest and has an unnecessary key change. The one good thing about this song is the acoustic guitar, and even that doesn’t have much variation. It’s so much more fun to analyze songs that are actually good, or bad in a funny way.

Ukraine: Hasta la vista

Artist: Olexandr Ponomariov

Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Spanish

Key: D major, E major

Fun fact: Three different Slavic countries have sent a song to Eurovision called “Hasta la vista”. The other two are Belarus in 2008, and Serbia in 2020.

Surprisingly for such a power player country, Ukraine’s first Eurovision entry is not much to write home about, despite the crazy acrobat girl in the background. It starts as an opera ballad then turns into an uptempo pop song, still with a vaguely operatic voice. Luckily it took only one year for Ukraine to step up their game, and that’s where their Eurovision story really takes off. We’ll get to review the three Ukrainian winners, Dancing Lasha Tumbai, Shum, and so much more.

Greece: Never Let You Go

Artist: Mando (Adamantia Stamatopoulou)

Language: English

Key: E♭ minor, F minor

2001 had “Never Ever Let You Go”, 2002 had “Never Let It Go”, and now 2003 has “Never Let You Go”. We’ll hear another “Never Let You Go” in 2006.

This time Greece gave us a 2000’s sounding ballad, but I actually quite like it. It sounds fresh and modern and the singer gives it her all. The main selling point is those groovy chords in the chorus—those are the easiest way you can get me to like a ballad. I mean, how often do you hear diminished sevenths in the chorus of a ballad? I’m not quite as big on her dress—it’s supposed to be revealing, but the two halves stitched together just look awkward.

Norway: I’m Not Afraid to Move On

Artist: Jostein Hasselgård

Language: English

Key: C major, D major

“The only thing is that nobody’s ever won this contest just sitting at a piano.” The Netherlands in 2019 would like a word with you, Terry Wogan.

OK, for a ballad this is actually pretty good and I can see why it got fourth place. As with Greece, it sounds contemporary and not like an imitation of all those 1990’s ballads. I like the piano part at the start, and the piano gets drowned out a little (as is typical for these ballads) but remains audible. But the lyrics in the chorus make no sense—he’s in love with a beautiful woman, but he’s not afraid to move on?! Did the songwriters think of cohesion when writing these lyrics, or did they just string together romantic phrases?

France: Monts et merveilles

Artist: Louisa Baïleche

Language: French

Key: B minor

This is an alright 2000’s pop song with a fairly rousing chorus. The most interesting part is the bridge, which pauses most of the instrumental and increases the percussion, but it strangely doesn’t lead to a key change. Unlike France’s last two entries, this really doesn’t feel designed around the French language. The rhythm is fast and syncopated so it feels like an English-language song at heart. It unsurprisingly has an English version called “The Moon and the Stars” and as I expected, it sounds more natural.

Even though I complain a lot that France cares too much about their language in Eurovision, the truth is that I really love the French language. That’s why I prefer when songs in French are built specifically for their language. I feel the same way about Greece’s 1980’s entries, which were sung in Greek but didn’t sound Greek.

This song also has an Italian version called “Per parlare de noi”, presumably because Louisa is half Italian. It’s quite interesting to hear this song adapted to Italian, whose lyrical rhythm is very different from both French and English. That version sounds like an Italian cover of a song originally in English, which it basically is—I doubt it was originally written in French.

Poland: Keine Grenzen / Żadnych granic

Artist: Ich Troje

Language: German, Polish, and Russian

Key: C major, G major

Finally, Poland is back to sending interesting songs, like they did in the 1990’s! For now, at least. They’ve taken their turn to send a peace ballad, but with a twist: it’s in three languages, none of which are English. The title means “no borders”, both in German and Polish. It’s no coincidence that the words “Grenzen” and “granic” look so similar—the German word for borders is loaned from Polish, which so happens to be its neighbor language.

The language gimmick alone makes me love this song, especially since I can speak one of its languages. Most of the lyrics alternate between German and Polish, then the last chorus is in Russian with a German line at the end. This means I can understand almost half of the lyrics. As someone who’s complained about janky English lyrics in songs from non-English speaking countries, you might wonder if I think the German lyrics are at all janky. I’m happy to report they aren’t! It helps that one of the song’s writers is German.

For a peace ballad, the lyrics of this song are actually quite sweet: they say that when viewed from above by an astronaut, the world has no borders and no flags, just a bunch of beauty and peace. The usage of German and Russian is fitting because of historical tragedies in World War II. I think this is the kind of song that people appreciate most if they can speak one of its languages—to others, it might fall flat.

Singing in two other languages, both of which are widely spoken in multiple European countries, was an unusual strategy but it worked quite well! This song achieved a respectable seventh place. I’m far from alone among German speakers in appreciating this song: it got 12 points from Germany and 10 from Austria. Though it didn’t get any points from Russia’s backup jury, it got 8 points each from Ukraine and Latvia, both of which are heavy in Russian speakers. All this voting shows how excited people get when a foreigner speaks (or sings in) their language—except for English speakers, who take it for granted. I speak from experience here: don’t believe all the stereotypes that the French are elitist about their language. They love when a foreigner speaks French, even if they falter and make mistakes.

I think it’s partly because of this song that multi-language gimmicks became so common in the 2000’s. Ich Troje themselves would return in 2006 but not score nearly as well. The multi-language gimmick isn’t quite as common these days, but we still encounter it now and then. Crazily enough, this isn’t the weirdest language gimmick we’ll encounter this year…

Latvia: Hello from Mars

Artist: F.L.Y.

Language: English

Key: C major, D major

… but we have to get through this song first. Latvia’s host entry scored third last place with only five points. It would’ve been embarrassing for them to be relegated the year after hosting, but fortunately the next contest introduced proper semifinals. It’s not that bad or anything—just another OK 2000’s pop song with silly inane lyrics. But I think it suffered from being placed between two gimmicky songs.

Belgium: Sanomi

Artist: Urban Trad

Language: Imaginary

Key: C minor

Before we begin, a quick fun fact: the four-minute album version of this song has a key change to D minor. The key change isn’t a final chorus, just an outro where the melody is played on a bagpipe. It makes sense that this part was cut for Eurovision. Also, the postcard has some wonderful foreshadowing of what this song has in store: it features the members of Urban Trad playing folk instruments outside farms.

If you had to pick one song that defines Eurovision, which one would you choose? Most fans would probably pick a super-iconic song like “Euphoria”, but to me, those aren’t what defines the contest. The essence of Eurovision lies not in the normal good songs or in the flamboyant joke entries, but the songs that combine both. These songs are whimsical and zany, yet they’re also unironic bangers. I would choose “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” as the defining song of Eurovision, but if I wasn’t allowed to choose that one then I’d most likely go with “Sanomi”.

This song’s most salient feature is of course that it’s in a made-up language. As Terry Wogan famously put it: “They’ve got four languages in Belgium and they’re singing in an imaginary one—the very essence of the euro.” Is there anything more Belgian than shoving aside your country’s rich platter of languages and making up your own instead? I don’t think there is.

I wish I could listen to this song without knowing it’s in an imaginary language, so that I could guess which language it was in. I’ll make an educated hypothetical guess anyway. This imaginary language has a simple five-vowel system (a, e, i, o, u) and has at least the consonants p, t, d, k, g, m, n, r, s, h, and l. Possibly j too (the English Y sound, just to be clear). All these are common sounds cross-linguistically. There are no consonant clusters in this song; the syllables are all consonant + vowel or just vowel. Five vowels, simple set of consonants, no consonant clusters… these clues suggest a Pacific island language, like Hawaiian or one of its relatives.

The lyrics of this song have no semantic meaning, yet the fact that they have no meaning means that they do have a meaning. To everyone in the entire world, no matter which language they speak, this is a foreign-language song. This song makes a statement about languages in music: despite the increasing dominance of English in pop music, it’s possible to make a good vocal song in any language—even one that doesn’t exist. I’m curious if anyone has made a proper conlang based on this song. They’d have to be obsessed with both conlangs and Eurovision; surely someone out there hits that combo.

When performing for Eurovision, the singers don’t just mutter random noises into the microphones. They make lots of hand gestures throughout the song, to give the illusion that it has a rich and profound meaning. I like to imagine they’re reciting an ancient folk ritual, and the end goal is to awaken their inner spirit called Sorimana. Perhaps “sorimanao” is the plural of “sorimana”, or its accusative case. That’s the genius of “Sanomi”: it may seem like a song about nothing, but it’s actually about whatever you want it to be.

The gimmicks of this song are fun and all, but they really come to light because this is a genuinely well-composed song. It has a lot of great melodies that are easy to sing along to no matter which language you speak. This may be why the imaginary language has such a simple phonology: it sticks to sounds that speakers of most languages know (though French speakers may struggle with the H’s). The instrumental has an intriguing atmospheric vibe, heavy in bagpipes and accordions, but mixed in with some 2000’s pop flair. It’s got an electronic drumbeat, a few record scratches, and a syncopated bassline that make it easy to tell this song is from 2003. This means the song isn’t timeless in the way “Nocturne” is, but the 2000’s pop elements give it a lot of quirky charm.

I’d argue that this song has another statement beyond “music transcends language barriers”. Even though it has a weird gimmick, there is nothing satirical or shitposty about this song: it’s a completely sincere piece of music. I can tell that Urban Trad genuinely love this kind of esoteric, vaguely Celtic folk music, and that they love writing music in fictional languages. Their Eurovision song tells us that gimmicky songs don’t have to be sarcastic joke entries.

It’s absolutely insane that this song came so close to winning: it lost to Turkey by only two points! I think Turkey was the right winner this year—they had waited decades for this moment of triumph and sent a total banger. But imagine how much crazier it would have been if this imaginary language song won. Would it have encouraged other countries to send similarly exotic songs, or would Eurovision have devolved into a joke entry fest? As awesome as it would have been if Belgium won this year, I think Finland’s victory three years later makes up for them not winning. “Hard Rock Hallelujah” is the most bonkers winner in Eurovision history, I’d say. I wonder how huge my wall of text about it will be? We’ll probably find out in a few weeks.

And with that, “Sanomi” now has my second longest review of any Eurovision song. “It’s Just a Game” is now third, and “Guildo hat euch lieb!” is still in the lead. Holy fuck, this song was so much fun to review.

Estonia: Eighties Coming Back

Artist: Ruffus

Language: English

Key: B♭ minor

The singer of this song looks and sounds drunk. He wobbles around a lot and he puts the microphone too close to his mouth. It kind of soils what’s otherwise a decent upbeat song that sounds 80’s in a subdued way. I’m quite fond of the piano and bassline in particular. The piano isn’t drowned out by everything else here!

Romania: Don’t Break My Heart

Artist: Nicola (Nicoleta Alexandru)

Language: English

Key: E minor

I haven’t mentioned it on this blog before, but I have a soft spot for drum and bass music. It’s not the kind of music I constantly talk about how great it is, but I find it so much fun to listen to. Sometimes I’ll find a drum and bass song online and put it on loop more times than I’d like to admit.

With the hectic drum beat, the bassline, and all those sick-ass synths, this is a real step forward for electronic music in Eurovision. It can get a little repetitive near the end and the performance is over-the-top kitschy, but that’s par for the course in 2000’s Eurovision, is it not?

Sweden: Give Me Your Love

Artist: Fame (Jessica Andersson and Magnus Bäcklund)

Language: English

Key: D major, E major

Sweden is even more hell-bent than Germany on pretending their language doesn’t exist, but I’m not Swedish so I don’t care as much. I mean, I do care somewhat because I think Swedish is a cool-sounding language and I enjoy swedo-pop better when it’s sung in Swedish. I’m not sure if the genre actually sounds better in Swedish, or if it’s just more of a novelty factor to hear it in Swedish.

Terry Wogan snarked that it’s a Eurovision tradition for two singers to shout at each other six inches apart, and that’s an instance where his 2000’s snarking is well-warranted. This song is exactly what I expected it to be: a fake romantic swedo-pop duet. Sweden kept getting rewarded for this genre (fifth place this year) so they naturally kept sending it. As I listened, I kept imagining how a Swedish version of this song would sound, but it doesn’t have one and I don’t speak Swedish. So the best I can do is make up Swedish-sounding words in my head. Two of Sweden’s next three entries do have Swedish versions.

Slovenia: Nanana

Artist: Karmen Stavec

Language: English

Key: E♭ major, E major

This song won Slovenia’s national final in its Slovenian version, titled “Lep poletni dan” (beautiful summer day). Then it got translated to English and named… “Nanana”? I have no idea why they didn’t call it “Warm Midsummer Night”, which is sung in place of the Slovenian title. Or how about “My One Desire”?

As a song it’s not too bad, but a bit too Eurodance for me. The best part of the song is the ending, because it uses some lovely romantic string chords to lead into the final note. The rhyme combination of fire, desire, higher, and liar really annoys me. Why not use words like inspire, dire, retire, or attire? I wish I could speak Slovenian so that I’d know whether the song’s original lyrics are more sophisticated than the English ones. I’m particularly curious about zaljublena, objokana, zagledana, and zmedena (the words used in place of fire and co.): are they clever rhymes or cheap cliches?

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Who’s my favorite?

I think it’s quite obvious this year: Belgium, Sanomi intrigues me far more than anything else, as you can see from its review. Honorable mentions go to Turkey (my second place), Poland, and Romania.

• Belgium, 2 (1976, 2003)
• 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)

If I have to pick between a regular good song and a Eurovisiony good song, the Eurovisionier one will usually win out. “Every Way That I Can” is already quite Eurovisiony, “Sanomi” is just even more so.

General thoughts:

I quite liked the claymation theme this year—it looks so cute and charming! I’m not sure how I feel about the stop motion being carried into the postcards, since it makes them look last minute. Still, after the uncertainties about whether they were able to host, Latvia pleasantly surprised Europe with the show they put on. The recap of songs only featured an on-key portion of the British entry, but that didn’t save it from getting zero points. This proves they would’ve scored low even if they weren’t off key. Turkey is near the end of the recap, so it makes sense that they won—voters must have been like “oh shit I forgot about that song, it was awesome!” When the recap reached Austria, Terry Wogan said that every contest must have an eejit.

So far, this is easily the best year of post-language rule Eurovision. The narrow race for the winner speaks for the quality and variety of songs (and the notoriety of t.A.T.u.). You have everything from an imaginary-language bagpipe song to a peak Turkish dance bop, plus a bunch of normal songs for good measure. We’re moving past the Eurodance era and into the contemporary pop era, which can be samey but is much less cheesy.

The interval act was a bunch of pre-recorded musical acts in succession: a Latvian folk song, performances from Renārs Kaupers’ band Brainstorm and Marie N, and a classical orchestra tune by Raimonds Pauls. I think the interval act was designed to tell viewers Latvia is a modern forward-thinking country like the rest of Europe. The post-Soviet nations have always been enthusiastic about Eurovision for this reason.

The voting was fun to watch thanks to the auto-sorting scoreboard, and it naturally had some silly shenanigans. Iceland went first, and their spokesperson’s puns about “Brainstorm” and “I Wanna” actually made me laugh. The Bosnian spokesperson’s voting mishaps made me laugh even harder. And of course, when I see the Eiffel Tower next to the French spokesperson, Graham Norton’s annual running gag plays in my head. The hosts looked flattered each time the spokespersons said something in Latvian, which proves my point in my review of Poland’s song.

Despite his controversial Iraq War remark after the show, Terry Wogan’s tone of voice during the contest shows he wasn’t invested in this year’s British entry. If he actually wanted “Cry Baby” to score well, he would have said “Still nul points for the United Kingdom. Has Europe gone mad?! I thought this was our best performance in many a year.” I do know he was genuinely upset when the UK got last place in 2008. It’s not a happy ending for the Brits, but this year was loads of fun to review.

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See you next time for the non-qualifiers of 2004, which includes the most hilariously bad song in Eurovision history.

>> 2004 (Semifinal): A One-Night Event No Longer