< 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.
Israel: Push the Button
Artist: Teapacks
Language: English, French, and Hebrew
Key: A minor
As with last year, the first song qualified to the final but the very next slot proved itself once again as the death slot.
Given that this is a shameless joke entry and not one of the highly regarded ones, it might surprise you that Teapacks is a long-running band that’s been around since 1988. They’re sort of like an Israeli counterpart to Let 3 (who were in Eurovision 2023), since they make political satire music and their Eurovision entry is extremely chaotic. The lyrics basically say that the stability of Israel is hanging by a thread, because some political leaders around the region want the country destroyed and the average citizens are clueless.
The lyrics are full of cultural references and even callbacks to two prior Israeli entries—“Natati La Chayay” (1974) and “Chai” (1983) respectively—but they’d be a lot more fun to analyze if the song was actually good. The verses (first in English, second in French and English) lean into the Israeli dance style and are actually quite lovely, particularly when the accordion comes in. But then the “push the bu, push the bu, push the button” chorus is a total assault on the ears. Then out of nowhere comes a long-ass rap section in Hebrew and it’s an even bigger assault on the ears, especially because it keeps changing tempo. After that comes a third Israeli dance verse in Hebrew, then the obnoxious chorus, then an ending in the style of the verse.
This song is frustrating because the verses prove that Teapacks have the potential to write an entry that clicks with me—I’m always down for an Israeli dance song. But they decided to throw in a bunch of sections that I really don’t like, just so their song could be as satirical as possible. That’s the problem with joke entries in Eurovision: most of them try too hard to be chaotic and aren’t actually worth listening to. Eventually in this contest we’ll get to the perfect joke entry (which also has accordions!), but that won’t be until late in the grand final.
Cyprus: Comme ci, comme ça
Artist: Evridiki Theokleous, returning from 1992 and 1994
Language: French
Key: D minor
Strangely enough, although five songs this year had some amount of French lyrics, Cyprus sent the only song purely in French. Unfortunately, aside from being in French it’s not that interesting. It’s just an underwhelming and repetitive techno rock song. It didn’t even get many points from French-speaking countries: five each from France and Belgium. Latvia this year has a much better example of borrowing a non-English language.
Iceland: Valentine Lost
Artist: Eiríkur Hauksson, returning from 1986 and 1991 but now as a soloist
Language: English
Key: G minor
And so, the tangled web of connections involving Hanne Krogh and Elisabeth Andreassen (which began in 1971) comes to an end here. This time Eiríkur sings a rock ballad, which is a decent effort but just doesn’t have the same wow factor as other rock entries. Good guitar solos and good voice, but the song is too ballad-like for the lyrics “rock and roll will heal your soul”.
Montenegro: Ajde, kroči (Ајде, крочи)
Artist: Stefan Faddy
Language: Serbo-Croatian (Montenegrin)
Key: C minor, C♯ minor, D minor
Of the four debuting countries this year, two of them reached the final and two didn’t. While Serbia has a strong track record in Eurovision, having qualified to the final all but three times, Montenegro has qualified only twice and the best they scored is 13th place. Their best known Eurovision song is a joke entry called “Euro Neuro”.
I’m guessing Montenegro thought this year, “if Finland won with a rock song then so can we!” It’s a perfectly decent rock song with a good singer and I like the usage of bongo drums, but it’s not going to stand out in such a crowded semifinal. It doesn’t have that extra spark of greatness we saw in “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. All 33 of its points came from fellow Balkan countries.
Switzerland: Vampires Are Alive
Artist: DJ BoBo (Peter René Baumann)
Language: English
Key: F minor
Peter Urban said that some politicians wanted this song disqualified from Eurovision, because it could promote Satanism and occultism in children. It never fails to amaze me how much people fearmonger about children being indoctrinated (especially when they want to brainwash children into their propaganda).
I was confused to see more than six people on stage, but then I realized the ones in the back are just mannequins. Still, it feels weird as hell to see a Eurovision performance with more than six human-shaped entities. To me, the limit of six performers is what distinguishes the competing entries from the interval acts.
This song was clearly trying to replicate the success of “Hard Rock Hallelujah”, but it falls flat because the surrealist factor relies entirely on the performance. As a song, this is just a bunch of average minor key Eurodance, except the intro and end which sound a bit like Star Wars music. Why couldn’t they have done a cinematic style for the entire song?
Netherlands: On Top of the World
Artist: Edsilia Rombley, returning from 1998
Language: English
Key: B minor, C minor. Surprisingly the same as Edsilia’s last song!
When the semifinal is this huge and only ten songs will qualify, it’s hard for me to think a particular song should or shouldn’t have qualified. 28 songs is just too much to keep track of, so it weighs down the fun of reviewing. I’m thankful that the next year introduced the two-semifinal format, because that’ll be more fun to review and much less brutal on all the competitors.
Sadly, this song is nowhere near as good as Edsilia’s last entry, “Hemel en aarde”. It’s a decent enough minor key pop song, but her voice carries it so hard. I guess I should be thankful that this song has a voice like hers, but her voice deserved a better song. I was surprised to find out this song was originally going to be sung as its Dutch version, “Nooit meer zonder jou” (never again without you). I listened to it and it sounds WAY better in Dutch, but I don’t think that version would have qualified either. Plus, there are far better Dutch-language songs in Eurovision history.
Albania: Hear My Plea
Artist: Frederik Ndoci
Language: English, then Albanian, then back to English
Key: A minor
I’m annoyed that this song keeps switching languages, because it distracts me from what would otherwise be an immersive, mysterious-sounding Balkan ballad. This song should have been kept in Albanian, because through the composition alone you can sense the pain in the lyrics. It’s not hard to guess that he’s asking God to hear his plea and undo his romantic troubles, which he is. The Albanian version is called “Balada e gurit” (ballad of stone) and despite the different title the lyrics are basically the same.
I find that Balkan ballads work best when sung in the country’s native language, and this song is no exception. When Frederik sings in English, he sounds like he’s trying too hard to be dramatic, but he sounds perfectly natural when singing in Albanian. Given how well native-language Balkan ballads scored the past few years, I think this would have scored better if it was fully in Albanian.
Denmark: Drama Queen
Artist: DQ (Peter Andersen), a drag queen
Language: English
Key: C♯ minor, D minor, E♭ minor
I feel the same way about this entry as I do about Switzerland: great performance, but the song doesn’t live up to it and is yet more average minor key Eurodance. Both countries focused too much on the performance and not enough on the song. God dammit, I’m so impatient to get to Ukraine’s song. Verka Serduchka will show us the right way to do a campy drag queen performance!
Croatia: Vjerujem u ljubav
Artist: Dragonfly featuring Dado Topić
Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian) and English, but mainly the former
Key: B minor
sees former Yugoslav country score 54 points
Let me guess, all the points came from former Yugoslavia?
checks the tables on Wikipedia
Yeah, more or less. But it also got a few from the German-speaking countries.
This is yet more rock that’s pleasant enough to listen to but much too restrained to work with Eurovision. Its main distinguishing feature is the freeform style singing, which is common in Slavic languages. I feel like rock works best in Eurovision when it’s flashy and hypes up the listener, which is why I still can’t wrap my head around Lord of the Lost getting last place in 2023. This doesn’t hype me up at all.
Poland: Time to Party
Artist: The Jet Set
Language: English
Key: A minor and D minor in alternation
Why exactly does this alternate between a straight rhythm dance song and a swing rhythm dance song? This feels like someone composed two unfinished dance songs and didn’t want them to go to waste, so they lazily stitched the two together. Otherwise this is an inane party song, yet another case of more effort put into the staging than the song. The girl’s fake echoing when she sings “turns me on” annoys me.
The end of this song is the halfway point of the semifinal and I’m rather unimpressed so far, even with the songs that qualified. The first that wows me is Serbia right after this, who would go on to win the contest. And next up after Serbia came…
Czechia: Malá dáma
Artist: Kabát
Language: Czech
Key: E minor
Obligatory mention that the Czech Republic didn’t start competing in Eurovision as “Czechia” until 2023. I’m referring to it by its new name for the sake of consistency, just like North Macedonia. Also, this is the only Eurovision song to be entirely in Czech. Until 2023, it was the only to contain a significant amount of Czech lyrics.
Unfortunately, Czechia did not have a good first few years in Eurovision. They sent a hard rock band founded in 1983 which was huge in their home country, yet they scored last place in the semifinal with only one point. Their results the next two years weren’t much better, so they withdrew until 2015. Since then, the country has gradually warmed up to Eurovision. You could say Czechia is like that friend of yours who hated going to parties at first, but is slowly warming up to them.
I’d say this is better than the last two Slavic-language rock songs—it’s got some nice riffs and a distinctive grunge rock sound to it. It’s good for fans of Czech rock but totally inaccessible to international audiences, especially due to the harsh raspy singing. Harsh singing can work in a Eurovision entry’s favor, as we saw in the winner last year, but here it’s not melodic enough to make up for the hoarseness.
Portugal: Dança comigo
Artist: Sabrina (Maria Teresa Villa-Lobos)
Language: Portuguese, plus short sections in French, Spanish, and English
Key: A minor, B♭ minor
This year Portugal came closest to qualifying (11th place with 88 points) and in fact got more points than any other country in western Europe, including in the final (unless you count Greece as western).
Portugal should send Latin bops like this to Eurovision more often! An upbeat Spanish-sounding dance instrumental plus the Portuguese language is a delightful combo that tickles my ears, because it highlights all the distinct features of Portuguese: the “sh” sound at the end of words, the heavy use of reduced vowels, the occasional nasal vowels like “ão”, and the two R sounds.
Although the combination of language and genre delights me, the singer is rather flat and unexpressive and the instrumental is plain—just the usual package of guitars and brass riffs, nothing too groundbreaking. It’s one of the better non-qualifiers, but I can’t say it deserved to qualify. Luckily, Portugal would do this combination far better in 2023.
Norway: Ven a bailar conmigo
Artist: Guri Schanke
Language: English, plus a phrase in Spanish
Key: E minor, F minor
We have two similar titles in a row: the previous one means “dance with me” and this means “come dance with me”. They’re also similar musically, both Spanish-sounding dance songs with one key change. It was composed by Thomas G:son, or as I like to call him, the Swedish Ralph Siegel, so naturally it’s catchy and well-produced. We’ll see his name many times for the rest of Eurovision history. This song is staged ambitiously with not one, but two costume changes, yet it only achieved 18th place.
I would say I’m surprised this song didn’t qualify, but think of it this way: if these 28 songs were the grand final, would this song be top 10 material? Personally I don’t think so. Those were the criteria needed for a song to qualify this year, so for countries that had to compete in the semifinals every year, qualifying let alone making top 10 was a real uphill battle. Speaking of uphill battles, next we have…
… wait, shit. Malta is up next, not Andorra. If Andorra was next, that would’ve made such an awesome transition.
Malta: Vertigo
Artist: Olivia Lewis
Language: English
Key: E minor, F♯ minor
The lyrics to this song feel like an elementary school student had to write a poem defining the word “vertigo”. Seriously, that word is so out of place among the simplistic vocabulary in the rest of the song. Simple vocabulary in lyrics isn’t inherently bad, but it’s very strange to see here. Also, why did the lyrics put in only one word that kind of rhymes with “vertigo”, and why did they choose “indigo”? Why not rhyme it with something like “hurt me so”? I swear, every Eurovision contest since 1999 has at least one song with baffling lyrics.
I like the 6/8 beat and dramatic instrumentation of this song, as well as the usage of gongs. It’s got ambitious staging, but in a way that suits the song. Yet even if it weren’t for the distractingly weird lyrics, this song doesn’t reach the threshold where I want to come back to it. I’m not sure why that is: has the one-semifinal format left a sour taste in my mouth? Did the 2006 contest raise my standards? Or maybe this is just one of the many modern Eurovision songs where I think, “I like that it’s dramatic but I won’t remember how it sounds”. Still one of the better efforts among the non-qualifiers.
Andorra: Salvem el món
Artist: Anonymous (which is the name of a band)
Language: Catalan and English
Key: E major, F♯ major
I bet the band called themselves Anonymous because they thought it would be funny for viewers to see “Music: Anonymous / Lyrics: Anonymous”. They were right, it’s extremely funny.
Reading and watching so many Eurovision reviews in the past year has taught me a new definition of “anonymous”. The most common definition is “deliberately unnamed”, but it can also mean “lacking in personality”, which describes many of the 2010’s British entries. However, this song is the exact opposite of anonymous! It brims with personality and is by far the biggest fan favorite Andorran entry. Well OK, it’s more of a cult classic than a fan favorite, but that’s more than you can say about most Andorran entries.
It’s easy to see why this song is a cult classic. One of my absolute favorite things about Eurovision is hearing a familiar genre in a language I would have never imagined it in. Where else are you going to hear a Spanish-sounding guitar tune in Finnish,* a mysterious classy French-sounding song in Lithuanian,** or in this case, a Green Day-esque punk rock song in Catalan? This song is a wild ride of guitar riffs and drum fills and I’m all for it. It’s more fun to listen to than anything else so far, except maybe Serbia. It’s got awesome visual effects on stage too, the best of any song so far. I like that the arrows match the lyrics “left, right, up, and down”.
The lyrics make me realize that Catalan sounds quite a bit different from other Romance languages, because it’s more common than in most others for words to end in consonants. The same is true for French, but the language disguises that fact with all those silent E’s, which are often pronounced in songs anyway. I’m OK with the mixing of Catalan and English because the different sections are designed around different languages, and the lead singer sings in English very well, in exactly the right style for this type of rock.
Now THIS is the first non-qualifier that I think deserved to qualify. I’m not alone in feeling this, because during “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” in the final, an audience member held a sign saying “Where is Andorra?” Perhaps it was unrealistic because the semifinal was so huge and rife with bloc voting, but this song came close! It scored 12th place with 80 points, whereas the lowest qualifier scored 91.
* I’m referring to “La dolce vita” from 1989, one of the most underrated songs in Eurovision history. It’s beautiful, please listen to it if you haven’t!
** “Sentimentai” from 2022. That song is also an absolute gem.
Estonia: Partners in Crime
Artist: Gerli Padar, sister of Tanel Padar who won in 2001
Language: English
Key: E minor
I’m almost done here—this is the third last non-qualifier! I can practically hear Terry Wogan’s ghost telling me to stay strong as I persevere to the end. The singer gives it her all and there’s a lot happening on stage, but as a song this does nothing to me. It tries to be a dramatic rock pop song, but it’s too slow and underdeveloped to work in this genre.
Belgium: LovePower
Artist: The KMG’s, who had to be truncated to six for Eurovision
Language: English
Key: C major
After almost winning in 2003, Belgium was stuck in a Eurovision slump until 2010. When I think about the length of this streak of low results, I feel slightly better about Germany being in a slump since 2019. But only slightly, because there’s no chance in hell Germany will get out of their slump in Eurovision 2024, not with the song they’ve chosen. I won’t repeat all my salt here, just read this post. Germany and Belgium have sent some honest efforts in their poor streaks: “Je t’adore” in 2006 and “Blood & Glitter” in 2023. I didn’t mention it back then, but fans were absolutely heartbroken when Kate Ryan didn’t qualify.
This is a very retro 1970’s sounding pop song filled to the brim with jazzy chords, which automatically means I have a soft spot for it. If you remember the Family Song that I mentioned when reviewing “It’s Just a Game” from 1973,* this is another song with exactly that same vibe. When I reviewed that song, perhaps I was viewing 1970’s music with rose-tinted glasses, but I really do love this kind of upbeat groovy music, as cheesy as it may be. It just makes me feel happy! I’d even go so far as to say it deserved to qualify, which is probably a bizarre opinion but you know what? Every Eurovision fan has at least one bizarre opinion.
I swear the synth solo near the end has a vocoded “can you feel the love power coming your way”. I have no idea whether that breaks the rule against pre-recorded vocals.
* I said I practically wrote a graduate thesis when reviewing that song, but three reviews have surpassed it in length: “Sanomi”, “Hard Rock Hallelujah”, and “Guildo hat euch lieb”.
Austria: Get a Life – Get Alive
Artist: Eric Papilaya
Language: English
Key: F major and/or F minor. Kind of in between.
I’m perplexed by the title because it’s probably supposed to be a pun, but most German speakers (including Peter Urban, the commentator) can’t distinguish “get a life” from “get alive” and Eric never sings the two phrases in succession. He only sings “get a life” in the lyrics and I think the idea was that it could be doubly interpreted as “get alive”, because the lyricist thought these two phrases were homophones.
As a song I don’t have much to say about this. It’s just a middling pop rock song whose pun isn’t as clever as the lyricist thinks. It has some decent guitar parts but it’s forgettable otherwise. Also, I always get annoyed when the singer asks the audience to make some noise.
Semifinal thoughts:
It was a big mistake to let the semifinal consist of 28 songs. Normally the semifinal(s) are supposed to be a warm-up till the grand final, but this semifinal was longer than the grand final and only ten songs could get through. I assume the contest organizers didn’t have the money yet to extend the show to three nights. In terms of song lineup, this was yet another night where most of the good stuff was near the end, which annoys me but at least it’s better than the good stuff being at the start. Luckily, Latvia-cosplaying-as-Italy’s song made a perfect semifinal closer.
To save space from my grand final post, I’ll say here that the visual theming this year is beautiful! Unlike the last few years with the gaudy 3D effects, the visual design looks elegant, simple, and colorful. Nothing about the design feels anchored in 2007. I’ve enjoyed the hosts too (except for Jaana’s pink dress in the second half); they have the charm and confidence that any good presenters should have.
This year, the voting time window was extended from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. I was expecting the extra time to be filled with interval acts, but instead it was taken by miscellaneous footage and a second recap. Which makes sense, because the purpose of interval acts is to entertain the audience as the votes are being counted. The interval act was a showcase of Finnish folk music, full of violins and accordions and unusual time signatures and Finnish-language singing, and even a little guitar. It might be my favorite interval act of the 21st century so far. Eurovision has given me a soft spot for Finnish music, which proves the country is doing something right.
Although the qualifiers were skewed towards eastern Europe, I’d say most of them were well-deserved. I’m especially pleased for Serbia and Hungary, plus Georgia for doing it on their first try. I would say that Andorra and Belgium should have qualified, but the truth is, this contest should have used the two-semifinal format. Therefore it doesn’t make sense to list ten alternative songs that I would have taken to the final. Maybe I would have sacrificed Turkey and Moldova for those two? In any case, I can see why the 2008 contest made so many changes to decrease bloc voting.
See you next time for the second winner in a Slavic language, the last German entry sung in German, and the only contender against “Ding-a-Dong” for my all time favorite Eurovision song.
>> 2007 (Final): Triumph for the East, Trainwreck for the West
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