Intro Post

< 2008 Semifinals | 2008 Final | 2009 Semifinals >

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Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2008 consisted of 25 countries: the Big Four, the host country of Serbia, and the 20 qualifiers from each semifinal. Since I extensively discussed the voting system in the introduction to the semifinal, I’ll discuss the hosts and stage design here.

You might think a year this filled with joke entries would have hosts that made exaggerated jokes at every opportunity, like those of 2000 and 2001, but the hosts this year have been professional and charismatic. One of them is the musical genius named Željko Joksimović. He composed a total of five Eurovision entries, the third of which is the Serbian entry this year. The other is a Serbian TV host named Jovana Janković. The two hosts entered a romantic relationship a few months after the contest and got married in 2012.

The stage design was based on the Danube and Sava rivers, which merge in Belgrade. That was the inspiration for this year’s theme, which is “Confluence of Sound”—nice to have a theme that relates to the host country. I think RTÉ is partly to thank for the pattern of annual stage designs, because whenever they hosted Eurovision in a building more than once, they made sure it looked different every time.

Greece and Ukraine continued their strong streaks this year, scoring third and second place this year. Russia won the contest for the first and only time with Dima Bilan, who scored second place in 2006. I firmly believe Russia won only because of bloc voting and when I review their song, I’ll explain why that is.

Marija Šerifović must have thought it’d be boring to perform “Molitva” unmodified at the start, so instead she started with a Eurodance version! I’m not a Eurodance fan, but this is a fun reimagination and so much more interesting than the usual reprises. Then she sings a rock ballad in English, which is clearly more of her typical style.

Since Eurovision 2008 is such a pain in the ass with copyright, I’ll continue watching with Norwegian commentary on the NRK website. I can’t speak Norwegian but I can pick up on words here and there, since I’ve read so many translations of songs in the Scandinavian languages. Plus, the commentator I’ve been watching (Hanne Hoftun) has a cute voice.

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Romania: Pe-o margine de lume

Artist: Nicoleta Matei and Vlad Miriță

Language: Romanian and Italian

Key: D major, E♭ major

This scored the best out of the three entries with Italian lyrics: 7th place in the semifinal, 20th in the final. This is kind of like two songs in one: first a solo male ballad in Romanian, then a duet ballad in a mix of Romanian and Italian. I appreciate that it’s telling a romantic story, but dear god, this is so ballady. Did Switzerland, Romania, and San Marino purposely send Italian-language songs that weren’t that great as a plead for Italy to return?

Even ignoring that this is a sappy ballad, multilingual songs only work for me when the different parts are designed for different languages. This is difficult to pull off with Romanian and Italian, since they sound so similar. Why didn’t they have Vlad sing entirely in Romanian and Nico entirely in Italian, or distinguish their singing styles so the languages could be more easily told apart? It’s hard for me to tell when one language ends and the other begins.

United Kingdom: Even If

Artist: Andy Abraham

Language: English

Key: B major

This is the second of five times the UK scored last place. Germany, Poland, and the UK all scored 14 points: since they consisted of 12+2, 10+4, and 8+6 respectively, Germany was ranked third last, Poland second last, and the UK last. As such, it’s best known as the song that made Terry Wogan quit commentating on Eurovision. He was so frustrated that the UK scored last place that he decided it was no longer fun to comment on the contest. The poor guy got so disillusioned in his last few years, and given that he was Irish and commentated for Britain, I can’t say I blame him. I love his sense of humor a lot, which is why I watched his commentary so often for the 1980’s and 1990’s. But in the 2000’s he did not hold back on expressing his frustration, which is why I watched someone else’s commentary as much as I could.

Anyway, it’s worth asking: did this song deserve to score last place? Absolutely not. This is a nice funky retro soul song, one of the few that uses colorful staging in an appealing way. It’s perfectly pleasant to listen to, much more than some of the drivel that I already know will follow. But I can absolutely see why it scored last place. It was in the death slot and it’s simply not the most competitive song in the final. The Big Four weren’t prepared to step up their game this year, which I’ll discuss further two songs from now.

Albania: Zemrën e lamë peng

Artist: Olta Boka

Language: Albanian

Key: C minor, C♯ minor

I completely forgot how this song sounded by the time I reached the final and I can see why. It’s a 6/8 rock ballad, yet another one of those modern Eurovision songs that makes me think “it’s dramatic but I’m indifferent towards it”. Plus, she drifts off key in the first chorus.

Germany: Disappear

Artist: No Angels

Language: English. The German-language drought has begun.

Key: A♭ minor

God fucking dammit. Why is it so common that when Germany for once sends something different to Eurovision, they return to dull drivel the very next year? It happened from 1994 to 1995, 2007 to 2008, 2018 to 2019, and it’ll happen again this year because NDR still hasn’t learned anything.

Near the end of each semifinal, we saw previews of the Big Four and Serbia’s host entry. The previews this year showed that eastern Europe has been taking Eurovision seriously while western Europe has all but given up. In order, the previews featured an alright soul song (UK), a miserably dull girl pop song (Germany), two joke entries (France and Spain), and an enticing Balkan ballad (Serbia). I think the Big Four/Five rule was put in place partly because these countries are naturally expected to send strong entries. Why wouldn’t they? The UK, France, Germany, and Spain are all huge countries with tons of famous singers and recognizable music styles. But since they sent so many non-competitive entries in this decade, they kept sinking to the bottom, often below even the most baffling qualifiers.

This is just three minutes of bland background noise with a repetitive droning beat and off key singers. It narrowly won the national final against a ballad called “Hinterm Ozean” (behind the ocean), which I just listened to and for a ballad it’s pretty good—lots of buildup throughout, then a quiet section near the end. This song on the other hand drains all happiness out of me. It was saved from last place because it got twelve points from Bulgaria. I’m guessing the Bulgarian commentators mentioned one of the singers was Bulgarian.

Armenia: Qélé, Qélé (Քելե Քելե)

Artist: Sirusho (Siranush Kocharyan)

Language: English, plus Armenian in the intro

Key: A minor

After Eurovision gradually made me learn the Hebrew alphabet which doesn’t write vowels (except when it does), it bends my mind to remember that the Armenian alphabet does write its vowels. That seems so simple and logical compared to Hebrew! I know the Hebrew alphabet by heart now, including all pronunciations each letter can have. I find it weird that Hebrew has a helpful little geresh symbol to distinguish (for example) /g/ from /dʒ/ (the English J sound) in the letter gimel, but keeps it a mystery whether the letter pe is pronounced as P or F, among other ambiguities. It can use diacritics to clear those ambiguities, but it usually doesn’t. The exception is sounds not native to Hebrew like the alternative gimel sound, where the geresh always comes to the rescue.

Anyway, let’s talk about this song. It scored fourth place, tied with 2014 as Armenia’s best ranking. It might seem like the kind of song I should like, but as an ethno-bop I don’t think it works that well. I like the flutes and bagpipe parts, but it doesn’t have a catchy hook to draw me in, neither in vocals nor instrumental. The closest is the repeated “qélé qélé” but even then, that’s not particularly catchy as a hook.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Pokušaj

Artist: Laka (Elvir Laković), featuring his younger sister

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian)

Key: A major, B major

Everything about this song baffles me. The staging featuring hanging clothes and four women in wedding dresses, the weird and unfocused instrumental, its end result of tenth place, and the fact that it even qualified. Seriously, even for Eurovision 2008 this song is baffling. The lyrics make no sense either, not even after reading three different English translations and a French translation. Erica said that this song might make more sense if she could speak Bosnian, and I admittedly had that thought too, but I always say that a good song can be enjoyed by everyone no matter which language they speak.

Israel: The Fire in Your Eyes

Artist: Boaz Ma’uda

Language: Hebrew and English

Key: F♯ minor

It’s been a long time since the last year where most songs annoyed me, hasn’t it? The last one was probably 2001, which is a good sign actually. It means the last few contests have been really good!

Anyway, after hearing this song in the semifinal, all I remembered was that I thought it was a woman singing at first. Otherwise this is just an average ballad. I always feel let down when Israel sends a ballad, because their upbeat dance music is so much more fun. At least it has a more Middle Eastern sounding section in the bridge, so it’s a bit better than other ballads.

Finland: Missä miehet ratsastaa

Artist: Teräsbetoni, a rock band

Language: Finnish

Key: B minor, C♯ minor

Hanne Hoftun said in the semifinal that this song resembles Dschinghis Khan with all those “hoo, haa” sounds, but I don’t see much similarity beyond that. In any case, after all the drivel I had to sit through, this is a real bright spot! I almost feel as if I’m going through the ballad soup of early 1990’s Eurovision all over again, except this time with joke entries.

Finland went with one of those hard rock songs they love so much, but this time in their own language. I’m surprised it only got 22nd place—I think it’s much better than anything else so far in the final. It has rugged rhythm guitars, a strong dramatic lead voice, and a crazy guitar solo near the end, but there’s no denying it isn’t as accessible as “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. I like rock music more when it contains synths and keyboards, which are absent from this song. Still, it’s lovely to hear the Finnish language again, since Eurovision has given me a soft spot for it. This is our last time hearing Finnish in the grand final until 2023.

Croatia: Romanca

Artist: Kraljevi Ulice (a band) and 75 Cent (a 75-year-old man)

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)

Key: D minor

Reviewing the final in a two-semifinal year is quite a different experience from doing it in a one-semifinal year, because I’ve already heard most of the songs and many make me go “ugh not THIS one again”. All I remember about it is an old guy shouting words I don’t understand. Musically this is a decent tango song with some nice dance moves, but the old guy shouting over it overshadows everything. Did he think this was the Eurovision Shouting Contest? Why is almost every song this year baffling, boring, or both?

Poland: For Life

Artist: Isis Gee (who now goes by Tamara Gee)

Language: English

Key: B major

This is just a soppy ballad where I can’t understand half of what she’s singing, even though her first language is English. She slurs all her words together and I hate when singers do that. The fact that it got the fewest points together with the UK and Germany proves that fans don’t like soppy ballads anymore.

Iceland: This Is My Life (not to be confused with Sweden 2010)

Artist: Euroband, a pop duo

Language: English

Key: B♭ minor

This is a Eurodance techno sort of song and as with many others, I’d like it more if it had a catchy hook instead of just a bunch of drawn-out singing over a techno beat. It has nice bass synths, but otherwise it goes in one ear and out the other.

Turkey: Deli

Artist: Mor ve Ötesi

Language: Turkish, which we won’t hear in Eurovision again

Key: E minor

If I remember right, there’s one later entry from San Marino with a phrase in Turkish, but otherwise we’ll say goodbye to their language after this. We might finally get to hear its sister language of Azerbaijani in 2024.

I must say, I’ve been enjoying the rock entries this year much more than in 2007. This is full-out Turkish rock, a bit like a prototypical “We Could Be the Same” but also a good song in its own right. There’s no nonsense to the start, it doesn’t drag its heels or anything. It starts with a catchy guitar riff then immediately dives into the tense pumping verses. Then it goes wild but remains melodic in the chorus, exactly as a rock song should do. I’m not a big fan of the abrupt ending but the song is enough of a banger that I don’t care too much. The title means “crazy” and the lyrics are about a man who’s driven crazy by his desire for love, so the instrumental suits it well. I’ll gladly continue listening to this in the future.

Turkey has come such a long way in Eurovision. Even after the language rule was abolished, they didn’t blend in with other countries and kept showcasing their own musical style. I’m glad they had the confidence to showcase the hard rock side of their music this year—this won’t be their last time doing that. And I’m glad this song was rewarded with seventh place. I just wish Turkey would come back someday. Eurovision just isn’t the same without them!

Portugal: Senhora do mar (negras águas)

Artist: Vânia Fernandes

Language: Portuguese

Key: C♯ minor, D minor

I’m so proud of Portugal this year, oh my god!!! Even though they only scored 13th place in the final, it’s awesome that they qualified and finally sent a properly competitive entry again. Plus, they scored second place in the semifinals which proves they were robbed by bloc voting. It turns out that Portugal picked the perfect year to step up their game. For one thing, the semifinals were redesigned to prevent bloc voting from determining who qualifies. But more crucially, since so many countries sent joke entries or bizarro performances this year, Portugal sending a serious song will brightly stand out.

Whenever Eurovision fans discuss the entries of each country, when I see a country name followed by 2008 I assume it’s a joke entry or something otherwise weird and campy. I can’t overstate how crazy it feels for Portugal in 2008 to send a song like THIS. It’s a dramatic ballad with lyrics about a woman of the sea, but far from a normal ballad at all. It turns out that if other countries blend the ballad style with their own traditional music, I like ballads a lot more! It’s just that normally only the Balkans do that.

This song is absolutely beautiful and does so many things right. It has a strong expressive singer, a lovely 6/8 beat, and a distinctive maritime sound. It sounds orchestral and cinematic in the verses, then a little more traditionally Portuguese in the chorus. Plus it’s got some lovely guitars and accordions throughout—you can always win me over with accordions. The song is full of variety in its structure and does something different in each verse and chorus. Sometimes it brings in a new instrumental part, sometimes it pauses the drums for drama, sometimes it adds more backing singers. All this results in an awesome song that beautifully builds up from start to finish.

As a nice bonus, the song doesn’t go frilly and garish with its staging. It takes full advantage of the visual effects that the stage offers, but in a more subdued way than so many others. The stage features oceanic background effects that get me immersed in the song, instead of distracted from it. In a year as chaotic as this one, it’s so refreshing to hear two songs in a row that are worth listening to.

It looks like we’ve started a small bright era for Portugal in Eurovision: they qualified three years in a row, then didn’t qualify again until they won in 2017. Let’s hope their next two entries are at least half as good as this!

Latvia: Wolves of the Sea

Artist: Pirates of the Sea

Language: English

Key: A major, B major

Sometimes I can recognize just enough words in a language to get the gist of a text: to my German-speaking eyes, “spēlēji videospēles” looks like “spielen Videospielen” or “playing video games”. Latvian isn’t a Germanic language, but it has a surprising amount of loanwords from German. And then there’s “Mamma” at the end, which couldn’t mean anything but mom. I was curious if my guesses were right, so I transcribed the postcard and plugged it into Google Translate. The result is:

Dear Uldi!

If I come home and find this postcard in the mailbox, I’ll know you’ve been laying on the couch playing video games all day while I’m gone!!

Love – Mom

Thankfully the handwriting was easy to read unlike some postcards. I even had a bit of trouble reading the Irish postcard, which is in English.

These guys really didn’t deserve to be booed at the start. What does the audience have against pirates?! For a joke entry this song is a lot of fun. The pirate costumes are awesome, it has a good pumping dance beat that you can clap to, and the chorus is incredibly catchy. You only have to hear this song once to remember how the chorus sounds. I don’t understand why people hate this at all. It’s more fun to listen to than most other songs this year. I don’t even mind that it finished a place above Portugal.

At the end, some of the audience changed their minds about this song and others didn’t. Most of the viewers cheered at the end, but a few of them still booed because they wouldn’t know a good costume if it hit them in the face.

Sweden: Hero

Artist: Charlotte Perrelli, the winner of 1999 with a new last name

Language: English

Key: G minor, G♯ minor

Yet again Sweden sent swedo-pop by a returning winner, but unlike two years ago, they weren’t rewarded for it. They only managed 18th place this year. The only reason this even made it to the finals was because of the backup juries, who picked this song to go at the expense of North Macedonia. I don’t understand why this year even had backup juries when the final results were going to be determined by televoting anyway. Funny enough, the juries were why Sweden didn’t reach the finals in 2010. I’m excited to review their 2010 entry so I can pick apart everything it does wrong.

I think this song would have scored near the top in the early 2000’s, but by this point fans were tired of this style of dancey stompy swedo-pop. The chorus has a boring four-chord progression and even aside from that, it’s nowhere near as catchy or cheerful as “Take Me to Your Heaven”. Sweden needed to refresh their style to appeal to current fans, which they would do in 2011.

Denmark: All Night Long

Artist: Simon Mathew

Language: English

Key: A major, B major

I remember nothing about how this song sounds, which again isn’t a good sign. This is just an average American-sounding rock song with a mildly catchy chorus that’s repeated too much at the end, par for the course for Denmark. Actually, if I couldn’t remember how the chorus sounds, I don’t think I can call it catchy. This is just a bunch of inoffensive background noise, which is why I forgot how it sounds.

Georgia: Peace Will Come

Artist: Diana Gurtskaya

Language: English

Key: F minor

On the other hand, I do remember one thing about this song, which is that every time she sings the title it sounds like “piss will come”. Or maybe even “piss will cum”, if you want to get dirty-minded. Watch this video to learn about a clever trick to make French speakers distinguish “piss” and “peace”. It might apply to speakers of other languages, who knows?

I couldn’t even remember whether this was a ballad; it turns out it is. It sounds a little darker than other ballads, but it’s still not that memorable. I’m distracted by the singer’s thick accent, especially “piss will come”. Geez, she repeats the title a lot.

Ukraine: Shady Lady

Artist: Ani Lorak

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor

Now we have the runner-up of the contest! Although Ukraine has a lot of bloc voting partners, I think this would’ve scored highly even if it weren’t for neighborly votes. In contrast to the last two songs, I remember many things about it from the semifinal. The guys glowing one by one in boxes near the start, the guys bursting out afterwards, the iconic chorus featuring the title, and the singer’s revealing outfit. It’s the kind of song that people remember after watching just once, not the kind that makes them go “wait, which one was Ukraine again?”

This is the second of eight Eurovision entries composed by Philipp Kirkorov (first was “Work Your Magic” from 2007). He composed three entries for Russia, three for Moldova, and one each for Belarus and Ukraine. As controversial as he is, you can’t deny that he and his crew know how to do Eurovision. His entries have never won Eurovision, but this one came the closest at second place. Philipp Kirkorov’s entries tend to be electronic and danceable, and full of dramatic flashy staging. I assume he and his frequent co-composer Dimitris Kontopoulos hired the same crew to work on staging each time.

The lyrics of this song don’t make much sense, but other than that it’s one of the best songs of this evening. It’s a flashy danceable party song with one hell of a catchy chorus and sometimes, that’s all a song needs to be. It’s the first one I’d happily relisten to since Latvia.

France: Divine

Artist: Sébastien Tellier

Language: English, plus one tiny line in French to appease the angry politicians

Key: B♭ major

It is absolutely hilarious to read about the controversy behind this song. This entry has a lot of weird things about it—the guys in suits and sunglasses, the weird lyrics about some movie, the tractor with a French flag on stage, the helium trick midway through the song—but the ONLY thing about it that French politicians cared about was that it was sung in English. They were absolutely pissed about this and pleaded for Sébastien to sing in French. To which I respond: Try to imagine how German fans have felt almost every year since 2002! Or at least, the ones who care about Germany singing in its own language, which includes me. I get why French viewers would complain about France singing in English, but I really don’t like the hidden implication that they think French is inherently better than other languages. I say this as someone who really loves the French language.

This song proves that not all French people are hyper-obsessed with protecting their language. The only line sung in French is: “Toi et moi, c’est comme tu sais / Pour moi l’amour chante en français” (You and me, it’s as you know / For me, love is sung in French). That passage has no relation to the rest of the lyrics and I love it for that reason. He’s making fun of those who insisted that he sing in French, and arguably poking fun at Eurovision songs that have just one native-language sentence.

The plus side of Sébastien Tellier singing in English is that he got to be as goofy as he wanted to and the French-language elitists wouldn’t care at all. It’s a very bizarre song, but it’s also more pleasant on the ears than half of this year’s songs. After poking at their language twice in a row, next year France would score their best result since 2002. I don’t know what that song sounds like yet!

Azerbaijan: Day After Day

Artist: Elnur Hüseynov and Samir Javadzadeh

Language: English

Key: E♭ minor

We’ve now arrived at the second last debut entry in Eurovision history: the last is Australia in 2015. Azerbaijan has won Eurovision once in 2011 and their presence in the contest is controversial, to say the least. In short, Azerbaijan uses Eurovision to make itself look good and distract viewers from the country’s ongoing violations of human rights, particularly those of Armenians. I feel uncomfortable about Azerbaijan’s presence in Eurovision, but since the focus of this blog post series is reviewing songs, I will review Azerbaijani entries as I would any other: by how good they are as songs.

This song begins with some of that baffling Eurovision 2008-ness, then the rest is a fairly normal dark rock song that sounds almost like Linkin Park and happens to be staged in that weird-ass Eurovision 2008 way. The instrumental isn’t bad, but the singing is too opera-like and the staging is like an acid trip (not in a good way). Also, this is the second song in this contest where people talk in the middle of it, and it’s no less annoying if they speak English.

Greece: Secret Combination

Artist: Kalomira (Maria Kalomira Sarantis)

Language: English

Key: F minor

Now we’ve reached Greece’s third time scoring third place, which is their most recent top five finish as of this writing. As a song, this is basically an inferior “My Number One”. It has some nice ethnic elements in the intro and bridge, but otherwise it’s just a bunch of regular dance pop. The chorus is super catchy for sure, but the song relies too much on the melody of the chorus. Oh, and the staging is overcomplicated again, not in an engaging way like “My Number One”, as well as overly colorful.

Spain: Baila el Chiki Chiki

Artist: Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, portrayed by David Fernández Ortiz

Language: Spanish, plus a verse in English

Key: F minor

A Eurovision joke entry in Spanish??? It’s more likely than you think. This was probably Spain’s most iconic entry in 21st century Eurovision, till “SloMo” came along in 2022. I don’t see any others from 2000 to 2021 talked about anywhere near as much.

+Erica hits the nail on the head again. For a joke entry this is absolute genius, because as she says, it’s a lot of fun to watch and not all that bad to listen to. I have a friend from Spain who’s obsessed with this song too, and she feels exactly the same way about it. (If you’re reading this, hi! This review is for you.)

It says a lot about this year that this is unironically one of the best songs in Eurovision 2008. It’s three minutes of some dude playing “Old MacDonald” on a kids’ toy guitar then mumbling over a reggaeton beat, yet it has just enough variance in its structure to actually work as a joke entry. It’s got the right balance between verses and chorus, so that the chorus feels familiar but not too repetitive. “Uno: el brikindans, dos: el crusaíto, tres: el Maiquelyason, cuatro: el Robocop” is incredibly fun to sing along to.

When I watched this song for the first time last year, I thought: what the fuck is this bizarro garbage, and how could it possibly be from the same country that gave us “Eres tú”? But the more times I rewatched this performance, the more it grew on me. I started to appreciate the bass synths and the melody played by the high-pitched beeps, as well as the rhythm of Rodolfo’s rapping. I would even dare say that I now unironically like this song. The performance is a comedic masterpiece too—something about all those bizarre dance moves cracks me up. I especially love the backing dancer in pink who does all the wrong dance moves, falls down at one point, and even taps Rodolfo on the back as if to say “help me, I forgot what my moves were”.

I’m obligated to say a little about the lyrics. The text of the song says that everyone around the world dances the “Chiki-Chiki” and goes absurd in what it references. It’s basically a huge dump of memes and inside jokes among the Spanish-speaking world. I love reading explanations of the lyrics because they give me a glimpse into the humor of a totally different culture, but I can’t possibly explain these references myself. In any case, this song does a good job showcasing the culture of Spanish-speaking countries, even to viewers who couldn’t speak Spanish because by the time it came out, it was easy to find translations of the lyrics online. Probably easier than it is now, given the rise of AI-generated websites.

Serbia: Oro (Оро)

Artist: Jelena Tomašević featuring Bora Dugić

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian)

Key: A minor

Can I just say, I love it when the host country’s postcard does something different from the other postcards. That seldom happens in Eurovision, but I remember that was done in 2001 when Denmark hosted. This postcard features everyone from the previous postcards coming together as “Welcome to Serbia!” is written in multiple languages.

This is a host entry in more than one sense. Not only is it the entry of the host country, it was also composed by one of this year’s hosts: the legendary Željko Joksimović. Part of being a good host country is picking a good host entry, and Serbia did exactly that! It shows that the host country respects what the contest is all about, and that they wouldn’t mind winning again. I wonder if Eurovision 2009 would’ve taken place in Belgrade again, if they had won 2008? The only other Serbian city I can name off the top of my head is Novi Sad and I have no idea if that one has suitable arenas.

Anyway, Željko Balkan Ballad Number 3 isn’t quite as awesome as the last two, but still absolutely beautiful. He uses the exact same tropes as the other two, like Balkan guitars, a memorable main melody designed for Serbo-Croatian, and buildup from start to finish. As with the last two, the staging is oriented upon instruments. I love that Serbia avoided the pattern of joke entries this year and sent something classy and thoroughly Serbian.

If I was told this song had three alternate language versions and had to guess which three it was, I would say English, French, and Russian. It turns out that none of these three are correct! In reality, this song has versions in Spanish, Greek, and Portuguese, which kind of makes sense when you think about it. Spain, Greece, and Portugal all like to put acoustic guitars in their music too, so the languages fit thematically. Plus, Serbians love traveling to Greece. Jelena pronounces the “th” sound very well in both Greek and Spanish, which is impressive because that sound is notoriously tough for most Europeans. I was curious whether the Portuguese version sounded closer to European or Brazilian Portuguese, and the answer is European. Makes sense, really.

Russia: Believe (the winner)

Artist: Dima Bilan, returning from 2006

Language: English

Key: B♭ minor

Russia’s postcard has what looks to be a cooking recipe, instead of the usual message. I transcribed the text (which wasn’t too hard, because it was written in print instead of cursive) and plugged it into Google Translate: turns out it’s a recipe for Serbian fish soup.

I will just say it right now. This is my least favorite winning song in Eurovision history. I actually somewhat liked it when I first heard it, but the more times I listened the more I found the song dull and annoying. It’s the opposite of “Baila el Chiki Chiki” in this sense. It’s dreary to listen to, it has an annoyingly slow drum beat that never progresses, the singer has a distractingly thick accent, and have I mentioned it’s dull? I don’t get any joy from listening to this. When put in a compilation of all Eurovision winners, this song seems like such a dud between “Molitva” and “Fairytale”—hold on a minute, I just realized I’m two years away from Germany’s second win! How exciting!!!

Anyway, this absolutely wasn’t the right winner this year. It got third place in the semifinal behind Greece and Armenia but won the grand final due to bloc voting. I’m sure that if you actually like this song, you’ll deny it won due to bloc voting, but I don’t like this song so my opinion is different. This song got twelve points from two countries in the semifinal but from seven in the final. All of them are former Soviet countries except Israel, which has a large amount of Russians. In the final, 90 of this song’s 272 points came from former Soviet countries, plus an additional twelve from Israel which I’m counting as a bloc vote, making for 102 in total. You can argue that Ukraine was boosted from former Soviet bloc voting too, but they normally didn’t get nearly as much then, especially not from the Baltic states.

For once, this song isn’t any less dull in its Russian version (Всё в твоих руках, “everything’s in your hands”). I guess it kind of makes sense that this song won, since this year was so crowded with joke entries and viewers were split on whether to vote for Ukraine, Greece, and Armenia. I don’t think I outright dislike this song, but I definitely don’t like it.

If I had to say something positive about this song, I like the way the violin interacts with the melody of the chorus. Still, this song broke the streak of awesome winners we’ve had since 2002 (yes, I’m an “I Wanna” apologist). It’s also the first song that I strongly feel was the wrong winner since 1991 (I’m sorry Carola). That’s a recurring theme with Eurovision 2008: it made me realize how amazing the last few years were in comparison.

Norway: Hold On Be Strong

Artist: Maria Haukaas Mittet

Language: English

Key: C♯ minor

Weirdly enough, this song stands out more at the end of the final than it did in the semifinal. I didn’t think of it much in the semifinal, but now I can appreciate the sassy string riffs and saxophone parts. It has a slight Amy Winehouse vibe, except with more inane lyrics. It’s a lot more interesting than “Believe”, so maybe that’s why it stands out more. I’m not sure how I feel about the major chord at the end though. It seems kind of pointless.

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Who’s my favorite?

Hey, that’s new: for the first time in I don’t even know how long, I haven’t made up my mind by the time I reached this section. I’m faced with a conundrum between Portugal and Serbia—two ethnic ballads that stand out among a jokefest year. Both aren’t the absolute greatest ethnic ballads I’ve ever heard, but both are still very good songs.

I didn’t have to think about it for too long though. As much as I love Željko ballads, Serbia this year is slightly less good than his last two works. I want to choose something new as my favorite, so Portugal, Senhora do mar feels like the right choice.

• Belgium, 2 (1976, 2003)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1 (2006)
• Denmark, 3 (1963, 2000, 2001)
• Finland, 3 (1968, 1983, 1989)
• France, 3 (1977, 1990, 1991)
• Germany, 4 (1956, 1979, 1982, 1999)
• Hungary, 1 (2005)
• 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, 5 (1960, 1966, 1973, 1985, 1995)
• Portugal, 3 (1971, 1984, 2008)
• Serbia, 1 (2004)
• Sweden, 2 (1974, 1996)
• Switzerland, 1 (1986)
• Turkey, 2 (1978, 1997)
• Ukraine, 1 (2007)
• United Kingdom, 2 (1962, 1981)
• (20 winners)

Note that I changed “Serbia and Montenegro” to Serbia in this list, because I would’ve done that if I chose Serbia as my winner and there’s a good chance I’ll choose them in a later year. I have to admit, I was briefly considering to choose Spain as my winner. They still haven’t made it to my list but came close in 1973. Also honorable mentions to Belgium, whose imaginary language stood no chance but is so joyful and cute!

General thoughts:

long, deep, exhausted sigh

Thank god I’m done with all those songs. I still have the interval act and voting to get through, but ever since 2006 those have gone by fast. My god, this was such a weird fucking year. Eurovision 2006 and 2007 defied my expectations of being jokefests and turned out to be some of the best contests in Eurovision history, so I was surprised that this year really did turn out to be a jokefest. It almost feels like a return to the older days of Eurovision, where most songs blended together or had something annoying about them, and only two or three stood out. In this case it was more like four or five, because the contest has gotten bigger. The good thing about these types of years is that the songs that stand out really stand out. This year, the best examples were Portugal, Serbia, and Spain. Screw the haters, “Baila el Chiki Chiki” is fucking awesome.

The visual design this year is butt ugly compared to 2007. For whatever reason, Verdana was used as the principal font, which is one of those typefaces you see in old 1990’s websites and PowerPoint presentations. This style of design absolutely screams 2000’s, which isn’t inherently a bad thing but I prefer a timeless look.

Let’s try to be a bit more positive. I’ve grown to love the tradition of hosts saying every year “and remember, you cannot vote for your own country” and “vous ne pouvez pas voter pour votre propre pays”. Before 1998, it was “the juries cannot vote for their own country” and “les jurys ne peuvent pas voter pour leur propre pays”. I’ve also become fond of the annual mention of several hundred million people watching.

The interval acts this year have all felt like the old-timey type, before Riverdance became the role model interval act. In the final, the voting was preceded by a small ethnic brassy band playing Serbian wedding songs—again, not the greatest interval act. Later they’re accompanied by dancers painted in red and blue, which brings us full circle to the start of semifinal 1.

The voting sequence was similar to the past two years, but with one helpful addition: there is now a bar at the bottom saying “X of 43 countries voting”. It’s about damn time Eurovision added that! It should’ve been there since 2004. As with 2007, the votes were dominated by eastern Europe—the only exception was Norway at fifth place. That’s because once again, most of the properly competitive entries came from the east, except for Portugal who was robbed so hard. I wish the scoreboard featured 13 countries on the left and 12 on the right, so that Portugal would technically be on the left side of the scoreboard. But alas, it ended up on the right side.

It might have sounded like Dima Bilan said “thank you Belgrade, thank you Ukraine” at the end, but I’m pretty sure he said “thank you, you’re great”.

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See you next time as Eurovision comes to the land of vodka, ballerina dancers, and backwards R’s. Knowing current events, this is going to be bittersweet.

>> 2009 (Semifinals): A Bittersweet Journey to Moscow