Category Archives: Eurovision Posts

Cookie Fonster Re-Critiques Eurovision 1959: The First Winner I Agree With

Posted on by
2

Intro Post

< 1958 Review | 1959 Review | 1960 Review >

Introduction

Since France won Eurovision 1958, they were given the first choice to host the 1959 contest, which they did in the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in the southern coastal city of Cannes. RTF, a broadcaster that hasn’t existed since 1964, put on the most ambitious Eurovision show to this point, and the first one that truly manages to wow me. It’s also the first to feature an opening film: we see guests entering the Palais, then the camera pans up to show the flags of all 11 participant countries in French alphabetical order, starting with l’Allemagne and ending with la Suisse. The UK came back to the contest after skipping 1958 and hasn’t missed a year since. Monaco made their debut as well, but Luxembourg for whatever reason skipped this year.

The show starts with an orchestra playing the Eurovision theme song “Te Deum”, then through a revolving door enters the fabulous host, Jacqueline Joubert. She’s a very charming presenter with excellent diction, so much better than the last two. There are so many nice touches in France’s hosting, like the glamorous orchestral music that plays when Jacqueline shows us the scoreboard, or her saying “good evening, [country]” in each country’s language when the contestants are introduced. The part where all the contestants are introduced is pretty awesome because they’re each revealed on one of three rotating platforms. This introduction scene was long before my birth, yet it amazes me even 66 years later. The intro of the contest was neither too long nor too short—seven minutes was a perfect length.

As with 1958, the only commentary of this show that’s ever been archived is that of the host nation, this time the French commentary. Luckily I’m pretty good at understanding French, so long as it’s not spoken with too much slang.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reanalyzes Eurovision 1958: The First Song to Stand the Test of Time

Posted on by
Reply

Intro Post

< 1957 Review | 1958 Review | 1959 Review >

Introduction

The third Eurovision Song Contest was originally going to be hosted in the United Kingdom, but since the BBC apparently failed to reach an agreement with artistic unions, the EBU had to find another broadcaster to host, and after other broaddcasters declined to host, the Netherlands’ NTS was given the hosting duties. As a nice coincidence, the Netherlands happened to be the winner of the last contest, so in all following years, the EBU gave the most recent winner the first choice of hosting. It’s good that the pattern of the previous winner hosting was established so early, because it gives countries an incentive to send competitive entries. The Netherlands chose to host the show in AVRO Studios in Hilversum. In the old days, it was common for the contest to be hosted in the headquarters of broadcasters.

The United Kingdom dropped out of Eurovision this year, while Sweden made its debut, meaning that Eurovision 1958 has ten entries just like last year. Out of these, the Italian entry became an enormous international hit that even charted in the United States and Canada, but for some reason it only scored third place behind Switzerland and the oft-forgotten winning entry from France.

One more odd fact about this contest: this is the only Eurovision year where the host doesn’t appear at the beginning. Instead, we see a camera shot of the scoreboard set to an orchestral opening act, while the commentators introduced the show. This is the first year of the contest where any country’s commentary has been archived, specifically the Dutch commentary. In fact, Eurovision 1958 has never been archived without commentary as far as I know. The Dutch commentator has very good diction and I find him relatively easy to understand, even though I can’t speak Dutch.

Update: A few weeks after this post, the French commentary of this contest has been archived! However, it starts in the midst of Italy’s entry.

After only a minute and a half, the opening entry begins! The orchestra was very much put front and center in this contest—they even have orchestral transitions between each of the competing entries, a detail I absolutely love.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Re-Judges Eurovision 1957: The Longest and (Former) Shortest Songs

Posted on by
2

Intro Post

< 1956 Review | 1957 Review | 1958 Review >

Introduction

Eurovision 1956 went by without any hitches that I know of: the show ran smoothly and the winner was a song that the audience in Lugano clearly loved. So it’s no wonder that the EBU decided they should do this again in 1957. I have to wonder why the date is so different this time: the first Eurovision was on May 24, whereas the second was on March 3. Maybe the contest was normally supposed to be in March, but the setup of 1956 ran into delays? I wonder if anyone knows the answer. Another mystery is why Frankfurt, Germany was chosen to host the 1957 contest. It’s sometimes believed that the EBU was originally going to rotate hosting duties between all the participating countries, until the next year when the rule was changed so that last year’s winner will host.

All seven countries that participated in Eurovision 1956 came back this year, and three new countries expanded the map: Austria, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. This time, each of the participating countries sent only one song. The show was hosted by a German actress of Armenian descent, whose name is a nightmare to spell: Anaïd Iplicjian. She did the whole show in German, except for the voting sequence which was done in a mix of German, English, and French.

That’s right, this is the first ever Eurovision contest to feature a live voting sequence. The EBU got this idea from the BBC, which ran a TV show from May to October 1956 called the Festival of British Popular Songs. This festival was heavily criticized for the low quality of the songs, but the voting sequences were seen as very entertaining, since they featured the host calling representatives of jury members throughout the UK to deliver their points. So the EBU copied this exact idea into Eurovision 1957. Personally I think Eurovision should’ve had the juries in person back then, because the show often ran overtime with many different types of voting mishaps. But the tradition of the host calling juries on the phone soon became one of the most iconic parts of Eurovision—so much that when the EBU tried an in-person voting system starting 1971, they went back to the host calling each country by phone just three years later.

The voting system of 1957 was simple: each country had ten jury members who could each give a vote to one song, so long as it wasn’t from their own country. I like this system personally: it’s very transparent and no-nonsense. But unfortunately, this system didn’t last too long, probably because some of the hosts and spokespersons didn’t get the numbers right. Even though it should be very easy—it’s really not that hard to make sure numbers add up to ten.

This contest was supposed to have a length rule limiting songs to three and a half minutes, but for whatever reason, the EBU didn’t actually enforce it, which led to a controversial Italian entry. Another new change is that duet performers were now allowed, but only one country chose to do that and their song also has a bit of controversy.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Re-Reviews Eurovision 1956: Let’s Begin Round Two!

Posted on by
5

< Intro Post | 1956 Review | 1957 Review >

Introduction

OK, so… I just got fired from my job shortly before my one-year anniversary. And while I apply for new ones, I need to find something to do during the cracks in the day. Since I’m done with all the 2025 national final reviews I wanted to write, I’ll do what my heart wants and restart my Eurovision blog post series! And do other projects when I need a break from this, like my large number site. The main change in round 2 of my Eurovision blog is: this time I will rank all the songs per year. I wasn’t up for the task of ranking all the songs in round 1, because I was getting to know most of these songs for the first time, but now I’m ready to rank.

In case you aren’t aware of how Eurovision came to be: shortly after they were founded in 1950, the European Broadcasting Union wanted to make a collaborative telvision program between multiple countries. All the European countries speak different languages, but the one language they all can understand is music. The EBU took inspiration from Italy’s annual Sanremo Music Festival, which began in 1951 and was first broadcast on television in 1955, and adapted its format into a competition between multiple countries. Italy sent the winner and runner-up of the Sanremo Festival to Eurovision this year.

Now to recap the basic facts about this contest: seven countries participated—the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Italy—and each of them sent not one, but two songs. Some countries sent the same artist singing two songs, others sent two different singers. Switzerland was given the duty of hosting in their Italian-speaking city Lugano, and most people believe that was because they’re closest to the center of the competing nations. In the early years, the show was hosted in the host city’s language, so the contest was presented entirely in Italian by the TV host Lohengrin Filipello. Luckily, his diction in Italian is very clear and easy to understand for those familiar with at least one Romance language, as is the case for me with French.

Switzerland sent Lys Assia to sing two songs, one in German and one in French, and her francophone song “Refrain” won the contest. Some people suspect that the only reason Switzerland won was because back then there was no rule against voting for your own country, and Switzerland had the extra boost of Luxembourg hiring Swiss citizens as their jurors. But this is nothing more than a theory, because the voting results of 1956 are lost to the sands of time. Plus, the huge applause at the end of “Refrain” is evidence against this theory. Also lost to time is the video footage of that year (except for Lys Assia’s winner reprise), and apparently even one of the interval acts. Luckily, we have audio footage of all 14 competing songs, which I’ll start reviewing right now!

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Festival da Canção 2025: The Angry Rock Song Should’ve Won

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

Now comes the third and last national final for me to review this year: Festival da Canção 2025, a three-week competition to determine which song will represent Portugal in Eurovision 2025. Festival da Canção, FdC for short, is one of the oldest Eurovision national finals, having begun in 1964. It’s as big of a deal to the Portuguese as the Sanremo Festival is to the Italians, or Melodifestivalen to the Swedes. I won’t go into the full history of FdC here, but just know that even though it’s a long-running tradition in Portugal, after years of sending songs that no one really cared about, the contest was completely reinvented in 2017, and that’s how FdC as we know it today began.

This national selection consists of two semifinals (February 22, March 1) and a final on March 8. The semifinals consist of ten songs each, then six from each make it to the grand final. This means I have 20 songs in total to review: 19 fully in Portuguese, and just one in English.

I didn’t watch the semifinals live and instead watched them starting on March 2, right after I finished my review of the German national final. I wanted to start watch the final live, but I was so absolutely amazed at the song that won Melodifestivalen that I couldn’t watch FdC right afterwards, plus I had other shit to do. So instead, I started watching the final on a day I was sick, March 11, then finished it on another sick day three days later.

Continue reading →

Eurovision Side Post: Changes to My List of Winners (early 2025 edition)

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

When I review Eurovision 2025, probably a few weeks to a month after the contest ends, I’ll have quite a few changes to my list of winners per year. But instead of going through the changes one by one in my 2025 review, I’ll discuss them now in a fun little side post. Then when I release my review of 2025, I’ll link to this post near the end.

Starting about five months ago, I’ve been putting Eurovision songs (among others) into my Spotify playlist, which I mostly put on while I’m driving, because when I’m on the computer, I prefer deciding on my own what music to put on. Thanks to this playlist, there are some Eurovision songs I’ve started to love more and more (e.g. “Disco Tango” from 1979, “No No Never” from 2006, “Með hækkandi sól” from 2022), and others that I gradually became tired of (e.g. “SloMo” from 2022, “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” from 2024). You’ll find more examples from both categories throughout this post. There’s also a few that I have always loved and will never stop loving the fuck out of (e.g. “La dolce vita” from 1989, “Alcohol Is Free” from 2013, “Europapa” from 2024).

My previous list of winners per year can be found near the end of my 2024 review, Ctrl-F “Who’s my favorite?”. I’ll discuss each of the winners I retconned, then present the updated list.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Chefsache ESC 2025: German-Language Music Does Exist!

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

Now the time has come for me to review the German national final for Eurovision 2025. It’s titled Chefsache ESC 2025: Wer singt für Deutschland? (Top Priority ESC 2025: Who will sing for Germany?) and it’s organized by none other than Stefan Raab, a German TV host and musician who came back to the screen in 2024 after seven years working only behind the stage. Among Eurovision fans, he’s most famous for organizing the German selection in 2010 which led to their second victory. He has a long history in Eurovision but hadn’t been involved in the contest since 2012. Most of Germany’s entries since then have been boring as hell and got bad results, so the more years passed, the more fans wanted Stefan Raab back in Eurovision. He’s back to Eurovision at long last and he says at every opportunity that his goal is for his country to win Eurovision.

Several of Stefan Raab’s decisions in this show have been questioned among fans. For one thing, the show consists of two heats, a semifinal, and a final, but in the heats the contestants didn’t sing their competing songs. Instead, they all sang covers of other popular songs or their older songs, and the juries selected who should make it to the final based on those performances. Additionally, the jury consists of only four people per show: Stefan Raab himself, his TV co-host Elton who is a music lover but doesn’t make music himself, the German singer Yvonne Catterfeld, and a different fourth jury member each show. The juries eliminate contestants in the heats and semifinal, and in the final, only the televoters decide who wins. No wait, that was changed a few days before the final, so that the juries now eliminate further down to five last songs. That’s pretty annoying because I had mentally prepared myself for a fully televote final.

I tried watching the heats live (February 14 and 15), but the covers weren’t very interesting to me, mostly just renditions of American and British pop songs. I think this was an idea that Stefan Raab insisted on, and the rest of his team didn’t question him at all because they trust every single idea he has. I was going to watch the semifinal live the next Saturday (February 22), but unfortunately that day I had to put down one of my cats. So instead, I watched the semifinal the day after—a good way to take my mind off the heartbreak of losing a pet.

The shows were all hosted by a familiar name to German Eurovision fans: Barbara Schöneberger, who hosted most of the German national finals of the past decade and seems to be the only holdover from the slop pop fests that were the last few German selections. She’s a TV and radio host from Munich, and my mom happens to be a fan of hers because of her observant humor and ability to improvise.

In this post, I won’t review the covers from the heats, nor will I split the songs between non-qualifiers and qualifiers like I did in my Supernova review. Instead, I’ll review the fourteen competing songs in their order from the semifinal, then discuss the show as a whole.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Supernova 2025: An Ethnic Choir Won My Heart

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

It’s now time for me to review my first national final of the year! I’m not going to watch all of the national selections, oh no, nowhere close. But there’s a few I have planned to watch (see this post) and Latvia’s is one of them! I don’t know much about the prior Latvian selections, but I do know that this one has a higher than usual portion of songs in Latvian (5 out of 20 fully in Latvian,* 2 in a mix of English and Latvian), which is really cool because I know very little about the language and look forward to getting more acquainted with it. I also know that Latvia got a big confidence boost in Eurovision after Dons brought them to the grand final for the first time since 2016, which is why I chose to watch this selection.

Supernova 2025 was originally going to have 20 songs compete, but “Monster” by Grēta was withdrawn because the singer was sick. The semifinal took place on February 1, and ten songs qualified to the grand final on February 8. I’m not just going to review the songs, but I’ll also rank them with a list at the end! I plan to do this for every Eurovision-related blog post I do from here on out.

Spoiler alert: there’s one song from the selection that I immediately fell in love with the moment I first heard it. I have been listening to that song over and over again for the entire past week.

* OK, technically “Ramtai” has a tiny bit of English.

Continue reading →

My plans for pre-show posts on Eurovision 2025

Posted on by
1

In case you guys didn’t know, I will be going to Basel for Eurovision 2025! I’ve already pre-registered for tickets this year, so let’s hope I’m able to get some. Since this is my third time following Eurovision live, my plan was to do something different this year and not spoil myself on any of the songs. But upon further consideration, I’ve decided I will watch a small handful of national finals this Eurovision season, and write blog posts about three of them. This will inevitably mean I will spoil myself on four entries for 2025, and leave myself unspoiled on the other 34.

The first national final I’ll review is Latvia’s Supernova 2025 (semifinal February 1, final Feb 8). The 20 songs for this selection are already out and I’ve heard so many good things them that I figured, why not watch the show live? Dons brought Latvia to the grand final for the first time since 2016, which seemed to give them a big confidence boost for next Eurovision. Their selection has seven songs in Latvian, which is pretty awesome because the last few selections only had one or two each. It’ll be a good way to get acquainted with a language I know very little about.

The second selection for me to review is the big one: Chefsache ESC 2025: Wer singt für Deutschland? Stefan Raab, the man who organized Germany’s selection in 2010 which led Lena to win Eurovision, is back from a nine-year retirement from the TV screen and is intent on giving Germany their third Eurovision victory. I’m absolutely stoked to see what he has cooked up and excited to describe what the national final was like for those who don’t speak German. The heats are on February 14 and 15, the semifinal is on Feb 22, and the final is on March 1.

And the third national final that I’ll review is Portugal’s Festival da Canção (semifinals Feb 22 and Mar 1, final Mar 8). The reason I plan to watch that one is simple: because I trust Portugal. I also plan on watching the final of Sweden’s Melodifestivalen 2025 on March 8, but I don’t plan to write a blog post about it.

I’ve started to really miss writing Eurovision reviews since I finished reviewing the 2024 contest, so these blog posts will be a nice way to continue writing music reviews. Hopefully I can make them interesting even for those who didn’t watch the selections.

Bonus Eurovision Post: My least favorite entry from each country 1956 to 2024

Posted on by
10

Introduction

I’ve wanted to do this post for quite a while after finishing my 2024 review, and it finally occurrent to me to do so on a Tuesday where I woke up much too early. Please enjoy this list of the most horrific song from every country in Eurovision! Most countries have sent at least one song that I hate so much, listening to them makes me want to murder someone. OK, maybe not that far, but punch a wall, throw my computer out the window, destructive stuff like that. I don’t know why these songs make me so angry to listen to, but they do. Some countries have sent multiple rage-inducing entries, so it’ll be a real challenge to find the worst entry from some of them. This post also serves as an excuse to tear into songs which I previously didn’t give the scalding rant they deserved. I won’t include Morocco because they only sent one entry, or Serbia + Montenegro because they only sent two.

See also my two posts about the best song per Eurovision country: 1956-1998, and 1999-2024 (plus overall).

Continue reading →