Tag Archives: ethnic music

Cookie Fonster Makes Sense of Eurovision 2025 (Final): My New Favorite Year

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Intro Post

< 2025 Semifinals | 2025 Final

Almost two weeks after the grand final, and my review of Eurovision 2025 is finished! Warning: it’s long as hell.

Introduction

My new favorite year, you say? Yes, indeed so. The song lineup of Eurovision 2025 is nothing short of spectacular: out of 37 songs, there are ten that I’ve given a 9/10 or higher, 17 that I’ve scored an eight or higher, and 23 that are at least a seven. Only eight songs this year are below a five (songs I neither like nor dislike). As is usual in Eurovision, most but not all of the right songs qualified, and thankfully the Big Five and host all sent honest efforts, which makes this an exceptionally good grand final. The one problem: the results of the grand final absloutely fucking sucked.

I usually list the top three in the intro of my Eurovision final posts, but this time it’ll make me feel better to list the top five. The fifth place was predictable enough: Italy with yet another male ballad, but it was more likable than their usual ballads for reasons I’ll discuss later. Now in fourth place came the song I wanted to win: “Bara bada bastu” by KAJ, the first Swedish Eurovision entry to actually be sung in Swedish since 1998. Fourth place would normally be a good result, but it’s a cruel joke when you look at the actual top three.

The third place is incomprehensible to me: a joke entry from Estonia with as little musical merit as “Irelande Douze Pointe” or “Flying the Flag (for You)”. Israel sent a sequel to last year’s “Hurricane” and ran another massive ad campaign, which got them a terrifyingly close second place and even a televote win. I will rant about them exploiting Eurovision soon enough. And as for the winner, the juries think that opera vocals automatically make a song good, so they boosted “Wasted Love” of all fucking songs to the top and gave Austria their third victory. That song winning was a nightmare scenario for me already, but the other top three made for a worse nightmare than I could possibly conceive of.

Now the good news is, aside from the top three, almost every entry in the grand final has something to like about it. In fact, there are so goddamn many songs worth swooning over, I’m not prepared and neither are you. And plus, I am absolutely over the moon about my country’s entry: Germany finally sent a song in German for the first time since 2007, and a great one at that! That might end up being the longest review in the post, but we’ll see soon enough.

And now to discuss the opening of the show, which I watched live in the St. Jakob-Park football stadium for a public viewing, seated next to my mom and her friend. My mother only joined me for Eurovision on the day of the final, just so you know. The show begins with a hilarious video skit where the three presenters realize the trophy hasn’t arrived yet and debate over what to do. As the most comedic of the hosts, Hazel offers to make a trophy from her water bottle and aluminum foil, then drops it and says “at least it doesn’t break”. I love this little jab at Nemo breaking the Eurovision trophy last year so much. Then the trophy goes on an epic journey to the Eurovision stage, soon to be delivered by Nemo themself in the hopes it doesn’t get broken. The entire opening film is humorous, yet it amazes me with the production at the same time.

The opening act is your usual abridged rehash of “The Code” (sure, why not). Then comes the flag parade, set to a medley of dancey Swiss hits and some kickass percussionists. Everyone in the parade is carrying just one or two big flags, but they’re all having fun doing it and many of their personalities shine through. The goofy brothers from Iceland, proud and confident Erika from Finland, the classy guitarists from Italy, modest Zoë from Switzerland, it goes on. And finally enter not two, but three hosts: Hazel Brugger and Sandra Studer from the semifinals, now joined by Michelle Hunziker. No Swiss-hosted contest is complete without a quick introduction in all of Switzerland’s languages, so the hosts do that and then present us the second audience in the football stadium.

For this blog post, I watched the grand final with German commentary done by Thorsten Schorn. My German grandma said she found the commentary on the grand final hilarious, so let’s hope she’s right!

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

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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.

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Cookie Fonster’s Eurovision 2003 Deep Dive: An Ultra-Narrow Three-Way Battle

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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.

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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Cookie Fonster Learns About Eurovision 1997: Foreshadowing the Bonkers Era

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Intro Post

< 1996 Review | 1997 Review | 1998 Review >

Today, Slovenia confirmed that their Eurovision entry in 2024 will be sung in Slovenian for the third year in the row. France already released their entry, which is entirely in French, and I’d be very surprised if Marina Satti doesn’t sing in Greek. Why, in the name of all things holy, can’t Germany be like this???

Right after I published this post, the full list of participating countries for 2024 was released, even though Romania is still up in the air. I suppose the EBU decided that once they reached 37 participants, the same number as 2023, they’d go “screw it, let’s release the list already”.

Introduction

“The Irish pretend they don’t want to win this. Ahh, it’s too expensive! Ahh, we’re fed up with it! I’m Irish too, and don’t believe a word of it. The Irish love winning this, they love having it here.” As shown by the dramatic opening film, Terry Wogan’s words ring truer than ever.

Eurovision 1997 took place in Dublin, Ireland at the Point Theatre for one last time. This time, they went for a smaller stage, presumably so it wouldn’t seem like the same building. The contest featured two major changes to the rules. First, entries were now allowed to be sung entirely over a backing track without needing mimed instruments on stage, which was the biggest and last blow to the orchestra before it was abolished entirely. Second, five countries got their points from televoting for the first time: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. This was a trial round before almost all countries adopted televoting in 1998.

This time, the relegation system worked a bit differently: countries were allowed in based on their average scores from 1993 to 1996, which is still kind of a dumb system. It would take until 2004 for Eurovision to stop punishing countries for their previous low scores. Fortunately, the number of participants was bumped up to 25, which meant five countries returned (Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia) and only three were relegated (Belgium, Finland, Slovakia). This was Italy’s first appearance in Eurovision since 1993, and their last until 2011.

Fun fact: This was the first year where Peter Urban commentated for Germany, which he did up to 2023 (except in 2009). Unfortunately, I don’t like his commentary style. He sounds very monotone, like he’s reading from a script. So instead, I watched it with British commentary—fitting because the UK won for the most recent time. Buckle up, my dear readers: we’re almost done with the native language era of Eurovision.

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Cookie Fonster Muses Over Eurovision 1995: A Surprising Amount of Jazzy Songs

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Intro Post

< 1994 Review | 1995 Review | 1996 Review >

A few days ago, Eurovision confirmed that “United by Music”, the slogan of the 2023 contest, would now be the contest’s permanent slogan. If you think that takes away the heart and soul of the contest, then I’m sorry, that’s completely ridiculous. The slogans are one of the least interesting parts of the contest’s planning anyway.

Introduction

Man, I really miss when Eurovision started with the host broadcaster logo surrounded by “Eurovision” in a circle. The contest stopped doing that in 1994 and instead emphasized the Eurovision network logo. In my personal opinion, that is so much less cool.

After hosting the last contest in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, RTÉ saw no reason to change the location in 1995. They took an approach of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, though they did revamp the stage design so that the contest would feel fresh. I actually kind of hate the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, because people usually use it to complain about change, but the saying applies in this case.

For this contest, the EBU decided 25 countries was too many and changed the limit to 23. This meant five countries returned (Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Slovenia, Turkey) and seven were relegated (Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland). For now, Germany was the last remaining country with perfect attendance. The most famous entry is easily the winner, “Nocturne” from Norway, notable for being mostly an instrumental piece. It gave Ireland a year-long break from hosting Eurovision.

Hosted by Mary Kennedy, this was the last contest with a solo presenter until 2013 with the legendary Petra Mede. I watched the contest with German commentary by Horst Senker.

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Cookie Fonster Gazes into Eurovision 1993 + KzM: Accommodating the Eager Newbies

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Intro Post

< 1992 Review | 1993 Review | 1994 Review >

Just warning you: this is by far my longest Eurovision review so far. It would still be my longest if I didn’t review Preselection for Millstreet. Read at your own risk!

Introduction

Eurovision 1993 was an unusual year for two major reasons. First off, it was the first year to have a semifinal, but it wasn’t the kind of semifinal we know today. The EBU had raised the maximum number of Eurovision participants to 25, and since Yugoslavia was banned from the competition, three slots were open for newcoming countries. Seven countries, all former communist regimes or parts of one, were interested in joining the contest, so a semifinal was hosted in Ljubljana, Slovenia to narrow them down to three. That event was called Preselection for Millstreet (known in Slovenian as Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, KzM for short). When you think about it, it’s a bit like Eurovision 1956: seven countries participated in it and the competition had an unconventional format by today’s standards.

Three countries made it through the preselection: Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The other four got to debut in 1994. As the semifinal’s name suggests, the contest would not be held in Dublin like all other times Ireland got to host, but in the miniscule 1,500-person village of Millstreet. It’s all thanks to an entrepreneur who offered to host Eurovision in the Green Glens Arena for free. He believed that the contest would boost tourism in Millstreet, and he was right! Because Millstreet is so tiny, the nearby cities of Killarney and Cork hosted additional events promoting Eurovision. This means that in a sense, Eurovision 1993 took place in four cities: three in Ireland, one in Slovenia.

The 1993 contest was once again dominated by Anglophones, with Ireland on top and the UK second. In third place was Switzerland, with the last entry in French to reach the top three until 2021. It was also the last time Luxembourg participated until 2024—the longest Eurovision hiatus a country has ever taken.

I watched the semifinal with Slovenian commentary. Even though I can’t understand a word of it (barring loanwords), Slovenia’s last two Eurovision entries (Disko, Carpe Diem) have given me a soft spot for their language. The semifinal was broadcast in all seven participating countries plus five others, but most of their commentary is nowhere to be found. As for the final, I went for German commentary by Jan Hofer—I figured I’d give his commentary a chance.

I’ll start by reviewing the entries eliminated in KzM, then give overall thoughts on the semifinal, and finally review the 25 songs from the contest proper. This should be an interesting year, so let’s begin!

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Cookie Fonster’s Eurovision 1992 Commentary: Anglophone Bias to the Extreme

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Intro Post

< 1991 Review | 1992 Review | 1993 Review >

Introduction

Eurovision 1992 completed the trio of major cities in Sweden by taking place in Malmö, the same city that hosted in 2013 and will host in 2024. It had more participating countries than ever before, at a whopping 23. This included every country that had ever participated, except for Monaco and Morocco… though Yugoslavia wasn’t quite the same country as last year. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and (North) Macedonia had all seceded, and the next year, what remained of Yugoslavia was banned from the competition until 2004.

This contest is best known for Johnny Logan’s third victory for Ireland, but this time only as a composer. Just like 1984, Linda Martin sang a composition of Johnny Logan’s, but this time, she won with a power ballad called “Why Me?” Power ballads are going to score highly throughout the 1990’s, so be warned. As the post’s title suggests, this is the first contest where the top three songs were all in English, and that sets another recurring theme of 90’s Eurovision. As more new countries poured into the contest, the juries became more and more biased towards English until the language rule was abolished.

YES, they brought back the orchestral arrangements of last year’s winners at the start! I missed that so much!!! The opening orchestral music transitioned into a jazzy arrangement of “Fångad av en stormvind”, which made me smile. I was expecting the contest to be presented dominantly in English with a bit of French, so I was surprised the hosts spoke this much Swedish. Though if I didn’t know better, I might have mistaken it for Danish because of those guttural R’s.

I wanted a break from Terry Wogan, so I watched the contest with Austrian commentary this time. Ernst Grissemann is by far my favorite of the German-speaking commentators I have heard.

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Cookie Fonster Annotates Eurovision 1991: Possibly the Most Controversial Year

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Intro Post

< 1990 Review | 1991 Review | 1992 Review >

Introduction

Here’s something that I think is important when picking Eurovision hosts: they should be properly fluent in multiple languages. There’s a difference between being able to speak a language and being fluent in it. For instance, I would say that I am fluent in English and German, whereas I can speak French but am not fluent in it. Lill Lindfors (1985) and Åse Kleveland (1986) both did a fantastic job presenting in multiple languages—Lill in six to my memory, Åse only in two.

Unfortunately, RAI (the Italian broadcaster) seemed more interested in showing off their winners than picking qualified presenters. They chose both of Italy’s previous winners: Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno. They presented the contest almost entirely in Italian and when they had to speak other languages, they were very clumsy and stilted. They even put as much Italian as they could into the voting, even though the votes could only be given in English or French.

This isn’t the only way the contest reeked of self-indulgence. Both presenters sang their winning songs at the start* and the postcards featured each contestant singing an Italian song. I actually like that the postcards focus on the country’s music rather than scenery, but they were still overly eager to showcase Italy.

I’ll keep the rest brief, or else this introduction would go on way too long. Host city: Rome, Italy (was originally going to be Sanremo). Country count: 22. Returning country: Malta, because the Netherlands skipped. Winner: Sweden, although France tied numerically. Commentary: British.** Voting mishaps: Tons. Presenting mishaps: Plenty. Controversies caused by the winner: You bet.

* The duet rendition of “Non ho l’età” is actually rather nice.

** The only upload of British commentary I could find was on archive.org and stretched to a 16:9 aspect ratio, which drives me crazy. So crazy, in fact, that I made my own video file putting the British audio over unstretched footage of the Belgian Dutch commentary. It took hours to export.

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Cookie Fonster’s Eurovision 1990 Retrospective: The Year of Songs About Europe

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Intro Post

< 1989 Review | 1990 Review | 1991 Review >

After Belgium and Cyprus, Greece today was the third country to choose their singer for Eurovision 2024: Marina Satti, a singer of ethno-pop music who some fans have wanted in Eurovision for years. Going by her discography, she’ll most likely send a song in Greek, which is exciting!

Introduction

“And welcome to the 32nd running of the Eurovision Song Stakes. Songs from 22 countries, vying to be the one to carry off the Grand Prix, and then never to be heard of again.” Oh, how I missed Terry Wogan’s British commentary.

Just as Monaco is the only country to win Eurovision but never host it, Croatia is the only country to host it but never win. Yugoslavia was still a country back then, but the contest took place in Zagreb (the Croatian capital), the presenters were both Croatian, and the intro film and most of the postcards took place in present-day Croatia. Perhaps that’s an omen for Yugoslavia’s imminent collapse? Furthermore, the contest featured a mascot designed by a Croatian animator called Eurocat.

This contest featured the exact same 22 countries as 1987 and 1989. Malta wanted to rejoin the contest, but the limit of countries was capped at 22. Luckily, Malta would get that chance next year when the Netherlands skipped, and they’ve never missed a contest since then. This year had a clear theme among its entries: songs about the huge, sweeping changes going on in Europe. Communist regimes were dismantled one by one, the Berlin Wall collapsed, and the lid holding Yugoslavia together was soon to burst. The former communist countries weren’t interested in joining just yet, but in 1993, they would start pouring in. Italy won the contest for the second of three times, having sent a song about the anticipation of European unity.

Although this contest was the first to require the contestants to be 16 years or older, the UK technically sent a 15-year-old to the contest. That was apparently allowed because she would turn 16 later in the year. Otherwise, I don’t have much to say about the contestants, so let’s begin!

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