Intro Post

< 1974 Review | 1975 Review | 1976 Review >

During this quiet season of Eurovision news, I have to admit I said a little “yesssss” when Serbia confirmed they’ll participate in 2024. Why are the former Yugoslav countries so much better at using their own languages than most others?

Introduction

We’ve reached the 20th year of Eurovision! The 1975 contest was the first of six (soon to be seven) Eurovisions hosted in Sweden, and the first of three hosted in its capital: Stockholm. This contest had 19 countries total: all returned from last year, France and Malta rejoined, and Turkey made its debut. Unfortunately, due to Greeks and Turks’ conflict over Cyprus, Greece skipped out this time. For the same reason, Turkey skipped out when Greece rejoined the next year. It took until 1978 for Greeks and Turks to participate in Eurovision together.

Turkey has a mixed history in Eurovision—they scored poorly at first, but their results gradually improved as fans started to enjoy their style of music. Turkey won in 2003 and scored second place in 2010, but their last time participating was in 2012. It’s generally accepted that Turkey’s absence is due to anti-LGBT sentiment in their government, which is a huge tragedy. Aside from this topic, this contest saw the Netherlands win with one of the most beloved 70’s Eurovision songs: Ding-a-Dong. It was the first opening entry to win a Eurovision contest, and the Netherlands’ last victory for 44 years. The UK scored second place, as you’d expect from them. Germany had one of the lowest scoring entries, but today their song is a fan favorite.

Speaking of Germany, I watched the contest with German commentary. The commentator called it the “Eurovision Schlager Wettbewerb” which is so much cooler of a name than what Germans normally call it: the Eurovision Song Contest. I’m now pissed that the name “Eurovision Schlager Wettbewerb” isn’t in common use. It sounds so badass!

The contest’s broadcast opened with a super cheesy wordless skit about the history of Sweden, with blatant green screen effects. Then we get to the show itself! It was the first Eurovision where the presenter dominantly spoke English over the host country’s native language. There was also the obligatory French, of course. The contest featured postcards where each contestant painted themselves holding their country’s flag, which is rather cute. One more thing: this was the first contest to feature the “12, 10, 8 to 1 points for each country’s top 10 songs” voting system that’s been consistently used (with some variation) to this day.