Tag Archives: eurovision 2015

Cookie Fonster Documents Eurovision 2015 (Final): Songs Overly Reliant on Their Messages

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Intro Post

< 2015 Semifinals | 2015 Final | 2016 Semifinals >

Sorry this post took so long! My work schedule got abruptly changed and that threw me off for a good few days as I had to reshuffle my daily schedule. But boy is it worth finishing this post. Even if this isn’t the most exciting year, I think you guys will enjoy it!

Introduction

Vienna, Austria had the honor of hosting the largest Eurovision final in history, with a whopping 27 countries—just one less than the 2007 semifinal. The final featured the ten qualifiers from the respective semifinals, the usual Big Five and host, and as a 60th anniversary guest, Australia automatically qualified. Australian fans had the special right to vote in both semifinals this year, just as rest of the world voters have since 2023. Australia’s presence in Eurovision is really funny because fans at first thought it was stupid that the EBU let Australia keep participating, but now they happily welcome the land down under.

Aside from the usual France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, only three countries didn’t sing in English: Finland, Montenegro, and Romania. Finland didn’t qualify, which means that Montenegro had the only song in the final not in English or a Romance language. I won’t like this lack of linguistic diversity the next few years, but the good news is, 2018 onwards will be refreshing.

The top three this year were reliable power players: Italy third with a characteristic Italian tune, Russia second with a controversial peace anthem, and at the top came Sweden with a name that some Eurovision fans are tired of seeing all the time: Måns Zelmerlöw. The bottom four were all automatic qualifiers: the UK, France, and sharing zero points, Austria and Germany. Knowing these results, I’m surprised the EBU didn’t let the Big Five perform in the semifinals sooner; we saw in 2024 that it benefits them so much. As usual, we’ll see for ourselves whether these poor results are deserved.

I feel like ORF (the host broadcaster) decided to include every single idea of theirs in the opening act this year, which is why it takes a whopping 20 minutes till the first song begins. That is way too long in my opinion. I watched the grand final with British commentary, together with my friend Liv.

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Cookie Fonster Documents Eurovision 2015 (Semifinals): The Nadir of Linguistic Diversity

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Intro Post

< 2014 Final | 2015 Semifinals | 2015 Final >

Here is my first Eurovision post after coming back home from Eurovision 2024! And here’s my post about my Eurovision trip in case you missed it.

Introduction

Just like last time Austria hosted Eurovision, which was way back in 1967, Eurovision 2015 took place in Vienna. Five other Austrian cities were in the running to host, but they had only one potential venue each whereas Vienna had seven. It makes sense that after almost 50 years without hosting Eurovision, Austria once more went for its capital.

Three countries returned this year, one skipped, and one made its debut, adding up to 40 participants. Cyprus and Serbia returned after skipping 2014, the Czech Republic returned for the first time since 2009, and Ukraine skipped out due to the war in Crimea. Four other countries that would later return were absent this year: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Luxembourg. Most notably, after years of foreshadowing, the newest addition to the family entered Eurovision: none other than Australia. Since Australia qualified directly to the finals this year, I’ll talk more about their presence in the next post. For now, in case you didn’t know, Australia was originally intended to be a one-time guest for the contest’s 60th edition.

Austria went for an all-female trio of presenters with hard-to-spell names: Mirjam Weichselbraun, Alice Tumler, and Arabella Kiesbauer. The previous winner Conchita Wurst served as the green room host. 2014 to 2017 are the “almost everyone sings in English” years—are you ready for the second of them? I’m kind of not, but at least the language diversity ramps up in 2018. We begin with the 13 non-qualifiers, all but two of which are in English.

This is the first year to feature interviews with the automatically qualifying contestants during the semifinals, an attempt at redeeming the Big Five’s disadvantage that didn’t work very well. The contest implemented a much better solution in 2024, by having the Big Five and host perform in the semifinals.

I watched the semifinals by myself with German commentary. Not Austrian German, as fitting as that would’ve been.

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