Tag Archives: eurovision

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’s Eurovision 1994 Rundown: The Interval Act Steals the Show

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Intro Post

< 1993 Review | 1994 Review | 1995 Review >

We got the first confirmed Eurovision entry early this time, before even the list of participating countries: “Mon amour” for France. It’s a nice song that blends classic and modern styles, but its score will come down to how well it’s staged.

Also, I’m telling you in advance: the contests from 2004 onwards will get two posts each. One for the semifinals, where I review the non-qualifiers and the presentation of the semifinals, and one for the final.

Introduction

I was originally going to call this post “ireland op plz nerf” before I settled on something less ridiculous. After being the fourth country to win Eurovision twice in a row, Ireland became the first to host twice in a row and put on Eurovision 1994 in Dublin. When the contest ended, Ireland became the only country to win three times in a row and the first to win six times.

Despite the repetition in the contest’s winners, the lineup of countries was way different from last time. This was the first Eurovision to use a relegation system to limit the number of participants: the seven lowest-scoring countries from last year were locked out to make way for newcomers, at least in theory. Cyprus, the seventh lowest-scoring country, got lucky because Italy willfully quit the contest. This means that seven countries didn’t return from 1993 (Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Turkey) and seven joined for the first time (Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia).

The relegation system doesn’t seem fair to me and I’m guessing it’s what drove Italy and Luxembourg away from Eurovision. It also broke Belgium’s perfect attendance, leaving only Switzerland and Germany as having attended every year… for now. The newcomers were a lot more successful than last year; Poland even got second place, by far their best result to date. On the other hand, Lithuania’s first entry got zero points and they didn’t return until 1999.

An interesting fact about one of the hosts: Cynthia Ní Mhurchú originally worked as an Irish language teacher. It shows with how confidently she spoke Irish on stage, and because she looks like a teacher. A sad fact about the other host: Gerry Ryan died in 2010, at only 53 years old, to the shock of his entire country.

The most famous thing part of this contest was actually the interval act. It was a folk dance performance called “Riverdance” and it’s perhaps the best known Eurovision interval act, rivaled only by “Love Love Peace Peace” in 2016. I’m quite excited for it! Oh yeah, I watched the contest with British commentary.

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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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Cookie Fonster’s Stances Concerning Eurovision 1989: Revisiting the Contest’s Birthplace

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< 1988 Review | 1989 Review | 1990 Review >

Introduction

The final Eurovision of the 1980’s was the only year the contest returned to the country where it began: Switzerland. This time, it was hosted in the city of Lausanne. It had the same lineup of countries as 1987: every country that had ever participated except the three that start with M.

This contest featured the only victory of Yugoslavia, three years before the country’s collapse, and thus the only victory of a country that no longer exists. This puts Croatia in a strange position where they haven’t officially won the contest, but a band of theirs won for the country they used to be part of, and the contest took place in their capital the next year. This also happens to be the last contest with singers under 16 years old—two of them, in fact. The presence of preteen singers was highly controversial, so the next contest introduced the age rule. If that wasn’t enough, it’s the last contest where the final song performed won.

Fortunately, this should be the last contest for quite a while where finding commentary is a pain in the ass. I could only find it with Spanish commentary, so that’s what I’m watching. I also have an uncommentated version in higher quality so that I can better judge the songs. I know I don’t have to watch it with commentary, but postcards without anyone talking over them just feel so wrong. Plus, no matter which language the commentators speak, I can always tell when they (for example) mention ABBA or list the five singers who won for Luxembourg.

I have to say, I’m not a big fan of the previous winner singing their winning song at the start (which was also done in 1988). I liked it better when the contest opened with a reimagined orchestration of the previous winner. Plus, I didn’t come here to watch Celine Dion promote her new song, I came here to watch Eurovision! Anyway, the duo of Swiss presenters mostly hosted this contest in French, but they switched to English, German, and Italian a few times. Even a bit of Romansh, if I’m not mistaken! That is Swiss multilingualism at its finest.

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Cookie Fonster Unearths Eurovision 1988: The Year of Francophone Superstars

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Intro Post

< 1987 Review | 1988 Review | 1989 Review >

Introduction

We’re back to Dublin, Ireland for Eurovision 1988, in the same building as 1981 (the year after last time Johnny Logan won). However, it doesn’t look like the same building at all! It’s dark inside and the stage is surrounded by walls displaying a computer screen, much like 21st century Eurovision. This contest had almost the same lineup as last time, except Cyprus withdrew because their entry broke the rules. If Cyprus hadn’t skipped, we would’ve had the same 22 countries participate four years in a row.

Another way this contest resembles modern Eurovision is that it has multiple presenters. From 1957 to 1987, most contests had one female presenter; from 1988 to 2008, the norm was instead one man and one woman; and from 2009 onwards, most contests had three or four presenters. From this year on, the only solo presenters were in 1993, 1995, and 2013. As for this contest, the presenters introduced it in Irish, French, and English in order. The female presenter’s French has the weirdest Irish accent I’ve ever heard. She overenunciates the R’s and pronounces “bienvenue” as “pianvenue”, with a heavily aspirated P. After the introductions, the presenters made a lot of jokes throughout the show, with a much heavier saturation than the subtle humor of the last few years.

This contest had Switzerland’s second and latest victory, performed by perhaps the second most famous name to come from Eurovision: Celine Dion. Another famous French-speaking singer represented Luxembourg, the legendary Lara Fabian. No French-language song has ever won Eurovision since then. Switzerland beat the UK by only one point, in one of the tensest voting sequences in Eurovision history.

Just like last year, it was very hard to find commentary on this contest because all the uploads on YouTube were blocked. Through extensive research, the only two languages I could find were Greek and Dutch, so I’m gonna settle for Dutch.

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Cookie Fonster’s Journey into Eurovision 1987: An 80’s Fever Dream

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< 1986 Review | 1987 Review | 1988 Review >

Introduction

Hosted in Belgium for the first and only time, Eurovision 1987 had quite a lot of drama behind its production. Two broadcasters had agreed to organize Eurovision together in the event Belgium won: the Dutch-speaking BRT (now called VRT), and the French-speaking RTBF. However, when the time came for them to team up, they were as good at cooperation as a nerd and a jock assigned to do a high school chemistry project. When the French-speaking broadcaster chose Brussels as the host city, the Dutch-speaking broadcaster threw their hands up and left RTBF to organize it alone, while BRT chose the Belgian entry. If you want to see two broadcasters successfully collaborating, you’d have to wait until 2023.

This contest had the largest lineup of countries so far: Greece and Italy returned after skipping last year, making for 22 countries total. All countries that had ever participated in Eurovision were present this year, except Monaco, Malta, and Morocco. This is an intimidatingly long contest, almost as big as a Eurovision final in the current era. The winner was the first person to win Eurovision twice: Johnny Logan, representing Ireland. The postcards are themed upon what comes to most people’s minds when they think of Belgium: Belgian comic strips.

Annoyingly, this is another year where due to one particular song (glares intensively at Spain), you can’t find many commentary uploads on YouTube, and most of them are of terrible quality. So, um, I guess I’m watching it with Swedish commentary this time. The video description contains a link to the full unabridged Swedish commentary in good quality, so I’ll use that. I won’t be able to understand the commentary, but I’ve at least picked up on a few words from Scandinavian languages by reading translations of their Eurovision entries.

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Cookie Fonster Swoons Over Eurovision 1985: A Dual Veteran Burst of Joy

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Intro Post

< 1984 Review | 1985 Review | 1986 Review >

Introduction

When Sweden gets the chance to host Eurovision, it always comes down to three cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg (Göteborg), and Malmö. Stockholm and Malmö got to host it three times each (including the upcoming 2024 contest), but Gothenburg only in 1985. Greece and Israel returned from last year, but the Netherlands and Yugoslavia skipped, which kept the number of participants at 19 and broke the Netherlands’ perfect attendance.

This contest was hosted by an interesting figure: Lill Lindfors, one of Sweden’s two singers of 1966. She performed one of the strangest Swedish entries in Eurovision, “Nygammal vals”. She also has quite a career in comedy, and we’ll see a lot of her sense of humor throughout this contest, including the most famous thing a Eurovision host ever did on stage. The contest began with way more pleasantries than any year prior: Lill Lindfors first sang a pop song, then introduced Lys Assia (the first winner) as the guest of honor, then went on a lot of tangents before the songs began. Eurovision is truly evolving into modernity!

The winners were also a pair of prior contestants: Hanne Krogh and Elisabeth Andreassen, who gave Norway their surprising first victory. The next two highest were Germany and Sweden, so this was a good year for Germanic countries.

I watched this contest with Austrian commentary by a name whose commentary I’ve watched before: Ernst Grissemann. One thing he does that Terry Wogan doesn’t is that he takes the time to explain the lyrics of every song. Terry Wogan usually just translated the song’s title and made quips about it.

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