Intro Post

< 2004 Semifinal | 2004 Final | 2005 Semifinal >

Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2004 featured 24 countries that can be split into three groups: the Big Four, the top ten non-Big Four countries from 2003, and the top ten countries from the 2004 semifinal. The running order of the first two groups was determined before the semifinal, so the qualifiers were slotted into the remaining spots.

All 36 countries that participated in the contest televoted in this year’s final, even Monaco which used a backup jury in the semifinal. It was the only grand final in Eurovision history where all the points came from televoters. Ukraine won the contest for the first of three times, Serbia and Montenegro (S+M) made a strong debut with second place, and Greece scored third place for the second time. The top three countries all came from the semifinal, and the bottom three were all automatic qualifiers. This makes sense because the semifinal filtered out the less popular songs while the automatic qualifiers had no such filter.

As an opening act, Sertab Erener performed the reliable combo of last year’s winner and her latest single. I still far prefer the orchestral rearrangements of the previous winner, but this opening act reminds us that Sertab’s career has shined bright since winning the contest.

I won’t lie, I’ve started to warm up to Peter Urban’s commentary. He still sounds like he’s reading from a script at times, but he does what he needs to as a commentator and provides plenty of trivia and side remarks. Maybe that’s why he stuck around as the German commentator for so long. I already discussed the history behind this contest in my semifinal post, so there’s not much else to say—let’s get on with the songs!