696/917 Petra Frey: Für den Frieden der Welt (Austria 1994)

From an established schlager queen to a newcomer who almost ruined her young career with a shaky Eurovision performance. Fortunately Petra Frey and her career recovered from the experience, which even now 21 years after the contest is almost impossible to watch and even more so to listen.

To be fair to Petra Frey, she wasn't really given a good song to go with. The composer Alfons Weindorf had already tried the "song about peace" formula in 1991, when his Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben drowned Germany to the 18th place. Fearlessly he wrote poor Petra Frey equally naive and one dimensional song that was to go nowhere near the success of the more sophisticated songs about peace and unity like the Ein bisschen Frieden (1982) and L'oiseau end l'enfant (1978).

To make matter worse, the performance of young Petra Frey (just about to celebrate her 16th birthday) is not far from disasterous. She starts the song with fearful look and almost unheardable voice and then blasts the refrain with brave face and strained voice that has big difficulties to carry the tune. The song that sounded acceptable in the previews became three minutes of agony that I believed was shared between the audience and the artist herself. Poor Petra, to whom the 17th (among 25  participants) position in the final results must have felt like a relief.

To end this negative post with a more positive way, the career of Petra Frey did not seem to suffer from these three unfortunate minutes on Millstreet stage. With 12 albums and further two attempts to represent Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest she has shown what a persevering trooper she is and how quick the record buying audience in Austria was willing to go on from the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. Not many artists get that chance. To hear and see how well Petra Frey is doing check this performance from 2014.

My points 1/5.

762/917 Celia Lawson: Antes do adeus (Portugal 1997)

Portugal has always been one of the most interesting countries and their entries are eagaerly awaited every year even though the points awarded to the Portuguese entries have seldom correlated with their quality. However, it is obvious that sometimes the bad placing in the score board is justified even for Portugal.

In my opinion, the 1990's was exceptionally strong for Portugal with interesting and appealing entries almost every year. The 1990's awarded Portugal also their so far best result when fresh and fun O meu coração não tem cor sung by Lúcia Moniz climbed to the 6th position in 1996. Two years later my personal favourite, group Alma Lusa got to the respectable (but in my opinion too low) 12th place.

But the song between these two is to me one of the most forgettable Portuguese entries ever. Unfortunately for Portugal the juries (and the televoters who took part in five of the 25 participating countries) were unanimous: No-one was interested and, accordingly, no points at all were given to poor Célia Lawson. It was no confort to her, that the Norwegian singer Tor Endresen suffered the same fate and the last place was shared between Portugal and Norway.

I cannot blame either Ms Lawson or the Juries. She sang well (and was supported by weird backing speaking choir hiding behind dark glasses) and tried to give her all to the song. Juries also did their job well: The song was utterly uninteresting and even though there were even worse songs taking part, I can imagine that at the time of voting not many members of the juries remembered what the song was like.

The blame goes, therefore, to the composer. German born Thilo Krassman was the conductor, who conducted with the smile the portuguese entries in seventies and then again in the nineties. 1997 was the last time that the amiable veteran conducter took part in the Eurovision Song Contest and Antes do adeus was his only composition that took part in the international final. It is sad that he could not end his Eurovision career with a better song and better result.

My points 1/5.

817/917 Times three: Believe in peace (Malta 1999)

I've already told about my troubled relationship with the Maltese Eurovision Song Contest entries. I have wondered where this trouble comes from. I've never been to Malta and I don't know anyone from Malta so I cannot find any other reason for this than that I just don't like their entries (well most of them). The 817th eurosong, which the Random Number Generator unfortunately has drawn me is one of the worst.

There are many things in the Maltese entry in 1999 that makes me search for forward button. The song Believe in peace (what an immaculate and imaginative title!) itself is dull and repetitive and offers no development or climax. The sparse, almost non existent arrangement sounds like no-one has cared to make any substantial effort on it. The three singers are left alone to make an impact with no real song or good backing to help them.

And the impact that Times three makes is hardly convincing. The glittering girls look lost on stage and their nervous smiles reveal that they themselves know that the song is not much to sing but still too difficult for them to keep in tune. Quite a horrendeous experience for the artists surely and the audience for certain.

Still for some reason the song managed to gather 32 points and on 15th position beat many, in my opinion, better songs in the final results. But I doubt that many people remember the song. I at least try hard to forget it again after writing this article.

My points 1/5.

856/917 Gary O'Shaughnessy: Without your love (Ireland 2001)

During its Eurovision history (47 times since 1966) Ireland has been represented by a ballad sung by male singer or singers no less than 19 times (to compare the same number for Finland is five). Staggering 62% of Irish eurovision entries have been ballads. Many of these songs have resulted well and three of those did win the contest altogether. The 856th Eurosong is not one of those.

When the random number generator drew me the Irish entry of 2001, I had hard time remembering which of the many Irish ballads it was. This was one indication that the song was not one of my favourites that year.

After reminding me of the song this proved to be true. The song Without your love was a rather forgettable ballad that didn't stand a chance in the 2001 contest. Gary O'Shaughnessy gives his all, but in his over exited and/or nervous state he struggles to keep his voice in tune. All in all there is nothing much he can do with this unremarkable collection of love song clichés.

And the televoting juries very much agreed. It received only six points and for the first time Ireland was not allowed to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002.

My points 1/5.

181/917 Gianni Mascolo: Guardando il sole (Switzerland 1968)

Eurovision Song Contes entry number 181 is an example of an arrangement gone wrong. A song that sounds ok on record but turns into a nothing on live stage when arranger tries to make the song better than it actually is.

The recorded version of the Swiss entry from 1968 Guardando il sole starts with a distinctive guitar, piano and orchestral riff and the piano is prominent throughout the whole recording where the orchestra is nicely restrained. The recording ends with the same riff that opens the song making the song a well structured piece of entertainment. The composition itself is rather dull Italian ballad, but the arrangement on record manages to make it to an ok track . Unfortunately the single release of the song is so rare, that no good quality rip is available anywhere in the Internet. This is the best I found.

On stage the song is completely restructured and rearranged. The conductor Mario Robbiani is a good and experienced arranger, but he does not succeed in making a mediocre song a good performance, quite the opposite. The live version of Guardando il sole is an orchestral cliché after cliché and as the melody is what it is (or it isn't what it isn't), the Swiss entry is just three minutes of sheer emptiness. The only thing you remember of it is the brave effort by the singer Gianni Mascolo trying to make something out of nothing. It is sad that such a good singer is not given a better song.

On paper an Italian ballad sung by a strong male singer sounds good. But if the song or the arrangement gives you nothing to base your performance on, there is nothing you can do.

My points 1/5.

492/917 Al Bano & Romina Power: Magic oh magic (Italy 1985)

Italy has always been one of my favourite countries in the Eurovision song contest. But they can't always do right. Their 1985 entry failed in almost all aspects to reach the high San Remo standards I was accustomed to. But what did it matter, it still fared rather well in the final results.

Al Bano & Romina Power were an established pop act and the song was crafted by professionals, so everything should have been perfect. Instead the song was dull, repetitive and laboriously arranged. Song starts promisingly but very soon it was evident that it didn't go nowhere.

But the melody or the arrangement were not the worst thing. It seemed, at least to me, that more work had been done to sew the glittering gown of Romina than had been done to rehearse her to sing properly. Maybe it was the excitement (which is unlikely, because the duo had taken part nine years earlier) or maybe she didn't hear the orchestra enough (some other artists seem to have the same problem). Whatever the reason, she barely sung a right note during her solo. To make matters worse, her singing was backed by one of the backing singers, who DID sing in tune making Romina's detuning stand out like a tomato in a vanilla sauce.

Al Bano being a charismatic and skillful singer manages to prevent the performance turn into disaster. His voice and presence is joy to the ear and eye. However, even he cannot save a mediocre tune and a poor performance of his wife.

If you think that I am too harsh on the song, you may be right. At least the juries didn't agree with me as the song was voted seventh among 19 entries. That does not change the fact, that I have never liked the Italian entry from 1985 and probably never will.

My points 1/5.

835/917 Stefan Raab: Wadde hadde dudde da (Germany 2000)

Humor is difficult and in Eurovision almost impossible. Call me a Mr KillJoy, but so far I don't recall any good Eurovision entry that can be called funny. There have been of course numerous unintentionally ridiculous entries during the years, but if the song has been made intentionally to make the audience laugh, they seldom do, at least not me. The first German entry of the new millenium, the song number 835 managed to make some people smile, but I wasn't among them.

Stefan Raab got away with murder in 1998, when his song Guildo hat euch lieb, a pretentious comedy moment sung by "character" Guildo Horn managed to gather enough points for the 9th place. Two years later Raab decided to improve the result by singing himself his own entry, which was even more pretentious.

Raab and his team put on a great show, I don't deny that. Glittering clothes, suggestive choreography, lightning tricks, dashing girls (who would take off some superfluous clothing during the finale in a good Buck's Fizz fashion) and childish lyrics repeating the same phrase over and over again, managed to hide quite well the absence of any substance or even melody in this entry, that I can hardly call a song. The televoting audience seemed to have fun, they voted the song fifth in the final results (among 24 songs competing).

I disagreed violently, hating this "song" from the first time I heard it and after 13 years it hasn't come any better. Luckily this song and the 1998 German entry are not the only things to remember Stefan Raab by. In 2004 he wrote a decent ballad Can't wait until tonight for Germany playing guitar in the backing band. When Germany hosted the contest in 2011, he was one of the competent trio that served as hosts in the contest.

When thinking of Stefan Raab, these two moments are the ones I prefer to his 1998 and 2000 entries, which both deserve the lowest points on my scale.

My points 1/5.

269/917 Ben Cramer: De oude muzikant (Netherlands 1973)

The Eurosong 269 makes me think of the salty sea and the foggy and damp harbour. although the song does not talk about the sealife at all. With the help of translate.google.com I've found out that  De oude muzikant, the Dutch entry from 1973 tells a story about an old grey musician going the streets of Paris and playing accordeon. That's all there is to it, the song itself has nothing much to remember it for.

To get you in the mood, the lights in the Eurovision stage of Luxembourg in 1973 were dimmed for the Dutch entry, sung by Ben Cramer. Unfortunately it didn't help much, as the song is one of the least memorable songs of the 1970's Eurovision song contest.

To make matters worse, the dreadful sound mix of the 1973 contest lost about two thirds of the elaborate string arrangement of the song, all one hear is the singing voice, the bass and the occasional percussion and horns. Even the accordeon, the instrument of de oude muzikant, is barely heard. The song is one of many completely ruined by the sound mixer of the Luxembourg television, who seems to have gone for a two hour long coffee break during the contest.

This song leaves me completely indifferent. The juries seemed to agree, as Ben Cramer reached only the 14 place (of 17 songs taking part).

My points 1/5.

521/917 Datner & Kushnir: Shir habatlanim (Israel 1987)

It is difficult to be funny. It is difficult to be funny in the Eurovision and even more difficult to make a song that sounds funny even after 26 years of the first performance. Israel failed in all accounts in 1987, at least if you ask me. The 521st Eurosong was, is and will be an irritating three minutes which I jump over every time I watch or listen to the Eurovision entries from Israel.

The duo singing the song Shir habatlanim were not really singers, but two actors who came to do what they were commissioned to do. To sing and act this piece, which hardly can be called a song. Datner & Kushnir are not to blame, they use their craft the way they can and even seem to have some fun on stage. The juries seemed to agree at least to some point, the song received a horredeous 73 points and totally undeserved 8th place in the final results.

Some people call me a dull and maybe I am. I cannot find anything remotely funny in this song and the performance irritates me to death to find any musical value in it whatsoever. Next song please, and quickly.

My points 1/5.

761/917 Alma Čardžić: Goodbye (Bosnia Herzegovina 1997)

The 761st song sung in the Eurovision Song Contest happens to be the first real stinker in this blog. The Bosnian entry used every cheap musical trick from finger snapping to repetitious singalong chorus (not to mention the oh-oh-ohs) to gain votes, but deservedly came 18th (out of 22) in the final results.

Song Goodbye was definately not one of Alma Čardžić's finest hours. She apparently is a big star in the Balkan area, and by watching her performance of the song in Dublin in 1997 you can see that she is not enjoying the moment one bit. As a watcher of the contest, I am not enjoying it either.

Luckily this dreadful song is not the only Eurovision memomory of Ms Čardžić. In 1994 she and Dejan Lazarevic represented the war torn Bosnia Herzegovina with a gloomy but effective ballad Ostani kraj mene, the song that got the biggest applause of the evening (but not the most votes, however).

My points 1/5.