917 songs have been sung in the Eurovision Song Contest between 1956 and 2003. In this blog I go through these songs in a random order and tell you what I think of them. What song would you like me to review?
Like Germany, Spain is one of the big European countries taking part in the Eurovision song contest, with surprising few victories. The reason for this might be that Spain has rarely tried to please the pan-European musical tastes and hardly ever moulded their entries to sound more like the entries from other countries. The 1980 Spanish entry is good example of this.
I remember very fondly the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest, which had only few (if any) bad songs and some of the good songs were the best in the whole Eurovision history.
The Spanish entry that year differed from the norm in many ways. Melodically the song was very dynamic, each verse was different with interesting tempo changes. The icing is gorgeous orchestral arrangement (which can be heard in all its glory in the recorded version of the song, here synched to the preview video).
This combined with stylish and flawless performance by a popular Spanish trio Trigo Limpio made this song wonderful example of the early 1980's Eurosong at its best. The 13th position in the final results (among 19 songs) feels a bit too low, but as I said, the competition in 1980 was tough.
The Eurosong 399 was requested by my french friend Sebastien Berteaux. The song Amsterdam was performed by 30 year old Sjoukje van't Spijker under her stage name Maggie MacNeal. The song that represented the host country Netherlands came fifth after a very tight race.
Maggie MacNeal was known internationally as the other half of a "Beauty and a beast"-type of pop duo Mouth and MacNeal, which had had some big hits around Europe and their biggest hit How do you do made the charts even in the United States. The duo split up soon after their 1974 participation in the Eurovision song contest singing I see a star. Spiker has continued her solo career until the beginning of the 21st century.
Amsterdam was a big ballad very much different from the ditties sung by her former group. MacNeal took the stage wearing a glittering evening gown and singing a very traditional Eurovision ballad.
More than the song I remember the tight voting which gave the MacNeal and the Netherlands a convincing lead from the beginning and she was looked very much like the winner during the first third of the voting. After that, however, both Germany and Ireland stole the lead from the host country and Maggie MacNeal could later see herself driven over by Switzerland and the United Kindom as well.
Today I see the Dutch entry from 1980 an OK song, not a killer but certainly not one of the worst ballads ever sung in the contest. Not one of my current favourites anyway.
After a very controversial local selection procedure Finland chose one of the most loved actors, comedians and singers to represent it's colours in Hague in 1980. The 394th Eurosong was composed by the celebrated songwriter Aarno Raninen (who had composed the Finnish entry three years back) and on paper it looked very promising indeed. In reality the hopes were not that high.
Vesa-Matti Loiri was, and still is, one of the most popular actors in Finland. He became also famous as a singer of old poetry set to contemporary music. Apart from this he also is a competent jazz flutist. This versatility of talents was vey useful when he was asked to participate in the Finnish selection of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980 with a song Huilumies (= The flute man), which combined schlager and jazz tunes with a hint of comedy added.
The two part selection in Finland caused loud outcry as the people's favourite artists and songs failed to proceed from the semifinal to the final. The lineup of the final consisted of more artsy and jazzy songs, none of which were worthy of the international final (according to the loudest protesters). When Vesa-Matti Loiri was chosen, the general public was unanimous, Finland was not to expect high points in the international final.
Despite of this Vesa-Matti Loiri and his backing team managed to put some fire on the final performance, which is much better than the version in the Finnish selection or on the record. The song is well arranged and the conductor Ossi Runne is clearly enjoying himself during the instrumental break (check the video above from 2:00 on). Hardly no-one was surprised, that Finland received its fourth last place.
To me time has healed the wounds and the performance by the team Finland is fun to watch and to listen to. The last place in Hague did nothing to Vesa-Matti Loiri's career, he continues to act and sing to this day to enthusiastic audience.
