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.

221/917 Marianne Mendt: Musik (Austria 1971)

Sometimes even a die hard Eurovision fan starts getting doubts. Sometimes the overwhelming "public opinion" gets over you: Eurovision is rubbish, it is just bunch of commercial crap without any meaning, any artistic integrity, musical value and nothing to do with real life, passion or the country it is representing. Fortunately it does not take but to hear a perfect Eurovision song like Austria 1971 to snap out of it and continue to enjoy the contest as it was and is supposed to.

Musik sung by Marianne Mendt is a song that combines all the ingredients that some people claim are missing from the Eurovision Song Contest. The song is full of energy and the singer belts the song out with passion without shouting. The orchestral arrangement is sublime, unfortunately the strings are almost unheard due to bad sound mixing (to hear the song in its full glory listen to the studio version of the song synced to the preview video). To give the song local flavour, Mendt sings the song in the local dialect of her home town Vienna. After listening to the song one has to stop to catch one's breath. And then listen to the song again.

The 1971 Eurovision Song Contest was packed with perfect entries and the Austrian one was the most difficult to digest, at least to the juries. The 16th position among 18 entries is pure madness.

Marianne Mendt has continued her career as an actress and a jazz singer. Listen and watch her recent interpretation of Cole Porter's Love for sale here.

My points 5/5.

94/917 Carmela Corren: Vielleicht geschieht ein Wunder (Austria 1963)

Although Israel first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1973, already in 1963 not one but two israeli singers took part. Both these singers had made an international hits prior to their Eurovision appearances and secured a steady career in European showbusiness.

Carmela Corren had been discovered by American tv personality Ed Sullivan in the late 1950's, and since had appeared in both television and in films. In the 1960's she became famous in the german speaking countries, so it was no surprise that she was chosen to represent Austria in the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest.

And she filled her task beautifully. Her well trained voice gave meaning to each syllable she was singing and made the song stand out more than it would have with a less shining star.

Unfortunately for Corren, that was not enough in 1963, which in my opinion was the first really good quality Eurovision Song Contest ever. Austria did not have a chance in a contest filled with quality entries and international stars (like Nana Mouskouri, Françoise Hardy and Ester Ofarim). The change of language in the middle might have gathered one or two extra points, but to my mind it makes the song lose its authenticity and sincerity.

While the Carmela Corren never had a chance of winning the contest, it secured Austria the 7th place in the final results (among 16 participants), the arguably best result for the country before Udo Jürgens took over the Austrian representation in 1964 and finally won the contest two years later.

My points 3/5.

33/917 Liane Augustin: Die ganze Welt braucht Liebe (Austria 1958)

In the early 1950's the singers representing their country were often experienced and classically trained professionals. They sang a song written for the occasion and rarely recorded the song or sung the song since. The eurosong 33 is apparently one of these.

The 1958 contest was only the third Eurovision Song Contest ever arranged. I find it therefore quite remarkable that the video recording of the contest from 55 years ago is such a good quality picturewise and specially soundwise.

With such a good and dynamic sound quality it is a joy to watch and listen to the contest, which gave us some of the first world wide Eurovision hits (Nel blu di pinto di blu from Italy and Dors mon amour from France).

The Austrian entry is not one of those. Liane Augustin, was a popular actress and singer from the last years of the 2nd world war until her untimely death in 1978 (at only 51 years of age). In Eurovision she sang beautifully the otherwise unremarkable ballad and received the unremarkable fifth position (among only 10 participants). Even with a good singer, the Austrian entry was overshadowed by other entries of this, rather good quality Eurovision Song Contest of 1958.

My points 2/5.

19/997 Bob Martin: Wohin kleines Pony (Austria 1957)

Back to random choises. www.random.org draw the number 19, so we go way back to the first years of Eurovision. Austria took part first time in the Eurovision Song Contest in its second year 1957 with a less memorable song.

I have very little to say about the song Wohin kleines Pony. The first Austrian entry was a jolly song about a pony and its rider who asks his steed where it wants to run today. Nothing more.

Not the worst song in Eurovision but it certainly does not belong to the most memorable ones, not even among the 1950's entries. Bob Martin did his job as he is supposed to, but that didn't convince the juries even then, with three points this song came last among ten participating countries. No studio recording of this song was ever made.

My points 2/5.