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?
After a very good run of high placings in the Eurovision (four victories and only four times outside of top 5) culminating to the victory in 1981, United Kingdom seemed to lose their interest in the Eurovision Song Contest in the 1980's. Good placings here and there, but the overall quality decreased dramatically. Most of their songs in the 1980's were either embarrassing or easily forgettable. The UK entry from 1985 is one of the latter ones.
Very bluntly titled love song Love is is as simple and forgettable as its title. 28 years ago it sounded modern disco ballad, but now it's synthetic and sparse arrangement is as outdated as Vikki Watson's hairdo. On recorded version the arrangement sounds slightly better but still very 1980'ish.
Watson herself gave a confident, if restrained, show on stage singing faultlessly but also without much passion. The song did reasonably well, the fourth position in the final result is no surprise when I think of the other sounds and songs you heard in Gothenburg 1985. Now almost 30 years later the song has nothing to give.
Ms Watson did not make a career out of radiofriendly europop. Instead after changing her stage name to Aeone she has become successful composer for film and television and recorded several albums of celtic folk music in a New Age style. For example her version of Scarborough fair could not be further away from the Eurovision stage.
The next Eurosong is chosen by a fellow eurovision lover Antti Salmela. The 327th song sung on the Eurovision stage is favourite among many Eurofans, but unfortunately I am not one of them.
The Yugoslavian entry in 1976 was chosen by the Bosnian television. The song was a folk orientated pop song by a Sarajevo group Ambasadori, member of which Slobodan Vujović also composed the song.
The song consists of two parts that to me are like day and night. The verse is promising and sung beautifully by the soloist Ismeta Dervoz but as she is joined in the chorus by the rest of the group the whole thing falls apart. Perhaps it is the arrangement (or is the group singing out of tune?) or the melody, but the chorus puts me off every time I hear it.
As many of my Eurovision friends have persistently told me how good this song actually is, I've tried to start liking it. But I'm sorry, I've failed.
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.
What is a perfect Eurovision ballad like? It should start quietly, preferably with only a piano backing, which gives the singer (preferably a female singer) to show her tender side. More instruments should join in in about 30 seconds and by the middle of the song the full ochestra should be blasting from the stage. After a short return to the sparser instrumentation should follow the overblown finale where both the orchestra and the singer can give their all. If possible, the title of the song should include the words "I", "you" and "love". Here I give you a perfect Eurovision lovesong, the Eurosong numer 472.
The Dutch Eurovision entry from 1984 certainly stood out as a song you were expecting. The song was pompous, it was well arranged to suit the Eurovision orchestra and the melody was all one could except from a Eurovision love song. On top of it all stood 24 year old Marie Kwakman (renamed rather unispiredly as Maribelle), who could really belt out the highlights of the song as well as whisper the tender parts.
With a slight reminiscense of Carly Simon Maribelle, standing alone on stage, had a total control over the cameras and caught the eye both at the Grand Théare de Luxembourg and at home. With a title translated simply as "I love you" you could have thought it would have been a pefect performance of a perfect song.
However it didn't really go that way. In 1984 the juries preferred the bouncy pop-songs (Sweden, Ireland and Denmark in particular) and more somber ballads (Spain, Belgium and Italy) rather than a positive, heart winning love song. The Dutch entry ended in the disappointing 13th place in the results with mere 34 points.
A shame really, after watching again Maribelle's performance, I can see nothing wrong with it and she would have deserved a better place in the final results. If nothing too spectacular, the song was definately better than shaky performance by the host country (10. place), the screeching ladies from the UK (7. place) and the second rate love song from France (8. place). But the world, let alone the Eurovision Song Contest, is not fair.
This time the random number generator draw me a song that I had reviewed already. In these occasions I give myself a liberty to pick a song I want. So for the first time in this blog a song of my own choosing, a bizarre number of cabaret amongs the pop and schlager tunes. Eurosong number 218 stood out among the other 11 songs like a cranberry among rasberrys and is one of my favourite Eurovision Song Contes entries ever.
Dominique Dussault was only 16 years of age when she stood on a Eurovision stage in Amsterdam. She looked and sounded very much like her idol Edith Piaf, a short and a fragile looking lady with a strong trembling voice. Even her stage costume, curly hear and overblown gestures remind me of Piaf, who had died only 6 and half years prior to the 1970 Song Contest.
Dussault did not, however, sing about the sparrow of Paris, but of another great central European diva Marlene Dietrich (who actually was one of Piaf's best friends and acted as her matron of honour when she got married). In her song Dussault describes her low voice playing from an old 78t record, a character holding a cigar, the "Blue angel", a legend that will never be forgotten.
In the second half of the song Dominique tells us how much she would like to be like Marlene but as a small girl "only 150 cm long with curls like sheep hair" she cannot match her dream character. Finally she tries to imitate her german and english with german accent making the song both poignant and funny.
This cabaret like number was not what the juries were looking for and with only five points the song ended in the drawn 8th place. With the nordic countries, Portugal and Austria boycotting the contest there was only 12 countries participating.
To young Dominique Dussault the future didn't have big success in store. The very modest result placing in the 1970's didn't help her in her musical career, so after the excellent recorded version of Marlène nothing was really heard of her. She didn't stop singing, but continued her career in a smaller circles, singing jazz and chansons away from the public eye and away from the popular music business.
I have always loved the 1970 Monegasque entry for the passionate delivery and the clever melody and text and for not hesitating to be different. These peculiar oddities that come up every now and then make the Eurovision Song Contest exciting and worth watching.
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.
When one thinks of Greece in Eurovision, one often thinks of their current trend of combining the modern pop rhythms with local dance styles and instruments. It wasn't always like that. In the 1980's the greek songs tried often to be more of a general european pop songs and the local flavours were very much hidden in the arrangements, or not even there. The greek entry from 1989 is a better example of this kind of song.
Mariana Efstratiou had represented Greece already in 1987 as a backing singer for a group called Bang, who sang a very ungreek Stop!, a song sounding disturbingly like Wham's (wonder where group Bang got their name from) Wake me up before you go go. Another good example of a greek song trying not to sound a bit like greek.
Efstratiou wrote 1989 entry Το δικό σου αστέρι together with Yannis Kyris. The song was an airy and pleasant ballad in the contest, that was dominated by rock and pop pastiches (Rock me by Riva, Vi maler byen rød by Birthe Kjær) and power pop ballads (En dag by Tommy Nilsson and Nur ein Lied by Thomas Forstner). The song was arranged perfectly to match the Lausanne orchestra making the live version of the song much more effective than the lame studio version.
Mariana Efstratiou was like her song. A little shy, not trying to make an act and simply doing a perfect fresh performance making the greek entry unpretentious and enjoyable three minutes of the contest otherwise full of neon lights and drum machines. It was awarded by 56 points and well reserved 9th position among 22 entries.
Seven years later Mariana Efstratiou was back as a totally different artist with a totally different song. But that will be another entry in this blog sometime in the future. But I promise you, it will not receive as high point as I award her 1989 entry.
