| 1 | [[foldercontrol]] |
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| 3 | [[folder:A-K]] |
| 4 | * AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: |
| 5 | ** In 2006, many thought that the band representing Finland, Music/{{Lordi}}, was a ridiculous idea and that they had no way of winning, with commentators poking fun at it during the broadcast. At the end of the show, Lordi [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomped the competition]] and scored the highest amount of points in the contest at the time, and is today remembered as one of the most iconic Eurovision songs ever. |
| 6 | ** When Moldova brought back Sunstroke Project to represent them in 2017, they were believed to either disqualify or finish low in the final, being overshadowed by other songs. Not only would Moldova be the first country to qualify of their semi-final, but at the final, they would go on to get third place by the televote and also finish in third place, which is as of now, the best results Moldova has ever had. |
| 7 | ** In 2019, Serhat returned to represent San Marino after having done so three years ago. His disqualification that year alongside San Marino's poor track record led many to believe that San Marino would face another miss at the final. On the night of the first semi-final, San Marino was announced as one of the last qualifiers, earning the country its second spot in the final since 2014, and in the final, while they didn't do so well with the juries, they finished 10th in the televote and ended up coming in 19th place, which is still San Marino's best placement. |
| 8 | ** When Stef "Gustaph" Caers won the Belgian National Final in 2023, his song was not that well received and was expected to not do well no matter if he qualified or not. The Grand Final told a different story. Gustaph received many points from the juries, landing in 7th place, and even though he didn't get as many from the televote, that did not change his position at all, which gave Belgium their best result since 2017. |
| 9 | * {{Anvilicious}}: While France 2019 entry "Roi" wasn't hated by any means (it finished 16th) there were a respectable amount of viewers who found the song and performance too preachy with its message about [[CaptainObviousAesop tolerance and non-prejudice against people with different gender identity, body shape or race.]] Especially since Israel's hosting of the contest was already brimming with it. |
| 10 | * AudienceAlienatingEra: |
| 11 | ** The 2005-2009 period is often regarded this way for Spain. After the highly successful first ''Operación Triunfo'' era (2002-2004), with all three entrants picked out of said show cracking the lower half of the top 10, Spain suffered a massive slump with low-quality entries selected in chaotic national finals. 2008 is particularly divisive within the fanbase, as a joke entry endorsed by a comedy TV show was sent. Also, the second ''Operación Triunfo'' era (2018-2019), while not ''that'' terrible in terms of song quality, failed to match the success of the first, with both Amaia & Alfred and Miki ending up in the bottom five. Spain went back to internal selection for 2020, but their choice Blas Cantó was set to disappoint when the event was cancelled. He was given his chance to return immediately, but, when he got it, was one of four entries to fail to get any televotes, and got jury points from only 2 nations, one of them being, ironically enough, the UK, who failed to score in either medium. Spain immediately set up a new selection process in Benidorm (a downtrodden resort which had previously hosted a famous national music festival until 2005) with hope of improving their fortunes, and indeed, what was aimed as a long term process immediately got Spain into the top three for the first time since 1995. |
| 12 | ** Sweden had a period from 2005-2010 consisting of entries being mediocre at best. With the exception of 2006, none of them finished in the top 10, finally culminating in Sweden not qualifying for the final at all in 2010, so far the one and only time. This prompted the national contest to change the voting system in 2011, wherein the number of points would correspond to the number of televotes more accurately, and since then, Sweden has fared ''much'' better, even winning the whole contest three times. |
| 13 | ** Germany has this in waves. After a run of solid results in the '80s and early '90s, they received a single point in '95, were removed from the contest in '96[[note]]In an ironic attempt to keep Germany, the EBU let 29 prospective participants (excluding hosts Norway) submit audio tapes of their entries. 22 were selected to join Norway in the actual contest and Germany was one of the 7 losers.[[/note]] (their only absence), and placed poorly in '97[[note]]almost putting them in the relegation zone[[/note]]. Then [[MemeticMutation Guildo]] came along, brought them back to the top ten, and led to a few years of top ten results (two of them even in the top five!). Then they fell off again around 2005, finishing low for several years (including two last places) before roaring back with their second victory in 2010, which led to two more years of top ten results. Then 2013 came, and for four years (with the exception of 2014) they consistently finished in the bottom five, twice in last place and once with the dreaded ''nul points.'' They turned it around majorly with a fourth-place finish in 2018, but it was short-lived: 2019 and 2021 saw them fail to get any televoting points, but they still finished ahead of the United Kingdom thanks to the jury points, whilst they got no jury points - though with a small number of televotes to prevent nil points - the next year, one where Spain and U.K. broke long slumps. They would finish bottom ''again'' in 2023, but they got points from both the juries and the public that time. |
| 14 | ** The UK was stuck in this era from around 1999 to 2022. Before 1999, they had only finished outside the top ten twice. Since 1999, they've only finished ''in'' the top ten three times (in 2002, 2009 and 2022 - though all 3 of those placed top 5), with five last places (two with ''nul points'' exacerbated by poor live performances of hitherto decently liked songs, one tied, one with a song that was critically derided, and one with a song seen as well sung but not authentic enough). Then, to general shock, Sam Ryder came out of nowhere with 'Spaceman' that handily won the Jury Vote and came second overall to Ukraine. |
| 15 | ** The Netherlands had a pretty big one from the 2005 to 2012 period in which the country scored a total of '''0''' qualifications for the final. Fortunately, the non-qualification streak came to an end in 2013 in which the country finished 9th overall and since then, they only failed to qualify to final twice (2015 and 2023), and even managed to get their first win in the contest since 1975 in 2019. |
| 16 | * AwardSnub: |
| 17 | ** The world's biggest singing competition is bound to have some divides on winners, not just from nationalism but also regional preferences and obviously personal preferences, but there are certain notable moments like when the feeds of voting announcements of countries bordering Russia got cut off before being restored and awarding ''douze points'' to Russia. |
| 18 | ** Another example was Norway with the song ''Spirit in the Sky''. While the song proved extremely popular with voters, winning the popular vote with 291 points, it only earned a measly 40 points from the jury (most other songs on the top 10 earned at least 100 points from the jury). It didn't get better when word got out that, due to technical difficulties, the jury hadn't seen the entire song, and they weren't allowed a second performance. |
| 19 | ** Despite having won the semi-finals with 177 points and the popular vote with 376 points, Käärijä's ''Cha Cha Cha'' (Finland's submission) still ended up narrowly losing to Loreen's ''Tattoo'' (Sweden's submission) by 57 points in the 2023 contest (''Cha Cha Cha'' got 526, while ''Tattoo'' got 583), much to the disappointment of viewers, who thought ''Cha Cha Cha'' was far more deserving of the win. |
| 20 | * SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: A ''requirement'' to win. Heck, just count the whole thing. There's a national selection in most of the countries, which means that the best can only precede. What you're seeing is usually the best of the country. [[AwesomeMusic/EurovisionSongContest There's even an entire page of it here]]. |
| 21 | * BadassDecay: |
| 22 | ** Azerbaijan post-2013. They scored six consecutive top 10 finishes (including their 2011 win) since debuting in 2008, but they failed to make the top 10 for four years after Dilara Kazimova's 22nd place finish in 2014. In 2018 they failed to qualify for the final for the first time.[[note]]They were discovered to have bribed for votes at that time, and may have had to tone it down.[[/note]] They seemed to have finally snapped out of the slump after Chingiz finished eighth in 2019, but it's beginning to look like the exception rather than the rule. 2020 and 2021's Efendi placed 20th (and had only narrowly qualified in the first place) despite being a major fan fave over both participations. Nadir Rustamli, a protégée of 2011 winner Ell - who accompanied him behind the scenes - almost failed to qualify in 2022, only narrowly being saved by a jury scandal causing 6 juries (including Azerbaijan's) to be replaced by estimate votes, which were mainly friendly to Azerbaijan. He failed to score any televotes in the semi, and only 3 in the final (all from neighbor Georgia). A further kick down the pecking order came in 2023, with [=TuralTuranX=] giving the country its second non-qualification with a song that was never perceived as standing much of a chance. |
| 23 | ** Ireland is still the country that has won Eurovision the most times,[[note]]Since 2023 they share the record with Sweden.[[/note]] but you wouldn't tell from their recent track record. The last of their seven victories was in 1996, but since 1999 they haven't ever managed to crack the top 10 two straight years. In fact, their last top 10 placement is from 2011, and since then, they have only managed to make it past the semi-finals in three out of eleven attempts (and in one of those times they came in dead last in the final anyway). |
| 24 | ** Belgium. They scored three consecutive top 10 finishes (winning fourth place twice) in 2015 - 2017. In 2018 they surprisingly failed to qualify, arguably because of the weak staging and high competition. They failed to qualify again in 2019 for similar reasons, making it the first time since 2011 that the Wallonian (French-speaking) broadcaster failed to qualify for the final. They then sent out renowned Hooverphonic to the 2020 (and 2021) contests, who were tipped as a marginal both times. They had enough with the jury to get into the 2021 final and top 20, but got just three televotes, across Ukraine and Lithuania, with similar results the following year (2022) where they again fell from 13th with the jury to 19th once public votes were added - this time almost all their public vote points were provided by the Dutch. Their qualification that year of multilingualist amateur footballer and Geology student turned Hip-Hop soul inspired crooner Jeremie Makiese was much to the surprise of the his delegation and most fans (and was also the first name announced whereas all prior Belgium qualifiers were announced late on with 2015-2017 era’s successes all announced last). The decay paused in 2023 with Gustaph, whose 90s-inspired house-pop track "Because of You" was an unexpected success story that year, coming in seventh place overall after a shock victory in the country's national final where it won neither the televote or jury vote. |
| 25 | ** Greece. The contest was almost unheard of in Greece, until their 3rd place finish in 2001, which sparked a major interest of the Greek entry. With the exception of 2012, from 2004-2013, Greece scored consecutive top-ten finishes (back when the top ten countries of each year auto-qualified to the grand final, Greece managed to avoid the semi-finals entirely until the two semifinal system replaced it), including two third place finishes and a victory in 2005. At its peak, 5 million people in Greece (half the population) watched the contest. After 2013, their broadcaster switched, resulting in a 20th place and a 19th place. Even when ERT took back control of television services, their results were not much better, starting with their first NQ in 2016[[note]]and another in 2018, along with a 19th place in 2017 and a 21st place in 2019[[/note]]. In 2021 they finally found their way back into the top 10 - albeit tied in points with Bulgaria, who were ranked 11th - and finished 8th the next year, seemingly putting the decay to rest... until Victor Vernicos crashed out in the semi-final in 2023. |
| 26 | ** Denmark between 2008 and 2014 were easily in 7 finals on the spin, and placed in the top 15 on 6 of these occasions, which cumulated in Emmelie De Forest's fantastic win in 2013 and hosting (but overspending) in 2014. However, since 2015 there has been only one top 10 place, 5 failures to qualify, and two songs which only qualified by one point, though one of them placed as high as 12th in the final (it was unknown what would have happened to their 2020 entry, which was seen as a marginal qualifier, but the broadcaster didn’t allow Ben and Tan to compete again the next year despite Sweden and Finland allowing such an approach). |
| 27 | ** Latvia placed in the top 5 in 3 of their first 6 participations including a win in 2002, and were in 8 finals out of their first 9 participations. They qualified for only 2 of their next 13, and were last place in their heat 5 times out of the ten failures to qualify in this period, whereas neighbours Lithuania and Estonia (who failed to make the final 5 times on the trot prior to 2009, whilst Latvia were qualifying on all but one of these occasions) have earned many top half places in this period. Lithuania have been in 9 finals in the period 2009-2022 inclusive, Latvia in only 2, with 2 streaks of at least 5 non-qualifications. |
| 28 | ** Romania initially was one of the worst performing countries in the contest, finishing in the bottom 5 in 1994 and 1998[[note]]relegated in '95, '97, '99 and '01 and not selected for 1996[[/note]] and 17th in 2000. They were finally lifted in 2002 with their first top-10 finish, and became a major contender, finishing 3rd twice. However, in 2018, their long qualification streak came to an end and they failed again in 2019 and 2021, but they qualified again in 2022. They then would finish second bottom with nil points in 2023 - a fate that also befell San Marino that year (Romania only finished second-bottom because the tie-break rules prefer the song performed earlier). The Danubians than withdrew from the 2024 contest due to various funding difficulties, having been unpopular amongst fans for the way their 2021 and 2023 acts were treated by TVR, and ruled themselves out of participating that year for once and all just before the draw as the broadcaster was divided over how to allocate spending. |
| 29 | ** Bosnia and Herzegovina made every final between 2004 to 2012 with 5 top 10 finished in those years. They had to withdraw for [[NoBudget financial reasons]], but came back for 2016 through sponsorship. The jury dashed their 100% qualification record and the country still cannot afford participation. |
| 30 | ** Cyprus, twice. In the 90s, they had a decent amount of top 10 finishes and in '97 they equalled their best placing of 5th. In 1999, they slipped massively when fan-favourite Marlain's chances were [[ScrewedByTheNetwork screwed by the producers]] and finished 22nd. They were relegated in 2001 and other than two brief top 10 finishes, slumped massively between 2006 and 2014, qualifying only twice[[note]]with their best result being 16th[[/note]]. Meanwhile, most Cypriot viewers began to focus on the Greek entry more than their own. The decay ended slowly - finishing in the bottom 6 finalists from 2015 and 2017,[[note]]but at the same time, Greece's decay began, causing them in 2016 to finish above Greece for the first time in 13 years[[/note]]. However, Cyprus began to decay again by failing to replicate Eleni Foureira's success in 2018, and failed to qualify in 2022, at the same time Greece's decay ended. |
| 31 | ** The two biggest examples, however, would be France and the United Kingdom: |
| 32 | *** France was the first country to achieve three, four and five victories and was first in number of victories, either alone or tied with other countries, from 1960 to 1993, with five victories in total. However, their last win was in 1977, and their performance has steadily gone down, until in the 2010's they placed top 10 once in the entire decade, and placed last for the first time ever in 2014. In 2021 they however came second with only 25 points behind the winner Italy, only to then end up second bottom in 2022. |
| 33 | *** United Kingdom is even worse. In the 42 contests between 1957 and 1998 they racked up five wins, fifteen second places, 20 consecutive top-10 finishes, and their worst result was thirteenth... and then from 1999 to the present they have only placed twice in the top 10 while picking up five last-place finishes, including two ''nul points'' in 2003 and 2021, before staging a major revival in 2022, winning the jury section to get their 16th runners up spot |
| 34 | *** Part of this has to do with language. In the early days of the contest countries had to sing in their official languages, and a majority of the countries were francophone, which favored France. At the same time, English was already becoming a common language in Europe, so countries that could sing in English like UK and Ireland had an advantage. France's BadassDecay started when more non-French speaking countries began entering the contest, and UK's started when the language rule was eliminated and more countries could sing in English. |
| 35 | * BaseBreakingCharacter: |
| 36 | ** Conchita Wurst, despite her win in 2014. Some feel that she was a brave person for preaching tolerance and being herself through her out-of-the-closet drag act, as well as acclaiming the vocals, lyrics, message, and relatively minimal staging, while others thought that she was completely [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical misplaced]] in Eurovision SONG contest and claims she wouldn't have won hadn't it been for the dress and beard. Not enough proof? Well, she won, but her [=YouTube=] video has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToqNa0rqUtY mountains of dislikes.]] |
| 37 | ** The band PKN, who won Finland's NF in 2015. Either they're a bold choice since they're all intellectually disabled, and an interesting decision in the face to make in the face of Eurovision generally more polished atmosphere (a choice in the vein of Music/{{Lordi}}, in 2006, who won), or they're an upset pick over other, stronger entries. That they won with a PunkRock song[[note]] they're a cult punk band famous in Finland and in some punk communities, and even have a documentary made about them[[/note]] doesn't help matters. |
| 38 | ** In a more extreme example from Conchita, Jamala from 2016 with her song, 1944. With the parallels with the Russian military invading Crimea in 2014, it earned the ire for many a fan for tipping the line on how political it is. For those who are able to overlook it, they claim it had a perfect combination of singer, song, and performance. |
| 39 | ** Salvador Sobral won the 2017 edition [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qotooj7ODCM with a song and performance]] which all but go against the pop and camp norm of the recent years. As a result, while it did garner a lot of praise and in spite of winning both the jury and public votes, "Amar Pelos Dois" divided opinion in the base, most evidently online, between those welcoming it as a timeless song and a change from the glitz-and-glamour, and those dismissing it as a boring, unenergetic and forgettable ditty. Similar to the case of "Rise Like a Phoenix", "Amar Pelos Dois" received a not-insignificant amount of dislikes. It was worsened by his open criticism of his elect successor, and the standard of entries in 2018 (fans of the elect runner up also interpreted it as an attack on them, and the champ elect's response was a picture of the pair who would end up as top 2 celebrating heat 1 together). Indeed, his remarks after winning in 2017 saying music shouldn't just be about "fast food and fireworks" angered his Swedish counterpart, who placed 5th, with the Croatian entry that year hitting out at his attack on the following year's protagonists. |
| 40 | *** The remark was specifically about Netta, as he implied he hadn't heard other entries, but Eleni fans interpreted it as a broad on their heroine. Netta's response (saying "sending my love to Salvador and everyone in all genres”) included a picture of her and Eleni celebrating qualifying together with a shared heart gesture. |
| 41 | ** Netta has fallen into this, particularly after her win in 2018 (though the song polarised as much as its nation from the point of release). Several fans find her an interesting singer with a catchingly good song, while others dismiss it for its strange chicken impression beatboxing and dance, have accused Netta of [[OccidentalOtaku cultural appropriation of Japanese and Chinese culture]] and winning over other favourites such as Eleni Foureira, Mélovin and Rasmussen. That she's also Israeli brought out the Antisemites and anti-Israel persons too, particularly as it was a febrile time in Israeli politics with the USA's Jerusalem embassy opened the following Monday.[[note]]To give just one example of knock-on controversy, the German weekly newspaper ''Die Zeit'' fired their caricaturist after he did a rather tasteless caricature featuring a weird hybrid of Netanyahu, an Antisemitic stereotype and Netta on the stage of the Song Contest holding a rocket like object. In January 2019, it was also claimed that anti-Semitic google searches in the UK increased off the back of its triumph.[[/note]] 28% dislikes doesn't seem like a lot but is quite high for a viral video with over 100 million views - the most viewed music video of a winner by a long way. |
| 42 | ** This goes back a-ways: 1994 saw the third victory in a row for Ireland and sixth overall, with Paul Harrington and Charlie [=McGettigan's=] "Rock 'n' Roll Kids." The song was more melancholy and introspective than most Eurovision songs, and it didn't feature the orchestra at all (the musicians accompanied themselves on guitar and piano). It also scored 226 points, the first Eurovision song to surpass 200 points. Many fans, however, aren't fond of it, considering it too slow and boring (several have even suggested it was submitted specifically so that [[SpringtimeForHitler Ireland lost and wouldn't have to host in '95]]). Not helping matters is that it came ahead of a bigger fan favorite and more traditional Eurovision song, Poland's Edyta Gorniak with "To nie ja!" (which, taking second place, made it one of the most successful debuts in contest history). |
| 43 | *** Of course, a more convincing thought would be that the next year's entry, Eddie Friel's "Dreamin'," was the deliberate tanker: it performed second (a spot no entry has won from), was even slower, had plagiarism accusations leveled at it, and ultimately finished fourteenth, leaving the victorious Norway[[note]]whose violinist, who played for 2 minutes straight at the front, was Irish[[/note]] to host the contest in Oslo the next year...which [[StatusQuoIsGod Ireland promptly won again]]. |
| 44 | ** When the Greek national final in 2017 chose the song "This is Love" for Demy (who was selected beforehand) to sing, it was a very unpopular choice with the Greek public, and, especially with their first NQ the year before, Greek viewers were expecting another year of cheering on Cyprus upon failing to qualify. However, she landed in the top 10 in both jury and televote in the semi-final[[note]] after the televoters pulled the Czech Republic and Georgia out of the qualifier zone, and the jury did so to Finland [[/note]] and also received 12 points from the Montenegrin jury in the semi-final and the final, on top of the 24 points from Cyprus. |
| 45 | ** Despite there being no contest in 2020, several would-be entries got a very strong love it or hate it reaction, including the memorably energetic Armenia, Austria, Iceland, Ireland and Latvia entries, and the simpler ballads from The Netherlands, France, Estonia and Belgium. They were seen in the top 10, or on the bottom of, many fan polls. |
| 46 | ** Andrea Koevska, the North Macedonian entrant in 2022. When she had to throw a Macedonian flag so she could pose for a photo, the broadcaster was, to put it lightly, outraged and threatened to withdraw Andrea.[[note]] They also claimed to have taken "disciplinary action" against the delegation, and conducted an internal review, but did indeed withdraw from the 2023 contest, not due to this incident, but due to the general economic issues worldwide in 2022 such as rising inflation, energy costs, post-covid aftereffects and costs of travel, particularly to host country The UK, as well as participation in general being more expensive with Russia no longer able to pay The EBU meaning other nations were asked to pay it more- North Macedonia promised to return for 2024, but broke it, though would still be expected to return soon, and still continued to participate in its junior counterpart, which is much cheaper.[[/note]] Her song was largely ignored by the fandom, and when the results of the second semi-final came, she was eliminated. However, it was revealed she [[EnsembleDarkHorse finished one place off qualifying]], beating fan favorites Cyprus, Israel, San Marino and Ireland, landing in the top 10 of the jury vote, with 12 points from Germany. |
| 47 | * BrokenBase: |
| 48 | ** The 2015 announcement of [[GuestFighter Australia's participation]] was met with cheers and jeers. Some felt that their participation is a [[AscendedFanboy huge advantage for a country that loves Eurovision almost as much as Europe itself]], and definitely in keeping with the 2015 contest's TagLine (''Building Bridges'') promoting a sense of global unity, while others feel that Eurovision should be Europe-only, and Australia's participation will possibly open up doors for participation from non-European countries such as Brazil and Canada. In fact, Australia was invited back to the contest the following year in 2016. |
| 49 | ** The choice of Music/GuySebastian as Australia's entrant has managed to [[http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/eurovision-2015-twitter-reacts-to-guy-sebastian-representing-australia-in-song-contest-20150305-13vnyk.html divide Australian Eurovision fans too]], with some labelling him as too safe and boring a choice, even though the entry was neither and placed 5th. |
| 50 | ** This also happened with that year's entries for the UK and Finland, which many declaring that neither song had a chance of winning over the other countries' robust lineup of {{Pep Talk Song}}s and/or {{Power Ballad}}s. |
| 51 | ** Political controversies and attempts by some countries to settle accounts with their political opponents with the help of the competition often becomes this for many viewers. In particular, since the second half of TheNewTens, practically every participation of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine has been overshadowed by scandals, mutual accusations and even diplomatic crises. |
| 52 | ** Israel’s participation during the alienating and debilitating 2023-24 Israel-Gaza war was incredibly divisive, particularly in the Nordic Countries (for example Iceland, where there had been plenty of boycott calls in 2018 and during this campaign, was expected to send a controversial Palestinian outsider artist whose connections to the island were almost entirely dated back to Hatari’s 2019 incident, but he lost a dramatic runoff in their selection with a song that had itself elicited a very love-or-hate reaction, losing to something far less outre) . The song representing the Israelis, which had to undergo publicised lyric changes to prevent being seen as obvious and unsubtle (originally called “October Rain” but the more charged lyrics were rewritten for the song to be called “Hurricane”) was received in a similarly mixed manner, with some fans refusing to rank it, or seeing it as manufactured, but others praising it as a tear jerker. The EBU had to issue a statement telling fans not to abuse each other or the acts closer to the song contest. |
| 53 | * CommonKnowledge: |
| 54 | ** Russia was banned from participating in the 2022 contest because of the invasion of Ukraine, which is a yes and no statement. Yes, the invasion played a part in the banishment, but it wasn't the reason why. When Ukraine’s broadcaster UA:PBC appealed EBU to remove Russia from the contest on the same day of the invasion's start, EBU did not consider banning Russia because of the contest’s non-political nature. Following this, multiple other broadcasters urged EBU to reconsider the decision with some like Yle (Finland) and ERR (Estonia) stating that they would withdraw from the contest if Russia was allowed to be a part. One day later, EBU announced that Russia would not be participating, and the Russian broadcaster left EBU. |
| 55 | ** No known footage of the 1964 Contest exists. It is commonly thought this was the result of a fire in a warehouse in the 1970s (which is also repeated on the official website). The actual reason is because it was never recorded, allegedly due to DR not having a tape recorder in the studio. |
| 56 | * CoveredUp: The Olsen Brothers won for Denmark in 2000 with song called "Fly On The Wings Of Love". Not many people remember that version. What they do remember is the cover version by XTM in 2003, which was a huge dance and club hit, especially in the UK and Ireland. |
| 57 | * CriticalDissonance: Since the introduction of the 50/50 voting format in 2009, it has been essential for contenders to avoid this if they wish to win. Several acts that have fallen into this trap include: |
| 58 | ** 2011 UK representatives [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1dXMWWq6y8 Blue]] were considered to be one of the favorites to win and even received a credible 5th place in the televoting. However, they were ranked 22nd by the juries, leading to an overall 11th place result, barely missing the top ten. In the same year, the inverse happened to Slovenia's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNP3nfvoqps Maja Keuc]] and Austria's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsBC5AB1tFo Nadine Beiler]], who placed 4th and 5th among the juries respectively, but only placed 22nd and 24th (out of 25 finalists) in the televoting. They finished 13th and 18th respectively in the final event. |
| 59 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtjdTPnCcu0 Robin Stjernberg]] of Sweden in 2013 was ranked 3rd by the juries, but came in 18th in the televotes, ending up with a 14th place result. |
| 60 | ** Poland’s MaleGaze-friendly entry in 2014 "My Słowianie - We Are Slavic", came in 5th in the public voting with 162 points. The juries on the other hand wanted nothing to do with the gimmicks, only placing it 23rd with 23 points, leading to a 62 point overall total and a 14th place result. |
| 61 | *** Poland are this in general. In 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, the Polish entry wouldn't have qualified if Jury votes were the only votes. In 2018 and 2019, the former with a folktronica song that was seen to have hit potential, and the latter with a controversial bilingual folk rock ballad whose video’s depiction of Christianity was removed when it was uploaded onto the ESC website, the jury vote prevented them from qualifying, by just 1 point on the latter occasion. |
| 62 | ** Malta are also this in general. During the 100% televote era, they initially did well, but got nul points from televoters in 2006[[note]]Their only points were from Albania's jury.[[/note]], and failed to qualify in 2007 and 2008. The televote dragged them out of the final in 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2017. The televote also caused them to finish in the twenties in the final, the worst victim being Firelight in 2014 - 6th in juries and 24th in the televote, the system in place made them finish 23rd overall. Malta only failed to make the jury top 10 in the semis in 2022. |
| 63 | ** Romania became this upon their first NQ in 2018. The juries disagreed with all of their non-qualifications, all caused by the televoters, which previously caused Romania's success. However, in 2022, the televote saved them, especially with most jury votes to Romania being cancelled out in the voting scandal. |
| 64 | ** Italy's 2015 entry came first in the televoting, but due to the 5th place given by the juries, Il Volo ended up in 3rd place. This was the first time that the winner of the televoting did not win the contest. |
| 65 | ** 2016 was the first time neither the winner of the jury vote (won by Australia) nor the winner of the televote (won by Russia) would end up winning the contest. Because of the opposing views from both voting parties (Australia 4th with public, Russia 5th with jury), they ended up cancelling each other out leaving with Ukraine (2nd in jury and public) the winner overall. The split voting system introduced that year made the CriticalDissonance particularly obvious. Most notable was Poland's Michał Szpak, who ranked second to last in the jury votes, with only 7 points, but ended third in the public vote with 222 points, finishing eighth in the overall rank. |
| 66 | ** Pretty much ''all'' of Australia's post-2017 entries fell victim to this where a high jury score would be cancelled by a poor televote: |
| 67 | *** 2017's contestant, Isaiah Firebrace, who received a respectable 4th place by the juries with 171 points, but received a disappointing 25th place from the televoting with just 2 points from Denmark. Surprisingly enough, they managed to stay on the top 10 overall with a 9th place result. |
| 68 | *** 2018's Jessica Mauboy scored 90 points and 12th place with the jury, but 9 points (and last at 26th place) with the televote, causing her to finish at 20th overall. |
| 69 | *** 2019's entry downplayed this with Kate Miller-Heidke gaining just over half her points from the jury (153, 6th place) relative to the televote (131, 7th place). However, more lopsided scores from the likes of Norway and North Macedonia (both discussed further down) caused Australia's overall score to fall to 9th overall. |
| 70 | *** While 2021's Montaigne failed to qualify for the final, the semi-final was still an example, scoring 26 points (14th) with the televote but last (16th) with the public at 2 points. Australia's COVID restrictions restricting Montaigne from leaving the country may not have helped here, with the broadcaster SBS having to send their entry in remotely for review instead. |
| 71 | *** 2022's contestant Sheldon Riley also received 2 points (and 24th place) from the televote but 123 points (and 9th place) from the jury, allowing for a respectable 15th place finish overall. Part of the reason is attributed to it being lost in the high amount of male ballads that year (including the 2nd-placed UK as well as Poland, Switzerland and Azerbaijan) |
| 72 | *** 2023's entry, the synth-metal band Voyager, won the 100% televote semi-final 2 but also ultimately fell victim to this in the grand final. The band scored 130 points (6th place) with the jury, but just 21 points (and 20th overall) with the public. Regardless, Voyager still achieved a [[RuleOfThree 9th place finish]] in an odd-numbered year. In this case, it is believed fans of rock and metal music overwhelmingly preferred the theatrics present in Finland's (and to a lesser extent, Croatia's) entry with similar-styled entries from Slovenia and Germany also suffering poorer than expected televote scores. |
| 73 | ** Austria, seen by not even the biggest fans of former Bulgaria backing vocalist Cesar Sampson as a contender in 2018, held off the Mediterranean title rivals of Israel and Cyprus, as did Sweden, in the jury, but Sweden got only 21 televotes, and Austria only 71, and Israel and Cyprus thundered ahead. Denmark and Italy had very poor jury scores but stormed into the top 10 once the points of the televotes were added, with Italy close to the Cypriot-Israeli title race. |
| 74 | ** In 2019, Norway in terms of those favoured by the public (they were only 15th with the jury, but got more televotes than any other song), and Sweden and unfancied North (formerly FYR) Macedonia with the tastemakers. |
| 75 | ** Moldovan cult icons Zdub Si Zdub was the most serious case of this in 2022 - near last with the jury vote but the second best tele vote behind Ukraine’s landslide score. The Serbian and Norwegian entries also benefited from this as well, with both of them going from somewhere in the middle of the leaderboard after the jury vote to 5th and 10th respectively after the public vote, while the inverse happened with Switzerland - they did well with the jury, and got zero points from the public, which landed them near the bottom. |
| 76 | ** This happened both ways in 2023: the professional juries put Croatia second-bottom with just 11 points, whereas the public votes put them seventh. (This might be more because of the performance - which really needs [[https://youtu.be/hGuGfdEJ5Pw to be seen to be believed]].) Austria went the other way with this - they finished eighth in the jury vote but, despite being a fan-favourite, could only scrape together 16 points from the public, putting them 22nd. |
| 77 | * DancingBear: Lots of examples, whenever an act is most remembered for the gimmick than for the song or singer. Just to mention a couple, if you ask anyone, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waYpnAexrUA the Russian act for 2006]] was about a ghost girl coming out of a piano, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_xRmEkR6KE Ukraine 2011]] was about a woman doing sand drawings and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN3d_V7KVLE Azerbaijan 2013]] was about a guy dancing inside a glass box. In all three cases, the person remembered didn't sing a note. |
| 78 | ** Moldova does this nearly every year. It's gotten to the point that anybody outside of Europe will only remember one of Moldova's performances, the one from 2010. It's not even its proper name, but everyone knows it as "that Epic Sax Guy song".[[note]]Also an AscendedMeme: [=SunStroke Project=] later released a remix of the song titled "Epic Sax".[[/note]] The "Epic Sax Guy", in fact, made a triumphant comeback in 2017 as [=SunStroke Project=] reemerged with "Hey Mamma" to claim third place -- Moldova's all-time high. Acts like Zdob Si Zdub and [=DoReDos=] have done bizarre visual shows for the tiny exclave between Ukraine and Romania, too. |
| 79 | ** The hosts of 2016 made fun of this trope and presented us with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMgW54HBOS0 this]]. A collection of some of the most famous gimmicks featured in Eurovision. |
| 80 | ** Creator/StephenColbert chose to represent the USA after Eurovision began broadcasting there in 2016 and gave yet another parody. Enjoy [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTP17rWuUMo The Living Life]]; who knows if it was influenced by "Love Love Peace Peace", but it does feature a lot of the same repeated quirks. |
| 81 | ** In the 2020 Finnish selection process, Erika Vikman used a literal one for the stageshow of her Schlager candidate "Cicciolina", a disco entry so 90's that it was even in its own language, and a major fan favourite. However, it lost the selection process to a more demure tune and the event was scrapped anyway days later. |
| 82 | * EnsembleDarkhorse: |
| 83 | ** ABBA and Celine Dion (although French Canadian, she performed for Switzerland) are the most successful entrants career-wise. |
| 84 | ** Ireland jointly hold the record for most wins (seven, along with Sweden, who equalled it in 2023), and are the sole owners of the records for most consecutive wins (three, and the year that run ended it was won by an Irishwoman competing for Norway, the following year Ireland won it officially once again, so if you felt like bending the rules you could say they won it five times in a row), and Irishman Johnny Logan has most wins for a single person (one for singing, one for writing, one for singing ''and'' writing). Ireland's "Riverdance" interval act is also by a wide margin the most successful Eurovision interval act ever. This golden age of Ireland at the Eurovision ended after the 90s though, and they've since become more notable for sending gimmicky acts such as Jedward and Dustin the Turkey. |
| 85 | ** 2010 saw a full-fledged meme: the rise of Moldova's "Epic Sax Guy" |
| 86 | ** And of course, Radio/TerryWogan. |
| 87 | ** 2016 hosts Petra Mede and Måns Zelmerlöw have been considered the best part of the show, especially their "Love Love Peace Peace" sketch. |
| 88 | ** Not to mention Miss "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" herself, Verka Serduchka! |
| 89 | ** 2021's Ukrainian entry (''Shum'' by Go_A) was predicted to be hit or miss due to being entirely in Ukrainian and featuring heavy folk/traditional influence (including the notoriously polarizing white voice singing technique common in traditional eastern European music), but ended up not only winning the most televotes in their semi-final and the second most televotes in the grand final (ultimately finishing in 5th place), but also charting in several countries as well as on the Spotify Global Viral Hits list during the competition. |
| 90 | ** 2023 gave us Käärijä from Finland and his song "Cha Cha Cha", who despite his song being entirely in Finnish and [[GenreBusting not having a set genre]], quickly became one of the most well-loved contestants and a very dear friend to most of the other participants, winning his semi-final and the most televotes on the grand final (placing 2nd overall), while also showing up first on the Spotify Global Viral Hits list during the competiton. It helps that he's also a massive dork (Formula 1 blanket and [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Bulbasaur plushie]], anyone?) and the entirety of Finland went all out to cheer him on by decorating their national monuments in his iconic neon green bolero and quoting his heavily quotable song (and catchphrase)[[note]]"It's crazy, it's party!"[[/note]] in their social media posts. He even received a hero's welcome once he returned to Finnish soil, and Finnish social media was abound with discussions on whether to celebrate his success in the market square fountain, which is normally reserved for major causes of celebration. During the jury voting result announcement, the audience was very visibly chanting his name and song above everyone else! |
| 91 | ** On the hosting side, 2023 also gave us Creator/HannahWaddingham whose unbridled enthusiasm for the role, combined with her endearing facial expressions and impressive French skills, won a number of fans over and managed to upstage even [[SacredCow Graham Norton]] in the grand final. |
| 92 | * GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff |
| 93 | ** The show is quite popular in Australia, where SBS shows it on tape delay for primetime (complete with their own commentators in recent years; they used to carry the BBC's feed). Also the subject of a CutawayGag during the OpeningMonologue of the 2013 edition, which showed an Australian family staying up to watch it live. They fell asleep on the couch. It reached its apex when the EBU, in honor of the ESC's 60th anniversary, invited Australia to participate as a one-off GuestFighter in 2015. The song was very well-received, and placed 5th in the final event; Australia has stuck around ever since, even ''nearly winning'' in 2016. |
| 94 | ** There's a small but growing group of people in the US who wish that BBC America would air the contest. Some want to watch it because they truly are fans of European music and would like the opportunity to find more potential artists to listen to, others just hear all the snark that Europe throws at it and are interested due to BileFascination. In 2016, the event was picked up by an American broadcaster: however, it ended up being Creator/{{Logo}}. |
| 95 | * HamAndCheese: Some of the most memorable acts are those who decide to simply have fun and ham it up knowing that their chances of winning are terribly slim. Acts of this kind are pretty much Moldova's specialty (for evidence, just take a look at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHAY_OVN_gY Zdob şi Zdub]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kjPaVAeeE DoReDos]]), but this trope is also one of the reasons why Spain has failed to get over ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeCIvOxXBo Baila el Chiki-Chiki]]''. |
| 96 | * HarsherInHindsight: |
| 97 | ** Or hilarious, depending on your sense of humor: while presenting the votes in 1996, host Ingvild Bryn noted that none of the countries had ''nul points'', remarking that host country Norway were notorious for it. One year later, Tor Endressen's "San Francisco" became the fourth Norwegian entry to receive ''nul points'', a dishonor it shared with Portugal that year. |
| 98 | ** The (planned) 2020 edition's tagline "Open Up" became darkly ironic when a global pandemic forced its cancelation, amid countless countries issuing strict quarantine orders to citizens. It then became fittingly (and optimistically) poignant when it was announced they would be using it again for 2021. |
| 99 | ** Watching the voting of the year 2000 becomes very uncomfortable after realising that at the exact same moment, more than 20 people died in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enschede_fireworks_disaster firework explosion in the Netherlands]]. It’s briefly touched upon by the spokesperson from the Netherlands who mentions that there are no public votes due to a disaster with an unspecified loss of life, but the commentators simply gloss over it and continue to crack jokes. |
| 100 | ** The Hungarian entry from 2018 is about the singer Örs Siklósi losing his father at a young age. Unfortunately the same would apply to Örs himself, as he passed away from leukemia at 28 in 2021. |
| 101 | ** The winning song of the 2016 contest, "1944" by Jamala for Ukraine, told of the plight of her Crimean ancestors as they were forced out of their lands in World War II. Almost six years later, the song gained renewed attention during Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Jamala herself would be forced out of Ukraine with her children to escape the war. |
| 102 | ** Iceland's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGegovbGTOg first entry]] in 1986 is "Gleðibankinn", which means "The Bank of Fun". 22 years later in 2008, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932012_Icelandic_financial_crisis economic crisis strikes]]. |
| 103 | ** The 1993 postcards had the competitors exploring Ireland. For Denmark's Tommy Seebach, he led his band through a distillery, followed by them all enjoying drinks. Ten years later, Seebach would die from a heart attack, which many ascribed to longtime alcoholism (exacerbated by the fact that his entry in '93 finished near the bottom and relegated Denmark from the following year's contest). |
| 104 | ** In 1977, the United Kingdom had a song called "Rock Bottom", whose chorus started "Where are we? Rock bottom." That finished second. Between 2003 and 2021 inclusive, the United Kingdom would finish rock bottom five times - including two "nil pointers" and two back-to-back last placers (albeit with the cancelled 2020 contest in between). |
| 105 | * HeartwarmingInHindsight: |
| 106 | ** Following from the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests, watching and listening to Litesound (semifinalist, Baku 2012), Naviband (seventeenth, Kyiv 2017) and VAL (entrant, Rotterdam 2020[[note]]withdrawn entry due to the contest's cancelation[[/note]]) will be delightful GuiltyPleasures thanks to [[https://wiwibloggs.com/2020/08/15/what-is-happening-in-belarus-how-are-eurovision-personalities-reacting/256719/ their support for the anti-authoritarian protesters]] and all of these submitted songs are TheFutureWillBeBetter SelfEmpowermentAnthem, it's implied that all of them never give up from themselves and the protests. |
| 107 | ** Some Ukrainian entries like 2005 Greenjolly's MusicForCourage "Razom Nas Bahato"[[note]]Which became the unofficial anthem of the actual protest, Ukrainian Orange Revolution[[/note]] and 2011 Mika Newton's positive message song "Angel" hit differently during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Especially 2022 Kalush Orchestra's "Stefania" which released few days before the invasion, is a song about good memories from their mother, it's implied that some Ukrainians lost or missed or feeling inseparable with their moms (or other family members) during the war. Which later {{Exploited|Trope}} by their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Z51no1TD0 official video]] that features impact of warfare on civilians, especially the mothers who protect their children during the war. |
| 108 | * HilariousInHindsight: |
| 109 | ** Following Ireland's run of three wins between 1992 and 1994, British commentator Terry Wogan remarked before the Irish entry from '95 that, "They say they don't want to win, but believe me, they do!" Ireland ended its streak and then some that night, plummeting to fourteenth place. One year later, though... |
| 110 | ** Pretty much every joke referencing Finland's lack of success prior to 2006 (a popular joke compared different Finnish temperatures to Finnish occurrences - "-300 degrees" is comparable to "Finland winning Eurovision"). In particular, the 2005 ''Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest'' special had an extended riff on the subject. Host [[Music/KatrinaAndTheWaves Katrina Leskanich]] mentioned that Finland had been the country with the longest participation to never win the contest, "and they're ''angry!"'' This prompted a performance of "Waterloo" by famed Finnish shouting choir Mieskuoro Huutajat. ''Literally one year later'', [[Music/{{Lordi}} a band]] with a similarly loud sound [[CueTheFlyingPigs cued the flying pigs]] and earned Finland the biggest victory in the history of the contest at the time. |
| 111 | ** The same year Finland won, the representative of what was then Serbia and Montenegro, while broadcasting their votes from Belgrade, remarked that "we didn't have a song for you this year.[[note]]They ''did'', but had to withdraw at a late stage, so while they didn't perform they still got to vote, the only time a non-participating country voted in the contest.[[/note]] But next year, we'll have the ''best'' song." They were as good as their word: the next year, newly-independent Serbia won the whole contest, with Belgrade hosting in 2008. |
| 112 | ** In one of the interval sketches of Sweden's hosting of Eurovision 2013, an EBU "reporter" called Lynda Woodruff mistakes Copenhagen for Malmö when she's going to introduce the Swedish culture to the audience, which she does by counting several of Denmark's specialties instead (geographically, Malmö is really close to Denmark, and practically seen as Danish by both countries, so it was sort of a common mistake). Guess which country won the contest and which city got to host it the next year? |
| 113 | ** One interval act that got cut after the dress rehearsal offered a look into the future, where every country in the world participated in Eurovision. Alongside typical Eurovision contestants like Norway and Russia, other countries taking part include South Africa, Brazil, and Australia. The first two are still waiting on their invitation, but one year later, guess who was invited for the first time? |
| 114 | ** During the 60th anniversary show, ''Eurovision’s Greatest Hits'', after the performance of 1973 winning song "Tu te reconnaîtras" (Wonderful Dream), co-host Graham Norton remarked that "Of course I too had a wonderful dream, yeah that Greece and Cyprus gave someone else 12 points", noting the infamous voting bloc between the two nations. Ironically in that year’s Eurovision (2015), Greece and Cyprus would both give their respective 12 points to Italy.[[note]]Though there were other times in the '80s and '90s that one of the countries didn't give each other 12 points, this was the first year that ''neither'' of the countries did so![[/note]] |
| 115 | *** Whilst that year saw both nations give their 12's to Italy, Cyprus gave 6 points to Israel and Greece gave none. Why was this ironic? Greek rnb singer Eleni Foureira was so taken aback by the Israeli entry Golden Boy, penned by Doron Medalie, she did an own language cover version of it. This led to her attempting to represent Greece with a song produced by Doron. It wasn't selected, but 2 years later, she represented Cyprus after Greek Swedish super producer Alex P's wanted artists were unable to enter, became a sensation, and placed 2nd. Who wrote the song that beat hers? Medalie! Furthermore, they collaborated again with her new-found status and his elevated further. |
| 116 | ** In the interval act of the 2016 contest finale, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMgW54HBOS0 "Love Love Peace Peace"]], the then incumbent winner and host Måns Zelmerlöw jokingly advises against winning Eurovision with a song about war, as Abba did with "Waterloo" back in 1974. Come the end of the show, Jamala wins with "1944", a song about the Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars. |
| 117 | *** That same year, in the "Story of ESC" song, Mans and Petra sing that Eurovision "[will] take over the world and then conquer Mars!" In 2018, science-fiction writer and Obie Award winner Catherynne M. Valente released ''Space Opera'', which is about humanity having to send a representative to an intergalactic song contest in order to not be obliterated. So, in a sense, Eurovision ''does'' take over Mars (and, if the parody isn't obvious enough, the names of each chapter come from different Eurovision songs, and the beginnings to each section contain quotes from thematically relevant Eurovision songs). |
| 118 | *** Later, in the same song, they jokingly sing "When Sweden gets twelve points from Norway/It's clearly just good taste" as a way to poke fun at how Sweden benefits from Nordic bloc voting. Then, when the jury vote comes around, Norway gave Sweden...nothing. And the televote only gave them 7. |
| 119 | ** Austria and Germany in 2015 both got nul points. In 2018 they were in 3rd and 4th place with 342 and 340 points, respectively. |
| 120 | ** The interval act in 2010 featured flash mobs dancing in cities across Europe, one of which was Düsseldorf in Germany. Which would be the following year’s host city. |
| 121 | ** In 2021, the Spain entry was the song "Voy a quedarme" (Literally: I will Stay) by ex-boyband singer Blas Canto, who released a translated version closer to the event. Just before the contest, he released another version of the English translation with the UK's entry James Newman - and neither act got even one televoting point between them, and just 6 jury points, all for Blas, and 2 from the UK! |
| 122 | ** After [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks far-right terrorist attacks in 2011]], Norwegian televoters seemed to [[TakeThat give their preferences]] to a TwoferTokenMinority singer Tooji to represent their country in 2012. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest_2012#Final Well, just look at the televote results from each regions!]] |
| 123 | ** Belarus 2008 entry, "Hasta la vista" is a BreakupSong. 13 years later, Belarusian broadcaster BTRC was expelled from the EBU on 1 July due to violation of the contest's rules against political propaganda entries. |
| 124 | ** The grand final of the 2022 contest in Turin opened with not an Italian song, but "Give Peace a Chance," by Music/JohnLennon, due to ongoing crises - most notably that in Ukraine. When Ukraine won the contest and was unable to host given those circumstances, who should step up to take on hosting duties but Lennon's hometown of Liverpool? |
| 125 | * HoYay: Beside a [[ActorShipping Singer Shipping]] trope, there's nothing weird to have so many of these kind of moments due to the show's large amounts of LGBTFanbase (not to mention the ''[[HomoeroticSubtext deliberate]]'' examples mentioned on the main page). |
| 126 | ** Ireland's 1994 winning entry, "Rock 'n' Roll Kids" by Paul Harrington and Charlie Mc[==]Gettigan, is a nostalgic ballad about people that were once close growing apart with age, and it can be easily be interpreted as romantic with lyrics such as "I was yours, and you were mine". In fact, the performance features lots of tender eye contact between the two singers. |
| 127 | ** Italy's 2021 Damiano David of Måneskin [[https://twitter.com/Morena_3v/status/1396254963513311236 kissed and hugged]] both of the other male band members on stage at the winner's performance. |
| 128 | ** Norway's wolf-masked duo Subwoolfer is a good HoYay thing for UsefulNotes/FurryFandom in 2022 with some of their somewhat suggestive lyrics: |
| 129 | --->Not sure I told you but I really like your teeth \ |
| 130 | That hairy coat of yours with nothing underneath |
| 131 | * HypeBacklash: |
| 132 | ** Many winners of their respective years usually get thoroughly bashed once it gets popular; usually by those who didn't find the song very appealing in the first place, as well as the fans of the other potential winners (especially the runner up). Several winners have a huge amount of dislikes on [=YouTube=], although now the dislikes are not publicly visible anymore unless you use a specific browser extension. |
| 133 | ** After Malta's Destiny was a favorite in the odds for most of the buildup to the 2021 contest, the Maltese delegation started a large online campaign, advertising their entry "Je me casse" in pretty much whatever space they could find. Unfortunately for them, the overpromotion led to fans growing tired of the song right before the final. As a result, Malta received 208 points from the national juries but only 47 from the televote, leading to a disappointing seventh place overall. |
| 134 | [[/folder]] |
| 135 | |
| 136 | [[folder:L-W]] |
| 137 | * LGBTFanbase: Goodness gracious, '''yes'''. The entire program is {{camp}}ier than a chorus line of drag queens, not to mention that a huge number of performers are themselves members of the LGBT community (of which Conchita Wurst is the well-known example.) There's a [[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/eurovision-2018-lgbt-song-contest-saara-aalto-conchita-wurst-fans-gay-audience-a8335116.html reason]] [[https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/have-you-noticed-that-eurovision-is-very-popular-with-gay-people-1.3081243 why]] the contest is [[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295082264_The_gay_Olympics_The_Eurovision_Song_Contest_and_the_politics_of_LGBTEuropean_belonging often referred to]] in the media as the "[[FanNickname Gay Olympics]]". |
| 138 | * MandelaEffect: A lot of germans are firmly convinced, that the contest was called only by its french name "Grand Prix de la Chanson de l' Eurovision" until some point in the 70s, 80s or 90s. Despite the fact, that the english name was used in every german TV broadcast over the decades. |
| 139 | * MemeticBadass: Valentina Monetta, Serhat and Senhit, three singers who all have represented San Marino separately and more than once, have all gotten this status thanks to their good songs ([[SoBadItsGood though they may be more mixed in that]], at least for Serhat and some of Valentina's songs), the fact that all three have represented the smallest country currently in the contest (and second smallest in the show's history, after Monaco), and also succeeding in getting San Marino to the final. Between 2011 and 2021, San Marino has almost always been represented by one of these three (except in 2015 and 2018). There are jokes that San Marino would have a guaranteed victory if the three collaborated and represented the nation together and that it would take place in Valentina's backyard, since Valentina is the only one of the three who actually comes from San Marino (Senhit is Italian, Serhat is Turkish). Plus, Senhit managed to get Music/FloRida on stage with her in 2021. |
| 140 | * MemeticLoser: |
| 141 | ** The United Kingdom has often had this reputation among Eurovision fans, despite being historically one of the most successful countries in the contest (5 wins and 16 second places). The fact that they go from being an Eurovision powerhouse to being the eternal loser from 2003 onwards makes it even more impressive. |
| 142 | ** Germany is a close second, mainly due to starting the "Sorry, Germany, 0 points" meme. |
| 143 | ** As a competitor, Italy is one of the best-performing countries with a consistent streak of high placements and three wins. As a ''host'', however, it's seen as this trope. Barring their first hosting gig in 1965, which was back when the Contest was a much simpler affair, Rome 1991 is widely considered as the worst year hosting-wise due to a late replacement of the hosting city, delays during the rehearsals, multiple technical failures, and a chaotic voting sequence filled with mistakes and dead air. Turin 2022, while decent overall, also suffered from alleged disorganisation behind-the-scenes, more delays and technical issues, and -- most glaringly -- the failure of the stage's "mechanical sun" component which forced many delegations to revise their stagings last-minute. |
| 144 | * MemeticMutation: |
| 145 | ** Verka Serduchka and "Dancing Lasha Tumbai". [[TheRunnerUpTakesItAll It comes as]] [[RefugeInAudacity no surprise.]] |
| 146 | ** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-seDrv1eQo "Epic Sax Guy"]] from the 2010 Moldova entry "Run Away" by [=SunStroke Project=] & Olia. They're all quite aware of this; in fact, the band actually managed to return for the 2017 edition, resulting in much rejoicing. |
| 147 | *** It helped Moldova, a nation with very limited resources, THIRD when it returned in 2017. Previously, their best was in 2005, their debut and also in nearby Kiev, with meme friendly Zdob Si Zdub, who were even odder in 2011! |
| 148 | ** Estonia's 2011 entry "Rockefeller Street" is known in particular for a {{Nightcore}} version from an ''VideoGame/{{Osu}}'' video. |
| 149 | ** Sweden's 2012 entry Loreen and her [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2dnwzyM4T8 "crab walk"]] seem to be getting there. |
| 150 | ** The smallest of the sweet little old Russian ladies from 2012 developed a fandom on Tumblr due to her dance moves. |
| 151 | ** 2013: "Alcohol is free" became a punchline for jokes about the Greek economic crisis. |
| 152 | ** Website/{{Tumblr}} users developed a fondness for the 2013 Romanian entry, whom they described as the "gay opera dubstep vampire". |
| 153 | ** 2014 UK entrant Molly Smitten-Downes with her WTF?!?! style reaction and facial expressions when presented with a curlie-wurlie cake from her local bakery during a green room interview. |
| 154 | ** 2016 was generally full of this, with gems such as Poland's entry being called anything from [[Literature/HarryPotter Sirius Black]] to Jesus, Croatia's outfit looking like something a boss from VideoGame/DarkSouls or Franchise/FinalFantasy would wear, Germany's entry being a blatant {{otaku}}, the fact that ''Australia'' almost won that year, and many more. |
| 155 | ** In 2017, Croatia's Jacques Houdek [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/ikrd/me-at-karaoke?utm_term=.fqJBXaY8Mv#.du6DLwQjB4 became a meme]] thanks to his visuals and how his song was a duet... [[SoloDuet with himself]]. |
| 156 | ** Israel's 2018 entrant and winner Netta has been referred as the "chicken lady" due to the clucking sounds in her song "Toy". |
| 157 | ** Cyprus' 2018 entrant Music/EleniFoureira drew comparisons to Music/{{Shakira}} and Music/{{Beyonce}}. The former because of her wavy long hair, the latter because of her dance moves, and also because the designer of her infamous costume, Vretakos Vrettas, has LITERALLY designed Beyoncé costumes. Also, her joking about the simple fact [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYmF2IjWAF4 Fuego means fire]], when promoting her song during the final week, made her a meme even more. |
| 158 | ** Ukraine opened the show in 2018 with the country's participant, Mélovin, rising out of a piano like a vampire from his coffin, only to then have the stairs leading to said piano light up with fire. Eurovision fans, and in particular Website/{{Tumblr}}, rejoiced upon setting eyes upon what has now been deemed the love child of the Romanian 2013 gay opera vampire and Austria's 2015 "burning fake piano", as immortalised by Sweden's 2016 interval act "Love Love Peace Peace". Ukrainian Dracula indeed. |
| 159 | ** In 2018 there were a lot of gifs of Hungary's AWS, especially frontman and lead singer Örs Siklósi with his surprised reactions to being chosen as Hungary's entry and to qualifying for the final. |
| 160 | ** People having fun at the titles of 2019 songs: |
| 161 | --->Denmark: Love is Forever \ |
| 162 | Sweden: Is it too late for love? \ |
| 163 | Iceland: Hatrið mun sigra (Hatred will prevail) |
| 164 | *** Something similar happened in 2021, where the tone and lyrics of Germany's whimsical pop song "I Don't Feel Hate" ("So you can wiggle with that middle finger, it’ll never wiggle back to you") clashed heavily with the next act's, Finland's hard rock song "Dark Side" ("Put your middle fingers up, take a shot, throw it up and don’t stop"). |
| 165 | ** Users posting a "corrected" version of Duncan Laurence's performance where his piano is on fire, as a reference to the "burning fake piano" line from "Love Love Peace Peace" interval act from 2016. |
| 166 | ** Iceland 2018 vs Iceland 2019 [[labelnote:Explanation]]Iceland's 2018 entry was Ari Ólafsson's peaceful ballad "[[https://youtu.be/Pm1YaJceg5c Our Choice]]", which ended up dead last in the semis. MoodWhiplash ensued in 2019 when the Icelanders followed it up with Hatari's "[[https://youtu.be/UGrRhIj4FRw Hatrið mun sigra]]", which means "Hatred will prevail" and could not be any more different than the adorable song about love and peace.[[/labelnote]] |
| 167 | *** In 2020, Iceland had an even more extreme meme than even the Hatari, as singer writer Dadi Freyr, and his band Ganganamid (including his wife and sister), a previous selection (Songvakeppnin) process runner up, and who wear pixelated pictures of their likeness, won its 2020 iteration in style and got championed by renowned actor Russell Crowe, TV presenter Dara O'Brian, and journalist Robert Peston. A bizarre music video allowed the song to garner cult status before it had even won the selection. |
| 168 | ** Downplayed with Music/{{Darude}}, who represented Finland in 2019 alongside vocalist Sebastian Rejman. There was initially speculation that the memetic success of his 1999 hit "Sandstorm" would push him to the final thanks to name recognition (similar to how it benefited [=SunStroke=] Project in 2017 when they returned after the Epic Sax Guy meme blew up). However, given that the song was significantly less memorable than "Sandstorm" (and that Rejman's shaky live vocals didn't help), Finland actually finished in last place in their semi-final. |
| 169 | *** That scenario, however, was played very straight in a Eurovision-specific way in regards to San Marino's returning contestant, Serhat. He became a meme in 2016 thanks to "I Didn't Know," which started life as a bizarre ballad before being changed to an uptempo, surprisingly catchy (if quite dated) disco number. Serhat's charming demeanor, all-magenta outfit (including a dapper fedora), and - most notably - very deep and gravelly voice (some compared it to Music/LeonardCohen trying his hand at disco) made him stand out in his semi, but an unsurprisingly poor showing with the juries saw him top out at twelfth place. His return in 2019 was greeted with joy by Eurovision fans (particularly given some unsavory rumored contestants, which made Eurovision fans not necessarily thrilled at his return at least grateful that he wasn't the alternative), and his song "Say Na Na Na" was championed by fans online (particularly on Reddit and Twitter), who made it their cause to send San Marino to the grand final, using the hashtag [=#Serhat4Saturday=]. In spite of a poor performance in his semi, the campaign worked, and San Marino scored its best result to date, making it to the final for the second time and finishing in 19th place there. |
| 170 | ** Valentina's Backyard [[labelnote:Explanation]]A joking suggestion thrown around by fans in the case that San Marino wins a contest and has to host the next one, despite lacking the adequate venues since it's a microstate -- Valentina being Valentina Monetta, four-time Sammarinese representative, solving the issue by hosting the contest in her own home. This usually comes out when an entry from the Titan Republic generates hype, like Serhat's return in 2019 or Senhit's song in 2021 unexpectedly featuring Music/FloRida.[[/labelnote]] |
| 171 | ** "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy!" [[labelnote:Explanation]]The RRatedOpening to Citi Zēni's "Eat Your Salad", a raunchy GreenAesop song competing for Latvia in 2022. It's become a catchphrase among vegetarians and vegans, especially those who are queer women.[[/labelnote]] |
| 172 | ** "Bejba" [[labelnote:Explanation]]The first line in Poland's 2023 entry "Solo" starts with the word "Baby", however the odd pronunciation from singer Blanka led to many Eurovision fans (mostly from Poland itself) interpreting the line this way.[[/labelnote]] |
| 173 | ** "Hello? Game Over." [[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch "Bitch!"]][[labelnote:Explanation]]During the Spanish Eurovision pre-party, Serbia's Luke Black [[https://youtu.be/6TWaObMpFTk?t=87 sang that line in his song "Samo mi se spava" in this manner]] sounding seemingly drunk. Since then every time that line appears, expect the audience to [[AudienceParticipation chime in with that word in reference to that event]] in a similar manner to Latvia's Citi Zēni the year before.[[/labelnote]] |
| 174 | ** Finland 2023 gave us Käärijä and his very catchy song Cha Cha Cha. How much of a beloved national meme is he in Finland? [[https://twitter.com/LeenaMalkki/status/1657008983943663616?t=7lJgRrGXA6uQQ5Vm_muDdQ&s=19 This much]], ranging from rewriting the lyrics to quoting his ''very'' quotable CharacterCatchphrase "It's crazy, it's party". |
| 175 | ** '''Finland''': No Rules! '''[=EBU=]''': Actually there's some rules...[[labelnote:Explanation]]Many people have made fun of the "Rules Applied Version" of "No Rules", Finland's 2024 entry by [=Windows95man=], which is basically the same as the normal version except for the blurred Windows 95 logo due to the "no ProductPlacement" rule, meaning that even a song about not having rules still had to follow the rules.[[/labelnote]] |
| 176 | ** The “I Feel It Coming” line in Iceland’s 2024 entry Scared Of Heights has been used as a meme. In another song in that year’s Iceland selection, a mondegreen in its own language version led to Sigga Ozk and her song being called “Go Tiffany”. |
| 177 | * MisBlamed: British critics of Eurovision have a habit of blaming their terrible results since the early 2000's on the rest of Europe hating them for various political decisions, such as the Iraq war in 2003, and Brexit after 2017. However, many have argued that their AudienceAlienatingEra is based on the poor quality of their entries (which have generally ranged from SoOkayItsAverage to outright terrible) citing the success of Jade Ewen in 2009, Blue in 2011 (5th in the public vote), or even Lucie Jones in 2017 (the juries placed her in the top 10) as proof that the United Kingdom can be major contenders if they actually put effort into creating a memorable song and promoting it properly, which was proven in 2022, when they won the jury section and thereby second spot behind Ukraine. |
| 178 | ** Some Irish fans have blamed their nation having made just 3 top 20 places since 2006 (the first two with Jedward, who represented the nation twice in a row in 2011 and 2012), and just 1 final since 2013, on the fact caricature character Dustin The Turkey Represented them in 2008 and didn’t qualify. |
| 179 | * {{Moe}}: While she came last place in 2016, Germany's Jamie-Lee Kriewitz was still seen as TheCutie for being young, dressing in a lolita fashion and apparently having a tendency for adorable head-gear. |
| 180 | * NarmCharm: A good few acts know that the show doesn't take itself seriously anyway so they try to have as much fun entertaining the crowd as possible and making their acts memorable. |
| 181 | * NeverLiveItDown: |
| 182 | ** Kaveret (known internationally as Poogy) are considered the Israeli equivalent of The Beatles, since the band released several famous albums and was made up almost entirely of famous Israeli musicians. They competed in 1974 with "Natati la chaiyai," which is nowadays only remembered by Eurovisionistas for: a) losing to Music/{{ABBA}} (a fate that's befallen pretty much every performer from that year other than ABBA themselves) and b) their relatively ridiculous outfits. They placed sixth, which isn't bad, but none of the members returned for another go (although a quick scan of their Wikipedia page shows that they've all done more than fine at home). |
| 183 | ** British duo Jemini are ONLY known for their 2003 entry "Cry Baby" getting 0, which has variously been put down to [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Iraq]] backlash, and according to Gemma Abbey, sabotage.[[note]]Their performance was notably off-key even though while promoting themselves beforehand they'd performed fairly well. Gemma has stated that they actually couldn't hear the backing track in their in-ear monitors and had to rely on the speakers aimed at the audience, which is harder to do than it sounds.[[/note]] |
| 184 | ** He released new music after Eurovision, but Manel Navarro (Spain 2017) is still mostly remembered for [[https://youtu.be/qAOXHdLdlqQ?t=2m23s that one note]]... |
| 185 | ** The Liverpool 2023 interval with Måns Zelmerlöw and Filomena Cautela still proves that no, the Swedes are ''still'' not over their 2010 non-qualification. |
| 186 | ---> '''Youtube comment''': Never ask: \ |
| 187 | Women: Their age\ |
| 188 | Men: Their salary\ |
| 189 | Swedes: About 2010 |
| 190 | * NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: The decision for Austria to send in drag queen Music/ConchitaWurst in 2014 was rather controversial for conservative viewers and nations, with some even going as far as saying that she would turn the contest into "a hotbed of sodomy". Ironically, the reason why Wurst’s persona even exists is due to her advocacy towards tolerance, and if anything, the controversy caused even more people to look into and adore her and her song. Especially considering that she won, it’s safe to assume her message of tolerance was heard loud and clear. |
| 191 | ** The entire nature of Netta and Toy is about this, even with its positive message, at a time of increased agitation about Israel, particularly with domestic political problems, and its government's relationship with nationalists, such as Donald. The uninhibited nature of the song meant that it went viral instantly, including in Africa, and even some Arab League countries, and picked up over 20 million views before the contest began, with a further 7 million the day after its win, enabled by nations with a variety of opinions on, and trust in, Israel. |
| 192 | * OvershadowedByControversy: |
| 193 | ** It's a matter of debate on whether the UK’s Nul Points in 2003 was more because of anti-British sentiment from the Iraq War, or Jemini's horrifying off key singing, but obviously having both factors going against the UK clearly didn’t help. |
| 194 | ** Russia's Tolmachevy Sisters in 2014 received a lot of boos from the audience when they made it to the final and when they received high votes, not because of their song (they came in 7th), but because of anti-Russian sentiment due to the Crimean conflict and its stance on gay rights. |
| 195 | *** The same thing happened in 2015 with Russia's Polina Gagarina who came in second. She was in tears in green room during the first part of the voting when she was in the lead, allegedly because of how loud the crowds were booing whenever she received high scores, prompting one of the hosts to chastise the audience for making it about politics above music. Once Sweden took the lead people were loudly chanting for Sweden to win just so that Russia would not. |
| 196 | *** Russia was accused of choosing Julia Samoulova for 2017 because they knew the audience would never boo someone in a wheelchair. However, Julia was controversial for different reasons: she had previously traveled to Crimea via Russia to perform, which led to Ukraine banning her from entering the country for three years, preventing her from performing in Kiev that year. She was given the chance to perform via satellite link (which would have made her the first participant ever to do so), but Russia declined and withdrew a month before the contest. Julia did perform in Portugal 2018, and while she wasn't booed (and received 3 televoting points from Ukraine), she didn't advance to the Grand Final either. |
| 197 | *** The entire episode after Russia's illegal war on Ukraine in 2022, with Russia barred from ESC after Nordic and Baltic nations threatened to withdraw if Russia's as-yet-undetermined entry was allowed to compete. Ironically, in the prior 10 days, Ukraine had to replace its selection process winner as entry with its runner up due to alleged forgery of documents relating to travel to Crimea in 2015, and then ended up winning the entire contest due to a tidal wave of support from the rest of Europe. |
| 198 | * {{Padding}}: Many entries have lyrics that's just filler to help a song reach the required time limit. |
| 199 | ** Lampshaded in a Swedish song parodying the contest called "''Värsta Schlagern''" (loosely translating into "The Worst Hit Song"; Schlager is a term referring to a particular style of pop music that is prevalent among Nordic Eurovision entries and hopefuls), where the lyrics for the verse between the first and second chorus go[[note]]Translated from Swedish[[/note]]: "''Now it gets tricky to figure out// something new to say, but so what?// This is merely padding, anyway// and people will soon forget it''." |
| 200 | ** Some of the shows can fall into this too, mainly when there is a gap between the Interval act finishing and when the votes are going to be announced, especially if there is a problem with the verification. This has lessened in the final since 2016 (as the public votes can be verified during the jury voting), but is still present in the semifinals. |
| 201 | ** Whilst an integral part of the Contest nowadays, the postcards themselves were added for this reason: as a result of dissatisfaction with the 1969 result, Finland, Norway, Portugal and Sweden withdrew from the Contest, leaving just 12 countries left, so the producers included videos of the act about to perform in their country's capital[[note]]or Paris, in the case of Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monaco (as well as France, obviously)[[/note]]. |
| 202 | * QuirkyWork: The contest has been described elsewhere on this site as a demonstration of just how ''weird'' the European music scene can get. Some of the more surreal entries can look like they were put together after a bad acid trip. |
| 203 | * ReplacementScrappy: While the majority of acts for the cancelled 2020 contest were reselected internally for the 2021 contest, and others voluntarily decided not to reapply, there are some who were passed over despite being willing to try again. Two examples are Poland's Alicja, whose song submission for 2021 was rejected and got replaced with Rafał -- receiving a lukewarm reception at best -- and ''especially'' Belarus: their 2020 act VAL were prohibited from representing the country after speaking out in favour of the protests against the incumbent Belarusian president, and the band Galasy [=ZMesta=] was selected instead, with a song that was borderline pro-government propaganda (getting banned by the EBU for this reason). {{Subverted}} instead with Russia: despite the insanely popular Music/LittleBig not getting the ticket again, their replacement Manizha and her bilingual feminist song "Russian Woman", while controversial at home, was warmly received internationally. |
| 204 | ** Another popular 2020 entry that did not return for 2021 was Athena Manoukian of Armenia, as the Eurasian country abruptly cancelled their participation that year. Fans widely expected the Greek born star to return when Armenia next participated, in 2022, and many were disappointed that she wasn’t given the chance, particularly as their Junior Eurovision win in 2021 came from selecting would-be 2020 entry Malena anew. However, there was a subversion as the nation spurned unpopular Saro Gveorgyan to send obscure songwriter Rosa Linn and her song Snap got a reasonable and increasingly positive fan reception, had no trouble qualifying, and, whilst it got lost in the final shuffle, had one of the most successful afterlives in the contest’s history, eclipsing all entries bar Arcade on Spotify and Rosa’s next own song getting a feature from Duncan himself. |
| 205 | * RetroactiveRecognition: Lúcia Moniz, who represented Portugal in 1996 and got them their best finish ever up to that point (6th place, which would remain their best result until Salvador Sobral won twenty-one years later), would later become better known for playing Aurélia, Creator/ColinFirth's love interest in ''Film/LoveActually.'' |
| 206 | ** Music/JulioIglesias represented Spain in 1970, prior to finding international success later in the decade. His song, "Gwendolyne," finished fourth. |
| 207 | ** Pretty much the universal reaction to non-fans discovering that "Nel blu dipinto di blue" (aka "VOO-LAA-REE!") and "L'amour est bleu" (better known in English as "Love is Blue") started out as Eurovision entries is, "Wait - THOSE were Eurovision songs?" Both, in various forms, are the only Eurovision entries to top the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the United States. |
| 208 | ** Similarly, ''Theatre/{{Riverdance}}'' was created as an interval act for the 1994 contest, which was hosted (for the second of three consecutive years) by Ireland. It was far and away the highlight of the show, to the degree that some people speculated Ireland's record-breaking win that night was at least partially out of respect for ''Riverdance.'' |
| 209 | * SacredCow: |
| 210 | ** Music/{{ABBA}}, who got Sweden's first win ever in 1974. May the heavens protect you if you bad-mouth them in the slightest. |
| 211 | ** Then there's of course Music/CelineDion, winner for Switzerland in 1988, who has become one of the most famous international singers of all time since then. |
| 212 | ** 2009 gave us Norway's Alexander Rybak, who won the competition with a landslide 387 televotes and held the record for over a decade. His entry remains as one of Eurovision's most beloved and memorable acts, and his cameos in later editions have repeatedly been met with pure delight. It's not uncommon for ESC fans to rank "Fairytale" as one of the best ESC songs, if not ''the'' best ESC song, ever. |
| 213 | ** Sweden's Loreen earned this status in 2012 when she won with the instant mega-hit "Euphoria". She is especially revered in Sweden; when she performed in one of the interval acts in Melodifestivalen 2015 (Sweden's national selection for ESC), she was showered with love and adoration from every direction. Swedes practically ''begged'' her to return to ESC, and her ShockingElimination in the 2017 Melodiefestivalen was met with outrage. Her eventual return and historic ''second win'' in 2023 cemented her status as a Eurovision legend, but surprisingly, her SacredCow status was actually [[SubvertedTrope subverted]], as her overall win despite Finland's '''133-point televote lead''' led to a wave of criticism against both her and the juries. |
| 214 | ** Serbia in 2007 (Marija Serifovic with "Molitva") counts as well; it's still fondly remembered despite being roughly 10 years ago she won. In fact, when there was a poll counting the best Eurovision entries of ''all time'' in early 2010's, she was ranked ''second.'' (ABBA was in first). |
| 215 | ** The (in)famous Johnny Logan, the only three-time winner (once as a singer, once as singer/songwriter, and once as songwriter). The two songs he performed, particularly his second, "Hold Me Now," are still considered high watermarks for the contest. "Hold Me Now" was even voted the third-greatest ESC song in 2005, coming behind only "Volare" and "Waterloo." |
| 216 | ** Music/MansZelmerlow, as a winner and one of Sweden's cheesiest hosts. His winning song "Heroes" is held up almost as highly as his presenting gig the following year and the interval act "Love Love Peace Peace". |
| 217 | ** 2023 gives us Käärijä from Finland for bringing one of the quirkiest songs (and the only song that year to have the entire audience chanting his name during the results announcement), but also being the friendliest and funniest contestant who befriended nearly everyone else. And Lord(i) help you if you insult him in front of a Finn because the entire country of Finland in particular is VERY protective of him for having the most successful Finnish song to date. It is possible that he may go down as one of the most memorable entries in 2023. |
| 218 | ** More hosts that are held dear to Eurovision include the UK's (Irish) commentators Terry Wogan and Graham Norton, and Sweden's Petra Mede. Norton and Mede gladly became the faces of Eurovision hosting by the 2010s. |
| 219 | * ScrappyMechanic: There is nothing in the ESC rules saying that the national entrants ''have to'' be selected among numerous artists and/or songs by the wider public and for various reasons, some countries sometimes decide to just have their TV bosses pick a song and an act - which usually goes just about as well as you'd expect. The reasons for that unpopular measure being taken are usually lack of suitable candidates, something about the last performance having gone wrong and [[DemocracyIsFlawed the public vote being blamed]] or attempts to cut costs. It's not uncommon that a country goes from national preselection to network bosses picking an act to not showing up at all before giving it a go again years later |
| 220 | ** Yes and no: while internal selection has a mixed track record at Eurovision, it's paid off handsomely for several countries. Two of the top three countries in 2018 (Austria and Cyprus) internally selected their songs and performers, while victorious Israel picked their singer through a national final and the song was chosen by the Israeli broadcaster. Several winning acts have also been completely chosen internally (Conchita Wurst and Duncan Laurence). In fact, the Netherlands have not used a single public selection since 2012, the final year of their infamous run of not qualifying, and have only missed one final since, with a song that was unveiled prematurely and a singer whose dress was widely derided. |
| 221 | * [[ActorShipping Singer Shipping]]: Eurovision is not completely free from this trope, oddly enough. |
| 222 | ** There was slight shipping between Alexander Rybak/Lena Meyer Landrut (winners of 2009 for Norway and 2010 for Germany, respectively), when Rybak playfully [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZ0aRRg6Rw tricked Lena into kissing him]], when she was receiving the 2010 ESC trophy from him. There were a few misunderstandings between them too that could come off as {{Adorkable}}. |
| 223 | ** In 2012, this trope sparked between Kaliopi/Can Bonomo (Contenders for F.Y.R. Macedonia and Turkey, respectively), when he was complimenting her and vice versa, claiming they're going to work together and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blIzjX-qGoE sharing a few friendly cheek-kisses.]] The comments on Website/YouTube is what makes this trope qualify. |
| 224 | ** In 2015, the Lithuanian contenders, Monika and Vaidas, showed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtB_slM63JA a lot of chemistry while singing their happy song about love.]] They even included a kiss, which was longer and more passionate every time they performed the song. The shipping was imminent. |
| 225 | ** Also in 2015, Elnur Hüseynov from Azerbaijan and Loïc Nottet from Belgium appeared in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHRuMxcdXPo video together]], talking about the "bridges" they had with each other's country (due to the 2015 slogan Building Bridges). The interactions between them and the suggestive lyrics of the Belgian song created a proper shipping moment, as some comments on Website/YouTube pointed. |
| 226 | --->'''Elnur Hüseynov:''' Rapapap, rapapap...\ |
| 227 | '''Loïc Nottet:''' ...Tonight?\ |
| 228 | '''Elnur Hüseynov:''' Tonight!\ |
| 229 | '''Both:''' *laugh* |
| 230 | ** In 2017, the Belarus and Romania acts both included kissing between the duets.[[note]]The Belarusians actually are an off-stage couple, so if that case does count as shipping is debatable.[[/note]] Meanwhile, several joint appearances of UK's Creator/LucieJones and Spain's Manel Navarro -- most notably a duet cover of Martin Garrix's "In the Name of Love" -- also sparked some minor shipping (and loads of unconfirmed relationship rumors that [[http://www.lavanguardia.com/television/20170511/422494767960/manel-navarro-amor-pareja-lucie-jones-eurovision-2017.html made it to the press]] over in Spain). Needless to say, [[ShipSinking this ship sank completely]] when Lucie married her long-time boyfriend later in the year. |
| 231 | ** The first neighbourly top 2 since 2009, Netta and Eleni of Israel and Cyprus respectively. Their so-called rivalry had a unique twist due to the latter's regular work with the former's songwriter. They shared a heart gesture when celebrating qualifying, Netta used the picture to clap back at Salvador Sobral's critique of her song, and re-did the gesture, as well as passionately embracing in front of fans and the media, when Eleni gigged at an Israeli rnb festival alongside their 2015 contestant whose song she had previously covered, amongst others, and at the birthday party of the songwriter in question, Doron Medalie. Furthermore, Netta later made a post which was defending Israel's home entry (ironically called "Home", by Kobi Marimi, whose insta was largely a travel blog until winning the Israeli selection), a gravelly, classical religious ballad - and still used that post to reaffirm how much she liked Foureira (mentioning the fact that "Fuego" had long odds prior to rehearsals, just like "Home" has). Marimi DID do his own version of Fuego during the Rising Star selection process. |
| 232 | ** Of the [[https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Eurovision%20Song%20Contest%20RPF/works 1,000+ works of Eurovision fanfiction on Archive of Our Own]], nearly ''half'' ship Italy's 2018 representatives, Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro. |
| 233 | ** 2021 brought us Efentix (Efendi of Azerbaijan and Tix of Norway). It started off as a one-sided crush, but got big enough to get its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYryAOtvDX8 own dedicated video]] on the official Eurovision youtube channel. |
| 234 | ** 2023 saw the blossoming of a close friendship between Finnish representative Käärijä and Bojan Cvjetićanin, frontman of Slovenia's act Joker Out. First meeting during the pre-parties -- and initially communicating entirely through body language because of Käärijä's limited English -- their bromance leant heavily on the "romance" side, including going on a "dinner date" in Liverpool and promising to keep seeing each other after the contest. It got to the point where an Austrian zoo played ShipperOnDeck and gifted both of them an adoption of a baby seal. Attention for the relationship exploded a month later when Bojan not only made good on his promise to visit Käärijä in Finland, but guested at one of his gigs and joined the choreography. Let's just say that fans were very excited to see [[DoubleEntendre Käärijä riding Bojan on-stage]]. |
| 235 | ** Speaking of Käärijä, fans were quick to pair him up with Kateryna Pavlenko (from Music/GoA), referring to the two as Mom and Dad, King and Queen, or Neon-Green Eurovision Royalty. Kateryna was happy to fan the flames in [[https://twitter.com/tearsmadrigale/status/1660608031267209217?s=20 this interview]]: |
| 236 | --->'''Kateryna:''' In 2021, I felt some energy, some connection to space which said to me, "Kate, you should be in green because in the future you will meet a prince in green and together you will unite in the halls of Eurovision." |
| 237 | * SoBadItsGood: Few of the entries that never even made it to the finale could count, but none more so than Estonia's 2008 entry, "Leto Svet" by the comedy group Kreisiraadio. The song is both baffling and bizarre - mixing lyrics in Serbian, German and Finnish - and is full of grammatical errors, yet manages to be oddly catchy at the same time. Kreisiraadio's entry was such a troll move that they even changed one part of the lyrics during the live performance which roughly translated to "summer fucks", thus breaking the rules of the contest. How bad was the entire performance? So bad that the audience was audibly booing both after and ''before'' their entry! [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRh9PzNYD-8 It needs to be seen to believe]]. |
| 238 | * SoBadItWasBetter: The hilariously bad acts are often more enjoyable than the half-decent ones. A joke that's often made in the Netherlands (and probably in other countries too) when the contestant of this year is revealed: 'I thought it was impossible, but true, they found a worse singer than last year. Why can't we just send a band like (decent Dutch band)?' 'I think it's against the rules to send someone who can actually sing.' Stopped applying in Netherlands circa 2014, even less so when winning 5 years later. |
| 239 | * SoOKItsAverage: There have been a number of times where songs will place poorly not for actually being bad, but for simply slipping into the background compared to the more noticeable acts. Switzerland's 2011 act and Portugal's home entry in 2018 were both well-received by fans, but both finished last due to not standing out enough. Portugal's act, in particular, was generally well-regarded and finished with a (for their meager position) respectable 39 points (higher than most songs that place last - compare it to Spain's 5 points when they bottomed out the scoreboard the year before). |
| 240 | ** This was a major factor in the United Kingdom's post-2002 AudienceAlienatingEra, especially during the late 2010s. After the failure of novelty songs from the likes of Jemini, Scooch, Daz Sampson and Electro Velvet, UK selection committees focused on singer-songwriters and talent show finalists, but their focus on being taken seriously meant their chosen picks lacked personality, and the singers often failed to measure up to the vocal talent of other more serious rivals. As a result, the United Kingdom's representatives ended up missing out on votes from the juries and public and doing just as badly as their sillier predecessors - Michael Rice came last in 2019, and in 2021, James Newman ended up equaling Jemini's Nul Points (and considering he had twice as many points to play for as them thanks to the current split voting system, the result's arguably even more embarrassing). U.K., however, had a major revival in 2022, due to a more impactful tune from a singer with a major fan base. |
| 241 | ** 2022's televotes broadly showcased this, as many of the entries that did well with national juries suffered with the public (e.g. Switzerland receiving no televote points at all. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that it was in the first quarter of the show, and came just before Norway’s crazy, but definitely more memorable, entry. The viewing public just simply forgot about it. Switzerland also got a hard time due to fans expecting a more impactful entry from them after their title chases in 2019 and 2021, their Easy Listening Waltz-ballad Boys Do Cry about male emotional shortcomings being coincidentally released on International Women’s day - giving an unfair and unintentional impression of Whataboutery, even though the song itself was an attack on toxic and unrealistic Masculinity - and also said song being released in NFT form, and the jury qualifying it over allies Albania and Austria, who made rare forays into more energetic than what they usually send- though overly chaotic - music. Armenia’s future Viral Sensation Snap was also low-placing due to being more restrained than the songs around it). This is primarily due to them being technically competent but not very distinctive or interesting ballads in a contest that had already got ''plenty'' of them, all sequenced very close together. The juries loved them, but viewers were bored to tears and reacted accordingly (with Graham Norton outright saying that these songs were likely to suffer just by virtue of being lumped in with lots of other very similar ones.) |
| 242 | *** This also is probably why Moldova did so well in the televote, they came straight after the ballads that were all lumped together, and their energetic and wacky song not only pulled the audience out of their boredom, it also stuck in their memories a lot better. |
| 243 | * SuspiciouslySimilarSong: |
| 244 | ** The songwriter of Sonia's "Better the Devil You Know," the United Kingdom's 1993 entry, said it was basically his attempt to re-write Music/{{Wham}}'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." It worked pretty well: the song took second place. |
| 245 | *** The more obvious George Michael lift would probably be the Turkish entry that year, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDMTi3kydZ8 "Esmer Yarim,"]] which sounds remarkably similar to "Faith" (possibly by virtue of also using the BoDiddleyBeat). |
| 246 | ** In 2010, Ukrainian entry Alyosha had to change her song after her entry "To Be Free" was judged to be a copy of the Linda Perry and Grace Slick song "Knock Me Out" (and because it was allegedly made available publicly in 2008, which is also a no-no in the Eurovision rules). As if Ukraine hadn't gone through enough ESC 2010 finalists to begin with; they had already scrubbed Vasyl Lazarovych's "I Love You" after fans complained about the singer that the Ukrainian broadcaster had selected for them. Vasyl participated against 19 other performers in a more "open" selection competition; he finished 7th. |
| 247 | ** In 2013, Cascada's song for Germany, "Glorious", was accused of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ertVfWmnMa4 plagiarizing last year's winner "Euphoria"]] (and yes, the chorus ''does'' sound similar); however, its producer challenged the claims by saying that while they had a right to investigate, "if you look at the composition in a waveform, you will see that [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth 10,000 pop songs have similar courses]]." They were later cleared of plagiarism charges, but some people still think they ''may'' have [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXpYbIMsMFE stolen]] from a [[Music/SwedishHouseMafia clan of mobsters from Sweden]] instead. |
| 248 | ** By 2015 pretty much every unique song composition seems to have been exhausted, but the Cypriot entry is especially similar to a mash-up of "Taking Chances" and [[Music/BillyJoel "She's Always a Woman".]] The 2015 winner, Sweden's "Heroes", is also accused of being too similar to David Guetta's "Lovers on the Sun". While released in 2015, "Heroes" was actually written in 2013 - a year before the Guetta song. Some people have also felt that the song, particularly during the chorus, has shades of "[[Film/EdgeOfTomorrow Love Me Again]]" |
| 249 | ** While many favoured Sergey Lazarev to win for Russia in 2016, many also criticized Russia for seemingly copying what Sweden did in 2015. This based on Lazarev being similar looking to Måns Zelmerlöw and the stage show for his song using the same basic concept as with Zelmerlöv's ''Heroes''. Zelmerlöw himself, who hosted the show that year, did not seem to see the similarities (or care if he did). |
| 250 | ** Some viewers noticed the opening part of the Germany entrant Levina's song "Perfect Life" in the 2017 contest was similar to "Titanium" by Music/DavidGuetta featuring Music/{{Sia}}. |
| 251 | ** Some viewers felt Austria's song for the 2017 contest, "Running on Air" by Nathan Trent had a similar arrangement as Music/TakeThatBand's "Never Forget". |
| 252 | ** Also in 2017, the thudding and earthy beat at the start of Cyprus' tune "Gravity" by Hovig was widely seen as resembling the beat of Rag n' Bone Man's recent worldwide hit, "Human." |
| 253 | ** When Netta won for Israel in 2018, her song "Toy", whilst already long-viral, would gain extensive publicity in USA. However, it meant that, during the summer, Universal Music attempted a lawsuit against the song for parts of its chorus sounding like the "Seven Nation Army" chant. It meant that, 7 months later, Jack White (The White Stripes' vocalist) was handed royalties for the song's success out-of-court to prevent a copyright dispute, after Doron held regular meetings with Universal over the summer. |
| 254 | *** Czech Republic's most successful act Mikolas Josef ringing in "Worth it" by Fifth Harmony with his self-made song "Lie to Me", and the Ori Kaplan-style hook. |
| 255 | ** As it had the same songwriter as its predecessor, it was easy to call Cyprus' 2019 bid a "Replay" of "Fuego". |
| 256 | ** In 2020, Cyprus' song was seen as suspiciously similar to "Lose Control" from the Italian house act Meduza, Bulgaria was seen as very obviously based off Music/{{Billie Eilish}} (With neighbouring Romania's to a lesser extent also based off her), and Armenia was easy to compare to the song that Music/{{Normani}} and Music/{{Megan Thee Stallion}} had released for ''Film/BirdsOfPrey2020'' ("Diamonds"), as both were hip hop and r&B inspired, production reliant, songs whose lyrics centered around diamonds and female sexual self determination, though both songs were released at a very similar time, and Athena's self written tune did not rely on a famous interpolation, whereas Normani's is carried by her singing parts of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" - comparisons were also made of Athena rapping "I start it/I Make it/I Write it/I Work it" in the first part of her song's refrain to Music/{{Ariana Grande}}'s 7 Rings (another song, like "Diamonds", that is reliant on a sample of a historic song from a musical), and it's "I want it/I got it" part, which was a likely inspiration for "Chains On You", though she never mentioned one particular inspiration but rather several. |
| 257 | ** The following time Armenia participated, they had a near opposite inspiration for their song. Backing vocals gave Lumineers vibes to Rosa Linn’s gentle ballad “SNAP” which got Armenia back into the final but with its worst place. |
| 258 | * TearJerker: On the first viewing, you may be moved by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=671tCjePT3w Rona Nishliu's]] semi-final performance of "Suus" for Albania in 2012. However, watching it again after you find out about the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qafa_e_Vish%C3%ABs_bus_accident horrible bus accident in Albania]][[note]]which left Albanian viewers unable to watch the contest live[[/note]] that happened the day before and after you find out that she dedicated her performance to the victims of the accident makes you realize that she's not visibly holding back tears just because of the mood of the song... |
| 259 | ** 2017 victor Salvador Sobral scored Portugal their first win in their over fifty years of contest participation, and with a record score of over 700 points. Unfortunately, his health issues were well-known even before the contest, to the point where his sister Luisa had to step in for one of the rehearsals. A few months after winning, Sobral announced he would be taking a break from music to get heart surgery and recover. He marked this with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP3j7jROw8k a tearful concert]], capped off by a sing-along of his winning "Amar pelos dois" that left him sobbing. Fortunately he recovered after the surgery and he's set to go touring again. |
| 260 | ** 2017 Israeli spokesperson Ofer Nachshon announced during the voting that the Israeli public broadcaster, responsible for the country's first 3 victories, would be shut down immediately after the contest, thought to be the end of Israel's participation at the contest. He thanked Europe for Israel's 44 years of participation and the hosts and audience clapped for him. Luckily, the replacement broadcaster starting participating the next year, starting with Israel's 4th win. |
| 261 | * TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Long after Western Europe stopped taking it seriously, the fall of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia led to a number of new countries seeing appearing in it as a serious mark of independence, a show of national pride, and even as an advert for tourism. Then of course there's the UsefulNotes/MisplacedNationalism between bitter rivals. %% The western countries, who actually pay for it, were somewhat bemused. ("bemused" in which sense? Find a better word.) |
| 262 | ** This reaches SeriousBusiness levels in Russia, where state TV channels and officials are so serious about the contest that almost any loss or dispute is immediately assessed as deliberate anti-Russian antics and attempts to use the contest as a weapon of geopolitics. There is no need to say how narmy it looks. |
| 263 | * ValuesResonance |
| 264 | ** The winning song of the 1961 contest, ''Nous les amoureux'', performed by French singer Jean-Claude Pascal, is a song about forbidden love between the singer and his lover. Later, Pascal explained that the song was about a taboo of homosexual relationship. |
| 265 | ** French entry of the 1968 contest ,''La source''. The song deals with the topic of rape, which considered controversial for songs at the time of the contest. |
| 266 | * ViewerGenderConfusion: |
| 267 | ** Again, Serbia's entries in 2007 and 2010. |
| 268 | ** Austria's entry in 2014. Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad. |
| 269 | * WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: |
| 270 | ** In 1976, Mariza Koch, a Greek folk singer, co-wrote and sung the song "Panayia Mou, Panayia Mou", criticizing the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The Turkish broadcaster censored the entry when it was aired and replaced it with a patriotic song. |
| 271 | ** The famous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGlJyCXNu_M "Insieme" ("Together")]] by Toto Cutugno, also known by its chorus "Unite, unite Europe", won the contest just as the last details were being completed for the forming of EU. |
| 272 | ** To an extent, about half the entries in 1990 definitely count, seeing as this was the first contest held since the Soviet collapse- as demonstrated with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDcuPi9KIcY Austria]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-eN9GuaaCs Norway's]] entries. |
| 273 | ** Austria's 2014 entry "Rise Like a Phoenix" sounds like a Bond theme song... Only problem: It was song by a guy/girl with a beard in a dress under the name Conchita Wurst. Just a short while after Russia passed a homophobic law. As Eurovision has quite a big LGBT fanbase, allegations of it all having been political are kind of easy to make. |
| 274 | ** Armenia's 2015 entry "Don't Deny" had Turks and Azeris up in arms claiming it had to do with the 100th anniversary of the [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide Armenian Genocide]] and trying to get it disqualified for being political, even before the lyrics to the song were made public and all that was known about the song was the title. At Vienna, the song was renamed "Face the Shadow" to dispel any more of those accusations. They also accused France's entry "N'oubliez pas" (Don't Forget) of being about the genocide, though it's supposed to commemorate UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. |
| 275 | ** In 2015 the competition was held a few weeks after the seventieth anniversary of VE day - when Germany and Austria surrendered their efforts in [=WW2=]. The only two countries to score nil points were Germany and the host country Austria (both with admittedly forgettable songs). These two facts are probably connected, as is the English title of the French song - "Don't Forget". The lyrics of the Israeli song were interpreted by some to be about overcoming genocide; it was one of the oddest performances but still scored well. |
| 276 | ** Also in 2015, the Austrian hosts chose to ask the audience not to boo Russia that year, even though they did have one of the best songs. It's also definitely not political that nobody wants to vote for the UK, after giving one of their best performances by actually sticking to the unwritten conditions of Eurovision songs, when the newly reinstated Conservative government are closing borders, cutting support, and considering leaving the EU (though after Graham Norton's appearance in 2014 most other countries do understand that the UK will really only start to care if they win now). |
| 277 | ** Ukraine returned to the 2016 contest after a one-year hiatus with the entry "1944," ostensibly about singer Jamala's great-grandmother's life but has been accused of a deliberate attempt to rile the Russians (1944 being the year that the Crimean Tatars, were forcibly deported from Crimea into Central Asia after being accused of Nazi-collaboration by the Soviets, one of whom was Jamala's great-grandmother) because of the ongoing Crimean crisis and the War in Donbass. |
| 278 | *** Ukraine's 2016 win was seen as a DoubleStandard by many Armenians, as the year before they were forced to change the name of their song because it sounded like it was about the Armenian genocide and was thus "too political" (as noted above), and in 2016 got in trouble for bringing politics into the contest when singer Iveta Mukuchyan brandished a Nagorno-Karabakh flag. Moreover, despite the concealment of this during the contest itself, Ukrainian officials seem to have not even tried to hide the politicized nature of the song and the political context of its victory afterwards, which only provoked further controversy. |
| 279 | *** This selection has set off another international incident: apparently, Samoylova performed in Crimea after Russia annexed it and this is reason for a three-year ban from Ukraine, so now fans are divided between those who think Ukraine is being insensitive by banning a wheelchair-bound singer who hardly can be considered a threat to their country, and those who think Russia was aware that Samoylova had broken the Ukrainian law and picked her specifically to make Ukraine look bad. This becomes even more controversial if you know that the Bulgarian entrant Kristian Kostov also acted as a Russian citizen in Crimea, but this only surfaced when he already was in Ukraine, and wasn't banned on the grounds that he was a 14-year-old kid when it happened and therefore presumed incapable of making such decisions on his own accord. |
| 280 | *** Fortunately, it's all water under the bridge for the 2018 contest: Channel One is as good as their word and is sending Samoylova to Lisbon, and the Ukrainian TV station has said there are no issues preventing them from broadcasting her performance. Ukrainian fans gave her 3 points. However, their jury didn't, and she failed to make the total top 10 with either public or jury and crashed out. Russia gave Ukraine many points due to Mélovin's insta fan army. |
| 281 | *** However, it was revived for 2019, as Ukraine's selection was won by the singer MARUV (Anna Korshun), a former strip club performer. However, the fact that she based most of her work in Russia meant that Jamala openly asked her to explain her opinions on Crimea. When she won, she was given a draconian clause to sign to take part, and sign it within a day. The clause told her to not gig in Russia until after ESC, and have her media appearances very tightly controlled by the broadcaster, and pay 2 million Hryivna (65,000 euros) if she didn't oblige. She refused to sign it, citing it made her "a slave and political tool" for a country which was holding an election at around about the time of ESC, meaning that Ukraine had to choose another act. As all the other acts in the selection final also rejected the offer, Ukraine gave up and quit for the second time in 5 years. Meanwhile, Russia bought back their 2016 entrant Sergey Lazarev, and he finished third again. |
| 282 | ** Some interpreted Netta (and many other Israeli celebs celebrating her victory on their insta pages) saying "Next year in Jerusalem" (a common song at the end of prayers in the Jewish festival of Passover and fast of Yom Kippur) as a political statement in the wake of Donald Trump (and some Latin countries) moving the US embassy to Jerusalem a couple of days later, and with the nation's PM trying to persuade other (central-east European, latin or African nations) to do so, which led to a day of agitation, violence and profiling in Israel and Gaza, and made Jerusalem, host of the previous 2 times hosted by Israel proper, all-but-toxic to many, with petitions against partaking going viral in places such as Ireland and Iceland (1999's runners up). This was worsened by a nationalist government member insisting the event being held in Jerusalem was a red line despite a high profile pre-world-cup game slated to take place there involving the hosts welcoming Leo Messi's Argentina, being canned due to the agitation, but the normally nationalist PM overruled her and decided to no longer interfere with the hosting process, with Jerusalem also a divisive choice amongst devout religious groups in the government, as ESC takes place a short time after the Shabbat ends (Israeli time). As a result, 4 venues across the country made bids to host (including Eilat and Haifa). Netta herself openly admitted that she did not actually care about where the event was held and was fine with Tel-Aviv, subject of their famous 2015 entry, and a renowned LGBT heartland, being the venue, in an interview where she also admitted she doesn't want to talk about complex issues, and indeed it would be (1998 winner, transgender Dana International, would later admit it was fine that ESC was in TA as there was no reason why it shouldn't be). Many interpreted it as a decision to defuse the political situation (and indeed, many nations, such as Iceland, confirmed their involvement at this point), but the EBU head merely insisted that it was because TA had better facilities. A delegate for the Israeli entries in 2005, 2009 and 2012 revealed it was indeed due to facilities. |
| 283 | *** The Icelanders chose anti-capitalist bondage punk act Hatari, who have joked about wrestling matches with the PM,as their entry for this iteration, and it instantly became a meme. They also have open and frank left wing stances, and went to the Palestinian Authority during their 2.5 weeks in Israel for the contest, and were deadpan when announced as qualifiers, and waved a pro-Palestinian scarf when told they got 160 televoting points, to climb into the top 10, the first in a decade. They immediately released a collaboration with Palestinian LGBT counterculture musician Bashar Murad, which led to the following case 5 years later. |
| 284 | *** Whilst this song was made before the 2023-24 Israel Gaza war (the submission window was closed in September, 3 weeks before the war began), it was impossible to view Murad participating in Iceland’s Songvakeppnin selection Process with his songs Wild West (produced by Hatari with the own language version also written by them) without this spectrum, particularly with nationalistic motifs in the staging and music video, and given there had been further boycott calls from musicians and unions against the island’s participation against Israel during this war over the preceding weeks, And their broadcaster RUV ultimately said that their act could veto their participation if they wanted to (acts in Norway and Finland also aimed to do that but failed to be selected). However, he lost the final runoff by 3,500 votes after leading both prior stages, and with total vote number exceeding half the national population, to Hera Bjork, far from the most firebrand act to ever represent the country, and who would represent Iceland as normal. Ironically, Hera’s win over Bashar was exactly 5 years to the day after she lost the Songvakeppnin Hatari won for 2019 (though Fridrik Omar was their runoff opponent that year, not Hera). |
| 285 | ** Whilst Bashar wasn’t an entry for 2024 after losing to Hera, Norway and Finland’s entries, selected before Iceland’s was, were concerned about Israel participating during the 2023-24 Israel-Gaza war and did discuss matters with their broadcasters a week before committing. UK’s entry Olly Alexander (Years and Years) sometimes got flak for his similar political opinions, which included from even stronger believers in the pro Palestinian cause after him, Norway, Finland and 7 other acts signed a joint statement explaining how they would compete whilst advocating for a ceasefire, which didn’t go far enough for some people. |
| 286 | ** Israel indeed had to change the lyrics of their entry for that contest twice to prevent the song, originally called as October Rain, being seen as too obvious (particularly as Rain and flowers can be seen as jargon for weapons and military victims in war), so it was retitled as Hurricane with the closer-to-the-bone lyrics of the divisive ballad replaced. |
| 287 | * TheWoobie: |
| 288 | ** Poor Ari Olafsson. The {{Adorkable}} singer was chosen as Iceland's singer in 2018, performing the song "Our Choice." Besides having a great voice, his cheerful demeanor (he was the youngest contestant that year) and openness with his emotions (he was [[TearsOfJoy openly crying]] both when he was selected and immediately after finishing his Eurovision performance) earned him a number of fans and - partially by virtue of showing up to virtually every international pre-party that year - became a great friend of the other entrants. He became particularly close with Germany's Michael Schulte, the Czech Republic's Mikolas Josef, Spain's Amaia and Alfred (who went so far as to call him the best friend they made during the competition), and fellow Scandinavian Rasmussen from Denmark. Sadly, while he was well-liked, "Our Choice" was regarded by Eurofans as one of the weakest songs in the competition that year, and finished last in its semi-final with only 15 points, all from the juries. Many of his fans (in a similar reaction to another well-liked entrant with a poorly-regarded song, Music/{{SuRie}} from the United Kingdom) have suggested he return next year with a song that better suits his talents. |
| 289 | ** No matter how you feel about her two entries it's hard to not feel bad for Samanta Tina. After several attempts to try to represent her country (and also Lithuania for that matter) she finally got the chance to represent Latvia in the contest in 2020 after winning the country's national selection the "Supernova" with her song "Still Breathing" ... [[YankTheDogsChain only to have said chance taken out of her after that year's contest being cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic]]. She was later internally selected by Latvia to represent them in 2021 this time with a song called "The Moon Is Rising" and thus getting another chance but unfortunately for her, she not only failed to qualify for the final she also finished ''[[KickTheDog dead last overall]]''. |
| 290 | [[/folder]] |
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