Satellite, So Lucky, Party For Everybody, Only Teardrops, Rise Like a Phoenix, Calm After the Storm, Heroes, 1944, Slow Down, Beautiful Mess, Amar Pelos Dois, Toy, We Got Love, She Got Me, Too Late for Love, Spirit in the Sky, Say Na Na Na
If you haven’t watched Eurovision since the glory days of Bucks Fizz and Katrina & the Waves, this essay serves as an update. The UK treats Eurovision like the World Cup: it’s something we used to win but people better than us usually win today.
The big event midway through the 2010s was the addition of a qualified jury to comprise 50% of the voting, with the usual 50% going to the ’12 points from Greece go to (pause) Cyprus!!!’ vote. Graham Norton has been elevated to national treasure status in the UK with his BBC commentary; the broadcaster is mandated to support Eurovision and if the UK entered Graham we would get points just on the strength of him saying ‘helloooo!’ for just under three minutes, plus key change.
I attended the 2011 Contest in Duesseldorf, which was taking place there thanks to the 2010 Contest win by Lena, a teenage German singer who triumphed with a cute song about ‘love, oh love!’ called Satellite. It was an unassuming yet catchy song, with a great middle eight, driven by a strong melody to which Lena sang of all the things she did while ‘in orbit’ around her man; she even did her hair for him! The way she sang the word ‘day’ as ‘daii’ was a horrible affectation, as if she had been forced to listen to Kate Nash and Lily Allen for weeks on end and told to replicate the vocal.
Lena returned to represent Germany in 2011, with a song written with Greg Kurstin. Taken by a Stranger was fine but probably designed not to win – only Ireland have hosted for three consecutive years and the third time it was in a converted barn! Lena’s final album of the decade is Only Love, L; it was stuck at two in the German charts, selling more than Billie Eilish that week but fewer than Andrea Berg. Good for Andrea, but Lena will always have Eurovision 2010.
The big song of 2011’s Contest was Running Scared, a ballad bought by Azerbaijan because you can source songs from anywhere and sing in your non-native language, something that came in in the 1990s; the UK hasn’t won since that time. We sent Blue with a carpe-diem song called I Can; Ireland sent talent show berks Jedward with an irritating pop song called Lipstick. I will include Moldova’s entry So Lucky, performed by Zdob si Zdub and sung in a mix of Moldovan and English, purely to mention the headbanging guy in our bit of the audience who rocked out to some horn-assisted rock for three minutes. The act itself included a woman miming playing an oboe on a unicycle; they scored three fewer points than Blue and came in 12th.
To Baku in 2012, and the UK sent crooner Engelbert Humperdinck, whose best days were in 1967. Only Norway scored fewer points in a content which by now required contestants to trot around Europe promoting their three-minute tune on various sofas from Amsterdam to Ankara. Ireland sent Jedward again, Sweden won with a dance-pop-by-numbers track called Euphoria but everyone remembers Eurovision 2012 for one entry in particular.
I watched in West London as a group of grannies performing as Buranoskiye Babushki sang Party for Everybody (‘Come on and dance!’) like a novelty act on Britain’s Got Talent. Opening with some tuneless singing, the second verse was equally tuneless but with an oompa beat behind it. Russia usually hoovers up votes from former Soviet countries but not even the babushki could halt Sweden, who invite public entrants to their Melodifestivalen every year. All the same, the song and the performers diverted Europe for three minutes, thus doing its and their job.
To Sweden (again) in 2013, where Ireland finished last and successful German dance act Cascada finished 21st, two places below the UK, who encouraged Bonnie Tyler to sing the soppy ballad Believe in Me before she returned to the Eighties nostalgia circuit. A barefoot Dane named Emmelie de Forest sang a pretty folky pop song called Only Teardrops with an addictive chorus (‘How many times…’) and it was to Copenhagen that Eurovision would go in 2014.
Alongside Waterloo and all those songs with nonsense titles like Ding-a-Dong, Rise Like a Phoenix by Conchita will go down as a Big Eurovision Anthem. This would never not have won: a bloke called Thomas with a beard in a dress, singing a camp song about self-empowerment, having done the light-ent sofa tour to drum up support for Austria’s entry in the 2014 Contest. It was dramatic, brilliant arranged and sung with phenomenal precision. 13 nations awarded Austria douze points, including the UK; we sent a boring ballad which came 17th and nobody gave us douze points. Rise Like a Phoenix is the finest Eurovision winner of the 2010s and Conchita the most notable performer since Dana International, who unlike the drag act Conchita was transsexual.
Brief mention here should go here to The Common Linnets. The Dutch duo announced themselves with a proper song, the gorgeous Calm After the Storm, sung in tight male-female harmony. The song was notable because I can’t remember many country-inflected songs amid the kitsch and glamour of Eurovision.
To Vienna in 2015 where it was Sweden’s glory again. I adore Heroes by Mans Zelmerlow, a song the Swedish audience voted as their entrant. Hundreds of songs are offered, with the best put to a public vote and crowned with a grand final in a massive arena on Swedish television. The UK will never match Sweden’s love for the competition, one which put them on the musical map. Graham Norton had told BBC viewers that Heroes was impressive, with some nifty interactivity with an animated character. Sometimes this can be a gimmick but the brilliance of Mans’ delivery in singing ‘the greatest anthem ever heard…We are the heroes of our time’ won over the voters in the last year before the professional jury was brought in.
Germany and Austria both scored nul points in 2015, with the UK managing cinq points with a weird song called Still In Love with You. Humorously Mans is now a key part of the UK’s coverage of Eurovision, an adopted Brit every May. ABBA’s music, meanwhile, can be heard in an interactive sing-a-long dining experience inside London’s O2 Arena complex.
It was to Sweden again in 2016 where a politically charged song won for Ukraine. Jamala, dressed in blue, sang emotionally of the plight of the Tatars of Crimea in a song called 1944. The verses were in English (‘They come to your house…Humanity cries’) and the chorus was based on a Crimean folk song. Performed in tears and with expressive moments to a percussive backing that was very contemporary, audiences at home and on the professional jury were won over by the song, which did not impress Russia in the slightest, who unsuccessfully wanted it banned on political grounds. Strangely the song benefitted from a split in voting: Russia won the popular vote and Australia (don’t ask) took the jury vote. The UK finished third last and Germany dead last.
Brief mention here should go here to Douwe Bob, whose pleasant song Slow Down (‘If you can’t go on’) was one I loved, especially because it moved through three keys. Sometimes I am allowed personal picks for the 2010 songs, and this one was witnessed by millions, including those in Australia.
To Kyiv in 2017, where another emotional story captured the hearts of Europe. I never forgot, especially after I had attended the show in 2011, that Eurovision is television and performers can bring their personal stories and journeys to their attention. Thus it was that Bulgaria’s entry – the pop ballad Beautiful Mess (‘our love is untouchable’) by the cherubic Kristian Kostov – was beaten by that of Portugal. Salvador Sobral, his hair in a topknot, sang the strings-soaked Amar Pelos Dois solo in the centre of the arena in an oversized suit. His sweet voice and eccentric performance sold the Portuguese-language heartbreak ballad which was written by Salvador’s sister; while La La Land took the box office by storm, the jazzy song offered the same sort of thing to viewers of Eurovision.
In Lisbon, a lady from Israel with weird hair and lots of electronics won the Contest with a song that namechecked a Pokemon character (‘I’m taking my Pikachu home!!’) and had an irresistible chorus: ‘I’m not your TOY! You stupid BOY!’ It was Netta’s year, as she sang a self-empowerment song whose first line was ‘Look at me, I’m a beautiful creature’. It was both pentatonic and diatonic, with flavours of the East and West, and Netta’s performance, complete with chicken clucks that I never liked, ensured that for three minutes the eyes of Europe were on her.
That’s all Eurovision is: a ‘did you see that?!’ TV moment, today telegraphed months in advance thanks to holistic coverage. No wonder the UK always loses: we’re just not bothered. We should send Prince Harry and Ed Sheeran and James Blunt and Stephen Fry and David Attenborough, introduced by Graham Norton onstage. We’d still get fewer points than Sweden and Russia.
In 2018 the UK had sent a song called Storm, which had to be performed twice on the night after a prankster interrupted poor SuRie through the first run. As if to prove Eurovision had no logic, Portugal finished last at their own party, while the great, rather Swedish disco-pop song We Got Love by Jessica Mauboy only came in 20th place for Australia. She was by turns a bit too shouty, pitchy, nervous and awkward on the night, and most people who vote haven’t followed the many months of Eurovision fever so only judge on the night.
Tel Aviv hosted the 2010s’ final Eurovision Song Contest, which ought to have been won by Sweden. Too Late For Love (‘I can be the sun that lights your dark’) by John Lundvik was a gospel-pop song of some stature, and another correct choice from the Swedish public, but four songs outscored it: one was by Russian popstar Sergey Lazarev (who will be discussed in a future essay); one was Luca Hanni’s catchy She Got Me, which included some jolly dance moves; second place was Soldi, a rap from the Italian Mahmoud, whose performance included some clapping choreography and three male dancers behind him; and a dull, Ed Sheeran-lite song by Duncan Laurence sent Eurovision to Rotterdam as the Netherlands finally sent a winner.
I would not like to suggest that five black performers dissuaded voters from picking Sweden’s entry, but I can’t think of any other reason the best song didn’t win; ten juries gave them 12 points but only 93 came from the public vote. UK viewers now watch Eurovision with a social network open, absorbed in the kitsch and how the UK finished inevitably last. In 2019 we did, scoring 11 points with a ballad called Bigger Than Us (three from the home vote, eight from the jurors). Germany again did badly, scoring nul points from the voters at home, but at least there has been no Deutschausgang (a German exit from the EU).
Those of Norway and San Marino didn’t disappoint Eurovision parties across the UK. KeiiNO’s Spirit in the Sky was a dance-pop number which featured a bald man yodelling exactly the same emotive syllables in each chorus before he was given his own eight-bar solo in the Northern Sami language. For San Marino, Serhat’s Say Na Na Na was a fantasy duet between the Pet Shop Boys and Leonard Cohen, with added key change. What a shame he was on last!
I include those two in the 2010 songs from the decade as examples of fun pieces of music which were broadcast across Europe and down to Australia which brought distraction from the fact that in 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union. There’ll probably be an Act of Parliament decreeing that we will still be allowed to participate in Eurovision; I hope people didn’t vote Leave just so they could watch something else for a few nights every May. Plenty of folk around Europe will keep watching a televised music contest, originally founded to unite broadcasting unions, into the 2020s.