EUROVISION

Cheesy love songs sang by fake couples, Russian grandmas baking bread on stage, burning pianos, an epic sax guy, three Italian pop-opera singers, a Croatian with two personalities within him, an Austrian bearded diva, geopolitical point distribution, Swedes always slaying it and at least 20 unhappy nations afterwards – Good Evening Europe!

So why am I writing about Eurovision? Well, take a look at the title of it EURO and VISION, a European vision, a vision for Europe, that’s what Eurovision is after all, an evening where we Europeans join together to celebrate our cultural diversity and common identity. It might seem a bit whack to people who did not grow up with it, but what should we expect? To find the best music ever produced? To see great talent performing amazing songs? To see an awesome show, the biggest happening every year, worldwide? Yes, you can find all of this at the Eurovision Song Contest, but it is more than just that. It is the culmination of Europe, a kind of strange entity.

Let us see Europe as a house with different families living in it. There are those who like their neighbors and those who detest them, some get along quite decently with each other. Of course, you would like your kind neighbors to be successful instead of those who you dislike. It does not really matter what they give you, if you like them you will just prefer whatever the hell, they give you. The same is happening at Eurovision. Why should anyone ever give the UK 12 points again? It is quite ridiculous to even think of that. Where do the Belarussian 12 points go to this year? Russia, of course, something else would be a miracle. Will our beloved Scandinavian neighbors in the North ever really get bad points? No way!

Eurovision is not one of these random casting shows where you only vote for the best singer in your opinion. It is the expression of your identity. Where is this artist from? What genre does he/she represent? What are the background singers and dancers doing? How does the dress look like? What is the artist’s dramatic life story? Can I somehow relate to him/her? What is the overall appearance? What would be a cool host city next year? Does this song/artist have a nice message? Oh, and how many points did this country give us last year?

These are the question you ask yourself when watching Eurovision. It is like a World Cup football game when we suddenly have millions of national team coaches sitting at home. For one evening in May we all become geopoliticians and music judges. We are the ones rooting for our own country, which was quite hard as a German in recent years; we are the ones talking down at least half of the participants, because they are very strange, and with that I mean really, really strange; and we are the ones who always have at least one or two countries who we would love to see winning and like five or six who would be acceptable winners.

Eurovision is the same procedure every year. Why should we ever change something about it? There are some changes on the voting system basically every year and almost nobody really cares what they changed now again. However, this does not affect the framework of Eurovision. It is coming together with family and friends to spend an evening of laughter, surprise, anger, happiness, confuse and joy. Eurovision is gathering in front of your TV to watch our Hunger Games, except for that it is also fun for the participants.

So, as there is no Eurovision Song Contest this year (endless sadness, a mournful misery) I collected my favorite Eurovision moments from the past years. I started watching in 2010, the year that Germany won, and I have not missed out on it ever since and I would probably never do that on a voluntary basis. Feel free to click on the links to relive these moments, it will surely bring back some memories. Enjoy!

2010: Jessy Matador – Allez Ola Olé (France)

My first Eurovision and I did not really understand it. There were so many completely different performances, and some were weird while others were quite cool for me as a 9-year-old at this time. This one stood out particularly for me because I was on vacation in France when this happened. It is one of the very few performances I remember from this ESC, mainly because of the French commentator who was going crazy about everything in contrast to what I was used to from German broadcasting. However, it was the next day when I really started to gain interest for Eurovision as my parents told me that Lena won the ESC. The problem was that I neither knew who Lena was nor did I have any idea that the show that I had watched the evening before was called Eurovision. So, after an intensive study of the German newspaper available there in France, I started to get an idea of how the whole thing works as the newspaper commented on every country and their distribution of points to Germany. A good start to Eurovision I must say after all.

2011: ESC Opening

While there were some pretty cool things happening in the actual Contest like some Moldavian dwarfs on unicycles, one of the worst rhymes in Eurovision history by Eric Saade and two Irish guys called Jedward jumping around on the stage, I have to give it to us. Yes, we Germans tore the house down. And it was quite a big house as it took place in a stadium. Normally, Eurovision takes place at arenas, so there were huge discussions on where the ESC should take place in Germany in the months leading up to it. Eventually, it was decided to have it in Düsseldorf, and it was absolutely the right decision. One of the biggest stares of German TV, Stefan Raab, took this chance to show the whole world that we can put on a massive show.

2012: Buranovskiye Babushki – Party For Everybody (Russia)

Yes, Loreen who won in 2012 is one of the best winners of all time, but what we have here is probably the most iconic moment ever on Eurovision. The idea of putting six Russian babushki on stage who are baking bread while singing a party pop song is just too perfect to be ignored. How can you not love them? If you ever want to watch only one Eurovision performance, watch this one.

2013: Emmelie De Forest – Only Teardrops (Denmark)

Finally, the first winning performance on this list and what a performance it was. There was almost no doubt about her winning this year as it was just once again one of these perfect Scandinavian performances. The song was catchy, the flute and the drums added a special touch and Emmelie just seemed like a deserving winner. If you want to check out more songs from this year, the Netherlands and Romania were also particularly good, but be prepared for a very strange guy when watching Romania.

2014: Conchita Wurst – Rise Like a Phoenix (Austria)

Everyone knows Conchita. She took over Europe in the spring of 2014 and the media awareness was incredible. There were disputes about her displayed personality in the build-up to this year’s Eurovision and what did Conchita do? She delivered one of the most powerful performances with a beautiful ballad and won the Song Contest. While it is quite sad that other exceptionally good songs like the Dutch entry went a bit under the radar, the message Conchita took on stage was just too important and too powerful for losing. To put it into Conchita’s words: “This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are. We are a unity and we are unstoppable!”

2015: Nadav Guedj – Golden Boy (Israel)

2015 really was the best year in Eurovision this decade in my opinion. There was such a great variety of songs from different genres with an exceptional number of amazing entries. Italy received the most points in televoting ever with a fantastic pop-opera ballad. Belgium had a great young artist who created everything himself from the song to the performance on stage. Russia came in with another awesome catchy ballad. Spain hit the stage with one more amazing entry. And Sweden was a very deserved winner. Despite all these wonderful participants, I still go with Israel. The song was just so catchy, and it made me want to go to Tel Aviv immediately, and when Eurovision finally took place in Tel Aviv in 2019, the whole thing was simply perfect.

2016: Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede – Love, Love, Peace, Peace

Let us just forget about all the entries in the actual contest and Justin Timberlake’s interval act. There were some decent countries like Belgium, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria, Russia and maybe even Ukraine. Eventually, this became the most political Eurovision in recent years with Russia and Ukraine battling not only in the real world. However, Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede, the hosts of this ESC, just saved the whole night by doing this amazing, wonderful, epic performance close to perfection. If you want to have Eurovision summed up in less than five minutes watch this one. It is an homage to all the good and bad moments of the past years and includes some of the most iconic participants. This is by my favorite moment of every ESC I have seen.

2017: Kristian Kostov – Beautiful Mess (Bulgaria)

To tell you how much I wanted this to win, I need to mention that this was the only time I have ever participated in the televoting by calling twice for Kristian. I just really, really wanted Bulgaria to win. Maybe I was also a bit biased because I participated in a school exchange to Bulgaria in this year, but this should not distract you from the fact that Bulgaria’s entry was just the best in 2017. In the small video before his performance, Kristian was showed climbing around the Roman ruins in Sofia, which I used to see every day as they were right next to my school, so that he won me before even singing his song. And then, when he was leading the race for winning the Contest, I already saw myself finally going to Eurovision in 2018 in Sofia. Portugal won.

2018: Netta – Toy (Israel)

Here we go with another very controversial winner. Netta was the bookmakers’ favorite in the weeks leading up to the ESC in Lisbon and a deserving winner after all. Of course, this is not what you would expect from a song winning the biggest annual music TV of the entire world, but that is what it was about, breaking barriers. It was especially interesting with Netta being from a country with such an old-fashioned influence like Israel has in some parts. Also, Netta really has a soft spot for predicting false hosting cities in Jerusalem and Amsterdam.

2019: Duncan Laurence – Arcade (The Netherlands)

After many years of huge debates about the winner rather than about the actual Contest we finally got an almost undisputed winner again. While Norway is also one of my all-time Eurovision favorites and Italy delivered another fantastic entry, I just had to put Duncan on here. Over the last year his song grew to be quite close to my heart as I could very well understand what he was singing about. He will now be the longest reigning Eurovision winner ever and he is also a good person to finish this list with.

Watching all the recaps of these ten years of Eurovision brought back so many memories. There are so many songs I still listen to daily and some artists I still like a lot. But Eurovision also taught me some important lessons. People from other countries with completely different backgrounds speaking in unfamiliar languages might seem strange at first, but why should this even be a bad thing? Is it not this diversity that makes our European community so special?

No matter what was going on in my life at this point, I came back to watch Eurovision every year. It is an essential experience of myself growing up as a German in a peaceful Europe. Sadly, there will be no Eurovision this year, but maybe we could use this time to take a step back. We just celebrated 75 years of peace in Central Europe last week, so let us carry on this gentle spirit during these hard times. Even though we do not have a song contest to carry out the disputes with our neighbors, let us remember what Europe is: A vision of solidarity, peace, and love for all its people.