We Have a Winner!
…And, it starts!
The first official Preselection of the year has just finished in Switzerland, and so the first official entry for Eurovision 2011 has been hammered down. Out of twelve songs, sung in English, French, Italian, Swiss-German, and even Albanian, with genres ranging from teen-pop to country to rock to acapella and back again, one winner reigned supreme:
Congratulations go out to Anna Rossinelli and her song “In Love for a While”!
Following my hypothesis that last year’s winner creates next year’s trend, Anna’s sweet, youthful brand of pop isn’t a far cry from Lena Meyer-Landrut’s carefree style from last year (and, come to think of it, this year, as well!). “In Love for a While” reminds me of Colbie Caillat’s monster hit “Bubbly” (which, incidentally, hit #11 on the Swiss charts). Honestly, this might be a bit of a strike against her; whenever I try to think of this song, “Bubbly” pops into my head instead. This 23-year old native of Basel seems to be unsigned at the moment (which I doubt will stay the case for much longer). Let’s see if she can finally crack back into the Finals, a goal that the Swiss have missed since 2006 (when they automatically qualified for it).
Best of luck, Anna!
Even Bigger Breaking News than What I Told You Yesterday!!!
More details are to come, I’m sure, but it looks like the wishes of Eurovision Fans for over 13 years have finally come to fruition…
Welcome back, Italy!!!!!!
The EBU has announced within the last hour that Italian broascaster RAI has received a bid to participate in Düsseldorf. While they reserve the right to withdraw before Christmas with no penalty, this is a much bigger step towards ESC participation than they have taken in many, many years. Furthermore, as RAI is one of the largest financial contributors to the EBU, they have clinched a spot in the Finals as a member of the newly-minted “Big Five”, along with France, Spain, the UK, and hosts Germany. This means that the 2011 Final will have 25 participants, instead of 24 (the host gets an automatic bid to the Final, but because that’s Germany this year, they were down one entrant). Remember, the last time we saw Italy was in 1997, with Jalisse’s “Fiumi Di Parole“, and they have two victories under their belt: 1964’a “Non Ho L’eta” and 1990’s “Insieme: 1992“.
More information to come, as the EBU is having a huge meeting over the next few days to hammer out details (including the possible admission of channels from Hungary, Liechtenstein, and Qatar…more debuts, possibly?), but I’m so happy to share this bit of news with you all!
Baci e benvenuti, Italia!
Quick Breaking News from Bosnia-Herzegovina!
Within the last half-hour, Bosnian broadcaster BHT-1 announced that this year’s representative for Eurovision will be:
Dino Merlin!
It looks like Germany’s Lena won’t be the only ESC veteran on stage in Düsseldorf; Dino was the composer and co-lyricist for BiH’s debut entry, “Sva Bol Svieta (The Whole World’s Pain)”, back in 1993, and he performed onstage in Jerusalem in 1999 with the beautiful ethnic-infused “Putnici (Travelers)”, a bilingual R&B song sung with French singer Béatrice Poulot. “Putnici” gave Bosnia and Herzegovina their second-highest result ever, a very respectable 7th place out of 23 entrants. Here’s their performance (with a bit of German commentary).
Over the past few years, Bosnia has become one of my personal favorite ESC contributors. The song will be revealed at a later date, but with the recruitment of Dino Merlin to the fray once again, we might see echoes of Bosnia’s best-ranked song, 2006’s stunning “Lejla“. By bringing back a veteran of the local music scene (and of the ESC), and the hope of reviving the ethnic flavors that nearly brought the country victory, it seems that Bosnia-Herzegovina is more serious than ever about taking the trophy to Sarajevo in 2012. I can’t wait to see what Dino serves up!
(EDIT: The plot thickens…Hari Mata Hari, who sung “Lejla” in Athens, was originally supposed to have sung for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999. However, because their entry had been released to the public too early, they were disqualified, giving Dino and Béatrice their ticket to Jerusalem with “Putnici”. Furthermore, Dino has worked with and produced songs for Hari Mata Hari. Even more, he has collaborated with Željko Joksimović, who was the Serbian & Montenegrin representative to the 2004 ESC with “Lane Moje“, host of the 2008 contest, composer of Serbia’s entry that same year…and the author of “Lejla”! If things keep connecting like this, we might end up seeing Kevin Bacon as a backing singer…)
Congratulations and Condolences…
I’ve only got a quick moment to write, but I just wanted to cover two quick points…
1) On November 20, the 2010 Junior Eurovision Song Contest was held in Minsk, Belarus. I mentioned the JESC briefly in the past, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it’s a smaller-scale contest for performers under the age of 16 (the minimum age to compete in the full Eurovision). This year, 14 songs were submitted, mostly from Eastern Europe. Despite all indications that Georgia’s Mariam Kakhelishvili would with with her Lady Gaga-inspired “Mari Dari“(which, in my opinion, toes the line between cute and terrifying), the eventual winner was Armenia’s Vladimir Arzumanyan with “Mama”, beating Russia’s “Boy and Girl” by a single point. Here’s the winning performance:
This is Armenia’s first victory in any of the EBU-sanctioned competitions (the ESC, JESC, or Eurovision Dance Contest), and while I was personally rooting for Belgium, Lithuania, or Sweden, I can’t deny that 12-year-old Vladimir really worked it out on stage, and while many might grumble about political votes or diaspora support, I do think that the little guy from Stepanakert earned his victory.
2) On the more solemn side of things, however, I’m saddened to report the passing of Ladislav “Laci” Demeterffy, better known to the ESC world as “75 Cents”. In 2008, he performed alongside Croatian representatives Kraljevi Ulice with their song “Romanca”. The elderly Laci (who picked his pseudonym as a reference to his age at the time) waxed poetic, flirted, and even did a bit of scratching on an old gramophone while on stage, and he holds the record for the oldest Eurovision contestant ever. He passed away peacefully on November 19th in Zagreb at the age of 77. This was one of my favorite performances of that year, due in no small part to Laci’s contribution. May he rest in peace, and may his loved ones be comforted by the fact that he made so many people happy with his most famous performance (seen below).
Until next time!
The Best of the 2010 Preselection (Part Two)
Continuing on where I left off…
From Russia: “Senza Respiro (Without Rest)” by Antonello Carozza
Remember what I had said earlier about Eurovision fans practically begging Italy to come back into the fray? Well, every once in a while it seems that an Italian artist will take the initiative and apply for another nation’s Preselection (or, alternately, a country will sing in an entry in Italian, even if there’s no real reason to. I’m looking at you, Romania!). This happened in Russia this year, with singer Antonello Carozza (who I really can’t find much more information on, other than a 2006 San Remo Festival performance) coming in a respectable 8th place with his fun, bouncy, sexy, half-spoken, half-sung pop number about the fickle nature of fame and celebrity. Can you imagine if this song had made it to Oslo? Between the catchy song, cute singer, the former-Soviet Bloc voting that somehow propelled “Lost and Forgotten” into 10th place in this year’s Final (yeesh…), and the desire to see Italy return to Eurovision…we could have had a major ESC hit on our hands with this one.
From Finland: “Annankadun Kulmassa (On the Corner of Anna Street)” by Heli Kajo
Ok…if the French film character Amelie were a jilted lover in Helsinki, I imagine she’d be a lot like the impossibly cute Heli Kajo. The first line of the song translates to “Why do you pass out alone, on Sunday nights, pants down, on the corner of Anna Street?” Her pain and anger, blended with the innocent sweetness of the song as a whole, gives this fantastic contrast that I know I had to listen to a few times. By the time the tune builds to its understated climax, translated to “Why do you only say ‘I love you’ after a double whiskey?”, you just want to give Heli a hug and tell her to kick her boyfriend’s worthless ass to the curb. “Annankadun Kulmassa” came in 6th place in this year’s Finnish preselection.
From Israel…the entire Kdam!
We all know how much I raved about Harel Skaat’s “Milim (Words)” this year, and how I think he was basically robbed (although winning all three of the Marcel Bezençon Awards mitigates the blow a bit). In the Israeli preselection (or Kdam) this year, there were three other songs that could have easily gone to Oslo. The four tunes presented were all crafted for Harel, and there really wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. I think I’ve already mentioned the gorgeous “Le’an (Away)” and its incredible final high note, but the ballad “Le’hitkarev (Closer)” and the more uptempo “Elayich (Towards You)” were also fantastic songs that really highlighted Harel’s range and showmanship. Israel really has a tough act to follow for the 2011 event; they set the bar incredibly high with this past year’s Kdam.
From Sweden: “Kom (Come)” by Timoteij
As I’ve mentioned before, bits and pieces of a previous year’s winner often come through in the entries vying for the next year’s Eurovision crown. In the case of Alexander Rybak, we were given a string-heavy, yet upbeat number that balanced folk and pop. One of the best examples of that in this year’s Swedish Melodifestivalen was Timoteij’s “Kom”.
This fun, summery pop number only came in 5th place in this year’s Melodifestivalen, but it was selected as the Swedish representative for the OGAE Second Chance Contest, where ESC fans from all over the world select their favorite “also-rans”. “Kom” won by a pretty heavy margin. Considering that Sweden didn’t make it to the Eurovision Finals this year for the first time since 1976, should Timoteij have represented them, instead?
What were some of your other favorite preselection entries? Let me know what you think!
The Best of the 2010 Preselection (Part One)
I don’t know about all of you, but all of this talk recently about the 2011 ESC season has really kicked my Eurovision appetite into high gear. It’s sort of like how a person might say that they’re not hungry when dinnertime is coming up, but once they walk past a kitchen and detect the tiniest wafting scents of meals cooking, they realize that they’re absolutely famished.
Yep, that’s me. Now that we know where Eurovision 2011 will be held, and we’re getting a better picture of which nations will be participating and how their entries will be chosen, I’m getting really excited to see how Düsseldorf will compare to Oslo (and Moscow, Belgrade, Helsinki, etcetera, before it). But since it will be another few months before we get to hear the lion’s share of candidate songs, I thought I’d give you all a blast from the not-so-distant past, and serve up a list of a few of my favorite Preselection songs from last year. These are the ones who didn’t quite make it to Oslo, but they made a bit of an impression on me, at the very least. (By the way, I’m specifically skipping mention of the fantastic Albanian and Estonian preselections, as I had made pretty heavy mention of them in their nation’s individual postings…but feel free to backtrack and check them out! Estonia, in particular, put on a fabulous National Selection this year, and there are about a half-dozen songs from Eestilaul 2010 on my iTunes right now.)
Anyway, in no particular order:
From Greece: “Enjoy the Day” by Katherine Avgoustakis.
Katherine, who is actually a Belgian citizen born to a Greek father, was strongly favored to go to Oslo with this danceable summer song, but a clause in the national preselection banned any of the candidate songs from being released to the public before a specified date, or else risk disqualification. A remix of “Enjoy the Day” was leaked to YouTube early, and Katherine was left out in the cold. There are rumors that she’s going to try to represent Greece again, and if she can duplicate the popularity of her 2010 song, I wouldn’t count her out of the running to go to Düsseldorf.
Fom Denmark: “Breathing” by Bryan Rice.
Coming in second place in this year’s Dansk Melodi Grand Prix was this modern ballad, which always seems to remind me a bit of Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love”. I personally preferred this entry over Denmark’s eventual winner, Chanée and N’evergreen’s “In a Moment Like This“, but since I can’t vote, I can’t complain! In a way, it’s almost a good thing that Bryan missed out in 2010, as Denmark’s 2008 and 2009 entry, Simon Mathew’s “All Night Long” and Brinck’s “Believe Again“, respectively were both male-driven, mid-tempo numbers, and maybe it was time to switch things up a bit.
From Malta: “Save a Life” by Wayne Micallef.
Although I know that Malta is more or less obsessed with Eurovision, I am generally not a massive fan of many of the songs that the island nation submits (Sorry! Nothing personal, I promise!). However, I really liked Micallef’s entry this year. It has the hopeful, positive message that many Maltese ESC songs tend to have, without sounding like a track ripped from a 1995 Disney film. His voice is strong, and “Save a Life” kind of reminds me of something that Snow Patrol or The Fray would come out with, and it might have stacked up pretty well against Tom Dice or Jon Lilygreen this year. He also gets points from me for performing his own song, as only three self-penned tunes made it to the Maltese final this year, out of 20 songs. Wayne came in 6th place in the 2010 preselection, and 7th the year before that. If he keeps writing songs like this one, we might see him on the big stage sometime soon.
From Moldova: “Amintirele Dor (The Memories Hurt)” by Leylla
When I first introduce Eurovision to my friends who aren’t quite familiar with the contest, many imagine imagine a contest full of ethno-techno-disco pop like this. The Moldovan preselection this past year was packed, with over 80 songs vying for a shot at Oslo. Those 80-some-odd songs were all released to the public, but only 30 made it to the semifinal level (25 picked by a jury, and 5 by local SMS voting). When the dust settled, Eurofans from all over were stunned to see that Leylla had missed out, especially considering that crap like this went through.
But, on the bright side, if Leylla had gone to Oslo, the would never would have gotten to know the glory of the saxroll. Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
From the Ukraine: “Emotional Lady” by Dazzle Dreams.
Ok, this one is a total guilty pleasure. I love it when songs in other languages randomly slip in a line or two in English, and combining that with Depeche Mode-inspired synthpop makes me a happy Samantha. Granted, though…”Dazzle Dreams”? The band name sounds a bit like something that a five-year-old girl would come up with while trying to name her pink My Little Pony. Great song, though…
From Russia: “Dlinnaya-dlinnaya beresta i kak sdelat’ iz nee aishon (Long-Long Birch Bark and How to Make a Headdress From It)” by Buranovskiye Babushki (whew!)
This song is an obvious departure from any other tune in this year’s contest (or almost any year’s contest, for that matter). It’s sung in Udmurt, which is a minority language more closely related to Finnish and Estonian than Russian, and was performed by the Buranovskiye Babushki (literally, “The Grannies from Buranovo). Believe it or not, this was a serious contender to go to Oslo, coming in third place in the Russian national final!
And I don’t care what anybody says. This song makes me happy. Just try to listen to it and not smile! I dare you!
…Yeah, that’s what I thought.
(More coming up in the next entry!)
All the latest…
Well, we finally have an answer! After months of speculation from fans and press alike, it seems that the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest will be held at the Esprit Arena in lovely Düsseldorf! This will be the first German-hosted ESC since reunification of the former East and West, and the third overall (after Frankfurt in 1957 and Munich in 1983). The arena will be able to hold about 24,000 spectators, which seems a bit strange, considering that there are only about 23,000 hotel beds in the city. However, it seems that riverboats on the Rhine will be employed as floating hotels during ESC Week, and the city is a major air and rail hub for the area. Knowing that Düsseldorf is a moderately quick train ride from Amsterdam, Cologne, and other cities in the region, I’m seriously pondering making my first official Eurovision pilgrimage! (Readers from Germany…what do you think of the news?)
In other news, Cyprus has kicked off their ESC pre-game. It had been decided that the winner of the “Idol”-like show “Performance” would represent the island nation in 2011 (although the song will be selected at a later time). After all of the votes had been cast, the winner was announced as Christos Mylordos, a virtual unknown. Here’s his winning cover of Robbie Williams’ “Supreme”:
Frankly, after Cyprus’s success with John Lilygreen and the Islanders this year, I’m somewhat disappointed in Christos. Granted, he’s got until May to improve his stage presence, and he might be better served singing in his native Greek, so all is not lost!
Next topic: Austria is officially back in the game! We haven’t seen participation from ORF since the 2007 Contest, where Eric Papilaya’s HIV-awareness-anthem “Get A Life/Get Alive” came in a painfully undervalued second-to-last place. When they officially select their song, I’ll do a full report on their history.
And, continuing on the theme of nations entering or withdrawing, we had a close call for next year. The 2011 Eurovision Song Contest’s dated have officially been set for May 10, 12, and 14. However, there is a major Israeli holiday (Memorial Day) on May 9th and 10th, and performers would not be allowed to rehearse or perform on those days. So, in a special exception, the EBU has decided to allow Israel to have a reserved spot in the Second Semifinal (May 12) in order to avoid any scheduling conflicts that would result in their withdrawal.
All in all, it seems that things are progressing nicely for 2011; Albania, Switzerland, and Romania will decide their entries by the end of the year, and more plans are being revealed by the day. Record numbers of entries have been submitted in some of the public calls for songs…all in all, a good sign for what I’m sure will be a great year for Eurovision.
ESC Wish List: Arisa
Over time, I’ve noticed that one year’s winner becomes the next year’s Eurovision trend. For example, the year after Ruslana won with the energetic, folk-inspired “Wild Dances“, we saw Hungary’s “Forogj, Világ” and Greece’s “My Number One“. After Lordi’s victory with “Hard Rock Hallelujah“, there was an explosion of rock (or at least more pop-rock) from nations like Moldova, Finland, Andorra, Iceland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. And after Russia used a Stradivarius for their winning performance of “Believe” in 2008, the next year saw a heavy use of strings from Norway, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the Czechs. So, now that Germany has taken home the victory with fresh-faced Lena Meyer-Landrut (and we know that she’ll be returning to defend her title next year), it might not be a stretch to assume that we’ll see a bit of an upswing in sweet, low-key, youthful pop.
If Italy does return to Eurovision, I’ve got just the girl in mind for them.
The Sanremo Song Festival, which I mentioned in my last entry, has a section made just for newcomers. This sub-contest has introduced the world to such famous names as Eros Ramazotti, Laura Pausini, Paola & Chiara, and even Andrea Bocelli. In 2009, the Newcomer’s Trophy went to Arisa (real name: Rosalba Pippa…her stage name comes from the first initials of every member of her family), with her song “Sinceritá (Sincerity)”.
Once you get past Arisa’s strong resemblance to Rachel Maddow (which I personally think is a good thing!), you get into her general sweetness and, for lack of a better word, sincerity! Like Lena before her, Arisa is fresh and unpolished…a neophyte with genuine talent. She may seem somewhat wooden in her live performance of “Sinceritá”, but her full music video, shown here, shows how engaging she can be. Her first full-length album made it to #5 on the local charts, and has gone platinum (which, in Italy, means that over 60,000 copies have been sold). She’s already released her second disc, “Malamoreno (But-not-love)”, to general acclaim and success. Here’s the title track, also performed at San Remo:
I mean, how cute is she? Between her general accessibility and the fact that major ESC fans are practically begging Italy to jump back into the game…with the right song (probably something with a decently high level of energy, like “Malamoreno”), I think that Arisa could do pretty well in Eurovision.
ESC Wish List: Italy!!!!
Like many nations in Western Europe, Italy has had a sort of love-hate relationship with Eurovision over the past decade or so. However, unlike Portugal, who stays in the fight, keeping generally loyal to its own regional heritage and musical style (see Dulce Pontes, Lucia Moniz, Vânia Fernandes or Flor-de-Lis), or the United Kingdom, which often gleefully cannonballs into the ESC’s intrinsic ridiculousness and camp (see Gina G, Scooch, Daz Sampson, or infamous nul-pointer Jemini), Italian broadcaster RAI threw up their hands after the 1997 competition and haven’t entered a Eurovision since. From the standpoint of a loyal ESC fan, this is nothing short of tragic, as some of the true evergreens of the competition have come from Italy. In fact, Eurovision as an entity was inspired by the Sanremo Festival, a national song contest that had been established in 1951, and in turn was used to select Italy’s ESC entrants for many years. Sanremo is still going strong, but national interest in Eurovision has sadly waned.
One of the most famous songs to come out of Eurovision was a contribution from the Sanremo Festival, and although it never actually won the ESC that year, it’s familiar to ears worldwide.
Covered by the Gypsy Kings, Dean Martin, and basically everyone else on the planet, Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)” might be one of the world’s most recognizable popular songs. Even if you don’t speak any Italian, you probably have heard this song at least once, whether it’s background music in a restaurant, or in a movie, or maybe you’ve sung it at a drunken karaoke night or two (it’s ok, you can admit it).
Italy participated in Eurovision a total of 36 times, with two victories (in 1964 and 1990), one runner-up spot, and four bronze positions. My three personal favorite Italian contributions come from RAI’s final years in the ESC. From 1987, there’s Umberto Tozzi and Raf’s “Gente di Mare (People of the Sea)”, which finished in a more-than-respectable third place:
Five years later, Mia Martini used her rusted, raspy emery board of a voice to sing “Rapsodia”, a melancholy ode to two former lovers, separated by time and circumstance. The song was heartbreaking and beautiful, and it landed up in 4th place in Stockholm that year.
Italy’s final submission to the ESC was 1997’s gorgeous “Fiumi di Parole (Rivers of Words)”, sung by duo Jalisse. Even though this song, like “Rapsodia” before it, took an impressive 4th place in a particularly competitive year, RAI withdrew from Eurovision soon after, and haven’t returned. (Jalisse, however, have not given up their hope for another shot at the ESC, and had at one point applied to represent San Marino.)
Die-hard ESC fans (like myself, obviously) would love to welcome Italy back into the fray. Their musical talent pool is exceptionally deep, and they already have the perfect preselection opportunity available to them: the Sanremo Festival. It has been rumored that the EBU wants Italy back in Eurovision badly enough that they would provide them a coveted spot in the “Big Four”, alongside the UK, Germany, France, and Spain, giving them an automatic pass into the finals. Former ESC Executive Supervisor Svante Stockselius had made it a pet project of his to try to bring back many of the former participants who had left over the years (including, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg, Monaco, Slovakia, and others), with some middling success. Slovakia returned in 2009, Austria will be returning in 2011 (I’ll write my normal piece on them soon), and Liechtenstein keeps playing around with the idea of debuting. But we’re all still drooling over the possibility of Italy coming back.
There is hope, however! Rumors have recently surfaced that the winner of this year’s Italian X-Factor will be eligible to enter the 2011 ESC, making it the first time in 14 years that we see il Tricolore. However, this early in the game, Eurovision rumors tend to fly around like hair extensions in a wind machine, so I’m still taking this all with a (hopeful) grain of salt.
My next entry will talk about a few Italian artists I’d love to see representing their homeland in the ESC…I’ve got a few in mind, but do you have any suggestions? Leave me a comment and let me know your favorites!
The ESC Insider 
Happy Thanksgiving from the ESC Insider!
Nov 27
Posted by Samantha Ross
Well, for our American readers, I’d like to wish you all a Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I hope you’ve all had your fill of your favorites, especially turkey! Chatting back and forth with my friends Tarkan and Roy (a Turk living in Germany and a South African, respectively), I realize that I’ve sort of taken Thanksgiving for granted over the past few years. I mean, I love getting together with my family over the traditional holiday meal, devouring the turkey, stuffing, green beans, cranberry-flavored-everything, and pie, and washing them all down with generous glasses of Riesling and Pinot Noir. To me, it’s become very much a family gathering, but I’ve forgotten over the years how much of an American holiday it truly is. (For our non-US readers, it’s basically the recounting of the story of how some of the first European settlers arrived on the Continent from England, made it through a harsh winter with the help of the local Patuxet tribe, and celebrated their endurance and survival the next year by sharing a feast with the Native Americans. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s sort of a “Thanksgiving 101”.) I’m not proud of everything that my country has done over the last few centuries. Heck, I can barely watch an episode of the news nowadays without suppressing the need to roll my eyes every once in a while. But I am proud of who I am, and where I come from. Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, in my opinion, honors the idea that the United States is a nation made up mostly of immigrants (and their descendants), blended together over the years.
So, what does this little commentary have to do with Eurovision, anyway?
Well, in honor of Thanksgiving, one of the most American of Holidays, I’d like to dedicate this entry to the U.S.-born performers who have graced the stage across the pond. Some carried the banner of their family’s homeland from generations ago, and others simply found their niche and opportunity when it arose. (And please note: when I say “American”, I mean “from the United States”, rather than from the American continent as a whole. I might honor Canadians in a separate posting!)
The earliest example of an American singing at Eurovision that I could find seems to be from 1979: Jeane Manson, an Ohio-born former Playboy centerfold, represented Luxembourg with “J’ai Déjà Vu Ça Dans Tes Yeux (I’ve Already Seen It In Your Eyes)“, coming in 13th out of 19 entries that year. Jeane was living in France at the time, and had already established a pretty decent singing and acting career in the Francophone world. I believe that this was the first (and, so far, only) time that an American has performed in Eurovision using a language other than English.
The most successful American to grace the ESC stage was Topeka, Kansas-born Katrina Leskanich, the lead singer of Katrina and the Waves. Their 1997 victory with “Love Shine a Light” was the most recent win for the United Kingdom, the country where Katrina had been living since she was 16. Otherwise best known for their global hit “Walking on Sunshine“, Katrina and her band not only clinched the win, but did so with the biggest margin of victory in ESC history, a record that would stand until Lordi’s win for “Hard Rock Hallelujah” in 2006. Here’s the winning performance (with a bit of Dutch commentary; skip to 1:15 for the start of the song.)
In 2006, New York-born, Greek-American singer Annet Artani (birth name: Annette Denise Stamatelatos) represented Cyrpus with the song “Why Angels Cry“, a well-sung, yet completely forgettable ballad that failed to break out of the semi-finals, even though she had the benefit of performing in Athens.
Two years later, Seattle-born Isis Gee (aka Tamara Wimer) took the stage for Poland with “For Life“, another big-voiced ballad. Isis, once a participant in the Miss America pageant system, moved to Warsaw in 2004 after marrying into a Polish family. She soon released a pop album, and entered the Polish ESC preselection, winning by a pretty major landslide. Although she made it out of the semifinal in Belgrade that year, she only won 14 points in the final, tying for last place with Germany and the United Kingdom.
More successful that year was another New York-born Greek-American, Kalomoira Sarantis, and her song “Secret Combination”. She had previously won the Greek edition of Star Academy and was riding a wave of popularity in her adopted homeland, despite the fact that she barely spoke Greek when she arrived in Athens for the first time. She took the Belgrade event by storm, with her Britney Spears-meets-bouzouki mashup coming in a very respectable 3rd place (after winning her semifinal).
2009 brought a double-whammy of American representation: Germany not only brought in Californian singer Oscar Loya to sing “Miss Kiss Kiss Bang”, but they brought in the lovely Dita von Teese (a native of Michigan) to perform during the song itself. Sadly, Oscar and Dita only came in 20th place out of 25 (although Germany more than made up for it the next year…)
So, to all of those Yankees who have crossed the ocean to try their luck at Europe’s biggest music festival, I salute you! Whether you took home the gold or didn’t even crack into the finals, you’ve made us proud!
Posted in Special Comment
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