Ok. We've heard every single entry in every single Eurovision Song Contest. The obvious next move for our jury is to score them all and determine the ten greatest Eurovision songs of all time. It was a long job, narrowing down 1088 entries to just ten, but after months of whittling we finally got there. Here, then, are the votings of the AView jury:
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1pt |
 2007 |
Ukraine 2007 Verka Serduchka "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" (Dancing Лаша Тумбай) |
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The Ukraine secured
their place in the Eurovision pantheon in 2007 with the help of
Christopher Biggins -styled grand dame Verka Serduchka, resplendent in
spangly bacofoil and star-shaped headpiece. The core of the piece is a
raved up folk-dance riff on an accordion, intercut with some Germanic
counting gone slightly awry. Halfway through we encounter a new and
more melodic section before notching up a key and starting again. A
trip around the block (and a run around the stage) and there's a second
key-change before we reach the undeniably charming "OK, Happy End". In our 2007 voting we placed this second (as did Europe). We made a mistake (as did Europe). |
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2pts |
 1960 |
United Kingdom
1960 Bryan Johnson "Looking High, High, High" |
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The Cleese-ish
Johnson whistled with gusto and knocked us all down with the proverbial
feather with a fantastic song, easily superior to his brother's 1959
entry. How can we convey how truly fantastic this song is? Perhaps if
we just sing it: "Looking high high high / looking low low low /
wondering why why why / did she go go go / for if I I I / don't find my
love I know / I shall die die die / for I love her so." No. That
doesn't really convey the wonder of it: a martially inflected jaunt
across land and sea in search of the absconded love of his life,
accompanied all the way by multi-consonantal rhymes (dearly /
sincerely; devotion / notion...) and his fine whistling. In our minds
this is the second victory for the United Kingdom and marks their
unmistakable arrival alongside Germany as a truly Great Power in
Eurovision. The song was ranked second in the actual 1960 contest. |
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3pts |
 1979 |
Denmark 1979 Tommy Seebach "Disco Tango" |
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It's called "Disco
Tango". There's not much more needs saying than that. One might argue
that it does not quite live up to the potential dizzying wonder one
might perhaps hope to imagine from the title, but it none-the-less
delivers adequately on both disco and tango fronts. It is both disco
and tango. It is Disco Tango à la carte. In our scoring for 1979 we placed "Disco Tango" third in what was pretty much a three-way tie for us. The other two contenders that year, "Dschinghis Khan" and "Sokrati" were in contention for this top ten, but the wind was not in their favour this time. Europe placed it sixth. |
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4pts |
 2008 |
Spain 2008 Rodolfo Chikilicuatre "Baila el Chiki-chiki" |
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The Spanish entry of
2008 is a novelty number: "Baila el Chiki-Chiki" by bequiffed fictional
comedy character and inventor of the vibrator-guitar Rodolfo
Chikilicuatre. He's accompanied by a pair of similarly haired female
dancers (one of whom occasionally breaks down) as he performs a
somewhat sparsely produced "reggaeton" number, the chorus for which
reduces the Baila el Chiki-Chiki into its constituent moves: 1)
brikindans, 2) crusaito, 3) maiquelyason, 4) robocop. In no time at all
you'll be dancing along to this infectious little entry: our favourite
of the night. Europe placed it 16th: the best Spanish performance since 2004. |
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5pts |
 1968 |
Yugoslavia 1968 Luciano Capurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić "Jedan dan" |
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In 1968 Yugoslavia
gave their greatest performance yet with a pair of medieval minstrels,
a flute, and a bespectacled mandolin player conducting one of the most
amazing key-changes ever attempted. It's a truly beautiful marching
rouse. We placed this second at the time, preferring the Spanish classic "La la la". "La la la" was in contention for this top ten, but "Jedan dan" has grown on us somewhat in the interim and just happens to be more in favour at the moment. Europe placed it joint-seventh. |
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6pts |
2009 |
Ukraine 2009 Svetlana Loboda "Be My Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl)" |
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"You are sexy bum
bum", Svetlana seems to say as she gyrates around her giant
hamster-wheel climbing-frames surrounded by bare-chested Roman
legionaries. As a spectacle this takes some beating: as the grimy
bass-line and ethnically-tinged brass flourishes of the verse give way
to the pounding, tit-wiggling flaunt of the chorus, so our intrepid
vocalist gets hurled about by her loyal troops and shakes her stuff
most impressively. At one point she even takes to the drums, on a kit
that is being hauled across stage by her soldiers. As Laibach-esque
pistons pump up and down on the video-walls it becomes apparent that
this is one of the greatest performances Eurovision has ever seen; and
a cracking song to boot: a song that deserves time in the charts and
could stand aside anything Britney or Lady Ga-Ga might care to throw
our way. Our second Ukrainian entry in this top ten is a masterpiece
with a sexy bum. Europe put it 12th. |
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7pts |
 1983 |
Finland 1983 Ami Aspelund "Fantasiaa" |
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Finland, having won
our hearts in 1977 with Monica Aspelund, gave us in 1983 her little
sister, Ami Aspelund. For "Lapponia", read "Fantasiaa". The song,
possessed of some considerable Abba-ishness, cracks open with a
"Holding Out For A Hero" introduction and is full of icy little
flourishes and stabs, one of which sounds like the Crystal Maze. The
orchestration is bang on; the pounding rhythm always a welcome part of
our jury's 'winning formula' such as we have one. The key change is
particularly well put together, with a false start. Easily the best
moment comes at the end of the first chorus, when the three male
backing vocalists (seemingly in striped mittens) lean, mysteriously,
into the spotlight and deliver their sinister interjection only to be
pulled back to the upright by the powerful attractive force of
Aspelund's ridiculously broad peplum: so hippy that it makes the poor
woman waddle like a duck. She, like her sister, delivers some great
gestures and eye movements (many of which are only just caught by the
camera) and the whole thing is just fantastic, as is appropriate (the
promo video is great too). Europe placed the song 11th. |
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8pts |
 1981 |
Portugal 1981 Carlos Paião "Playback" |
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One of the best
Eurovision songs of all time, it is a wonderful blend of minimal
electronics and soaring orchestration: an angular, robotic lament for
talent in a world of quantized music. It's amazing that it's not a
German entry, with its Schools & Colleges theme tune sound.
Adorable little Carlos, a Timothy Claypole kind of chap, is accompanied
on stage by four backing vocalists cum dancers in differently coloured
flight suits (that he doesn't rip off their trousers is a trick
missed), one of whom looks a lot like Bob Carolgees. Together they
jerkily ram their microphones against their heads, bob up and down, and
sprain their necks. It's hard not to join in. Unquestionably this
should've been Europe's winner in 1981. Unforgivably it came joint
second-to-last. Perhaps if they'd taken their clothes off like Bucks
Fizz... |
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10pts |
1977 |
Finland 1977 Monica Aspelund "Lapponia" |
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Finland's Monica
Aspelund, a sort of cross between Inger Berggren and Marion Rung from
the 1962 contest, puts in a truly breathtaking performance: lots of
expressive eyes and twisting arm gestures, some frosty breathing and a
blood-curdling scream. All the while, a Haino lookalike looks on from
the piano. Even if one could somehow ignore the brilliant Aspelund, the
song itself, nationalistically entitled "Lapponia" is a great piece of
work, with its clappy, timp-laden chorus and some fantastic string
arrangements, not to mention the incongruous, melodramatic instrumental
section and the doo-wop bit that precedes that scream. That scream...
But Aspelund makes a great song into something extra special. There is
no way on Earth that it is possible to resist mimicking Monica's moves.
Only the armless can sit impassive. Eurovision doesn't get much better
than this. Europe put it 10th. |
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12pts |
 1977 |
Austria 1977 Schmetterlinge "Boom Boom Boomerang" |
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1977 was a truly
amazing year, at least on a musical level. Music is love for you and
for me; music is money for the record company. Sometimes words are not
enough to describe the pure... absolute... perfection of a song. The
Austrian entry, Schmetterlinge's "Boom Boom Boomerang" is that song.
Poor "Lapponia", up against this. The perfection lies not only in the
song, but again also in the performance itself: the double-sided
costumes, the cigars, masks and £5 notes, and most importantly:
the delightful choreography. Even the delicate first movement is timed
exquisitely with the rotation of the stage-set. That the costumes make
their legs look really skinny just adds to the fun. A well observed
take on the likes of the Les Humphries singers last year, as a song and
a performance it is both a cynical satire and an entertaining
song-and-dance tour-de-force; simultaneously for and against everything
that Eurovision stands for. But screw that; it has silly dancing and
the lyrics "Boom boom boomerang snadderydang / kangaroo, boogaloo,
didgeridoo / ding dong, sing the song / hear the guitar twang / Kojak,
hijack, me and you". It finished 17th. |
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10's not many songs for you to get your teeth into, so we also saw fit to cobble together our ten favourite songs of each decade and our ten favourite songs from the best-performing nations.