Eurovision Revisited

The best songs from Eurovision and National Finals Current Year: 2011 @[email protected] bsky.app/profile/eurovision-rev.bsky.social

[eurovision-revisited]

A Pause Update

I've had a week of consideration.

Although I want to restart and continue with 2011, the joy and enthusiasm I get from doing this has yet to return. I suspect that it'll take quite a bit longer to recover and that the full story of Eurovision 2026 has many more developments in store.

So, I'm continuing the Pause until the New Year when I'll take stock and reconsider again.

I'm old and battered enough to appreciate that things change, time can both heal and hurt, and that what you feel today, you almost won't be feeling in a month's time. Right now though I'll be quiet for a few weeks.

Let's see where things stand in January.

[eurovision-revisited]

A Pause

After the events of yesterday (4th of December), I'm going to be taking a short break to reflect.

I love Eurovision. I still do. I think its central idea is more important today than it's ever been. I want it to continue.

What I do here celebrates the history of Eurovision and the surrounding constellation of national finals and songs. I want to continue that too. Especially as that history brings to lights all manner of notable lessons for the competition in the future.

However, with current events now reaching a high level of uncertainty and feverishness, I need to step back for a few days and think.

I hope that Eurovision Revisited will return to continue the 2011 countdown shortly. But for now...

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 23 - Eric Saade - "Popular"

Eric nearly made it in 2010, but he was back in 2011 with another song penned by Frederik Kempe. Popular is a sort of sequel to Manboy, in which Eric narrates his own journey through the music business one song at a time. He was clearly highly favoured by both this label and by STV. His popularity, ironically, had never been higher.

Throughout the summer of 2010, he’d toured Sweden hard. His tour even had a name - The Masquerade tour, the same as his debut album. Another album was in the works, and there were big plans for more touring in 2011. However there was a slight fly in the ointment. Eric himself had doubts about doing Melfest again. Everything else was all set for him to be on TV in the winter, but perhaps the experience of falling short in 2010 was haunting him. He needed to be persuaded.

Or maybe that reluctance was all part of a PR effort to promote a song called Popular about wanting to be as popular as possible. Don’t tell Eric it’s impossible whatever you do. Well tell him that it is possible, but only if he does Melodifestivalen again. Of course he signed up, how could he not?

Popular is more of the same from the Kempe/Saade combo. Driving hard Swedish pop, all down and dirty and desperate. He really wants you girl. His body wants you girl. I love that in the Swedish version of the song the first couplet remains with the much derided rhyme

Stop, ikke si at det er umulig Fordi jeg vet, det er mulig

But who cares. When Eric’s petulantly being so self-aggrandizing while wearing a single glove and in the national final a least karate chopping himself through not one but three panes of glass, there’s nothing you can do but admit that this is the Swedish music industry cruising along at peak performance with every gear and belt running perfectly smoothly and in place. It’s effortless.

He didn’t just win heat three. He crushed heat three. It’s often the case in Melfest that the televote numbers are closer than you might imagine, but Eric won heat three with nearly twice the amount of public voters than second place got. In the final, he got televotes equivalent to ten percent of the entire TV audience watching at home that night. Every international jury gave him points. It was almost a forgone conclusion. It wasn’t that there weren’t strong other songs, it was just that Eric’s songs and fame and performance were peak. As peak as you can get.

That took him to Düsseldorf where he was counted among the favourites. He was limited to a single glass shattering experience during the bridge, but he still got the point across. As he’d done in Melodifestivalen, he won semi-final two by miles. While others were squabbling over qualification spots, Eric won the semi with ease. He almost got points from every country, only Bulgaria refusing to be impressed. That took him into the final, but with a poor running order draw. He was on seventh, but still left a lasting impression at home, but it wasn’t to be a win. He came second in the televote but only two points behind the winners. And there were questions about how they had done so well that continue to this day.

However the juries were less than impressed. Eric only came ninth. I’m not sure why. It was a divisive, weird year with all sorts of things potentially happening behind the scenes. The juries spiking his chances like that left him and Sweden in third place overall. Eric was undoubtedly popular, just not quite popular enough.

Of course he’d return. To Eurovision the next year as an interval act. To Melodifestivalen in 2015 and to host Melodifestivalen in 2019 and to compete there again in 2021. He’s in the Melodifestivalen Hall of Fame. I didn’t know they had a Hall of Fame! There was also his interval performance in 2024 which the EBU still haven’t re-uploaded to YouTube in the churlish appeasement of vested interests. If Eric wants to represent his heritage, why the hell not?

I’m sure there’ll be more Eric to come, but for now here’s Sleepless from his 2010 Masquerade album.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 24 - Stine Kinck - "Hvad hjertet lever af"

Stine Kinck has had a truly interesting musical journey. She has a wide variety of pseudonyms, mononyms and misspellings of her name to contend with. Not only that, but the group of producers and song-writers she’s most associated with also have a plethora of noms-de-plume to contend with.

Starting at the beginning, Stine had a Danish-Senegalese background, although finding more information about her biography has proved more challenging to find than my time limits allow. The earliest material I can find are from the late 1990s when she was drafted in as a singer into Los Umbrellos, a Danish Latin-pop band fronted by a DJ with two models. Stine wasn’t just the voice behind the scenes though in that she seems to have replaced one of the actual band members.

Her style has always been a mellow R&B sound but with an edge and some quirkiness. From the mid 2000s she began to sing with reggae and dancehall producers including touring with Von Daler and Low Pressure as well as releasing some of her own songs, eventually signing with Playground Music in roughly 2010. It’s that connection and an album full of material ready to release later in 2011 that got her into the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. Although the song she went there with feels a little more like her early work rather than some of the heavy beats that would wind up being on the rest of the album.

Hvad hjertet lever af (What the Heart Lives On) is distinctly poppier than the rest of her output. Her voice still has that R&B assurance and rasp, but here it’s set against something more whimsical. This is a love song, a yearning song, a celebration. And if you only read the lyrics and heard the harmonies of backing singers in the chorus you could believe that. But Stine makes that lightweight upbeatness something sadder. There’s melancholy in the subtext of her voice. Less yearning, more pleading. She might be smiling, but is she smiling after tears? It’s a curious combination that’s undoubtedly down to her interpretation of the material, although she is listed as one of the song-writers.

The others are Fresh-I (Andreas Keilgaard), Pharfar (Søren Schou) and Rasmus Allin who clearly felt no need for a cool song-writer name. Fresh-I had experience of working with Kenneth Bager, the mind behind Stine’s first band Los Umbrellos, while Pharfar is a producer most closely associated with the Danish reggae scene and who had worked with Rasmus before. All three had been drafted in to work on the album as well as to write this song. Stine can clearly sing, with a voice filled with a mix of warmth and kindness, but with something more bitter occasionally catching her vocal chords mind-twang and making its presence felt.

Personally I think this is a great combo. Definitely not Denmark. Or at least DMGP, but for once they’ve been caught trying something unexpectedly different (and the song hadn’t had to go through open submission - they’d been invited by Danish broadcaster DR) . And it works. So well in fact that it made it through the first cut in the competition. Hvad hjertet lever af was one of the top four songs in the first round. Getting through to the next stage.

But oh dear. The duelling concept had made its way to Copenhagen. Instead of a straight televoting fight for the win, she was put up against another song and singer and it was there that reality hit. She lost out. By how much we don’t know, but she did not make it to the grand final. Stine’s album did come out later on in the year with moderate success, along with a few singles released from it. But that was clearly not enough and the label dropped sometime in 2012. She then went solo as an independent artist, putting her own music out on various online platforms. She’s also been involved as a backing singer, notably for Danish singer Rasmus Seebach, son of Danish Eurovision legend Tommy Seebach.

More recently Stine has been releasing music again under the name Kinck. Her most recent tracks have come out earlier this year. This is Girlfriend.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 25 - Eldrine - "One More Day"

The last time that 1TV in Georgia held a national final, it had resulted in selecting We Don’t Wanna Put In and the subsequent withdrawal from Eurovision in Moscow when it was deemed the song was ‘of a political or a similar nature’. In 2010, they’d internally selected, so this year was the first time in three years the Georgian public would be able to see their chosen performers on the Eurovision stage.

Except, of course, there was another wrinkle. The winners of the national final were the band Eldrine or ƎLDRINE as they prefer. They hadn’t expected to win going into the final. Their song, One More Day was in English and was written by band members DJ BE$$ (aka Beso Tsikhelashvili) and Miken (aka Mikheil Chelidze) along with another DJ, DJ Rock. It’s a demanding nu metal song, with a full intensity vocal that requires commitment as well as control. This has clean vocals and screams being delivered by the same singer as well as a rap.

On the day of the national final, the nineteenth of February 2011, lead singer Tamar Vadachkoria was ill. Her voice was not what it should be and they doubted she would be able to perform. But she did.

You can see the result.

That’s a fighting performance from someone with a vocal problem. You can hear that especially in the final chorus, she’s not able to continue much more and loses her volume and singing ability. The whole thing sounds painful for her vocal chords.

Nevertheless it’s a great performance of a big song from a country that was increasingly enjoying turning their amps up to eleven and blowing the windows out. The vote was fifty/fifty jury/televote, but I’m not sure that the results have been published. The only thing that is known is who finished second and third and who won.

Somehow Eldrine won. Whether that was a public sympathy vote or whether they loved the song despite Tamar’s clear issues I don’t know. Eurovision was going to be enjoying some metal this year. Shortly after their victory Tamar said that it was “unbelievable” and that the band thought that “only a miracle would help because of her sickness.”

On February the twenty-eighth, nine days after they won, Eldrine announced that Tamar had left the band and that their new lead singer at Eurovision would be Sophio Toroshelidze. I don’t know if this was purely down to Tamar’s illness and poor recovery prospects, or if the reported contractual issues were genuine. If it was something like nodules, then there’s no way they would have recovered in the three months before Eurovision.

In Düsseldorf, the rest of the band were all present and correct, including keyboardist Eldrine (aka Tamar Shekiladze) after whom the band appear to be named. For singer Tamar that must have been disappointing, although it did mean she didn’t have to wear the iconic, Barbara Dex award-winning green and black dress. Sophio did tremendously well in her stead though, powering through the song. She went on to stay with the band subsequently.

With all the turmoil pre-Eurovision, Georgia were not high up in the odds. In the semi-finals Eldrine were drawn between two gentle, quiet, acoustic guitar strumming ballads, right in the middle of the running order. This must have come as something of a shock to the system. Perhaps that metal blast was what Eurovision wanted. The band qualified in sixth place, well-clear of the dog-fight taking place for the final qualification spot.

Qualifying is one thing. How were they going to do when everyone else was there? It was a year in which there weren’t any clear favourites. What favoured songs there had been before the contest seemed to be under-performing. Georgia might have a chance. Oh, they’ve been drawn to be the final song in the running order. Well it’s certainly one way to close the show.

That Eldrine finished ninth, equaling the previous year’s result for Georgia is astonishing. It’s still Georgia’s best result at Eurovision to this day. It also set a precedent for Georgia. They were the country that weren’t afraid to be different, to show off the variety in their music scene. They may not have much in the way of resources, but they do have a thriving musical scene.

The band went on to lose Eldrine the keyboardist, but keep their new singer Sophio and to release their first album Till the End in 2013. They have also released a few singles, such as this one in 2015, Addiction

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 26 - Loreen - "My Heart Is Refusing Me"

In the autumn of 2004, the first series of Swedish Idol took place. The format was young and fresh, and was about finding someone you’d never heard about and getting them in front of the cameras, into the ears of the public and onto the books of the Swedish music industry. One of those taking part was the young Lorine Talhaoui , the eldest child of a Moroccan immigrant family. She hadn’t known she was going to be taking part, but her sister signed up for the audition without her knowledge. She has always used music and sound of all kinds as we place where she goes for calm and quiet, so perhaps signing up for a massive TV circus with the prize of a record contract wasn’t perhaps what she wanted.

Nevertheless she took part and got through to the last forty qualifying stage. For that part, there were five rounds each with eight contestants, the top two in the televote going through to the live TV finals. With some foreshadowing, her chosen song was Céline Dion’s song Love Is On the Way. Loreen finished third and got eliminated before the final. Except there was some fine print. The jury were allowed a single pick from the singers who finished third and fourth. They selected Loreen to go forward. By such fine margins are legends made.

During the TV stages, Loreen got through week after week, eventually losing in the final four. But that meant she’d had the whole of October and half of November on Sweden’s TV screens. However, she wasn’t ready. For a twenty-one year old with family responsibilities for whom music was a deeply personal and spiritual thing, heading straight into a pop career was not something that seemingly appealed. Only one single with Loreen on it was released and that was with her as the featured singer on 2005 single The Snake by Rob ‘n’ Raz.

It wasn’t until 2011 that she reappeared. She’d signed a deal with Warner Music Sweden and they’d put her together with two fresh song-writers in Björn Djupström and Moh Denebi. Björn had written for Eric Saade and Anna Bergendahl, but crucially neither Björn nor Moh had ever written for Melfest before 2011, save for a single song in 2005 that had Moh as a co-writer alongside two more experienced writers.

They’d been put together with Loreen for the year, although the team also had other songs in the competition. Starting out in heat two, Loreen would have been one of the least known names on the bill; she was relying on people with long memories of her appearance on TV seven years earlier for any sort of recognition. She needed a strong song. Together with Björn and Moh, she got to song-writing

The result was My Heart Is Refusing Me. For Melfest (and for Eurovision) it’s a modern song. A club song, filled with electronica and pulsing beats. It sounded contemporary, and a world away from many of the other entries in the competition. With Loreen’s strong and stable voice soaring over the top of the track, it’s simultaneously cool and calculating while at the same time pounding enough to get your heart to beat and not to refuse you at all should you wish to exert yourself by dancing.

Loreen’s look had also changed. From the far younger and less polished look she’d had during the Idol years, there was instead a super styled, singer with her long, perfectly straight black hair and square framing fringe. Along with her red, stringy top and black everything else, it’s dramatic.

Loreen, Björn and Moh had stumbled on something that would impact people and make them remember. Unfortunately that would take a little more time than was allowed for voting. The song finished fourth in the heat despite the performance. That got it through to the second chance final. But there, she lost out in her first duel. Melfest attempt one, came to an end.

But people remembered. The single was released after Melodifestivalen had concluded, hit number nine on the charts and stayed in them for over four months. It went on to win single of the year at QX Gaygalan 2012, the annual Swedish awards for LGBTQ culture in the country. The single eventually went double platinum. All of this clearly caught the eye of both her record label and the Melfest organisers who were all keen for Loreen to have another go in 2012. I wonder how that worked out?

Loreen’s story will undoubtedly continue here, but for now here’s her singing Britney Spears’s Stronger, written by Max Martin on the first series of Swedish Idol. Wow, how big was the change for 2011?

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 27 - Nora - "What Is Love?"

Nora Strolytė was no stranger to Lithuanian national finals or to Eurovision in 2011. She’d already been there and appeared on Eurovizija or Lietuvos Dainų Daina twice before, winning once and getting to the final and ending up fifth the other time. But you’ve never heard of her, right? In Moscow in 2009, she was off to Sasha Son’s stage left as one of his three backing singers. Not off the stage entirely, nor relegated to the shadows and a lonely microphone stand like some, but there in front of the cameras.

In 2010 she returned to Lithuania’s national final together with Sasha. She’d been touring with him throughout the previous year. By the time of the first ever Eurovizija, she’d entered on equal billing with Sasha as Sasha and Nora, although her last name was nowhere to be found. By 2011, Nora had graduated to having her own song, self-written together with song-writer Marius Leskauskas. Sasha entered separately, and yes she was still his backing singer as well - so Nora had two songs to sing this year, albeit in different heats.

Her song was What Is Love? And it’s a little different to the soulful piano ballads she’d been used to singing with Sasha. This song is a lot more lively. It’s 1960s-throwback, 1990s-revival big-band, girl-group, soul track. Lots of brass, lots of fun, lots of interesting little musical detours and structural variations. It’s a pop track you’ve heard the likes of before, but not necessarily in the middle of a Lithuanian national final. It gives Nora a lot of space to show off how expressive and interesting her voice can be, and although her voice is one that might not appeal to everyone, it’s clear that Nora can sing as well as write songs.

Yes, it’s a song about a girl in love and is relatively lightweight, with very little soul-searching or philosophical insights, but it does put a smile on not only Nora’s face but everyone else’s as well. It’s a shame the audience in the studio had the reaction of dead fish to a salt bucket. The jury liked it though and gave it six points. They were the only points got though and she ended up ninth overall and out of the competition. Sasha went one better and went to the final, but he could only finish seventh in that final, ironically with exactly the same point score as Nora got in the heat.

This was the last time Nora entered the competition however she did give The Voice of Lithuania a try in the second season, and made the top twelve before being eliminated. Nora was also keeping busy singing soul in clubs and bars in Vilnius at the time, but sadly it seems that after the Voice, there was no traction to take her further in the music business. This is a cover of Whenever You’re Around from 2012.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 28 - Pasha Parfeni - "Dorule"

He’d been trying for a few years. Could he do better in 2011? Pasha Parfeni had started off as the singer with the Sunstroke Project, but after his first attempt at the Moldovan national final as the lead singer in the band in 2009, he decided to go solo. He entered again in 2010, but in a twist of fate, lost out to the band he’d just left. In both 2009 and 2010 he’d finished third in O melodie pentru Europa. He was hoping for better.

Pasha was born into a musical family in Orhei, Moldova. His father was a singer and guitarist, his mother taught piano. He ended up going to Tiraspol Music College in Transnistria, then went to the State Music Academy. From there he met the Sunstroke Project and was immediately brought in to sing in the 2009 national final. It had been a whistle-stop rise from school to being on national TV, with hopes of going to Eurovision in the space of about five years. Whether there was disagreement, or more likely, that Pasha had always wanted to go it alone, in less than a year he’d left the band and started a tour of the Eastern European competitive music festivals.

He won the George Grigoriu International Pop Music Festival, placed second in Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk, then entered the Golden Stag Festival. All the time he was getting ready for his solo national final debut in 2010. It was not to be that year however Pasha wasn’t going to be defeated by a single podium finish.

He was back in 2011 with Dorule (Entertainment), written by Pasha himself with lyrics by Anastasia Larionova, another song-writer who doesn’t appear to have left much trace. The song immediately establishes Pasha’s style. Ethnic instrumentation including a hammer dulcimer and what I think is a nai used in the bridge. Mystical, folkish elements in a song about how much the object of his desire makes his head pound like a drum.

There’s a frenetic turbofolk thing going on behind it all, although Pasha’s take on the genre is a little more refined and airy. He skips lightly over it all to bring a sound that we’re all going to get used to over the forthcoming years. The songs is in English although that’s hard to make out, as not only are them distinctly Slavic English phrases scattered throughout the song, but at this point, Pasha’s diction and voice, loud as they are, aren’t enough to make themselves heard distinctly over the head-pounding backing track. It’s certainly fun and so Eurovision, it hurts.

It came third.

Three years in a row of national finals and three bronze medals to show for it. Surely it was going to happen soon for Pasha? Of course it would happen and very soon, but you can’t say that he’s not been consistent. After his inevitable Eurovision appearance, he continued song-writing and performing, although he doesn’t appear to have recorded much in the way of singles and albums. Pasha is very much about the stage and performance. There was a single album of songs after his 2012 successes, but that appears to be it. After the song-writing years, he came back to the national stage in 2020 and then again in 2023 - when he won again.

Pasha has become one of the three Moldovan Eurovision dependables throughout the 2010s. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from again soon. This is one of his rare singles. From 2024, this is Vecini (Neighbourhood)

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 29 - Ithaka Maria - "Hopa'pa-rei!"

2011 would prove to be a difficult year for Ithaka Maria in her personal life as her on-again-off-again marriage to former Slobodan River bandmate Tomi Rahula was reaching a terminal state of off-again. Ithaka’s dad, Peeter Pruuli was quoted in the press as saying that he didn’t know if they were divorced or married as to his knowledge they’d split up and got back together again so many times. Her eldest daughter was just turning nine-years old and it must have been a difficult time.

Her musical career was in something of a lull too. She’s had at least one single out every year since her previous appearance in Estonia’s national final in 2009, but she hadn’t been back. Now Eesti Laul wanted the queen of Estonia’s pop scene to return. The woman who had connections to artists are varied as Koit Toome (for whom she’d co-written Mere lapsed) and Stig Rästa (the other former Slobadan River bandmate). Perhaps this was the year to get her to come back. Stig was. Again. All she needed was a song

Step forward dad Peeter who probably knew she needed cheering up. What he and Ithaka Maria came up with is certainly distinctive. Unique perhaps. In other hands, this might have been a comedy song, but it is instead one of Eesti Laul’s most remembered tunes. Hopa’pa-rei. Most places leave this title untranslated, but in some places, the English equivalent is Whoops. It’s tempting to read way too much into the lyrics of the song, especially given Ithaka’s relationship breakdown and her daughter’s age at the time - it might even be a song for her daughter, although I’d guess Peeter was probably also thinking of his daughter when he wrote it.

It’s a nursery rhyme chant of a song. Strident. Bolshy. It concerns a woman who is so sad she’s sat down in the middle of the pavement only to find herself confronted by a short bearded man with a crucifix on his head and a suspicious glint in his eye. I know. Don’t talk to strangers, especially when the first words out of their mouth are

mis sa siin teed, kullake?

Or

What are you doing here, darling?

He teaches her the magic words - Hopa’pa-rei which makes everything good again if you say it often enough and loud enough. A sort of Estonian supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. In fact if you substitute Mary Poppins with the man with the flickering tongues, essentially you have the same story. It’s sung with gusto and a sawing cello upping the tension. But once the chorus is reached Ithaka gets to stomp and growl her way through it with relish. By the time the second verse is finished she can’t help but smile. She’s committed to it with even a few guttural screams finding their way into her vocal repertoire. Along with something yodel-adjacent.

It’s certainly memorable. A primal scream of song for getting all the grumbles and anguish out of your brain if you decide to commit to it. And of course it qualified from the semi, just behind Orelipoiss and tied on points with MID. In the final, she ended up fifth overall but came second in the telly vote as Estonia took her song and her screams to heart. She’s still never made it to the Eurovision stage. Maybe one year?

This certainly perked up Ithaka’s 2011, perhaps helped by that more concrete split from Tomi. It’s also the end point of Ithaka’s musical journey. She did release a couple more singles in the 2010s but they were one-offs with big gaps between them. She didn’t return to Eesti Laul, instead she married former footballer Aleksei Savitski in 2012 and committed time to her new family. The big exception to that is that she was crowned Miss Estonia in 2018 as the mother of three children and at the age of thirty-nine.

One of her last public songs (that I’ve found) is singing with Nedsaja Küla Bänd about the wonder of Estonian villages in 2019. This is Küla elab (The Village Lives)

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 30 - ELMAYONESA - "Kes ei tantsi, on politsei"

Elmayonesa is Nicolas Hugo Behler Calzetta, born in Argentina and as of 2011, resident in Barcelona. The young DJ had been having what you’d now call a Duolingo moment. He’d been learning Estonian. In what I’ve read about him, and there’s not much out there, it’s never been made clear why he’d decided to learn Estonian, but not only did he learn it, he made use of it in his creative life. Mr. Mayonnaise was a DJ. Also a drummer, but mainly a DJ and producer and a young man looking out for fun.

The one concrete reason he gives in interviews for his unlikely connection with Estonia is that he really likes Estonian women. His music is an exemplar of a certain type of rap that was sweeping Europe in the early 2010s. Well not sweeping, more shuffling between Europe’s seedier venues and brashly pronouncing its presence unexpectedly in slightly humorous videos on YouTube. See also Trackshittaz in Austria. Elmayoneas’s first single was Liigutage Peput (Move Your Butt). The video was shot in Barcelona, but he claimed that all the women in the video were his Estonian friends.

When asked who’s butt he would like to see move - classy interview question there - he answered Kerli. His idea of the perfect woman… The similarity between this song at the Austrian entry into the 2012 Eurovision song contest is of note, although there’s no question that the later version was a whole lot more professional.

Some thought that ETV only included Elmayonesa into the Eesti Laul semi-finals this year to a) bring in some rap and b) ensure that the rap wouldn’t win, despite its popularity. I don’t think that would ever have been a concern given the strength of the contest, but you can’t dispute that having Elmayonesa there added to the variety and sense of a country having fun with its music.

The song was written by him along with two female song-writers that I cannot find anything out about. Whoever Helen Heinmäe and Nora Reitel are, I have no idea what their experience was nor what they contributed to a song called Kes ei tantsi, on politsei (Whoever Doesn’t Dance is the Police). They might even be on stage for the performance, although the listed live contributors are MC J.O.C. & Katrin. Nope, don’t know who they are either. You might say that it’s faithful to his already established philosophy. He wants to see butts move. Again.

It’s mostly in Estonian with a few Spanish lines mixed in which certainly makes it unique in the history of national finals. It’s a competent piece of rap, with a few hints of reggae mixed in there somewhere. He definitely has some stage presence. Seeing a bit of live DJ/MC interaction in a national final is sadly still a rarity. Rapping is ever the bête noire of Eurovision, despite it becoming one of the predominant musical genres in the charts across the continent. And while Elmayonesa isn’t hugely enlightening and maybe a little bit sedentary with his flow, it’s enough of novelty to have snuck its way through my bracket and into position number thirty.

At Eesti Laul it wasn’t that successful. In the first semi-final, the song ended up in seventh place of the ten songs and was eliminated at the first opportunity. At least he’d brought a smile to Estonia and proved that Hispano-Estonian cross-cultural mash-ups were at least possible in theory.

After this, he had two more Estonian singles, but then he appears to have disappeared from the record just as thoroughly as his co song-writers. This is his single from later in 2011, Eesti Kuninganna (Queen of Estonia)

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 31 - Melody Club - "The Hunter"

Appearing at Melodifestivalen is frequently the cherry towards the end of a long career in music for some bands. That last throw of the dice to launch that last album in the hopes of bringing back the glory days. It rarely works, although the album sales through the summer months are quite nice. There have been several swansongs containing more than the average amount of Scandi-schlager. For the most part however, those do come when the band know that the end of the journey is approaching. It’s not often that registering for Melfest is the catalyst that tears the band apart.

However that’s exactly what happened in 2011 for Melody Club. They were a band that got started at the beginning of the twenty-first century when another band, the Tambureens split-up. They were one of those bands who donated members to lots of other, more famous bands, including The Ark. Kristofer Östergren, Erik Stenemo, and Jon Axelsson immediately formed Melody Club, and entered the most celebrated years of their musical careers. They produced rocky-pop or perhaps poppy-rock and had several hits throughout the 2000s including one with the title Girls Don’t Always Wanna Have Fun. The one essential band member they didn’t have after forming the band was a drummer. They initially recruited Richard Ankers, but after he left in 2005, Andy A joined up and the band were complete.

By 2010 they were already planning on entering Melfest. The competition had been gaining in production values over the years and many, many songs from the competition had entered the charts. You can’t blame the band, their management or their record label for wanting in. But there was one band member who thought of it as selling out. Andy A may have been the last member of the band to join, but in a LIFO moment, he quit when it became apparent the band were actually going to be at the show. Happily though, their previous drummer came back and the band weren’t hugely inconvenienced.

The song they brought was written by the band. The Hunter feels like a proto-manosphere manifesto, although perhaps I’m being too harsh. Or maybe it’s their back catalogue that’s leading me to that conclusion. Lead singer Kristofer tells us that he’s finally able to hunt for the love he’s worthy of. He hasn’t found it, but that doesn’t seem to be bringing him down. He seems like the type who prefers the chase. Outside of the lyrics, the song itself is a classic Melodifestival piece of pop. Upbeat, semi-euphoric, rattling along at a pace to get the crowd in attendance up on their feet and cheering.

Hopes may have been high, especially as their brothers from Tambureens had already done Melfest, won and gone to Eurovision (in 2007). In what was possibly the weakest heat, Melody Club contrived to finish seventh of the eight songs. Their new album (their fifth) still came out a week after their appearance and proceeded not to do that well. They had a best of album out in 2012 that produced two more singles, but that was pretty much it. After the album and a few gigs in the summer of 2011, there were three years of radio silence from the band. Maybe that pre-Melfest aggro ran deeper through the band than expected.

But as with all long-standing bands with creative differences, something brings them back together. It wasn’t until 2024 when it was announced the band would be touring again, with that finally coming to pass this year, 2025. Unlike some of the other bands who get back together, I’m pretty sure Melody Club will not be going back to Melfest. This is Paralyzed, which was the band's last studio single, from 2012.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 32 - Yüksek Sadakat - "Live It Up"

When researching bands, it’s frequent to find out that the band has had a line-up change or two. If the band is a long-lived rock band, they’re more than likely to have gone through several iterations and may even feature a time-line diagram at the bottom of their Wikipedia article showing the history of the various members’ comings and goings over the years. Yüksek Sadakat or High Fidelity are the first band I’ve found where their Wikipedia article focuses largely on the personnel change, features a time-line with sixteen different members as well as discussing the precursor bands and their line-up changes.

It’s almost as if band founder, bass player Kutlu Özmakinacı was wildly difficult to get along with. The fact that the band still continues to this day appears to be something of a miracle of hope and recruitment. The band was founded (sort of) in the late 1990s. It appears to have emerged from the ashes of another band called Filinta, although it may go back further than that and exactly who the band members of Filinta were seems to be the subject to rumours and mystery. The most accurate description is not that Yüksek Sadakat were formed, more that they coalesced from a large group of Turkish rock musicians is Istanbul with Kutlu at their centre.

Nevertheless, despite their unclear origins, by 2007, the band had started writing and recording songs as well as performing them. Their mix of rock and Turkish sounds was already becoming popular. One album appeared, with another emerging in 2008 surrounding themes of love and Sufism - one the band’s major themes. Sufism infused the sound as well as the lyrics of many of their songs. After some more line-up changes, another album began brewing, due for release later in 2011.

While the band were getting their album ready, there was another situation developing. Turkish Eurovision fans were petitioning TRT to re-institute their national final, Şarkı Yarışması. There hadn’t been a Turkish national final since 2005 with all entries being internally selected. You’d have to say that the internal selections had been successful, with four top ten finishes in that period including 2010 when Türkiye finished second. However TRT had already found their next representatives: Yüksek Sadakat. Turkish fans were left bereft - although things were going to get worse…

The song they settled on was Live It Up, originally titled Parti Çocuğlu (Party Child) in Turkish before it was translated into English for Eurovision. I would have to say that this is one of their songs that veers sharply away from Sufism. The rock is present and correct though. It’s a driving song about life being good if you go out and live it, presumably by going to lots of parties. On stage the band do what they know best. It’s a 1-2-2 line up with singer front and centre, flanked by guitarist with the drummer and keyboardist at the back.

Where this goes a little awry is with the sixth person on stage. There’s nothing wrong with Leilani Franco, the contortionist, being there and twisting herself into knots, but what it has to do with the song I’m unsure. Added to this, she’s in a cage dressed as a bird. It feels disconnected to the track and the prop she’s in looks somewhat flimsy and cheap. What you’re left with at the end is a resounding ‘Huh?’ instead of sitting back and enjoying the rock song you’ve just enjoyed. The band and the song get relegated to wondering what on Earth is going on with Leilani? It’s a bit of a copy and paste effort from 2010 in many respects. This time it really didn’t work.

The staging let things down to the point where the song didn’t qualify from the semi-final. It finished thirteenth outside of the small pack of countries jostling for the final qualification spot. This was Türkiye’s only ever non-qualification. Having had such a great record for several years, to drop the ball with the staging this hard felt a bit weird. Maybe the fans who wanted a national final had a point. That together with flubbing the staging makes it look like things at TRT weren’t that rosy behind the scenes.

Like many established bands who have bad Eurovisions, this didn’t really prevent Yüksek Sadakat going on to have a long and productive career, whatever line-up and formation they had at the time. Their songs still got millions of views and streams. Sales were good and life, presumably, was good. This is an example of their stock in trade. From 2014, this is Belki Üstümüzden Bir Kuş Geçer (Maybe a Bird Will Fly Over Us)

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 33 - Sara Lumholdt - "Enemy"

It’s not often that this blog gets to be so topical, but in position thirty-three is Sara Lumholdt. This represents her one and only attempt at Melodifestivalen without the warm embrace of her fellow band members from A-Teens to surround her. The much celebrated teen-pop-Abba-tribute-covers band had been one of Sweden’s most popular pop acts from the late 1990s into the 2000s. In 2006 they had officially gone their separate ways with several attempts at solo careers. Sara’s former bandmate Marie Serneholt had already tried Melfest once, in 2009 with Disconnect Me, a song that almost snuck its way into my countdown for that year.

Sara has gone one better than Marie by making it. It was a no-brainer for the organisers to select a former A-Teens star as even though it was five years since the split, the warmth that the millennial generation held the band in was not diminishing. That her song is called Enemy may or, more likely, may not hint at unresolved tensions surrounding the band’s split. It’s far more likely that the never-ending roller-coaster of fame, performances, promotion and sheer exposure was too much for them.

For her comeback Sara had managed to get to intriguing song-writers, both at the start of what would become long careers associated with Melfest and Swedish Eurovision pop product. Niclas Lundin has written several songs for Swedish acts, but also for Melodi Grand Prix and MESC entries. But it is Anton Hård af Segerstad who will become one of the song-writing names to reckon with over the next few years. He’s even got an entry of his own in Melodifestivalen 2011.

Enemy is a revenge song. Sara’s been cheated on, or maybe she’s the one he’s cheating with. The imagery is direct and relatively violent. Bullets, debts to pay, I’m taking you down. Get down on your knees and pray. The words are straight from a gangster film showing how fiery Sara’s temper is. For someone with as much stage experience as Sara, this would be easy, but her voice is shaky. Maybe because she’s out there on her own for pretty much the first time, there’s some nerves amidst the fury. That can’t detract from just how much of a killer song this is.

Whilst remaining Scandi pop right through its core, it’s got an edge that Melfest songs rarely have. The parts where the unison singing begins in the chorus hit with impact of the bullet in the lyric. Massed voices like this feel such a rarity. The metre of the song imitates gunfire along with the percussion. It’s a massacre.

Unfortunately Sara’s vocal wobbles were the thing that the audience noticed. Given how popular she was at the time, especially with a song as strong as this, it might have been expected that she would sail through. Unfortunately not. She finished seventh of the eight songs in heat three and was eliminated at the first hurdle. With A-Teens broken up that was almost it. Sarah did some presenting work on SVT, including the X-Factor aftershow. She also became a pole-dancing/fitness instructor.

But wait! With the lack of an ABBA reunion happening in 2024, what better than to get the other old band back together. A-Teens finally reformed in 2024 just in time to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their musical forefathers (and mothers). They toured Europe and Mexico, and even appeared at Melodifestivalen again as an interval act. Given they’d never actually appeared there when they were at their peak. Sweden must have thought that was the closest they’d ever come to see in A-Teens do Melfest.

How wrong they were. It’s been leaked and rumoured although not quite confirmed yet. A-Teens will be competing at Melfest 2026. To celebrate, he’s one of their big non-Abba related hits from their prime. This is Upside Down

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 34 - Zdob și Zdub - "So Lucky"

As I write Zdob și Zdub are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary as a band together. They were going to be called Green Watermelons originally, but lead singer and native Russian speaker Roman Iagupov was learning Romanian and playing with a Romanian dictionary, discovering the word Zdob at the back. He liked it. The Zdub was added as a meaningless second word to provide a rhythmic, percussive sounding and memorable name.

Since their iconic Eurovision appearance in 2005, Zdob și Zdub hadn’t returned to the Moldovan national final at all. The band had given Moldova it’s best ever result at Eurovision to that point and thus were national icons. They’d been touring, released two albums (one in Romanian, one in Russian). Their mix of punk, hip-hop and anarchic humour with strong folk elements and a thorough deep connection to Moldovan culture and sensibilities was welcome everywhere they went. The country was very lucky to have them as musical ambassadors. But since 2005, they hadn’t tried to go back to Eurovision.

Maybe it was the Sunstroke Project’s equally iconic appearance in 2010 and the consequent creation of the Epic Sax Guy meme, or maybe TRM wanted to build on that with a known prospect. Either ways, Zdob și Zdub entered O melodie pentru Europa 2011. It was a contest as big as Eurovision. Literally. There were twenty-five songs in one massive final broadcast at the end of February 2011. There were other big names, including some familiar up-and-comers as well as old hands like Millenium (one n) who’d been the engine behind the Moldovan pop industry for years. The odds against any particular band getting through were strongly stacked against in such a strong and huge line-up. Even if a group didn’t do well, it could lead to a much bigger spotlight in the country.

Their song this year was So Lucky. Written by band members Mihai Gîncu and Roman Iagupov with contributions from Marc Elsner and Andy Shuman, it’s about being at the top and having everything you could possibly want. Except from that one particular person who keeps slipping away every time you grasp them. Poor, poor things. Eternally unable to have the one thing you want. Largely because she’s on a unicycle.

It has that ZsZ craziness throughout, horns aplenty, the punk attitude that could possibly even be classified as zany. Even with this, there are quieter, woodwind filled moments - mini chill-outs in the middle of the brass-based insanity leading up to the choruses. Or are they verses? I’m not entirely sure. There are also hats. Big ones. It was everything that Eurovision fans could possibly have wanted. Or so you might think

At the national final it won again giving the band the perfect record of two entries and two wins. Even over the huge field with big names. You can tell how tight was in that Zdob și Zdub didn’t win either the jury or the televote. They were second in both, but ending up first as the respective winners proved to be less popular with the other half of the vote. At Eurovision, and the wheels were threatening to come of their unicycle. In semi-final two, they were tenth, only a single point ahead of eleventh and non-qualification. But still they qualified and made it to the final. There they improved slightly with the bigger Saturday night audience, with a respectable mid-table finish in twelfth place. Not as good as 2005 nor as good as they would achieve in 2022, but when twelfth is your lowest finish, I think you can be proud of that.

And you can see them again too! Their thirtieth anniversary concert is taking place on the twenty-ninth of November in Bucharest, in just six days time, with a true homecoming concert in Chisinau on the twenty-fourth of December. The single they’ve released to celebrate pays homage to their Eurovision appearances - here it is, Pas de cumpără noroc (Step to Buy Luck?)

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 35 - Orelipoiss - "Valss"

Jaan Pehk is a man of many bands and pseudonyms, and unlike some singers with similar modus operandi, I’ve actually covered some of them already. Claire’s Birthday, Ruffus and Köök have already cropped up. Now it’s time for Orelipoiss. The Organ Boy. It’s not the name of his band, but rather a pseudonym he adopted at the start of the 2010s. He’s still doing the same thing he’s been up to for the same time. A mix of gentle humour with a strong twist of melancholy and wistfulness.

For Eurovision it’s unusual, although perhaps not so much for Eesti Laul and Estonia. It feels as if the songs of Eesti Laul tend to have their tongue in their cheek while they talk about life’s ups and downs from minor inconveniences to major dramas. Jaan is perhaps the king of that. Last time out he was narrating the dispute between a landlord and tenant in a deadpan duet.

This time it’s a dance through the inevitable debris of life. Valss (Waltz) is exactly that. A three-four, spinning twirl around your room. Let everything else lie where it’s dropped, for three minutes, let everything drop, take a partner in hold and pirouette across the floor. On the face of it that’s a reassuring response especially given the grass whistle solo during the bridge. A bit of absurdity and formal dancing in the face of a world when you can’t keep all your juggling balls in the air any more.

Though that belies the fact that what Jahn is saying is that not only is the world inevitable a mess, but that we’re all inevitably out of control and that we’re powerless to change it. Underneath the comedy and the waltzing, this is terribly dark, albeit shot through with a delightful highlight of transient joy. That’s perhaps the purest form of licorice black melancholy there is. The calm at the eye of the hurricane.

I don’t think this would have come across in quite the right way in Düsseldorf, but in Tallinn, it’s just perfect. Estonia thought so too. In the second semi-final, a semi-final that was absolutely stacked with big names and big songs, Valss won. It topped the jury vote and was second with the public. Jaan’s downbeat-upbeat disposable song truly found its audience that night. Maybe because Estonia was having an election less than a month after the semi-final occurred.

In the Eesti Laul final, it was incredibly close. A single point separated the top three songs, with only two going through to the super-final. The one of the three to miss out was Orelipoiss. Jaan won the jury vote again, but only finished fifth with the public. That put him third and out. Even if he’d managed to make the super-final, with those public voting numbers, it’s unlikely that he’d have won.

It was still an exceptional result in the midst of Eesti Laul’s golden age. Jahn would return twice more, in 2012 and 2019. He’s still making music and celebrated his fiftieth birthday this year with an album and a tour. This is one of his big hits as Orelipoiss, See alles jääb (This Remains). It’s possibly his most purely upbeat song!

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 36 - Matthías Matthíasson & Erla Björg Káradóttir - "Eldgos"

The story of Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins 2011 revolves around one specific tragedy that befell one of Iceland’s regular stars twelve days before he was due to perform his song in the third heat of the show. Sjonni Brink died suddenly and unexpectedly on the seventeenth of January, two days after the first heat had been broadcast. This wasn’t only a production challenge and a personal tragedy for his family. Many of his fellow contestants knew Sjonni well. He wasn’t only a singer, but also a stage performer and several of the singers who have appeared at Iceland’s national final also had stage connections and experience. Some of them had acted with him.

One of his friends, who also happened to be singing at Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins this year, was Matthías Matthíasson. Both Sjonni and Matthías had competed in 2010 as well and Matthías was possibly better known as the singing voice of Sporticus - another Icelandic Eurovision link to LazyTown - both in the original stage play as well as the TV series. He’d had a career of musical performances as being the singer in the band Papar, a band who covered Irish and Scottish folk songs as well as some rock standards, as well as singing in a band called Reggae on Ice. Matthías’s first national final experience had come in 2006 when he went up against Silvía Nótt in the final.

Come 2011, Matthías was to perform a duet with soprano Erla Björg Káradóttir, more at home in the opera hall, and in Austria where she’d attended the Mozarteum University of Music in Salzburg and who would later in 2011 go on to perform in New York in the art biennial. The song was Eldgos (Volcanic Eruption), a piece of metal melodrama about the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull the year before. If you’re Icelandic why not sing about ash clouds, glaciers and hellfire erupting from the earth? If anyone from any country can authentically summon the power of a volcano it would probably be Matthías calling on both his Sporticus experience as well as his years in a rock band alongside Erla channeling all the Valkyrie power she can muster.

It’s written by Matthías Stefánsson who had also been in Papar alongside Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins resident poet and writer of magnificent lyrics, Kristján Hreinsson, and it’s absolute Eurovision catnip. Are you really not going to vote for something like this? It’s got metal. It’s got opera. It’s got an actual volcano. I mean come on.

But then Sjonni died.

After a few days of grief and consideration, his widow Þórunn Erna Clausen, who’d written the lyrics to his song along with a group of his friends decided to go ahead and perform the song in heat three. Sjonni’s Friends were assembled, and singing was Matthías Matthíasson. It kind of didn’t matter that Eldgos had qualified from heat two by that point. Suddenly what mattered was honouring their friend.

In the final Matthías unexpectedly got to perform twice. First with Eldgos, then with Aftur heim/Coming Home. Eldgos did respectably, but it was unsurprisingly Aftur heim that won and Matthías got to go to Düsseldorf along with Sjonni’s spirit and song. They finished twentieth, but one of the biggest moments of this year’s Eurovision is the celebration that happens in the green room when they qualified from semi-final one. The organisers left them to last, perhaps a little cruelly - especially as they finished fourth with the public.

Erla Björg Káradóttir is still performing all over the world, often in Iceland, while Matthías joined another band, Dúndurfréttir doing Pink Floyd covers, but he did still keep at it solo. In 2020, under the name Matti Matt, he released his second solo album, Seven Years. From that album, this is My Last Goodbye.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2011 - Number 37 - Triānas Parks - "Upside Down"

As I predicted last year, Triānas Parks and Agnese Rakovska are back. Although not exactly. This was the band’s fourth Eirodziesma in a row, an achievement that I don’t think has occurred in many national finals before. If at all. They’re certainly persistent. Their results aren’t bad, but they’re not great either. They finished fourth, fourth and sixth in that order. Solid, consistent finishes suggesting a core fan base but not a style of music that appealed broadly to the population or the judges.

That style is off-the-wall chaos. Indie/punkish pop with attitude and a staging quirk or new look to catch the eye. There’s always a WTF element about them. They must have fun working out how to surprise the audience every year. This year it’s two drummers, one of whom turns out to be a rapper and a Barbie head finger adornment. Perhaps not their most out-there work, but still enough to get them noticed.

The song, Upside Down, is by Agnese and is firmly in their metier. A playful paean to sexual adventurousness mixed up in a relationship mismatch song. No matter how Agnese and her partner try, they don’t seem to fit in any other way. So they just keep doing the same thing. Yup. By the end the band are indulging in their stage chaos that’s almost beckoning you to join in and let your hair down with their dis-inhibition. It’s certainly a distinctive and fun way to spend three minutes, serving to further advance Triānas Parks group persona and brand.

Except that it didn’t make it on stage in the final. Not because they didn’t qualify. They did. They were the jury’s second favourites and that was enough to put them straight through to the final. However before that final Agnese came down with something nasty and the band had to withdraw because of that illness. Another year, another missed opportunity to get to Eurovision. I’m not sure they would have won anyway as the song that did make it beat them in that semi-final and the public vote just didn’t seem to be there either.

This might not come as a surprise to you, but this wasn’t their last attempt to represent Latvia. You will know that the band did eventually make it and that in 2012 they also made it five national finals in a row. Agnese came back on her own in 2024 to have yet another go. The band are so prolific that they’ve released a new song since I previously blogged about their 2010 national final entry. This is that single, Kalnaina Ainava (Mountainous Landscape). I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the 2025 Supernova line up.