#internal selections

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2010 - Number 23 - Jessy Matador - "Allez Ola Olé"

The thing everyone says about Allez Ola Olé when it comes up in Eurovision conversation is that it was the World Cup song. France were hosting the World Cup in the summer of 2010 and this was the song used by France for that. Well not exactly. It was chosen by France Télévisions with the idea that it could be used to promote the World Cup and it was based on previous football anthems but at no stage was it the official song of either the FIFA World Cup that summer or the French national team. It wasn’t used for international broadcasts that summer, only appearing in promotional trailers and material for the home audience. What it was a case of was the broadcaster finding the song first then a performer to sing it second.

Jessy Matador won the competition to sing the song beating out names such as Christophe Willem and Emmanuel Moire. His CV begins with a career as a dancer, moving through being recruited for a band, to forming his own band with him as a singer. He really started to get noticed with the release of his 2008 album Afrikan New Style. It mixed sounds from Africa (Jessy’s background is from the DRC) and the Caribbean, specifically the sounds of Guadeloupe. It fizzed together zouk with ndombolo with dancehall, although Jessy was mostly included in the coupé-décalé scene. It was the sound of hot summers and fun - ideal for a celebration.

The song was written by Hugues Ducamin and Jacques Ballue. Hugues was a songwriter who had written a string of club hits and party anthems over the previous twenty years. Jacques was a classical composer and music educator who’d been commissioned by France Télévisions previously for other musical works. He’d worked with jazz orchestras, choirs, chamber music and opera. Putting them together was quite the meeting of contrasting minds, but what they came up with was the Platonic ideal of a summer hit.

Using a football chant as the title (taken from an album used to promote the 1998 World Cup), the chorus is the perfect way to do this. The broadcaster was clearly very happy with it. The pair unintentionally introduced the concept of the football song into the Eurovision repertoire.

At Eurovision it went down a storm. 2010 was in the grip of the ballad after the reintroduction of the juries in 2009, now extended into the semi-finals for 2010. More countries were pushing jury pleasing songs. Having such a fun, unapologetic crowd pleaser on the dark stage felt like the mood lifter the competition needed. It’s a song that requires personality and that’s what Jessy brings, but Jessy didn’t sing the entire song.

His two backing singers did a lot of the heavy lifting. Jessie Fasano sang the entire first verse, while much of male singing in the choruses is Nedjim Mahtallh (who manages to lose his Breton shirt by the end of the song).

What Jessy does do, is a lot of the dancing. He’s moving all the way through this in one of the most vigorous performances a singer had given on the Eurovision stage to this point. If you recognise dancer Emilie Capel, it’s probably because she’s one of the choreographers and dancing silhouettes in the Just Dance series of games.

In truly unsurprising fashion, the public placed this eighth overall in the final while the juries put it twenty-second. Combining those left France in a creditable twelfth place, and left Eurovision fandom with a song that always brings a smile, and a dance that everyone can do in Euroclubs. Its connection with football has also left the song as one of the most viewed from the year on the official Eurovision YouTube channel.

Jessy took his success and used it to continue doing what he did well. Forming bands with high tempo numbers and lots of choreography. He did release one more album and there have been a number of singles along the way but at heart Jessy is a dancer. Perhaps his biggest post-2010 moment was appearing in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga as part of the Song-Along scene. This is one of his subsequent songs showcasing his style: Zulumanti from 2015.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2008 - Number 9 - mor ve ötesi - "Deli"

Türkiye was firmly in its rock period by 2008. TRT internally selected mor ve ötesi (Beyond the Purple), one of the biggest rock bands in Türkiye. Starting out in the late 1990s, the band had grown to the extent that their 2004 album Dünya Yalan Söylüyor (The World is Lying) had been the best selling album in the country that year. TRT were not messing around.

More interestingly, mor ve ötesi were becoming more outspoken politically in their lyrics. That 2004 album had been critical of USA foreign policy, notably in Iraq. Their next album was focused more strongly on criticising the political situation at home in Türkiye. This is by no means a safe choice even if it was a popular one.

2008 saw the band getting ready to release their sixth album to be launched on the back of their Eurovision appearance. Several acts have got to Eurovision as part of a push to break a career. mor ve ötesi had already made it big. This was possibly one of the rare occasions a band had been treating Eurovision more in the way that Italian acts treat Sanremo. As a means to promote a new album or track. There was also, of course, the opportunity to appear before a much wider European audience.

The song they picked was Deli (Insane). When Terry Wogan described lead singer Harun Tekin as a sinister James Bond, he was getting entirely the wrong end of the wrong stick. This is a song about the relationship between a child and his parents, particularly his father - and even that has metaphorical elements depending on how deeply you want to read the song.

It's a song of complaint. A letter to a parent who was not a good one. One who in the place of love and care substitutes with fake dreams and promises that aren't kept. It states that absent paternalism doesn't bring up a healthy new generation, but an empty one. A generation that's unsure where its soul is and that feels an internal schism so profound that's driving them insane. Not James Bond at all really.

It did take a little bit of time to grow on the Eurovision watching audience. It made it out of its semi-final, but only in seventh place. But by the weekend and the grand final, the rock guitars had found their home in the hearts of the televoters. Deli came seventh again, but this time with considerably more points and giving Türkiye another top ten finish, the country's third in a row and fifth in the last six Eurovisions. Türkiye had become a Eurovision powerhouse.

For Mor ve Ötesi, the job was a good one. Their album did well and in 2009, they embarked on their biggest and most extensive European tour to that date. They've continued to this day releasing huge albums, and continuing to tour worldwide. This is an open-air performance with an orchestra of their single Aşk İçinde (In Love) from 2020.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2010 - Number 1 - maNga - "We Could Be the Same"

Yes, Türkiye, you win this one. You can leave Lena’s YouTube comments alone now.

MaNga, a band formed in 2001 and named for the Japanese comics (duh), originally played covers of nu metal, rock and hardcore songs in bars. They entered a music contest called Sing Your Song and caught the attention of the man who’d become their manager, got their first contract and an album followed in 2004. For most of the rest of the decade it was an escalating series of gigs, festival appearances and another album released in 2009. During this time they became popular enough for their songs to appear in the soundtracks of Turkish films and also in FIFA’06. They also undertook international tours including appearances in London.

TRT knew that with the band they’d be onto a good thing. Ever since Türkiye won Eurovision in 2003, TRT had been making exceptionally savvy choices for artists and songs resulting in an enviable Eurovision record. Not only had they qualified from the semi-finals every single year, but they’d finished in the top ten of the final in all bar two years and even then the lowest position they’d achieved was thirteenth. With a band such as MaNga and their international success, they saw potential.

Picking an alt rock group though, was counter-programming in a Eurovision where ballads were expected to be the dominant genre after the jury’s had returned to assess the semi-finals as well as the finals. This style of music did not have a good track record on the Eurovision stage, so in some ways it was a brave choice. Yet, the band’s mix of Western rock genres and Anatolian melodic sensibilities was in the sweet spot of being something recognisable for Europe while carrying just enough Turkish flavour to make it distinct.

Once chosen, MaNga were asked to submit three songs for the selection panel. All three songs were in English. They chose We Could Be the Same. It’s a song about a meeting of hearts despite differences. It has breathless descend string motifs, hard percussion, a chorus that’s one huge earworm and only the second, live, angle-grinder solo in Eurovision history. It turns out one of the only live instruments you can take on stage these days are power tools.

The things that truly makes the song stand out are their verses, which is where the Anatolian bit of Anatolian rock makes its presence felt. It swerves up and down the scale of the Phrygian mode as pizzicato strings pluck tension from the air. It lends the song a serpentine air of menace as if the lead singer is stalking the object of his fascination before consuming them.

The staging is relatively minimal with a standard band set up and what seems like a robot statue with their back to the crowd for the entire first verse. That robot is actually dancer Nathalie Marrable, now a burlesque teacher in New York, but then the player of the only live instrument on stage during one of Eurovision’s biggest rock songs. She slowly divests herself of her armour as the song unfolds around her and ends up nearly pushing over lead singer Ferman Akgül. The band’s decade of working crowds at gigs and festivals had given them the poise and confidence to pull this off with assurance, even when your robot lady drops her helmet in the semi-final.

A lot of fans (especially Turkish ones) now think of this as a ‘robbed’ song. The one that should have won 2010. In truth it barely came second. It did win its semi-final, but only by five points. In the final it came second, seventy-six points behind the winner, but just eight points ahead of third place. It was only eighth with the juries, and a bare three points ahead of third with the public. It gained only three douze points compared to the winner’s nine.

And yet, this is the song that fans still argue about whether it should have won or otherwise. I’d argue that although I do love it, I feel that it’s just as ‘childish’ as the winner is perceived to be. They’re both about twenty-somethings feeling horny and expressing it musically. The main difference is that the winner is from a female perspective of attachment and what a woman does to keep the attention of her love, while MaNga are representative male desire enjoying the pursuit of fresh conquest.

Since 2010, MaNga have continued to enjoy success not least from their partisan home fans. Five more albums have come out as well as singles and of course many, many tours. Their most recent release was the Antroposen 002 (Anthropocene 002) EP released in 2023. From that EP, this is the title track played live at the Bostancı Performance Center in 2023.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2009 - Number 3 - Regina - "Bistra voda"

They came on stage in Moscow looking like ghosts from a Napoleonic conflict. Were the fallen returning after defending Russia against the French? The look was certainly a choice.

Regina, the band themselves, were no strangers to war having been temporary split up by the Bosnian war in 1993. Formed in Sarajevo as far back as 1989, the bulk of the band were Bosnian Serbs who fled to Belgrade when the war started. Lead singer Davor Ebner remained behind. Post-war, the band remained separated in the various parts of former Yugoslavia.

The remnants of Regina took part in Beovizija 2004, the Serbian half of the Serbian and Montenegrin national final that year under the name Aco Regina. They didn't make it to the final. In Bosnia, Davor also took part in a national final, BH Eurosong in 2001. He did slightly better, finishing seventh of the nineteen songs that year.

Then, in 2006, they reunited and ended up supporting the Rolling Stones during the concert in Budva. A new album followed, as well as several hundred tour dates around the Balkans, and Regina reclaimed the popularity they'd had prior to 1993. In 2009, BHRT held an open submission for songs to be internally selected as Bosnia's representative in Moscow.

Bistra voda (Clear Water), written by founder band member Aleksandar Čović, is a song about protection, defence and keeping what is yours, in a time when the sun is faint and other souls are departing. The look is actually supposed to be reminiscent of Soviet 1920s constructivist art. Upturned smiling faces basking in the glories of reconstruction and labour. Yet the song is sad. The world falls apart while the band stands stoic and eternally guarding the home in faces of extinction.

The chorus is

Rodi me u majsku zoru Kupaj me u bistroj vodi Čuvam jedan svijet kad svi drugi odu Čuvam te dok ѕаm živ

or

Give birth to me at dawn in May Bathe me in the clear water I guard one world, when all others leave I guard you as long aѕ I'm аlive

Whether this is about Moscow in 1812 or Sarajevo in 1993 or even something more general about love in times of war, it's certainly powerful and still. The steadfast poses, like statues watching over us, certainly stick in the memory, the past coming to life with a drumbeat and a chorus in unison.

It did well, safely qualifying from semi-final one in third place, then finishing ninth in the grand final. Regina released an album later in the year containing Bistra voda, then another two studio albums and a live album in the following decade. Bassist Denis Čabrić died of a heart attack in 2016, then the band finally called it a day in 2022 when Davor left to restart his solo career.

This is Kad paludimo (When We Go Crazy) from their post 2009 songs

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2006 - Number 9 - Hari Mata Hari - "Lejla"

Perhaps the Platonic ideal of a Balkan ballad with so much pedigree it hurts.

Hari Mata Mari are old timers both in the Bosnian music scene but also at Eurovision. They entered songs in both the 1986 and 1987 Jugovizija contests to find Yugoslavia's Eurovision representatives. There have been many changes to the group since then though.

They were formed in 1985 around Hari Varešanović. He, together with the group Baobab won the Nove nade, nove snage festival and announced the formation of a new band, Hari Mata Hari. That original incarnation also included Edo Mulahalilović who was one of the participants in the fabled and first ever Bosnian national final, as well as the writer of Bosnia's 1994 Eurovision entry

The writers on Lejla are no less stellar. There's Željko Joksimović perhaps the King of the Balkan ballad and former Eurovision representative for Serbia & Montenegro. He's also one of the Eurovision stars the fans know just by their first name.

Finally there's the lyricists Fahrudin Pecikoza-Peca and Dejan Ivanović. The latter will go on to write two more of the most famous Balkan ballads in Eurovision history, Oro for Serbia in 2008 and also Adio for Montenegro in 2015. Fahurdin is Hari Mata Hari's regular song-writer but also wrote the lyrics for Bosnia's first ever, hugely emotional Eurovision entry in 1993 - Sva bol svijeta

On top of this, other Hari Mata Hari members have Eurovision connections. Also present in 1993 and making the dangerous journey out of Sarajevo in 1993 was Izo Kolečić, and the backing singers here, Ivana Čabraja and Ksenija Milošević will go on to have nine Eurovision appearances as backing singers in total. Ksenija is one of the backing singers for Eurovision winner and all-timer Molitva for Serbia in 2007

By saying that Lejla has pedigree, I'm severely undersell it. It's possibly one of the largest assemblages of Balkan and Eurovision talent ever put together on one stage.

It's a song about longing. Well it's a Balkan ballad, of course it is. Lejla is elusive, missing, leaving only trace. A trace that Hari is clinging to, following where ever it may lead, but Lejla remains an aching absence in his life.

It's a simple thing, but the drama of the instrumentation, emphasised by the simple starry staging, and the reactions of the band to Hari's words saying everything they need to. It may be simple, but it's one of my favourite uses of the 2006 stage, surrounded by the night, ghostly and haunting. It's a mood like no other.

The song was an internal selection by BHRT and they truly knew what they were doing here. It sailed through the semi-final in second place, gaining the most twelve point scores while it was doing so. It came third overall in the final behind two other acts that had televoting momentum of different kinds behind them. Lejla and Hari Mata Hari were definitely the classic Eurovision choice.

Eurovision 2006 was the climax of Hari Mata Hari's long and illustrious career in the music industry. There were tours, performances and other releases as well as more line-up changes. But this is their pinnacle - how could it not be? Their various members ploughed their own musical furrow although even now Hari Mata Hari come together to put on a reunion performance after nearly forty years in the business.

[oikotimes-blog]

Cyprus 2018 🇨🇾 it’s official: ultimate pop icon Eleni Foureira to Lisbon CYPRUS - It is finally confirmed that Eleni Foureira and CyBC reached an agreement for Eurovision 2018 more information soon

[oikotimes-blog]

Cyprus 2018 🇨🇾 record label confirms internal selection proposal to Eleni Foureira

CYPRUS – Ott is no secret anymore that Eleni Foureira and thee internally selected composer Alex Papaconstantinou are recording the Eurovision 2018 song for Cyprus. Eleni Foureira’s record label today confirmed that CyBC has officially proposed to the singer to represent the country in Lisbon. The record label emphasises that there is no final answer by the singer to the Cypriot national…

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