Worst Eurovision Winners Ever – Hundreds of people have voted for their personal Top 5 of the Worst Eurovision winners ever. The 5th place of each voter got one point, the 4th place 2 points and so on, the first place thus getting 5 points. The result is a ranking of all 60 Eurovision winners. In the coming days we will reveal the Top 15 of your voting. Today we continue with two lads and two girls from the United Kingdom.
In 1981, the UK sent the band Bucks Fizz, which had been formed exclusively for the contest, to the Eurovision in Dublin. Their performed their happy pop song “Making Your Mind Up” in colorful clothes and are still remembered for the dance routine (sometimes compared to ski gymnastics). At one point, when they sing “if you wanna see some more”, the two male singers of the group rip off the skirts of the female members, revealing shorter skirts underneath. The performance was criticized for being off-key, which the band explained with a microphone mix-up. Member Cheryl Baker has since commented on their poor performance stating that she sang the song in a higher key to the rest of the group due to nerves. The song became a major hit in several European countries and Bucks Fizz went on to become one of the most successful UK groups of the 80s.
Here is their winning performance:
Do you agree with the choice?
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How I loathe this vile bourgeois teenybopper song. Like Sandra Kim in 1986, it was obvious from the start this would win. Then I would have preferred a German win, even though that song was about a blind boy making people happy with his music. (Yes, Ralph Siegel).
Switzerland should have won 1981 hands down
not the best performance ever (then whenever was the winner the “best” performer to be honest), but in a tight year of voting they got votes from every jury which , in the end means you had a song which every country would vote for, low points or 12, as opposed to extremes in jury voting for songs, I’m glad it won over Johnny Blue at least, that kind of was a bit too Siegelish for my taste, on the whole, Switzerland was my favourite…
Eurofan, the Swiss song sounds equally as good in English.
where can I hear it in English? youtube?
Definitely Switzerland should have won. The song was covered in Dutch by Willeke Alberti (esc ’94). And later her version was covered by Gerard Joling (esc ’88)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5kH-n_j5wg
Belgian Bart Kaell covered it also
Bart lost the Belgian final in ’83 from Pas de Deux. Big scandal.
Yeah. Belgium 1983, Portugal 2006 and of course Serbia & Montenegro 2006. The proof that Eurovision is (too) serious business for some people.
That Bart Kaell version was strange. He should have done “Reggae OK” in that arrangement instead.
I never heard Swiss entry in English, will check it out, I only know that a good Swiss Italian friend of mine loves their song but hates their (Swiss?) German accents singing Italian!!
Those were some really tight, high-waisted white pants.
I guess in later years Bucks Fizz just meant court cases, disputes about the name, the whole band fell out completely, as usual,,and hated each other, after being very successful after Eurovision (compared to previous UK groups and after), such a post ESC story can be seen in a very good BBC documentary called “Trouble at the top” (see youtube!), about Bucks Fizz..at least in the UK they left their mark in many ways..!
Eurofan
Type in
me without you by peter sue and marc on youtube and the English version is there.Sue has a yellow top on in the picture.The title on the picture is in Italian but the version is in English
Best wishes
Steve
thanks checked it out, they did well with that, though couldn’t catch everything in English, sounds much better in Italian IMO..
Well, when I was 13 years old and watched the contest on TV, Bucks Fizz were my favourites but a lot has changed since then. I still like some of their songs (“When We Were Young” f. e.) but “Making Your Mind Up” has plummeted on my list and is currently only in 12th place. I would have preferred a Swiss or even German victory (Lena Valaitis performed my favourite ESC song by Siegel if I ignore the very sentimental lyrics).
Btw, I think that I have a pretty strange top 3 for 1981:
1. Luxemburg
2. Portugal
3. Turkey
Switzerland and Germany are next on my list.
yes see below! re favourite bucks fizz songs
personally I feel siegel stuff for Germany 81 was exactly in line with seigel stuff for 82 winner, so I don’t see much difference, as in Seigel stuff from the rest of the 80s, so Bucks Fizz won, as a favourite indeed to win I guess, compared to other entries, and they won..so really no surprise, I think they expected a higher winning margin maybe at the time…
Oh, yes, Luxembourg – my favourite too! (Not so enthusiastic about the other two…)
my favourite Bucks Fizz song..I think best sums up their wanting to be another kind of group at that time as opposed to be just another teeny girl/boy band?
Eurofan,
There is also a German version on youtube
I remember this Bucks Fizz. Even at the very young age of 9 I noticed they were bad singers and the dress ripping thing was silly. Haven’t changed my mind since.
I guess it was catchy though.
Eurofan
The German version i said about was for Swz 81 not Bucks Fizz.Also Willeke Alberti sings a version in Dutch on youtube
so many versions bandying about! it’s difficult to keep track! I guess German version of SWI 81 is more pertinent to them as Swiss German speakers on the whole, after all it’s a group that has tried every language in ESC/Switerland almost without ever winning (French, English, Swiss German, Italian), and Peter Reber of “Peter sue and Marc” has written and composed and conducted for Swiss entries too, no true euro fan could forget him conducting his own song from 1980!:cinema…tout le monde est fou de toi!!…nice song, nice singer, chapeau Peter!
CH 1980 gets very overrated at times imho. By the way, Switzerland never has sent a song in Swiss German so far. “Trödler und Co.” was in German also.
I gave 5 points to this, a shame in every aspects.
What’s the fuzz?
No, this song is not my cup of tea. The price Eurovision had to pay because of ABBA, a lot of imitations. And this song is nothing special really, just that it is made up of silly dance routines and the famous rip-off. A song I like more which is in the same genre is “I’m never giving up” from 1983. In 1981, my favourite songs were Switzerland, followed by Germany and Luxembourg. France, Spain, Sweden and Norway were also good.
UK 81 was lively and colourful. I grew up and still find it lively and colourful. It is no longer in my top 5 though. Greece 81 has is now my nº 5:
1. Io Senza Te, Peter, Sue+Marc, Switzerland
2. Kroller eller ej, Tommy Seebach + Debbie Cameron, Denmark
3. Fangad i en dröm, Björn Skifs, Sweden
4. Feggari kalokerino, Yiannis Dimitras, Greece
5. Y Solo Tu, Bacchelli, Spain
Greece 81 is now my nº 4.
I really like your top 5. Apart from Denmark, which I’m very surprised that you put in 2nd place. I thought you would be the last one on this site enjoying such music.
Thanks.
I can like disco music and every type of music one can think of, I suppose. The Danish song is just so likable.
Lilac trousers in 3rd place.
I like Sweden and Greece too but utterly detest Spain which is terribly tacky imo. Denmark is fun.
Those trousers and those gloves are definitely not in my top 5 LOL; a simple white shirt and dark trousers would fared better, imo. As for Spain, well, these are the 80s, I like this tacky song, but I can’t make myself watch him sing it. I just enjoy listening to it.
Yeah, those trousers are horrible. Also the way he is standing. But the song and the gloves are fine.
And I copy and paste what you’re writing about Spain. The strange thing about that song is that my parents know it very well, and they’re not even ESC fans.
Good night, Shevek.
Good night, everyone!
I agree, definitely one of the worst! :/
Hi, Marko.
P.S.: I am very tired. Good night, everyone.
Hi Shevek, it’s nice to see “Hi” from you, I thought you completely ignored me!
Acceptable winner in a poor (yet even weaker 80′s were to come) year for me. My favourite was the Greek song but of course juries made a good result impossible.
I put this first on my Worst Winner Ever list.
I absolutely hate everything about this tacky song and performance.
Well I’ll shock everyone but this time I tend to disagree (though I do notice that Shevek and Toggie did not hate it either)… This to me sounds like the first proper 80s song, though it’s a nice transition with twist-like performances of the 70s, but not disco… yes someone said “bourgeois” and that fits perfectly, as at the time, hard rock, disco, punk had all spread around and they were the lefty almost revolutionary groups while twist remained the disco for the rich… but let’s not forget Eurovision came with the tradition of the old fashioned respectable orchestra show, so that was more what the juries and people wanted to see at Eurovision… and if it won, and then became a hit (to the point the group members still fight each other the name’s legal rights) that means it was right on track…
On another note, my favorite that year is Sweden, which no one mentioned, but Bjorn Skifs is like one of the most talented singers, performers and artists Sweden ever sent and I’m glad he beat Lasse Holm and Kikki each time, til he stopped entering MF… Switzerland, France, Denmark, Belgium, Uk, Ireland, Germany are all very good to me, and overall 81 is a great year (I also like Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Spain, Turkey…) with Greece being my absolutely last (I can’t think of a more boring song than it, except maybe Finland 86) and I don’t get why everyone here mentions Luxembourg, absolutely cheezy lyrics and the most dated performance ever, and it’s not coz you’re old that you’re good, look at how tacky Lys Assia was with “C’était ma vie” !
I can take the somewhat downletting lyrics of LUX 1981, because Jean-Claude Pascal does really know how to sing the French language in the absolute best way imo. And this kind of songs will never be dated in my ears. And yes, I really liked “C’etait ma vie” too.
Oh and to me, Bucks Fizz are the perfect revenge for CoCo, who are my favorite of 1978, completely robbed and should have won, but THEY were too alternative for precious little Eurovision and the Uk had already won in 1976… in 76, CoCo should have gone to esc with “Wake Up” one of my favorite british songs of the 70s! To this day I still dislike silly tacky and old fashioned “Save your kisses for me”, way more than “Making Your Mind Up”, which apart from great composition has fine “dumb” lyrics (dumb being here made on purpose, with all the pun and wordplays on the preposition)… and the boys are cute!
The fashion trend in Europe during that time was a little odd lolz
If they had someone like them today, they’d be laughed at and deemed gay or corny. Times have really changed now..