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 a the first and definitely last victory of… Yugoslavia!
The band Riva was founded in 1988 and went on to represent Yugoslavia in the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest. They achieved the first win for Yugoslavia and, as the country disbanded and last participated in Eurovision in 1992, they will always remain the only winners. Their song “Rock me” is performed in Serbo-Croatian, with the English line “Rock me baby” in the chorus. The song is directed at a piano player who plays classical music. The singer tells him that “Cause classical music is for listening and peace for the soul, and this song is played for dancing!”
Here is their winning performance:
Related articles
- WEWE #9: Bucks Fizz – Making Your Mind Up
- WEWE #10: Sandra Kim – J’aime la Vie
- WEWE #11: Helena Paparizou – My Number One
- WEWE #12: Dana International – Diva
- WEWE #13: André Claveau – Dors, Mon Amour
- WEWE #14: Toto Cutugno – Insieme (1992)
- WEWE #15: Ruslana – Wild Dances
- Ireland: Former Irish Winners Announce Eurovision Tour
- WEWE #8: Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan – Rock’n'Roll Kids
- WEWE #7: Lordi – Hard Rock Hallelujah
Oh, I actually like the song
So, I had to wait for #6 to come, to actually agree with a song on this list!
I definately voted for this one.
I am a big fan of Yugoslavia in the ESC so it was a huge disappointment for me to see them winning with such a drivel. For me it is the 2nd worst winner ever. The absence of even a melody is more than apparent in this song inho
It is certainly one of the weakest songs Yugoslavia ever sent to ESC and I have never even begun to understand why it won. Perhaps the juries around Europe got fed up with the rather banal Yugorock and Yugopop stuff the country had been sending since 1987 and thought that they might return to the former quality after winning once. Anyway, it is nice that Yugoslavia won at least once before it finally became a topic for history books.
As I have said, it is not a song I like but neither is ‘Rock Me’ among the 5 worst winning songs ever imo.
1989 was one of those inbetween contests. There was still a lot of cr*ppy 80s stuff but there were several songs announcing the increase in quality ESC experienced during the early and mid 90s too. I love or like 7 songs which is a record for the 80s:
1. Turkey (I adore the harmonies and the flawless live vocals … it is a rather difficult song to sing)
…)
2. UK (many people hate it … I love it …
3. Italy (class, class, class …)
4. Belgium (what a sweet song and likeable live performance!)
5. Greece (my n° 1 in studio version)
6. Iceland (very daring)
7. Netherlands (such a pity that the final note went bum …)
I agree!It is indeed one of the weakest winners ever.I mean,the song was quite fun considering it was the 80′s but it was not a worthy winner even for that certain decade.
I actually like Riva and “Rock Me.” It’s far from my favorite winner, but the 80s were a terrible time for Eurovision with pretty bad winners. I have Yugoslavia 1989 in my top 3 80s winners.
Definitely one of the worst winners winner. But I am not sure what other song should have won. One of the worst years ever imo, with some real horrors. The contest isn’t even fun to watch. The hosts are lifeless, the staging is boring, the intro lasts 20 minutes and even after all those years I am not sure whether that child was a boy or a girl. Then we had to endure Celine Dion. The interval act could have been interesting with some real injuries and blood, but unfortunately even that didn’t work.
1989 was not a bad year in the context of the eighties. That said, the winning song was not one of the best on offer, far from it actually. Here are my top 10 favourites:
1. Pad sem enginn ser, Daniel Agust, Iceland (different, surprising, well-crafted, intelligent)
2. Vi maler byen rod, Birthe Kjaer, Denmark (joyful, very entertaining, quality glitter and gloss)
3. Bana Bana, Pan, Turkey (excellent, excellent vocals – just like Norway 73 – powerful orchestration)
4. Door de Wind, Ingeborg, Belgium
5. Avrei Voluto, Anna Oxa+Fausto Leali, Italy
6. To diko sou asteri, Marianna Efstratiou, Greece
7. Why do I always get it wrong?, Live Report, UK
8. Blijf zoals je bent, Justine Pelmelay, the Netherlands
9. Venners naerhet, Britt Synnove, Norway
10. Nacida para amar, Nina, Spain
I love the first 3 songs based on very different reasons. I could rank them this way: joint first.
I kinda like this song, it’s a catchy song which is easy to hum along with, and in the ballad year of 1989, it was quite logical that this one would be favoured. But I think that ESC 1989 was a good year too with many likeable songs.
1. Sweden
2. United Kingdom
3. Denmark
4. Turkey
5. Spain
P. S. Have you heard the “Rock me” version from Jugovizija? It has a completely different arrangement and sounds almost like a swing song from the 40′s.
Cute song, I’m glad they got their turn but just like with Russia 2008, Latvia 2002, Estonia 2001, I wish the country would’ve won with something else.
Oh, i like this song. I’m autistic though……
I remember being totally shocked when we got the second “douze points” at the beginning of the night (after not getting anything from Italy) – I don’t remember my country leading the scoreboard ever before. I also remember total ecstasy when Germany gave us that one point that made it impossible for UK to catch up. As for the song – it didn’t remain popular in any of the countries of former Yugoslavia. The competition was such that it was quite possible that the draw decided the winner. Kudos to Turkey, with one of the most underrated songs in the history of the contest.
Yes, that’s one winner that is a bit underwhelming compared to others. The good thing from this victory is that finally Yugoslavia got a chance to shine before it ended it’s existence.
no worse than bucks fizz….
This one, just like Sweden in 1984 which I bet will be next (mark my words! lol… by the way, my prediction made on Ireland 94 is so far correct :p), is a difficult case to rank. In the long run of 57 esc winners, is it one of the worse? Well yes. Not that it’s horrible like others (Uk 69, Spain 68 or Ireland 70 are worse but get glory for being older), but if you look at the 57 out there, there are evidently 30 songs at least better so that it enters the bottom 15 sort of makes sense. But is a “bad winner” something to look at from an anachronic retrospective point of view, or should we look at what is a winner… the best ranked song in a year: did 1989 really scream injustice with this one winning? Actually, no. If we look at the level quality of 1989, the draw, the live performances, it makes a lot of sense this one won and it’s still fairer than if at least 10 other songs had won it that night (surprisingly, 89 Yugoslavia went last, 84 Sweden went first).
I don’t like 1989 much and it’s surprising to see that my favorite songs are actually not really much to be found in my usual suspect friends’ list, proof once more we’re not the same people:
1 Finland, 2 Luxembourg, 3 United-Kingdom, 4 Sweden, 5 Austria, 6 Turkey, 7 Greece and then I have 8 Yugoslavia, 9 Iceland and 10 Portugal, but these three are definitely weaker… I see on people’s lists songs like Spain (insultingly NOT-sensual), Denmark (disgustingly gloss, MF nowadays would be proud), Netherlands (is there a melody there), Belgium (cuteness and naivety don’t make a song), Norway (dito), Italy (throwing rasors in my face won’t force me to like it)… gosh no… Riva had the best live performance of the night too…
The song is acceptable imho and also included in my Top10 for this – in terms of 1980′s – surprisingly decent year. Nonetheless about 70% of all Yugoslavian entries deserved a win more. That’s juries…
1989 was’nt t a good year musically.I think Spain/Sweden/France/Netherlands had the better songs but France for listening only,just can’t watching her sing it.
I like this one, though I reckon the verse is awesome but I can see how the chorus can be annoying to some people
.