Reviews

In these pages, you will find my personal reviews of the Eurovision editions for which the Eurovision Times blog has been around: 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Obviously, I have rankings for all other Eurovision editions but I’m not going to post them all because it would take a lot of space and once written, it means they would be marked forever somewhere, when I actually update my rankings every year. The reason the 2010-2013 ones are published online it’s because they give an interesting “at the time” perspective to the rankings and I also do full reviews of the contest, considering that, along with the blog, I got to follow them completely as a whole. In a way, it wraps things up.

How do I rank songs? I have 5 categories in which I give a score between 0 and 10: melody, lyrics, vocals, performance and look. In order to value the song quality more, I multiply melody and lyrics’ scores by 3 and vocals’ one by 2. That makes it an overal total of 100. That helps me get a clinical mathematical result. Sure it’s still subjective in the end but it really helps to put things in perspective and analyse the songs’ strength and flaws.

Like every esc fan, I change the rankings a bit around and even 2010 or 2011 ones have changed a bit since the reviews published here. But they’re still interesting to read to know what I thought then. What doesnt change anymore are my winners through the years, so this I can give you. The rest is up to discussion and we can go through years, countries or decades together. In the meantime, let me remind you that obviously in my all time favorite songs I have some of my runner-ups or even third of their respective years and some bad years, I have a winner by default:

1956  Luxemboug | “Ne crois pas” Michèle Arnaud
1957 Netherlands | “Net als toen” Corry Brokken
1958 Switzerland | “Giorgio” Lys Assia
1959 Switzerland | “Irgendwoher” Christa Williams
1960 France | “Tom Pilibi” Jacqueline Boyer
1961 Italy | “Al di là” Bety Curtis
1962  France | “Un premier amour” Isaelle Aubret
1963 Denmark | “Dansevise” Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann
1964  Germany | “Man gewöhnt sich so schnell an das Schöne” Nora Nova
1965  Luxemboug | “Poupée de cire, poupée de son” France Gall
1966 Spain | “Yo soy aquél” Raphael
1967 Sweden | “Som en dröm” Östen Warnerbring
1968 France | “La source” Isaelle Aubret
1969 France | “Un jour, un enfant” Frida Boccara
1970 Germany | “Wunder gibt es immer wieder” Katja Ebstein
1971 Austria | “Musik” Marianne Mendt
1972 Austria | “Falter im Wind” Milestones
1973 Yugoslavia | “Gori vatra” Zdravko Čolić
1974 Israel | “Natati la chaiai” Kaveret
1975 Turkey | “Seninle bir dakika” Semiha Yankı
1976 Greece | “Panayia mu, Panayia mu” Mariza Koch
1977 France | “L’oiseau et l’enfant” Marie Myriam
1978 United-Kingdom | “Bad old days” CoCo
1979 Finland | “Katson sineen taivaan” Katri Helena
1980 Ireland | “What’s another year?” Johnny Logan
1981 Sweden | “Fångad i en dröm” Björn Skifs
1982 Denmark | “Video video” Brixx
1983  Israel | “Hi” Ofra Haza
1984 Portugal | “Silêncio e tanta gente” Maria Guinot
1985 Finland | “Elakööm elämä” Sonja Lumme
1986  Switzerland | “Pas pour moi” Daniela Simons
1987 Italy | “Gente di mare” Umberto Tozzi & Raf
1988 Netherlands | “Shangri-La” Gerard Joling
1989 Finland | “La dolce vita” Anneli Saaristo
1990 France | “White and black blues” Joëlle Ursull
1991 France | “Le dernier qui a parlé” Amina Annabi
1992 Italy | “Rapsodia” Mia Martini
1993 Bosnia & Herzegovina | “Sva bol svijeta” Fazla
1994 Ireland | “Rock’n’roll kids” Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan
1995 Norway | “Nocturne” Secret Garden
1996 Ireland | “The voice” Eimear Quinn
1997 Russia | “Primadonna” Alla Pugacheva
1998  United-Kingdom | “Where are you?” Imaani
1999 Sweden | “Tusen och en natt” Charlotte Nilsson
2000 Latvia | “Īssavienojums” Brainstorm
2001 Russia | “Lady alpine blue” Mumiy Troll
2002 France | “Il faut du temps” Sandrine François
2003  Belgium | “Sanomi” Urban Trad
2004 Turkey | “For real” Athena
2005 Montenegro | “Zauvijek moja” No Name
2006 Bosnia & Herzegovina | “Lejla” Hari Mata Hari
2007 Georgia | “Visionary dream” Sopho Khalvashi
2008 Serbia | “Oro” Jelena Tomašević
2009 France | “Et s’il fallait le faire” Patricia Kaas
2010 Estonia | “Siren” Robin Juhkental
2011 Bosnia & Herzegovina | “Love in rewind” Dino Merlin
2012 Albania | “Suus” Rona Nishliu
2013  Norway | “I feed you my love” Margaret Berger
2014 Finland | “Something better” Softengine
2015 Belgium | “Rhythm inside” Loïc Nottet
2016 Latvia | “Heartbeat” Justs Sirmais
2017 Portugal | “Amar pelos dois” Salvador Sobral
2018 Israel | “Toy” Netta Barzilai

And if you don’t remember them all, I’ve posted a playlist on youtube!