- Any rock song. It's just so rare to have a rock song in Eurovision. So imagine the awesomeness when Finland won - with a then-record score - with Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah" in 2006.
- The 2007 edition in Helsinki saw Serbia's first participationnote ... and first win in the contest. It's also notable that it won with Marija Šerifović's song "Molitva", the first non-English song to win Eurovision since the national language rule was lifted in 1999, from which point all the winning songs had been in English until Serbia's entry.
- According to the judges, Fairytale by Alexander Rybak
. In 2009, it was given the highest score ever even if others would disagree. - The flash mob of 2010 managed to outshine every single entry in that show, maybe except the Epic Sax Guy.
- "Hello Millstreet, Sarajevo calling". The Bosnian judges phoning in from the middle of a literal warzone just to give their votes live. The audience seemed to think so too. This also doubles as a serious Heartwarming Moment, thanks to the warm applause the audience gives.
- France's entry in 2009, Et s'il fallait le faire by Patricia Kaas. Only one person on stage, hardly any light or stage show, just 2 minutes and 45 seconds of singing followed by a tiny bit of dancing. Listen to the audience reactions.
- In 2006, Lordi (Finland) won the contest. Cue Eurovision 2012 with Lordi as the spokeman for Finland. For context, Finland doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to Eurovision and the popular opinion among Finns was that "Hell will freeze over before Finland wins ESC." Cue the Flying Pigs when Lordi's votes got counted.
- In 1982, a German girl named Nicole won with a sweet ballad about world peace. On the winner's reprise she then switched between four languages in under three minutes. That year, the UK (the host country) was at war with Argentina. What did Spain do in support of the Argentines? They sent a tango. The song finished 10th.
- The butterflies used to show each country's flag in 2013 were beautifully made and just plain epic; they would fly in, land where the country's flag should be right before the country performed their song, and fly away off-screen. The butterflies were also used to present which countries that qualified for the final. There would be a shadow resembling a butterfly, and when a country was revealed, the country's butterfly would appear on that spot. Just see it for yourself.
- 2014's winner, Gender Bender and The Cutie Conchita Wurst, using her victory moment to deliver a short but powerful speech — “This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are — we are unity and we are unstoppable.”
- Even before Conchita Wurst, 1998 winner Dana International. At the time of her entry of the contest, there had been no (out) LGBT representatives to the contest before, making her, a transgender woman, a landmark. When she won on the final vote, it suddenly became all the more evident that the LGBT community and Eurovision went hand in hand, and her victory allowed for more LGBT contestants to enter in the years to come. Additionally, to further reach out to the LGBT community, the 2016 finals became the first time the contest was ever broadcast in America, in partnership with the LGBT television channel Logo (and represented by its own gay commentators as well). Prior to that, the Canadian expy of Logo, OUT TV, broadcast the contest a few times.
- The 2016 contest is very unique in that many countries that are usually defeated in the semi-final qualified to the final (Croatia, Bulgaria and Czech Republic). Special mention goes to Czech Republic, which qualified for the first time ever.
- None of the countries got 0 points in either the semi-finals or finals (though when looking at the two sets of votes separately, Czech Republic got 0 televoting points in the final). The quality of songs overall was the best it has been in a long while.
- Bulgaria also got a highly respectable result in the final, with a fourth place. Given that the same artist competed in 2011 without qualifying for the final, this could count as sweet revenge for her.
- After the jury voting, Polish performer Michał Szpak was 25th out of 26 with only 7 points. 2 minutes later, Poland jumped to 8th place as "Color of Your Life" was third in the televoting, with 229 points.
- Ukraine beating Russia for the win in 2016, especially considering how their song ("1944") is indirectly about the conflict over Crimea, which partially motivated Ukraine to skip Eurovision 2015 in the first place.
- Australia coming in second behind Ukraine is a feat in itself as given the sort of geopolitical voting that tends to takes place, Australia coming in second was based on the sheer strength of Dami Im's performance.
- The country names in different fonts as song credit backgrounds in the 2016 edition.
- In 2017, Portugal dominated and won. Keep in mind, this is not just any country here; they have competed since the 60's and never even finished in the top 5 - and then they just go and win the entire thing. Not just that, they came 1st in the jury and televoting. The adorable singer having a unique demeanor and charisma on stage singing his ballad must have really done it for everyone, since it absolutely smashed records and produced the highest score ever.note
- In addition, two countries following behind (Bulgaria and Moldova) were honored to be given their respective best places ever in the contest (Bulgaria 2nd, Moldova 3rd). It's nice to see countries which normally don't get high up and/or even qualify, producing places with which the singers can walk home with pride.
- With Moldova in particular, their song scored fairly low in the jury voting, but then pulled up to third place using votes from the televoting alone. Since their song was performed by the same band that had spawned Epic Sax Guy seven years earlier, it can be inferred that Moldova made the top 3 through the power of Memetic Mutation.
- Outside of the Big Five, all of the non-English languages qualified to the grand final. This includes "Amar Pelos Dois", Portugal's winning song; "Historyja majho žyccia (Story of My Life)", the first song sung entirely in Belarusian; and "Origo", Hungary's entry sung in Hungarian and performed by the first Romani person to compete for Hungary.
- The 2017 semi final which featured a Eurovision Medley of Fairytale, My Number One, Euphoria, and Rise Like a Phoenix with traditional Ukrainian instruments
- 1994 was a big night of victory for Ireland. First, they unleashed a celebration of Irish culture, "Riverdance," as the interval act, still regarded as the best in the history of the contest. Then, not only did they win for the third time in a row, but with a higher point total than any other at the time. When it was clear early on that "Rock 'n' Roll Kids" was going to win, the hosts had to do everything in their power to not join in the massive cheers the crowd gave for every douze points. Given that this was for a wildly different song from typical Eurovision fare (a slow, melancholy ballad about lost youth, with the only accompaniment provided by the two older musicians on guitar and piano) - some even suggested it was sent to keep Ireland from having to host for a third year - it made for an especially sweet victory, with much hugging among the hosts, winners, and previous victor Niamh Kavanagh. The song was turned into a rousing pub-style singalong for the reprise.
- Also, some unintentional foreshadowing: part of "Riverdance" was a choral selection by Anuna. One year after Eurovision, a singer named Eimear Quinn joined them. The year after that? She won.
- The qualifying countries of 2018 were a major case of Throw the Dog a Bone. A great deal of countries with notoriously spotty qualification records all made it through (particularly Albania, Finland, Ireland, Estonia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic), while several countries known for making it through (Belgium, Greece, Armenia, Poland, and first-time non-qualifiers Azerbaijan, Romania, and Russia) couldn't leap the hurdle. It's a shame for those that missed the cut, but for the others it's a major resurgence of countries that have been long overdue for a return to the final.
- Ireland, in particular, was a pretty spectacular example. While they still hold the record for the most wins of any country and started the decade off with four consecutive qualifications (including their most recent top-ten finish in 2011, with Jedward taking eighth place), the last of them finished dead-last in the final and the following four years all saw Ireland suffer non-qualifications. Although Ryan O'Shaughnessy's acoustic ballad "Together" was seen as a return to the style that brought Ireland so much success back in the '80s and '90s, helped along by a sensitive depiction of a gay couple doing a beautiful pas-de-deux (and this is bearing in mind that Ireland's biggest weakness for years had been poor stage direction), they weren't considered likely qualifiers at all. But Ireland proved the doubters wrong and managed to pass a number of usually-successful countries to safely secure a place in the final.
- Whilst Sweden may have joined them on seven victories in 2023, it should be noted it took them 49 years to do so. It only took Ireland 26 years.
- SuRie, the UK 2018 entrant, earned universal respect after a self-proclaimed "activist" crashed her performance and stole her microphone to do a publicity stunt. She proceeded to nail the rest of her song once she got the mic back and the intruder was removed from the stage, and the Lisbon crowd sang along to the end and gave her a massive ovation. SuRie then declined a chance to repeat her performance as she was still happy with how she had done it.
- Czech Republic ending 6th in the 2018 final is one of itself. It was only their second grand final qualification in Eurovision history and for the first time ever surged to within the top 10. Respect.
- It gets even more awesome when you take into account that their singer, Mikolas Josef, injured himself doing a backflip in rehearsals to the point where he couldn't walk for several hours. There were rumors that he would have to drop out of the contest altogether, but after vowing to perform no matter what, Mikolas made it to the finals... where he perfectly executed a front flip. Maybe foolhardy, but definitely badass.
- Portugal's 1974 entry, "E Depois do Adeus" sung by Paulo de Carvalho. Not awesome in the contest proper, since it tied for last place in a field of sixteen with three other countries, but a few weeks later it was broadcast on the radio to signal the start of the (relatively) violence-free Carnation Revolution, which reinstalled democracy in the country after almost fifty years of dictatorship.
- In 2018, the responsibility for picking Israel's entry changed hands from the now-defunct Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA), who actually shut down immediately after the 2017 final, to the new Israeli Public Broadcasting Company (IPBC). With their first shot at picking an entry, not only was Netta an immediate viral sensation, she won the whole thing, Israel's fourth win.
- 2019 took the underdog moments from 2018 and cranked them up a notch, as countries unaccustomed to success didn't just qualify, but a lot of them did extremely well. In particular:
- Indie-pop group Lake Malawi managed to secure the Czech Republic's first-ever consecutive qualifications to the final. Then, when they got there, they also managed to become the first Czech act to earn their country twelve points, with four different national juries (Georgia, Hungary, Norway note , and Slovenia) awarding their song top marks.note This was dampened a bit by their mediocre total of 7 points from the televote, but they still managed to secure their country's second-best finish ever.
- Albania managed their first consecutive qualifications since 2010 with Jonida Maliqi and "Ktheju tokes," an especially impressive feat considering it was a very ethnically-tinged song entirely in Albanian.
- After years of disappointing results and only three prior qualifications since the semi-final system was introduced, Switzerland not only soared back to the final with Luca Hänni and his uptempo dance number "She Got Me," they also scored their highest finish since 1993, taking fourth place overall.
- The newly-renamed North Macedonia, often regarded as one of the least successful former Yugoslav countries, not only managed their first qualification in seven years thanks to Tamara Todevska and her empowerment anthem "Proud" - they also swept the jury vote, earning six sets of top marks! In the live broadcast, it looked like she already managed a pretty incredible second place with the juries. As it turned out, once a voting error was sorted out, Tamara won the jury vote, finishing seventh overall and earning North Macedonia their first-ever top-ten finish after over twenty years in the contest. Considering her previous Eurovision attempt in 2008 effectively kicked off their long, briefly-interrupted non-qualification streak, Tamara's talents were majorly vindicated and her country was incredibly proud of her.
- Perhaps one of the most astonishing qualifications of the year was for San Marino, the ill-fated but fan-beloved resident micronation. They fielded Turkish entertainer/former dentist Serhat for a second go-round after his memetic Guilty Pleasure "I Didn't Know" danced surprisingly close to qualification in 2016. His return entry, the upbeat "Say Na Na Na," was largely viewed as a surprisingly effective bop, cruising a lot on Serhat's inherent positivity and likeable attitude. It nevertheless wasn't seen as anywhere near a sure qualifier, especially given San Marino's track record and Serhat's poor vocals in the semi-final. But not only did a major televote push them over the edge and into the final, it further carried Serhat into a 19th-place finish. Not amazing, even if you consider it's San Marino's best result ever, until you find that it was thanks to finishing in tenth place with the televote. For a small country with little to no neighborly support, that's pretty impressive.
- The Netherlands started The New '10s off like this. They ended the decade like this...which led to this.
- Italy absolutely defying all expectations in 2021 by receiving a whopping 318 points by televote, shooting straight to the top, surpassing jury favourites and expected winners France (whose number 2 spot is in itself also a CMOA for the country) and Switzerland, and winning the festival after 31 years since Italy's last victory, and with a rock song, no less! Not even Måneskin themselves thought this would happen, breaking down in tears of joy and surprise at the result.Damiano David: We just want to say to the whole Europe, to the whole world, rock and roll never dies!
- Even better, "Zitti e buoni" became the first ESC song since "Heroes" and the first Italian song in 30 years to land on the UK Singles chart, and two months later it also debuted on the Billboard charts. And they didn't stop there: "I Wanna Be Your Slave" and "Beggin'" also reached worldwide popularity, the latter even topping the Spotify charts ahead of the likes of Billie Eilish and BTS and also entering the coveted "billion streams club" in April 2022 - also making them the first ESC act to accomplish such a feat. How's that for Eurovision not appealing to non-European audiences?
- In the leadup to the 2021 contest, Ukraine's Kateryna Pavlenko reported feeling unwell and had to stay in isolation while she waited for her PCR test to come back, causing her to miss the second rehearsal. Eurovision was forced to look for someone to sing the song in her place, and brought in Emmie van Stijn, a Dutch singer who had helped with the Ukrainian set before the Ukrainian team arrived in Rotterdam. Emmie does not speak Ukrainian, barely had time to learn the lyrics to the song, and said in a later interview she only had about two hours to leave her workplace, travel to Ahoy, and prepare herself before being put on stage. And she knocked it out of the park.
- How about being able to organize a contest in 2021, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic? The Dutch arguably knocked it out of the ball park when it came to hosting, considering the circumstances that lead to the 2020 contest being cancelled and hung over the 2021 edition. Many fans have declared the resulting Grand Final one of the best finals in the Contest's history.
- 2021 was the first contest in over twenty-five years where all three of the top three songs weren't in English (Italy's winning song was in Italian, while second-placed France and third-placed Switzerland sent songs in French) and the first in exactly twenty-five years to only have one English-language song in the top five (fourth-placed Iceland; fifth-placed Ukraine performed in Ukrainian). It was a testament to how languages aren't as much of a hindrance to a good result as one might think.
- In terms of individual results:
- After a polarizing entry for the canceled 2020 contest left fans cold, France redoubled their efforts for 2021 and sent Junior Eurovision-winning songwriter Barbara Pravi with her song "Voilà." It spent a significant chunk of the pre-season as the favorite to win and ultimately finished second with the jury vote and third with the televote, leading to a second-place finish overall - France's best result in thirty years. Considering France's most recent winner, 1977's Marie Myriam, claimed she didn't think Europe would vote for it, it's also worth noting that it was one of only three countries (along with Italy and Ukraine) to score with every single other country's televote.
- After being the favorites to win in 2020, Iceland stuck with Daði og Gagnamagnið for 2021. There were worries that "10 Years" wouldn't be the phenomenal success "Think About Things" was poised to be, but they were for naught: even when a rehearsal performance had to be used for both the semi and the final due to a member of Gagnamagnið testing positive for COVID-19, Iceland qualified with ease and finished fourth, their best result since Yohanna's second place in 2009.
- Ukraine were forced to sit the 2019 contest out when their selected entrant, MARUV, wasn't willing to play ball with the Ukrainian broadcaster's overly-strict participation contract and no other act from their national final wanted to either. In their first contest back since then (although they would've participated in 2020 had that happened), Go_A's "Shum" - the first Ukrainian entry entirely in Ukrainian - became a humongous viral sensation. They won the televote in the first semi, finished second in the televote in the final, and ultimately earned Ukraine their best finish since 2016 with a fifth place. Additionally, since Australia didn't make it past the first semi, Ukraine are also the only country with a 100% qualification record.
- Extended in 2022 when Kalush Orchestra won Eurovision for Ukraine with Stefania, another product of Ukraine's policy.
- Building on the momentum of their triumphant result in 2019, Switzerland stuck with planned 2020 entrant Gjon's Tears and sent his song "Tout l'univers." They did one better than Luca's result and finished third, matching their last top-three finish exactly (from 1993). On their way to that final result, they also won the jury vote in both the second semi and the final (the first Swiss entry to do so since Celine Dion's 1988 victory) and earned their first-ever consecutive qualifications to the grand final.note
- On a similar note, while their final result may have been seen as disappointing, it was also quite impressive that San Marino scored their first consecutive qualifications to the grand final. It's really something to see a tiny country once regarded as a perennial non-qualifier make it to the final twice in a row!
- Following a dry spell in the wake of three consecutive top-ten finishes in the mid-2010s, Belgium's hopes rested on established band Hooverphonic to make it back to the final, especially since it was the first Flemish entry to compete at a contest hosted in the Netherlands. Thanks to an excellent jury score, Belgium finally made their way back.
- Another country recovering from a dry spell in the wake of success, Portugal, were taking a big risk by sending a melodic ballad in English - the first Portuguese entry entirely in the language. Not only did The Black Mamba qualify, they finished top ten with the jury vote and ended up in twelfth place, their best result since Salvador's win.
- Perhaps the most triumphant comeback story belongs to Finland. Lordi may have scored them a record-breaking win in 2006, but they were also Finland's last finish in the top ten for over a decade since. Many years of mixed fortunes followed, with only one song coming close to making the top ten (Softengine's "Something Better" from 2014, which finished 11th) and two (PKN's "Aina mun pitää" in 2015 and Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman's "Look Away" in 2019) bottoming out their semis. Interest in the contest was appearing to wane in Finland, with few established artists interested in risking their careers by competing. Enter young "violent pop" act Blind Channel, who obliterated the competition at Finland's national final with the song "Dark Side," became the first Finnish act since 2009's Waldo's People to top the Finnish singles chart, and - most importantly - earned Finland their first top-ten finish since Lordi, coming in sixth. This isn't just their best finish since Lordi, but matches 1973's "Tom Tom Tom" by Marion Rung as their second-best finish ever.
- In 2021, the UK finished with a “nul points,” - the first time that had happened since the new voting system had come in, though they had scored zero points once before in 2003, and had spent the best part of a decade languishing near the bottom of the leaderboard. Fast forward a year later in 2022, and there was a feeling that Sam Ryder’s “Space Man” was a much better entry with potential to challenge, but it would probably end up in the top ten, which would be a definite improvement. What actually happened was that the track built up a buzz in the weeks leading up to the contest, with the result being a song that topped the jury vote, which helped it to 2nd place overall, and the UK’s best finish since 1998. After spending the last 10 years or so propping up the leaderboard, most British viewers couldn’t believe what they were seeing, and even snarky commentator Graham Norton was lost for words at times. Whether this marks a reversal in the UK’s Eurovision fortunes remains to be seen, but it does prove that when the UK does takes the contest seriously, they do very well in it.
- Spain has had a similarly incredible redemption story in 2022; they are seen as traditionally the weakest out of the Big 5 countries in the contest, having last finished in the podium in 1995 and almost routinely finishing in the very last places since then. Enter Chanel Terrero, a Cuban-born actress and dancer who emerged victorious in the newly formed Benidorm Fest with "SloMo", an exciting reggaeton/Latin pop song in the vein of Jennifer Lopez and a far cry from their previous, more forgettable entries. Although the win at the Benidorm Fest was marred by accusations of favoritism from the jury, Chanel promptly silenced her critics with a dazzling performance in Turin that not only cemented her as the 2022 edition's Ms. Fanservice, but also gave the country a third place finish thanks to a storm of points from both the judges and the televotes.
- Although many people have predicted their win long before the 2022 edition began due to the Russian invasion, Ukraine absolutely deserves a mention. "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra not only became the first rap song to win Eurovision, but also became the song with the highest amount of points won by the televote in the history of the contest and the song with the most twelve points received from one voting group - 10 more than Sweden in 2012.
- Loreen makes history by being only the second person, and first woman, in Eurovision history to win more than once by winning 2023's contest for Sweden (having also won in 2012).
- In 2023, she had built up such a huge gap during the jury votenote that she was able to win without gaining a single douze points from the public vote.
- Finland itself didn't do too badly in the same contest (2023) either, with Käärijä's "Cha Cha Cha" placing second and beating the televote with a whopping score of 376 points, 133 more than the eventual winner Sweden. This is the best result Finland has gotten after Lordi's win in 2006, with their highest placing before "Cha Cha Cha" being 6th place. It was to the point there was actual outrage over the fact he barely lost because of Loreen's incredibly high score with the jury.
- 2023 seemed to be the "Year of Eurovision" as the UK and Fenno-Scandinavian entriesnote entered the Top 10 in the UK Singles Charts, showcasing the British still loving Mae's entry despite her coming second to last and "Cha Cha Cha" being the first Finnish-language song to ever enter the UK Singles Charts, and in the Top 10 to boot.
- Finland and Sweden in particular have it good, garnering loads of plays on Spotify and entering its Viral 50 charts. However, special mention goes to Käärijä for entering not just the European and Australian charts, but also ranking no. 1 in the US's Viral 50 and even appearing in Asian charts; more specifically Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines (for a brief stay) and (of all places) Singapore, sometimes above Loreen and other region-popular songs. He also entered the Billboard Global 200 at no. 27! Not bad for the boy from Vantaa and a song entirely in Finnish.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Awesome/EurovisionSongContest
FollowingAwesome / Eurovision Song Contest
Go To
