| And so it came to pass that the
Eurovision Song Contest outgrew itself,
and it became necessary to have a semi-final competition. With a free
pass into the final are our hosts, Turkey. Their "don't want to win
again" entry is typically a-typical: Fifteenth-Wave Middle-Eastern
Grunge Ska. It's a genuinely appealing novelty, and all the better when
the singer has his gob shut and the trombones are in full Klezmer
swing. Bosnia's entry is a particularly grimy piece of gay-club dance with a bleak sweaty intensity and an "I Feel Love" sequencer gurgling beneath the verse. The spit-roasting chorus is somewhat camper, with its thrusting actions to the lyrics "kiss me and turn me slow / up and down, here we go". Meanwhile, in the pole-dancing club up the road, there's some more filth in the form of our favourite of the night: sexy Sweden. Lena Philipsson, in her pink boots and mini-dress, gives a captivating performance astride her microphone stand. The song is entirely competent Swedish dance-pop (the minimum an ex-Sugababe might expect), with an airport of a keychange, but it's a little too chilled to be considered a true classic. Spain is a Latin country, and it made this notion felt very thoroughly. We prefer Moorish Spain with its Flamenco dancing. This Cuban-tinged Ricky Martin stuff is getting a bit annoying now. But it's a well polished performance. Speaking of well polished performances... The Ukraine prove themselves to be quick learners. A nightmare opening with a quartet of mammoth-like didgeridoo-playing lepers separates to reveal, through a wall of flames, Xena, Warrior-Princess. Xena, it seems, is a secret Riverdance fan. She wildly "dicky-di-does" with a pinch of Turkish zest and a dash of Israeli gleefulness. One wonders at what point in the design of this performance it occurred to the Ukraine to have such a jaunty Irish song being delivered by Leela of the Sevateem and her cavegirl minions. The whole thing is a little bit too competent (compare it with Sweden in 2000), with more than a faint whiff of "interval act" about it. They've obviously put a lot of effort into it, and it paid off: Ukraine won the contest in only their second year. For each year's songs we apply our points in the 12-10-8 style of the modern contest, irrespective of how the voting functioned at the time. In brackets is the position the song came on the night:
Europe had Greece in third place, Cyprus joint-fifth, Germany eighth, Spain tenth, Russia eleventh, Macedonia 14th, France 15th, the United Kingdom 16th, Poland 17th, Iceland 19th, the Netherlands 20th, Austria 21st, Belgium and Ireland joint-22nd, and Norway 24th. |
 Ruslana: The Ukraine's answer to Dana.  Lena Philipsson and her dancing partner.  Deen gets down and dirty In the Disco.  Turkey.
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