Alright gals, it's LexC (despite what my name says at the moment) and I'm your resident expert on all things Eurovision. As part of this 00s Rewind I'll be going through the classic decade that cemented and established all your opinions about Eurovision - both good and bad - and gave us memorable moment after moment. It was the decade where we began with 24 countries entering each year to over 40 by the end and if you believe the press, all those sneaky Eastern Europeans came in and corrupted a pure and holy song competition.

I'll be going through year by year and highlighting the best, the worst and what best represents 00s culture, starting with the year 2000. So let's go on a merry Eurovision journey!

My knowledge consists of UK entries, Lordi, Fairytale and that Serbian thing

Lordi *.* other glam rock entries like Wig Wam and The Ark *.*

We do actually have a Eurovision forum already and you're its moderator Sandy. Can we move it there? We're already suffering with eurovision cancelled this year :(

 

Or at least provide a link to some threads over there so that members who aren't clicking on Eurovision forum on their own would be tempted to see what's in there!

Edited April 9, 20205 yr by Condebola*

Lordi *.* other glam rock entries like Wig Wam and The Ark *.*

 

I love all three but The Ark were truly robbed, my favourite of the three! :( Anti-Sweden bias reared it's ugly head again

Stockholm 2000

The Good: Latvia (Brainstorm - My Star)


Deciding on just one for each category is going to be incredibly hard for all of these years but my pick for 2000 because at the same time as being utterly bonkers and the dance moves on this performance make me want a bit of what the lead singer is on at the same time it's also utterly sweet and charming.

The Bad: Israel (Ping Pong - Be Happy/Sameyakh)


Off key singing? Lyrics that are completely nonsensical? Remedial Dance moves? All the makings of a shitmazing classic!

The 00s: Denmark (The Olsen Brothers - Fly On The Wings Of Love)


So the idea is that this pick is to pick something that represents the trends and music of the 00s which is probably the hardest to do with 2000 but the pick for this year goes to the winners from Denmark because, if that song sounded a bit familiar to you then observe the video below which seven year old me actually heard first


Honourable Mentions:

would like to speak to the manager

Israel song so campy love it :wub:

 

I never was a big fan of Olsen Brothers for some reason!!!

"Fly On The Wings of Love" is okay but Alsou and Brainstorm were robbed

Copenhagen 2001

 

For the 2001 contest Eurovision found itself in the biggest venue it had ever found itself in the Danish equivalent of Wembley which was intended to give it a huge energy from the crowd but actually all it did was drain the atmosphere. 2001 is (in my opinion) the least good set of songs of all the 00s contests but still, here's my pick for the most notable

 

The Good: Slovenia (Nusa Durenda - Energy)

Always state your intentions in the song title - Energy is a dramatic banger for the ages and a staple of any 00s eurobanger playlist!

 

The Bad: Lithuania (Skamp - You Got Style)

I've got no idea if this was considered stylish fashion in the early 00s but this stone cold mess is best skipped over.

 

The 00s: Greece (Antique - Die For You)

Late 90s/Early 00s pop group Antique had a string of big hits prior to entering Eurovision and they brought that same sound to third place in Copenhagen. This won't be the last we see of lead singer Helena either!

 

Honourable mentions: Sweden re-upping

and

I don't know if I've heard anything from 2001 beyond the top 5 and the UK but this is the year Denmark should've had their victory

Antique is probably my favourite from 2001 which is ironic given my other sacrilegious Helena opinions

 

big soft spot for Iceland 2001 though.

Helena :wub:

 

Antique were huge at that time in Balkan territories. They even have better songs in their discography than Die For You.

omg I hate this decade so much, mostly due to The Netherlands flopping so hard every damn time :cheeseblock:

Talinn 2002

So we haven't had a really notable increase in quality from 2001 oops! This was the first time the Eurovision was held in a former Soviet state which attracted a lot of "omg can Estonia even host!1!11!!!" scare headlines but aside from the same kinds of sound mixing issues that would continue to persist until about 2007 the contest was otherwise a complete success, despite Malta being robbed of the win by neighbours to the host country Latvia in the one genuine case of bloc voting spoiling the winner that I will concede to.

The Good: France (Sandrine François - Il Fait Du Temps)


France were now four songs deep into their Celine Dion ballad phase which reached its pinnacle in 2002 which for most of the 21st century was their last truly great result. The only downside to this song is that it suffered slightly in being cut down from a 4 minute to a 3 minute track but luckily the former is available on Spotify for your streaming delight!

The Bad: Germany (Corinna May - I Can't Live Without Music)


So, there's various ways that you can have a visually impaired singer perform on stage but forcing her to bop from side to side whilst surrounded by five able bodied backing singers all engaging in a battle royale for their three seconds in the spotlight and trying to oversing the lead singer as she goes more and more off key is most certainly not the way to do it. Maybe not quite the worst song in this year but the horror of the stage show

The 00s: Estonia & United Kingdom (Sahlene - Runaway & Jessica Garlic - Come Back)



Like in the final scoreboard, the "represents the 00s" pick gets shared out between Estonia and the UK. Jessica, famous for her mid season exit from early 00s reality TV sensation 'Pop Idol', delivered one of only two top 10 appearances by the UK in the 21st century and Sahlene from Estonia captures that perfect "first solo release from a member of a moderately successful girlband" early 00s sound

I adore the 2001 contest, but probably for nostalgia reasons as it's the one that made me into a Eurovision fan.

 

I think I'd pick Ines' Once In A Lifetime as the song that best represents the sound of the 00s for 2000. It's basically Lene Marlin dressed as LeAnn Rimes and was being touted as the favourite and Estonia's Britney at the time iirc (I remember seeing the write-ups for the contest in 2000, even though I wasn't quite a passionate fan at that point).

 

2002 was not good at all, only seven songs I liked at all and it's hard to believe Germany were the pre-contest favourite and ended up with that dismal result. The staging was indeed awful. The contest itself was also poorly staged, it felt like a big step back from 2001 - although I agree that the huge arena made that feel a little devoid of atmosphere. The cartoon aardvark running across the screen during the voting almost smacked of some sort of Jive Bunny throwback, bizarre.

 

Musically Estonia were really on a roll though in this period, Diamond Of Night was a beauty, Once In A Lifetime and Runaway were perfect early-00s pop and I even loved Everybody *.*

Edited April 12, 20205 yr by gooddelta

Hard to believe that "I Wanna" won when Ira, Jessica and Sahlene all brought 10/10 moments

Indeed. I was shocked and devastated that Ira didn't walk off with the trophy. And Sahlene/Jessica should have been joint second, with Marie N safely bottom five.

I loved Jemini's Cry Baby. It was really good on record, but live on stage it sadly wasn't.

I loved Jemini's Cry Baby. It was really good on record, but live on stage it sadly wasn't.

 

I hated that Jemimi song even before they performed it live!

2002 was not good at all, only seven songs I liked at all and it's hard to believe Germany were the pre-contest favourite and ended up with that dismal result. The staging was indeed awful. The contest itself was also poorly staged, it felt like a big step back from 2001 - although I agree that the huge arena made that feel a little devoid of atmosphere. The cartoon aardvark running across the screen during the voting almost smacked of some sort of Jive Bunny throwback, bizarre.

 

I watched 2002 on Saturday instead of #EurovisionAgain as I'd rather watch contests that I've not seen before and I don't think it was that bad a year - I definitely didn't struggle to fill my top 10! On top of the already mentioned Ira, Jessica and Sahlene, I already knew and loved Rosa and Afro-dite and I think I'll now be giving regular spins to "Northern Girl", "Happy You" and "Dans le jardin de mon âme" (all of which I recognised but was unaware of the year and country), maybe also "Say a Word".

 

The ones I thought were actively bad were Greece, Belgium, Turkey and Romania (baffled at how this came top 10?). And why on earth were Germany the favourite - was that entirely based on her being blind :unsure:

 

Hope that Lex can find the time to finish this, I'm looking forward to it :cheer: