BillyH

Mad to think of a world where the Spice Girls were still releasing songs until late 2006, and going on an indefinite hiatus after their big Spring 2007 tour.

Pretty sure it was someone on here who referred to Girls Can't Catch as Girls Can't Chart 😆 This I thought would be the first #1 of 2010, it got a lot of music channel airplay back when that was still relevant, so for it to just sneak in at #20 felt like a disappointment. Annoyingly the radio/CD edit of the song cut all the best bits out of the video edit below: Going further back to 2005, I was totally ready for this to be a huge smash and it peaked just outside top 40:

That Now 55 playlist is a dream to 14 year old me who wasn’t sure whether to buy that or Hits 56 at the time, and ended up getting neither until they were a pound each at charity shops years later 😂 You can just feel the hot summer sun from that year even by just reading the tracklist!

Everyone at work is talking about Lily's new album, which genuinely threw me as I also thought her music career was basically over after her 2018 comeback fizzled out quickly. I think it's a combination of the early-mid 2000s becoming 'cool' with a generation of people who were either born then or were kids, and the fact that her well-publicised ex was Jim from Stranger Things which is big enough that even if you weren't too familiar with Lily or her music before, it's likely you'll know who David Harbour is. If my theory is correct, watch a battle-scarred Katy Perry return sometime around the year 2030 and have a colossal comeback as if she never went away, at the same time the next young generation are wearing shutter shades, filming 'retro' stuff on early iPhones and getting really into the lore over the 2008 global recession.

If it's the same one I'm thinking of, in the very early days of YouTube (2006-07) the main upload of it had the Roadblock sample, back when it was just random people uploading whatever video or audio copy they had to hand. It still seems a bit mad that there was ever an issue over half a second of someone going "Heyy!" repeated a few times. But yeah, I haven't heard that version for ages, it's usually the one without the sample that was issued later.

Technically 26 years old (System F - Out of the Blue, 1999) but my favourite version is the remaster of it they did 15 years ago, using all the same instruments and arrangement but sonically beefed up - was such a revelation when I first heard the remaster it was like hearing it new again! 30 years for my #2 and #3 of Pulp - Common People and N-Trance - Set You Free 😊

SuRie did an interesting tweetalong when they replayed this contest on YouTube in 2020, about her experience at that infamous final and what happened afterwards. Her team wanted her to leave the arena immediately after she’d done the song and not return, in case the invader was trying to attack her for whatever reason and if there was anyone else connected to it who could still be around. The only reason they stayed is because someone apparently heard a rumour that there’d been this huge, colossal surge for the UK vote to the point that she might have won, which sounds really bizarre and I’m not sure if that was someone making it up to make SuRie feel better, or just someone reading a few Tweets praising her and getting carried away with the idea that an unexpected voting landslide was about to happen. Even then she didn’t get to enjoy any post-ESC parties as the moment the votes were over they got her out of there as quick as possible under heavy security. I was in the arena when it all happened and because initially my view was blocked by a load of heads in the standing bit, I thought the invader’s voice was actually some pre-recorded announcement they’d played in error, not properly realising what was going on until I saw him get wrestled off stage. During the break that happened after the song where they did an emergency green room interview, all of us in the crowd are trying to work out what the hell just happened(!) and whether she’d have to perform it again. The song is perfectly pleasant, but yeah, totally overshadowed by what shouldn’t have taken place than what was meant to.

I am fascinated by that brief couple of years in the early 00s that predated the big “Europe hates us!!” excuse that started with a bang after Jemini, when we sent two songs in the form of Nicki and Lindsay that got shockingly low results compared to the country’s history in the contest before that, and the UK public didn’t really connect with either song or contest then either - 2000 got I think the lowest ever ratings for the show at the time (only beaten since by 2010) and 2001 wasn’t much better, I’m wondering if the move of the song selection show to a very off peak Sunday afternoon slot had to do with that? It’s amusing reading early internet comments still around from then, some suggesting the bad results are because we might not be joining the Euro! 2002 probably had a boost from both Pop Idol fans wanting to see how Jessica did, and hype over the song actually being quite good that year, and from then on the contest has hovered around the same amount of viewers each year, outside of the occasional high (2023) and low (2010). I don’t mind either No Dream Impossible or Embers in studio form, both feel like they’re five years behind their time but far from the worst attempts we’ve sent. As for poor Josh, I genuinely wonder if Pete Waterman didn’t do any new writing at all for the contest and just grabbed a reject album track from 20 years earlier from the bottom of a draw, job done and thanks for the money. We moan about Remember Monday not doing as well as hoped, but I still think we’re in a much better place than years in the recent past.

Verka charted higher (even in the pre-Spotify and early-ish download days of 2007) and seems widely remembered by both fans and casuals alike almost 20 years later, so nah, I’d say Verka was bigger than Tommy.

That’s the same amount of Eurovision songs as last year (three top 40, two more top 75), except Remember Monday have done better than Olly Alexander who missed top 40 last year, and that’s the lowest chart position for a Eurovision winner (JJ) since all the way back in 2017 when Portugal won! 2019’s winner (Duncan Laurence) initially also only peaked somewhere outside the top 40 in Eurovision week, only to have a TikTok revival two years later and belatedly go top 30 in early 2021. It’s still a far cry from the dark days of the second half of the 2010s when nothing charted top 40 here from ‘Heroes’ in 2015 (the winner from Sweden) and, well, sort of ‘Think About Things’ in 2020 but of course the contest never happened that year, so counting actual contests it’s Duncan and then Maneskin in 2021.

I’ve heard this said a lot and I wonder if some of it was due to the muted audience, which psychologically makes it sound much less epic and lower scale than before.

I want to say that 2016-17 drop is also due to the loss of the Russian audience (2016 they were favourites to win, 2017 they didn’t take part) but then it doesn’t massively recover when they’re back, so I’d add other countries slowly dropping out over recent years bringing the total down. Highest total in four years then for 2025, hope the slow upward trajectory continues.

I do worry that the brief flurry of Eurovision artists getting big UK chart successes in 2020-23 has faded in recent years, Rosa Linn seems destined to just be known for Snap and nothing else, Sam Ryder did have a Christmas song do well but nothing after Space Man has got wide appeal, and you could argue Maneskin had six months to a year of being an absolutely colossal band with several worldwide hits, but today they’re a bit of a 2021 nostalgia act if they’re even still going. Hoping this does ok but it would be sad if we go back to the mid-late 2010s again when chartwise Eurovision really stopped being a big thing for a while.

Their 2009 entry (Always) was an absolute bop, and had that been the winning entry two years later I feel it would have been utterly deserved rather than the underwhelming moment it actually was. 2011 was a very weird year in general where all the favourites underperformed, the live vocals weren’t cutting it and no one really seemed to have a mega favourite, I wonder if we’ll ever have a year as mad as that again. See also Latvia 2000 vs Latvia 2002.

I think that’s it for me in terms of travelling to watch Eurovision live from now on, it was a great run from 2016 to this year (missing just ‘21 because Covid/no flights and ‘23 because of train strikes/ticket impossibility) but it’s become too expensive, too crowded and I’m just not the person I was in my twenties who could manage it all better compared to now. As those two off years proved I can still have a great time watching it from the comfort of my own home, and perhaps it’s time to let the new generation have their fun, as I slowly become the old dude regaling them at parties with the time I appeared on TV behind Mans or met Mikolas Josef outside the Lisbon arena. This time I watched it from the Arena Plus event in the stadium next door to the main hall, which was ok but the bars and especially toilet queues were a bit chaotic and as both the stadium and main hall emptied out at the same time on the same road(!) at the end, all trams and buses were totally rammed and it was another stressful journey back, if not as bad as the hour wait for a train last year. I intentionally hadn’t heard any of the songs until this week, and everything about Sweden just screamed Eurovision Winner, so while I’m normally grumpy when a country wins who’s already won in recent years (ironically like in 2023) I would have been fine this time. My second favourite was luckily Austria, I always love the operatic entries (La Forza and Zero Gravity especially in previous years) and it was great to have that at least as the winner, in general my scores were the closest to the actual result since Kiev 2017 which was lovely to see, a far cry from 2023 when I got everything hopelessly wrong predicting big points for things like Blood & Glitter and Who the Hell is Edgar! I…actually quite liked the UK entry? They were my tenth favourite so would have got a point from me, they were really charming and I loved how it sounded like a musical theatre song, best home entry since Spaceman by far for me. As I mentioned a few posts ago I would way rather the UK take risks than give us another Bigger Than Us, so while it clearly didn’t connect with the public at all I’m still very proud of their jury top ten. In general the crowd were better behaved this year and no one was booed as much, I’m glad for that as whatever everyone’s opinions are on the horrible situation a certain part of the world is in, taking it out on poor Yuval (especially given her backstory) wouldn’t have achieved anything and just created more division and anger among everyone concerned. I did start to worry near the end of the televotes as I feel Israel winning would still have caused some huge situations in the audience (and beyond) that wouldn’t have been pleasant and completely overshadowed the rest of the contest, so I am glad Austria won - and 2014 is far back enough now to feel like a long-awaited win! Now watch me completely go back on the start of this post in a few months time and end up booking flights to Vienna at the first opportunity 😅