BillyH

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.

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 😅

I still feel like we're better than, say, the nadir of 2019 when we sent a song so unmemorable it just seemed to come and go with absolutely no hype or interest whatsoever. I prefer us taking risks and failing (Electro Velvet) than being as boring as possible and still failing. I'm also not a fan of the 2012-13 "pick an old singer from decades ago who needs a bit of extra money" era, I really worried where things were going during that time and if the rest of the decade would feature new bangers from the likes of Donny Osmond, David Soul and Chris de Burgh, so I'm glad we've moved on from that.

Agreed with most of the examples here, but No Tomorrow is an absolute banger and utterly undeserved of an ordinary title, lots of good memories of listening to that as a 17 year old. I know it got the lowest weekly #1 sale ever but sold well in the long run. I Feel You, Twilight, To You I Belong though absolutely yes, and while Forever Love has at least some notability to it the song is very forgetful.

Fair enough, admittedly I was falling out of music anyway at the time so maybe it would have better resonated with me at a different point in my life! I just never really heard it that publicly as opposed to similar double figure #1s like Shape of You and Umbrella, which seemed much more inescapable. But I appreciate to be #1 for that long it did have a lot of fans.

Wasn’t there a time while it was #1 when One Dance wasn’t available on YouTube at all, not even in audio or lyric form? I remember loads of videos pretending they were the “official video” but they’d turn out to be someone’s cover version instead, leading to some amusing furious comments from people asking where the hell they find the actual song. It’s infamously the song that had one of the longest #1 runs ever but had next to no mainstream recognition from anyone outside of Drake fans or a chart audience, even I struggle to remember how it went now. While I’ve never been a fan of Shape of You either, you can’t deny that had way more recognition and seemed a much more deserved chart run, that did eventually get a video but a good few weeks after it was released as initially it was just a lyric one. Both felt like a bit of a turning point at the time and it’s just got worse since, I discovered so many songs on music channels from the late 90s until well into the early 2010s to the point where many of the videos are connected in my head with the songs, so it’s odd that they’re not around anymore.

I still by default find myself using Everyhit.com even though it suddenly got abandoned in 2011! That was a hugely useful site back in the day, I’m sad it stopped being maintained but I’m glad it’s still online.

Easter 1999 was the beginning of it, when we got the long gone cable channel ‘The Box’ and age 10 I made a VHS mixtape of all my favourite songs (Cartoons, Steps etc). It really kicked off in 2002-3 when I started properly reading the charts online and downloading songs. 2007-2013 are my ‘party years’ (peaking in 2009-11 when virtually every song reminds me of mad nights out as a student), and after that there’s a gradual decline but I still know all the #1s up to and including Clean Bandit’s ‘Symphony’ in mid-2017, after which things drop off a cliff. By September 2020 I only knew one song in the entire top 92(!) of the chart, and that’s only because it was a remix of an 80s Tina Turner song - number 93 was Mr Brightside! Admittedly since then I have heard a few others from that time, and while I’m long gone from knowing everything there’s a handful from this decade I do enjoy, though there’s nothing on my all time favourites list outside of Eurovision songs from the last eight years.

2002 holds such a special place for me as it’s the first contest I watched all the way through, aged 13 (having remembered parts of earlier contests going back to 1996) and listened to all the songs in advance on the Eurovision website, which was extremely cool to do then in those pre iTunes/Youtube days. I’m sad it’s sort of ignored or called a “bad year” now, falling in that awkward gap where it’s neither full on retro/vintage like the 90s or earlier, nor seen as anything remotely current or matching present day Eurovision. Your favourites generally match mine, I loved Germany’s song and it still holds tons of childhood nostalgia to me as I bought the CD and played that one to death, I also really liked the UK entry so nice to see that could have won under that voting setup! Had we won I guess Terry would have hosted again in 2003, with someone like Fearne Cotton this time?

From memory, both summers this was released in (2007 and 2008) were extraordinarily wet and miserable which wouldn’t have helped, as it’s such a feel good summer song. I think the second release used a Mirwais remix as the lead track on the CD, but on iTunes it was the original that was downloaded the most, at least it just snuck into top 40 that second time.

Tons of 90s dance hits that only exist on there as the long 12” versions and not the shorter radio edits as played and found on the CDs back in the day, which was a bit annoying when making my favourite song playlist recently - as lovely as it is to hear the full ten minutes of something, two minutes either side of that is usually just an increasing/decreasing drum rhythm and I have twenty other songs I want to listen to! Of that list, Bizarre Inc’s ‘Such a Feeling’ is only on there as a soundalike karaoke cover, which is amusing given that there’s only about two lines in the song.

I took a pretty big gap from the contest in 2008 that wasn’t fully over until I first watched it live in 2016, between then I really only knew all the winning songs, the UK entries and the occasional other smash like the Russian grannies. I did watch a lot of 2011 at a house party but the songs that year didn’t really convince me to return full time, it’s really 2014 on where I really start enjoying lots of them again. More recently, last year’s live experience was so horrible for how angry the crowd were it hasn’t given me huge hope this year will be calmer yet, if Basel is just as bad then that’s me out of travelling to go see it I think for the foreseeable future.

I’ve got a hazy memory of going to a show called the Disney Channel Kids Awards in 1999 and seeing 911 perform, but the first one I count and I went solo to was nine years later, at ‘Clubland Live’ in March 2008. I was 19 and Cascada were the headliners supported by Scooter, Ultrabeat and a ton of other 00s dance acts, only £25 as well! The next one was Alphabeat a few months later, £10 for that which given they’d already had a big top ten hit felt like a real bargain even then. My mum and grandma were also 19 when they went to their first concerts - Cliff Richard in 1959 for my grandma, and Mental as Anything in 1987 for my mum. In 2022 I went to Ed Sheeran with my now-wife, and Evanescence with a friend of mine - in both cases it was their first gig and they were both in their late twenties, which I found astonishing as I always considered myself quite late to the party going to them aged 19 but I guess it happens at different ages for everyone.

Feels like they’ve played an absolute blinder with the publicity of this, it feels way bigger than their last ‘Four’ attempt in 2013(?) and if you’d have told me they’d pack out three days at the O2 and counting even just a few months ago I’d never have believed you. Having all five of them does feel like something of an event, and enough time has passed now for them to feel like a huge nostalgia act for so many - they really did have so many big and memorable songs over such a short space of time!! I bought a ticket for the third O2 night, row 4 of the first block right in front of the stage for £79 - that’s only £25 more than the cheapest seats up in the circle, which was nice to see as I was worried it would be some ridiculous three figure sum to sit so close, the standing pit was about £120 but I’ll leave that to the super fans. I’ve still got my ticket for Steps at the same venue back in 2012, and that was £45.25 for block 105 on the ground floor. Given they’re similar era bands and there’s been 13 years of inflation since then, I don’t mind just over £30 extra for Five at all!

CD sales were plummeting, (legal) downloads were starting to get popular but hadn’t got really big yet, and they weren’t fully integrated into the chart yet - this was still just when all songs needed a physical release to be chart eligible. Also around this time both Top of the Pops and Smash Hits gave up, and generally singles felt like a dying market in comparison to a then flourishing album chart. Seeing some of my favourite #1s of all time in the above list is quite sad (Black Parade, Bring Me To Life) but to be honest in that era I was listening to them on music channels most of the time rather than going out and buying the CDs. I’d like to know what on earth was happening in January 2021 for that recent low for Sweet Melody? Given the world situation at the time I assumed people would be streaming more rather than less in absence of anything else to do, or was everyone just too depressed to listen to anything?

Well, the upside of the new "code only" onsale is that the online queue sped through in five minutes, probably because everyone who didn't have the code (which did indeed catch some people out it looks like) couldn't access anything, but even then I wasn't lucky today unfortunately! As I'm flying there on Saturday morning I can't do any rehearsals or finals before that, and annoyingly at one point I had two for the Friday jury final in my basket which I normally go for but can't this time, and briefly had one for the Saturday rehearsal but the person I'm going with wouldn't have been too happy had I just got that :P Also a brief panic when the code stopped working for a few minutes but I just had to wait for my basket to expire before it worked again, by which time everything for every show had gone. Also looks like if you refresh the ticket page a few too many times it suddenly locks you out. probably to stop potential bots. Everything does seem fully gone in this wave now but I'll still check during the course of today, a few years ago I logged in at about 1am and grabbed a ticket so maybe the same will happen this time. My original hotel in Basel itself ended up cancelling on me due to a convenient "overbooking" (in other words they realised what was on that night) but Mulhouse in nearby France has tons of cheap options so I booked somewhere there, and there's a £4 Flixbus from Basel to Mulhouse at 1:25am that we might make unless the interval act is a one hour Celine Dion feat. Nemo medley.

Going to have to go to 2014, which wasn't a year I enjoyed at the time (mostly due to my personal situation) but later on I realised how many great songs there were during that time. It's not my peak student era anymore, but still an age where "my era" of artists like Katy B and Example could get top 10 hits, and the Eurovision domination was great that year too. My chart knowledge really drops off a cliff from mid-2017 onwards, Clean Bandit's 'Symphony' marks a bit of an end of an era for me as the majority of #1s from that time onwards I'm not massively aware of. But then I did turn 30 the following year so maybe it was just a moment that happens to many, my parents equally start to know less songs from the late 1990s onwards when they turned that age.

Both times I've seen Twenty One Pilots they've played Stressed Out as early as possible (usually the second song in the set) and sung it with basically no energy and a glum look on their face, which I feel like is their way of basically saying let's get this over with. Luckily my other fave of theirs 'Ride' does always get done properly.