Boom Bang a Blog's Pick of the Eurovision Noughties - Happy New Decade!
Ten Contest. 336 songs. Fourteen debutante nations (or is it 12? After Serbia & Montengro appeared in 2004, then went their separate ways, do Serbia's and Montengro's subsequent independent entries count as two more debuts?).
From Israel's Ping Pong as the opening act in 2000 to Spain's Soraya as the singer which closed proceedings in Moscow this year, no other decade has had anywhere near as many Eurovision Song Contest songs as the Noughties.
Thanks to the semi-final system introduced in 2004, around 40 songs have taken part in the past six competitions, so as this final day of the decade dawns, it's even trickier than usual to decide which were the finest moments from the past 10 years of the Contest.
But by golly, we're going to try. Before we begin, I must hasten to add the following 'Best's are purely in Boom Bang a Blog's opinion. I look forward to you disagreeing with me in the comments section. Vehemently.
ZDOB SI ZDUB: Boonika Bata Doba (Moldova 2005)
No doubt about it. The Moldovans rocked in 2005 with their song about a percussive pensioner with attitude. Grandma Beats the Drums was a breath of fresh air as far as the Contest thus far was concerned. A tongue-in-cheek piece of indie pop/rock with the right amount of presence and oomph to win the interest of both the audience in Kyiv's Palace of Sports and the televoters watching back home. Trouble is, Moldova have struggled to top this ever since.
LAKA: Pokusaj (Bosnia & Herzegovina 2008)
No other onstage act was as well thought out and executed as that of Bosnia & Herzegovina in Belgrade last year. From the knitting brides to the emergence of the extra-quirky Laka from his laundry basket to a washing line full of love, this was the sort of staging you'd imagine Tim Burton coming up with if he was put in charge of a Eurovision song. Smashing song too, which sounds like something completely different when you listen to it without the pictures.
LINDA WAGENMAKERS: No Goodbyes (Netherlands 2000)
As the second song onstage in 2000, Linda Wagenmakers of the Netherlands could have been so easily trumped for this title by the 334 acts which followed - but she has clung on womanfully to the crown of Best Frock of the Noughties. No other skirt in Contest history has housed a complete backing troupe of half-naked males within its confines and when Linda carried that little trick off with aplomb, nobody dared attempt to best her.
SCOOCH: Flying the Flag (United Kingdom 2007)
This song should never have been allowed within sniffing distance of the shortlisted entries for the 2007 British national final. John Barrowman should never have been allowed anywhere near that panel of 'experts' that year, who basically just said that every song was 'good' and were terrified to express anything approaching an opinion. When the influential Captain Jack whooped that this was 'so Eurovision' and then qualified this by listing the qualities of Flying the Flag which were so 'not' Eurovision ('camp' does not do well and never really has) the result was a foregone conclusion and it was a bleak day for the British music industry.
Hopefully, UK entries will never, ever stoop as low again as Scooch's Flying the Flag. But the ultimate travesty? John Barrowman was allowed back as an 'expert' for the following year's national final.
LAURA & THE LOVERS: Little By Little (Lithuania 2005)
Not only was this snubbed, it finished last. Before Eurovision 2005 began, Little By Little from Lithuania's Laura and the Lovers (I often wondered what would happen if the 'L' button conked out on the captioning machine on the big night) was by far my favourite song in the line-up and is still one of the few songs from that year I still listen to. OK, so the live performance doesn't match up to the studio version, but it would have been great to see Little By Little thrown into the mix of the 2005 final to see how it would have fared. It's not so very different from some of the Swedish Melodifestivalen winners which have been idolised by some quarters of the fan world.
DJ BOBO: Vampires Are Alive (Switzerland 2007)
Charlotte Perelli's Hero for Sweden in 2008 very nearly took this title, but the honour has to go to Switzerland's DJ BoBo for the ultimate example of showboating which came to nothing. In the run-up to the 2007 Contest, this was the song which was so close to the top of the internet polls and the bookies' odds that for it not to do well was unthinkable. So what happened? Vampires Are Alive was performed with a backing troupe of mannequins to make the stage look more crowded than the rulebook allows and left about as much impact as a soggy cornflake on your mum's best laminate flooring. The song which was hyped to top the scoreboard finished 20th in the semi-final and BoBo was forced to make a shamefaced return to Switzerland.
DAZ SAMPSON: Teenage Life (United Kingdom 2006)
I have to come home for a moment as Blighty doesn't have much to crow about as far as the Noughties are concerned - but let's hope the Tennies and Teenies are when we start to turn a corner (although it will be a while before we can expect many votes from Iceland). The one song the UK sent to Eurovision which I developed a deep affection for was our 2006 effort from Daz Sampson. Teenage Life was a bit different, mixing a rap with a great little chorus and choreography to create a St Trinians meets It's A Hard Knock Life vibe.
Reports from those present in Athens during rehearsal week predicted great things for the UK, with some suggesting a few douzes would come Daz's way in the voting - and they weren't just the words of the British pundits. It just wasn't meant to be on the night, with the UK only managing 19th place - but I'll always have a soft spot for this - a sentiment I can't stretch to Scooch.
MARIA HAUKAAS STORENG: Hold On Be Strong (Norway 2008)
My best song of the decade? It's a toughie. For a long time, it's been the French entry of 2000, which did staggeringly badly on the night but sounds brilliantly laid back and fair cheers me up in its studio version. Open Your Heart from Iceland in 2003 is another close contender, as is Sebastian Tellier's Divine for France last year, but I've been having a look at my iPod rankings - and that does back up the fact that the one song I will continue to listen to as far as Noughties Eurovision is concerned is another one from Belgrade last year - the Norwegian entry.
Hold On Be Strong won't win any awards for originality but it just has that something which I loved from the moment I first heard it. Probably the way Maria squashes her syllables together to make the words fir the tune in the verses.
UKRAINE
They didn't even bother entering the first three Contests of the century, but no other country has 'got' Eurovision more in the past decade than Ukraine. One win, two silvers and, ironically, only doing especially badly in the year it hosted the show, this is the one country which, like Russia, is unlikely to take a dip performance and scoring-wise.
There is the neighbourly vote argument to mull over as well - but when you've got songs like Shady Lady (our example above) and Anti-Crisis Girl effortlessly entertaining the viewers, can you really blame someone for picking up the phone and voting for the blue and yellow flag?
SERTAB ERENER: Every Way That I Can (Turkey 2003)
The one year I could never argue that a lesser song took the title was 2003. Sertab Erener's Every Way That I Can was an amazingly well put-together performance, with the song remixed from its rather flat pre-Contest version to something far meatier for the show itself. Performed fourth of 26 songs - and facing the might of Russia's tATu later on in the draw - it's a testament to Sertab's years of professionalism and stage craft that she managed to stay in the memory long enough to snatch the trophy in the closest finish of the Noughties so far.
So, that was Boom Bang a Blog's Eurovision Noughties. How was yours?
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Jamie McLoughlin - The news editor of Southport Visiter reveals all about his musical hobby that more people should admit to having.
Looking back over the noughties - and with the help of BBaB's annual reviews - you have to look at the last ten years as a really great age for Eurovision. A nice spread of countries winning (mostly first timers), some good songs, some tunes that have you throwing up your hands in horror - certainly an improvement on the tedious Nineties.
Just looking at my own preferences over your choices, I'll go with most of them, but where I differ...
Scooch may have been a [b]Travesty[/b], but worse than Dustin the Turkey? Never. At least Flying the Flag resembled a song.
I preferred Jessica Garlick's Come Back for the [b]UK Entry[/b], but that's mainly because I find Daz Sampson's rubber face slightly disqueting.
I'd put Kate Ryan's Je T'Adore as the greatest [b]Semi Final Snub[/b] because it managed to make the Belgians incandescent with rage, and as we know, it takes a lot to get them excited about anything. It was also one of those moments when the Contest flew in the face of popular opinion.
[b]Song[/b]? Shady Lady was immense - it's hard to believe that voters preferred the ice skater to Ani Lorak's glowing box - and as you say, Divine was in a different league. I have a lot of fondness for the ramped up pure insanity of Jari Silaanpaa's Takes 2 To Tango and Julie & Ludwig's On Again, Off Again ("There's a river between us/And I need you to come across"). But at the end of the day, my favourite song of Eurovision in the 00s, in fact my favourite song of anything this decade, and the most played track of any type on my iPod is...
Rollo & King's "Never Ever Let You Go." I love this song more than humanity itself. It's pure joy in three minutes, and I want it played at my funeral. I absolutely adore it.