Results tagged “Sweden” from Boom Bang a Blog

Good morning Boom Bang a Bloggers. I've had my porridge with blueberries in and sweated buckets whilst attempting lunges and torso twists on the Wii Fit so here I am, relaxed and refreshed with news of the treats coming your way this evening - and how to see them over the web.

Yes, this very night, Iceland, Denmark and 2010 hosts Norway will choose the songs which will go forth to the Eurovision stage in late May under each nation's respective flag. Not only that, but the biggest national final of them all - Melodifestivalen - has the first of its five weekly qualifying rounds in Sweden tonight. In around six weeks, we should know the full line-up for Eurovision 2010. But before all that, here are Boom Bang a Blog's predictions.

"Welcome one, welcome all. To paraphrase a football song, Eurovision's coming home." So began Terry Wogan's commentary for the first British Eurovision in 16 years. It doesn't make sense of course. Eurovision's home is Lugano in Switzerland, where it all began in 1956 - or Geneva, the headquarters of the European Broadcasting Union - or even Dublin, the city which had hosted six of the 43 Eurovisions prior to this point. But not really anywhere in the UK. However, there was no denying that the events which took place inside Birmingham's National Indoor Arena on May 9, 1998, constituted the most anticipated Contest of recent years. Two of the 25 entrants were making headlines across the Continent in the weeks leading up to the event - and one of them would go on to win the competition.

It also marked the end of the United Kingdom's run as one of the most successful countries taking part in the competition. After 1998, there were very few glimmers of hope to be found as Blighty sank further and further down the scoreboard. But we won't worry about that here. Come with us now on a trip to the Midlands, where the British Broadcasting Corporation decided to be as non-jingoistic as possible and employ an Irishman and a Swede to host its last Eurovision to date, the winning singer won a unique glass bowl by Susan Nixon, the postcard films were a work of quiet genius and everybody laughed at a middle-aged Dutch lady.

Eurovision was getting a popular thing to be part of in 1996. So much so, there simply wasn't enough room to accommodate the 29 nations wishing to participate in Olso. With that in mind, the organisers staged a preliminary round in the months leading up to the show where a group of juries sat and listened to studio recordings of every song (bar hosts Norway, the only country sure of a spot on the big night) and voted on them as though it were a rather sterile version of Big Eurovision. This sorted everyone out, with Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, FYR Macedonia, Romania and Russia all missing out on a place in Norway. By dumping Germany (whose Kraftwerk-ish song was tipped for great things beforehand), those juries had rather foolishly removed one of the largest potential audiences for the show before it had even begun and the 1996 Contest remains the only one so far not to have an entry from Deutschland.

When 23 nations did assemble in Oslo's Spektrum Centre on May 18, some who did badly in the preliminary round soared up the scoreboard, while others who scored very well when the juries were just listening to the CD version nosedived.

Don't worry, we're going to show you the placing in both rounds for each entry so you can draw your own conclusions...

The film celebrating 40 Eurovision Song Contests which opened the 1995 event. Think of it as reminder of most of your Bluffer's Guides so far...

I wasn't impressed when Ireland won Eurovision for the third successive year in 1994. I therefore refused point blank to support the Irish squad who got to the World Cup in the USA that year (despite it being the tournament Graham Taylor couldn't lead England into) and, being young, naive and foolish, refused to like anything remotely linked with Ireland for the next 12 months. As I say, I certainly was young, naive and foolish as I have an Irish surname for a start.

Anyway, I'm sure you can imagine my reaction when smiley host Mary Kennedy appeared on stage at The Point - the only time the same venue has been used in two successive years - and welcomed viewers to "What has almost become the annual Eurovision Song Contest from Ireland."

I booed. Loudly. But the slightly smug tone Mary used when introducing everyone back to Ireland (again) would soon backfire on her. This was the year when some canny countries realised it was time to play the Irish at their own game. And win.

When Linda Martin won in 1992, it must have been inconceivable that the Contest would be held anywhere other than Dublin in 1993. But an entrepreneurial equestrian centre owner had other ideas. He wrote to RTE, the Irish broadcaster, on the very night Ms Martin took the trophy, suggesting that the Green Glens Arena in the tiny County Cork town of Millstreet would be the ideal setting for the 38th Eurovision Song Contest. The people at the telly admired his brass and so it came to pass that the Contest was heading for its least populous host town ever. Millstreet in 1993 had a population of around 1,500.

And so, this lush speck on the map became the setting for one of the most highly publicised Eurovisions of the decade. Three former Yugoslavian states made their debut. Luxembourg said goodbye for good and Italy sort-of-did too. Switzerland had its last top five showing to date and the stage looked a bit like a paper plane.

But all that was overshadowed by one of the most nailbiting finishes ever, when the UK possibly counted the cost of snubbing the Maltese entry in Malmo.

When hosts Harold Treutiger and Lydia Capolicchio (that doesn't sound very Swedish) introduced the watching world to Eurovision 1992, the former described it as "the greatest gameshow in the world."

Boom Bang a Blog would like to think there's a bit more to the Contest than it being a glorified version of Bullseye - but there is a sense that, from this point on, Eurovision enjoyed a renaissance of popularity where its public appeal had slumped from the late '70s and much of the '80s.

Swedish rules then dictated that, in the event of a Eurovision victory, the city which hosted the national final that produced the champ would then stage the Contest proper. As Sweden's third city of Malmo played host to the 1991 Melodifestivalen, where Carola won the ticket to Rome, the destination of the 37th Eurovision Song Contest was therefore assured the moment Frank Naef announced that Fangad Av En Stormvind had more 10s than the French song with the very long title twelve months earlier.

How much you enjoy the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest depends on how much you enjoy watching an already lackadaisical production completely collapse around itself. The main hurdle concerning an Italian-hosted Eurovision is that the Song Contest itself was inspired by the San Remo Festival, the composition competition which remains big news in Italy each year and is held in much higher esteem across the wider music world than its pan-European little brother. With that in mind, why go to all the trouble of giving a hamburger the hard sell when you've got allcomers flocking to sample your sirloin steak?

If Bruce Forsyth was peeved at the Yugoslav jury denying his daughter and the UK a Eurovision victory in 1988, let's hope he wasn't watching when Switzerland hosted the return leg the following year. In 1989, Yugoslavia actually won the Eurovision Song Contest - and a narrow victory over the United Kingdom at that. What's more, the winning song was not the sort of stuff you'd imagine Tanita Tikaram covering for the B-side of Twist In My Sobriety.

However, considering Yugoslavia wouldn't exist in the same form for very much longer, it would be very mean of Britain to deny the Slavs their delight at winning the trophy and hosting the show for the very first time as the '90s dawned. And the imminent new decade would see massive changes in Europe, changes that would also be reflected on the Eurovision scoreboard.

But we can get to the '90s and the slightly serious stuff next time. Let's cling to the eighties while we still can...

A few years back, Bruce Forsyth appeared on Room 101, the BBC show where celebs can put the case forward for consigning their least favourite things to history. The very last thing he wanted to put into the dank holding bay of infamy was Yugoslavia. When presenter Paul Merton probed Brucie further for this unusual choice, the veteran entertainer was happy to elucidate; in 1988, his daughter, Julie, had composed the British entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. When Yugoslavia, the final jury of the night, was called for its votes, the United Kingdom had a fairly strong six-point lead and a score of seven or more would guarantee victory.

As you've probably worked out, the final decision of the Yugoslav jury didn't curry much favour with our Brucie - or those watching on these fair isles. But what Bruce doesn't understand is that his reasons for punishing Yugoslavia must be far wider reaching than mere paternal loyalty. That panel in Llubjana were responsible for inflicting a great evil upon this world, a blight that has caused pain to many good people and one that needs to be stopped before it is responsible for any more international upset. Boom Bang a Blog is speaking, of course, about the ongoing career and success of Celine Dion.

Although Norway's victory in 1985 caused ripples of excitement over the spiritual home of no-points and the hosting of the 1986 Contest was a source of huge national pride, broadcaster NRK made the unusual move of not staging the event in one of the larger arenas available in the capital Oslo, but the tiny 1,500-seater Grieg Hall in the northerly second city of Bergen, birthplace of composer Edvard Grieg, whom the venue was named after. This did mean that the audience was even smaller than that in attendance in Harrogate four years earlier but, despite that difference, there was still a sense of scale and atmosphere to the event which put the BBC's shoddy 1982 production to shame.

Long-term fans of the Contest tend not to be enamoured with Eurovision '86, with its ice palace-style staging (reflecting the fact it was the most northerly Eurovision there's ever been) leading to comparisons with a panto. A very glitzy, hi-tech panto, but a panto nevertheless. Opinion-wise, that's all well and good, but if Norway really were going for that sort of thigh-slapping show, they'd have invited someone a bit more fun and frothy to present the thing...

They had waited for a win since their first appearance in 1960. They had scored nul points in 1963, 1978 and 1981, three of the six occasions they had finished bottom of the scoreboard. They were destined to be the Contest's eternal no-hopers. Then, in 1985, twenty-five years after their first appearance, something amazing happened. Norway won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Above you'll find a performance of the song Balalaika, ably belted out by Israeli singer Ilanit, who had already represented her country at Eurovision in 1973 and 1977. This would have been the song which bore the Israeli flag at the 29th Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg. However - and it was a habit those pesky organisers kept on making - the date for the 1984 Contest clashed with an important festival in Israel's calendar. Therefore, just as an awkward date saw the land of Milk and Honey miss the Contest following its two successive wins, another balls-up in the date stakes saw them sit out the event which followed its two successive silvers.

Balalika did go on to be one of the biggest selling singles of 1984 in Israel. What do you think? Would it have been a winner had it made it to Luxembourg City?

It had been 26 years since Germany last hosted the Contest when Nicole's little piece of peace brought Eurovision back to the country in 1983, the first time Deutsch telly were hosting as title holders. Whereas the second Eurovision Song Contest had been staged in a tiny television studio, the 28th took place in the mammoth 6,000 seater-plus Rudi Sedlmayer Halle, the basketball venue built for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

A fair few pfennig seemed to have been spent on the show, which looked a lot more spectacular than the squashed-in feel of Harrogate the previous year, although the set did resemble the inner element of a toaster stuck over a bay windowsill, creating a seemingly tiny space for the acts to stand in.

There were 20 acts back on the starting grid in Munich, however, up from 18 the year before. Italy, Greece and France all came back - and Ireland surprised everyone by taking a year out. The 1980 champs were having a cashflow crisis at their national broadcaster and organising a Eurovision entry was one extravagance they couldn't justify.

But for everyone else who turned up, it was a rather fun year. For all the wrong reasons.

As you may have already read, Israel had won both the 1978 and 1979 Contests, but when the Netherlands stepped in to host as a favour to the cash-strapped Israeli Broadcasting Authority, they inadvertently scheduled Eurovision for a date when the trophy holders remembered their fallen and couldn't possibly take part.

With the country who had had a stranglehold on the results at the end of the '70s now absent, there was a clear run for everyone else involved. Although, 'I' would continue to be a lucky initial for Eurovision's winner for the third year running.

With stepping in at relatively short notice, the Dutch production was nowehere near as grand as it had been in 1976. With The Hague's Congresgebouw (pictured, above) being used once more, part of the opening travelogue film from four years previous - featuring beckoning hands welcoming allcomers to Den Haag - was recycled to save a few gelder. While only those with long-term photographic memories would have made the connection in 1980, it's a bit easier to spot in the era of videos, DVD and a certain file-sharing website.

Opinion is divided over Eurovision 1978. Whereas parts of it look spectacular (the entire orchestra was on a revolving platform and there was an impressive laser show built into the set), many think it a rather drab affair with not much heart and soul put into the production. Maybe it's because so many BBC-style Contests had dominated the decade that a distinct change in style stands out like a sore thumb. Either way, Boom Bang a Blog has always rather liked it. There are a couple of things to watch out for in '78. Denmark return after a 12 year absence, the UK does abominably badly for the first time since 1966, the Norwegians fare even worse, a Swedish singer whose trousers were far too tight and the start of a remarkable run of success for a country which you won't find on any European map.

Winners 1978: Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta perform A Ba Ni Bi for Israel. It's the caption that's wrong, not us. Swear down.

However, this was also the year that the Contest's popularity took a severe dip.

Sad to say, but by 1978, the Contest had passed its mid-70s peak and viewers everywhere were starting to fall out love with this annual party of pop.

The following clip is shown to students of TV production everywhere. It's the feed from industry legend and maverick, the late Stewart Morris, a stalwart of big BBC productions, as he directed his team through the hairy final moments and winning reprise of Eurovision 1977 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London.

PLEASE BE AWARE! Mr Morris does not hold back on his language, so don't click on this clip if easily offended by extremely salty words.

Our favourite bits are where he's screaming at someone to make the flags start revolving and the moment he realises the end credits have gone missing.

That's how the Contest ended, but let's delve a little deeper into how it all began in 1977...

The 20th Eurovision Song Contest came from Stockholm and it was very, very blue. The set was blue, the scoreboard was blue and the presenter's dress was blue. Debutantes Turkey were also blue, albeit in more abstract fashion - and we'll get to them later.

This was also the first year that 'douze points' was awarded at the Eurovision Song Contest. The voting system had been thoroughly overhauled to make everything as fair as possible, ABBA had suddenly made the Contest seem a credible sorta-thing for pop groups to enter and the viewing figures were going through the roof across the continent.

All 1975 needed was another top-drawer, bespoke slab of prime European pop to take the trophy and the Contest could maybe, just maybe, become the event songwriters of every calibre would sweat semi-quavers to be part of.

The judges went for this:

Winner 1975: Teach-In perform Ding Dinge Dong for the Netherlands

...well, goodness gracious me, that's exactly what somebody did do in 1973.

We can't find the story that goes with this magazine cover, but as you can see, it's the ever popular Scandinavian periodical Allers (it's still going strong today). In this edition, dated April 29, 1973, Sweden's 1966 runner-up, Lill Lindfors and Anni-Frid of the as-yet-to-be-called-that ABBA were asked by the team behind the staple read for Swedish housewives of the era, to come up with some lovely outfits for just 300 Swedish kroner. Boom Bang a Blog is not entirely sure if that was a lot of money or not in Sweden in 1973, but it works out in today's money at about £25 and five pee.

As there appears to be no link to the article from the cover, it's not clear who won, but our money is on Anna-Frid. Anyone who witnessed what she turned up on stage wearing as ABBA hit its international peak must realise what a slave to trends our Frida was (ahem).

The very serious-looking lady pictured below Lill Lindfors on this particular cover of Allers didn't appear to be taking part in any sort of fashion challenge, though. In fact, Boom Bang a Blog's internet-based research indicate Estelle Bernadotte is linked with Swedish aristocracy, so could probably afford to spend a lot more than 300 kroner on a frock and a handbag in Scandinavia's mid-70s equivalent of Primark.