10. "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" by Céline Dion (1988, Switzerland) ***DISQUALIFIED BY ED***
OH SHIT. Céline Fucking Dion?! Look, I’m not a particular fan, but I can’t deny this woman has got some lungs on her. I suppose this is the song that made her famous and brought her international attention? I’m just guessing that nobody knew who she was, so she slipped in and just pretended to be Swiss. But in hindsight… well… everybody knows that she’s French Canadian now. Should this be allowed? How can a Canadian participate for Switzerland? Seems unfair. Looks like they pulled in a ringer. They totally fucking hustled the Eurovison contest. It apparently only beat the #2 finishing song by the UK by a single point. If I was the UK I would be pissed and complain. You know what? These are my rankings… so fuck it. I’ll disqualify her myself. LAST PLACE. There you go, UK. Now we’re even for that whole American Revolution thing.
9. "Making Your Mind Up" by Bucks Fizz (1981, United Kingdom)
Yikes. Just yikes. Those primary colored shirts right off the bat make them look like Teletubbies or Power Rangers or… uhm… I dunno, it’s awful though. So is the song. So are the haircuts. Look at these fucking four blonde Aryans. This looks like a child’s music video. It looks like they’re about to start singing fucking “Skid-dy-mer-rink-adink-aboomp.” The only thing that makes me think that this isn’t a music video for toddlers is the line “Take you from behind.” That… uhh… must have meant something a lot different in 1981.
8. "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" by Herreys (1984, Sweden)
Sweden is, like, the king of the Eurovision contest. They’ve won more than anyone else, and also brought us goddamn ABBA. So how does Herreys stack up? Well, first off there are popped collars, primary colors, blonde hair, and unnecessarily flamboyant hand gestures in this performance. So I feel like this is just a continuation of Bucks Fizz. I know they’re singing in Swedish, but the song title seems to be rambling nonsense. And it’s all upbeat and cheery. Gross. What was wrong with the 80's? The Soviets were in Afghanistan, people! Stop pretending like everything is happy!
7. "La det Swinge" by Bobbysocks! (1985, Norway)
So minor points for having an exclamation point in your band’s name. Good move. But will this band be as exciting as the exclamation point makes it seem? No. Not at all. These look like the Golden Girls singing in sparkly purple vests. I guess it’s supposed to be “retro” 50’s style or something. Why was 1985 so obsessed with being retro 50s? Obviously Back to the Future captured that spirit a lot better than this swinging garbage. Although I guess Bobbysocks! never committed the cardinal sin of having an Electric Spanish-345 thinline semi-hollow guitar appear in 1955 when EVERYBODY knows that ES-345s didn’t debut until 1958. In the end, this doesn’t deserve the explanation point. It doesn’t even deserve an interrobang.
6. "Ein Bißchen Frieden" by Nicole (1982, Germany)
The title means “A Little Peace” in English, which you can tell because the song goes back and forth between German and English. So I guess we can blame like little 17-year old German girl for the rise of terrible bilingual acts like Pitbull. The song is just boring fluff, wishing and hoping for world peace. Lame. That will never happen, Nicole. Hopefully you're old enough to understand that now.
5. "Si la Vie est Cadeau" by Corinne Hermès (1983, Luxembourg)
First off, let me just point out that it looks like Corinne Hermès would have been perfectly cast as a 1980s Bond Girl. I have no idea what’s going on in this song though, since it’s all French. According to Wikipedia, it’s a song about the wonder of life and how life is like a gift. Ugh. Also, that’s way too much pink on the stage. Even for the 1980s. Too much pink!
4. "J'aime la Vie" by Sandra Kim (1986, Belgium)
Okay, so even I and my mediocre language skills am able to interpret that this title means “I Love Life,” which makes me think it’s going to be another awful, cherry, upbeat pop song. I am not looking forward to this at all. Okay… here we go… wait… what’s this? Hrmm! Now this is what I expect from the 1980s! This music video! That lady mullet! Unnecessary displays of Belgium high school sports! Walking around the streets with a Walkman! Singing on a hill in the distance! Yeah, okay. I’ll give you credit, Sandra Kim. This is, like, the most 80’s thing ever. Or at least it’s trying to be. It's more like you're a 12 year old playing dress-up and wanting to be in an 80's music video. But close enough.
3. "Hold Me Now" by Johnny Logan (1987, Ireland)
OH SHIT! Johnny Logan is BACK AGAIN?! (see below) He already won in 1980 and he wins again in 1987?! I suppose this must have been the only time in history that someone won the competition twice. I mean, I could look that up to confirm it. But why bother? That seems like a lot of effort and I’m not going to much more effort than looking at ten YouTube videos, writing down some initial thoughts, and calling it a day. This one isn’t as good as his last win, but it seems just as mopey and sad. Although I’ll take sad over unnecessarily cheery any day of the week. If you added some electric guitars this could easily be a power ballad by Heart (the B side on the “Alone” single, I’d presume).
2. "Rock Me" by Riva (1989, Yugoslavia)
Birds chirping. An awkward exchange of dubbed “hi’s.” Weird, upbeat Croatian pop with an English chorus. A flashing, light-up floor. Still, it looks super 80’s, so that’s good, right? Who even knew there was Yugoslavian pop music in the 1980s and it wasn’t just a depressing, gray land of Soviet sadness. But then again, this was 1989 so they were pretty close to the breakup here. You know what? I actually don’t hate this one. I’m not going to buy the song off iTunes or anything, but I don’t hate it. That’s about as strong a piece of praise I can provide to any Eurovision song that’s not done by Lordi.
1. "What's Another Year" by Johnny Logan (1980, Ireland)
Starts out with jazzy saxophone. Okay. This might not be that bad. Oh man, that bright light in the music video is bothering me. It’s like staring directly into the sun. I can’t see. Will it go away? Oh wow, this song is pretty depressing. He’s alone. Crying. Full of fear. His soul is so drained from waiting for the girl he loves that time itself doesn’t even matter to him. You’re bumming me out, man. But overall, this song wasn’t as terrible as I imagined it could be. You know what? Thanks. These songs were all too cheery and happy except for your two songs, Logan. Your Irish depression actually make me feel a lot better. Plus... jazzy saxophone! Now excuse me, I need to make sure my retinas aren't permanently damaged.
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