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Eurovision 2004 - Number 23 - Alexandra Gaiduk - "Я захоўваю надзею"

Alexandra Gaiduk is a survivor. She was born in Kyrgyzstan to a military father and an orchestra member mother. Her childhood saw her train to be a ballerina (and fail) but also learn how to drive military vehicles and shoot a rifle (and succeed). She has perhaps the most stereotypical of Soviet upbringings imaginable. Most of her family moved to Brest in Belarus when the Soviet Union collapsed and there she stayed even as her family fractured around her.

Her performing ambitions were present from the outset. She recorded a tape of Alla Pugacheva songs and moved to Minsk looking for opportunities. By 2004, she'd released albums, performed at festivals and married three times. Together with her third husband Alexander Ivanov, she wrote Я захоўваю надзею (Ya khranyu nadezhdu/I Keep Hope) and entered the first ever Belarusian Selection final.

I Keep Hope is in English despite it's Belarusian title. It's filled with drama. Dramatic instrumental stabs punctuate what is either the intro or post-chorus depending on how you prefer to divide up the song. It's snappy, determined and flows beautifully from verse to chorus. The melody meshes with a hip-swinging, insistent rhythm. As a song it's all sorts of addictive. Alexandra's lip-licking performance is fine, although her voice isn't hugely strong, but then she wrote something that she could comfortably sing.

It all works, though if you're going to pout as frequently as Alexandra does in front of a monster wind machine, make sure you've used a chapstick. At least she brought a coat - I hope that's not real fur, but as it's Belarus in 2004, it probably is.

She finished fifth of fifteen songs in what was an incredibly close televote beset with allegations of technical problems and perhaps vote rigging. To give you some idea of how close it was, Alexandra got 2039 televotes in fifth. The winner got 2311. The song that finished last got 1920. I've not seen a televote split that evenly across the entire field ever. It does seem odd at the very least.

It should be noted that her husband Alexander was the owner of a rival TV Channel BelMuz TV while Alexandra went on to be the host of a talk show Figures on the main Belarusian channel of Belteleradio - which this final was broadcast on. Alexandra was highly connected in the Belarusian TV production world.

After this she appeared at three more Belarusian selection finals including the next two in 2005 and 2006. She never won. She became and actress and TV presenter and has recently become one of the judges on a home-grown musical talent show Factor.by 60+

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 24 - Amaryllis Temmerman - "God in alle eenvoud"

Eurosong '04 seems to be full of singers attempting a breakthrough into the big time. Here's another, Amaryllis Temmerman, and this time her big chance reaped rewards. Prior to 2004 Amaryllis was slowly working her way into the entertainment industry, working as a TV production assistant, getting small roles in Dutch language films as well as appearing on stage in the Rocky Horror Show.

This was a chance to show off her solo singing voice with what is an exceptionally sad song. God in alle eenvoud (God in All Simplicity) is a gentle, simple piece with a steady rhythm and synth background for a straight sung melody - the instrumental is atmosphere, a setting rather than anything more. Amaryllis sings about her father who is losing his memory and identity, losing the last year's of his life to dementia rather than being able to enjoy the retirement he's saved for. It's a celebration rather than a song filled with loss. She sings about all the people he's meant something to, and how he moved them, including herself.

Yet the loss hangs heavy over everything. It was written by Amaryllis herself alongside David Poltrock. I don't know how much is biographical or otherwise, but it's certainly touching.

On the evening that emotional appeal wasn't enough and she finished joint last in the heat, and clear last with a televote faced with a range of more upbeat entries and better known faces. Nevertheless it seems that this song was held dear by many. It got a single release, then there was album to go alongside it. There followed four more albums and several singles.

Perhaps more importantly her entertainment career took her down some unexpected pathways and a wide range of different jobs. Amaryllis has done everything from presenting game shows on Dutch TV to acting in children's stage shows to a permanent role in Belgian TV hospital drama. She's both been a news reader and has given out 'erotic tips' on a Dutch magazine programme aimed (I think) at naturists. She's done some production management, some choreography and acted in cabaret shows and produced corporate training videos. Amaryllis is always doing something - though music will always be her main love.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 25 - Lisa Andreas - "Stronger Every Minute"

How Lisa Andreas, a 16-year old singer in the pubs and clubs of Gillingham, Kent, England, managed to become the selection for Cyprus's entry to Eurovision 2004 is an unlikely tale. Although she was born in Gillingham, her mother is Greek Cypriot and song-writer Mike Connaris (who we've met before) had selected Cyprus as the venue for his next venture into song-writing for national finals. He has a ballad and he needed someone to sing it in the Cypriot national final.

I don't know if he knew Lisa and her mother from a history in the pubs of Kent, but he got them out to Nicosia to have a go. Unlike his previous entries, Stronger Every Minute won. Whether that was his song or Lisa's talent for ballad singing I'm unsure, but even in a vote that had 60% televoting - she won. Just.

That took her to Istanbul to represent Cyprus. Carrying all the political weight of that on her young shoulders, she was responsible for three remarkable things in the space of three minutes.

First there's the song - in a year of outstanding female ballads, this is the one that made it and perhaps that's got something to do with the start. In auditorium filled with thousands of fans she sings the first two lines completely acapella. Perfectly on pitch. You can hear some of the less well behaved audience members' audible rowdiness, but there are very few of them and when the music kicks in, everyone is suddenly awed.

Second, she's got the full vocal fry happening by the end. Her emotional connection to the song is intense and that truly comes across both on the screen and in the Abdi İpekçi Arena. Even if the song is a truly old-school ballad that could be from almost any era, her crumbling yet secretly strong voice melts hearts everywhere. It's a performance that demands full attention and maybe even a little tear.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in the long shot towards the end of the song, there are Cypriot and Turkish flags. And Greek flags. In Istanbul. Speaking from the future of 2024, this what the EBU dream of when they say they're non-political. They mean that people come together regardless of nations and disputes. Calling it non-political is a misnomer. This is highly political and a 16-year old from Kent is responsible for three minutes of unity between people who in the 1970s were at war and boycotting Eurovision because the other party was competing. Eurovision doesn't fix political problems, but shows that it's possible for the political problems to be overcome. Those moments of peace arise spontaneously rather than get forced.

On the night, Lisa's magnificent, magnetic performance took her to fifth on the scoreboard, a result that Cyprus would not equal or exceed until 2018.

As is often the case with young performers, her success didn't lead to a singing career. She tried out for the 4th series of the UK X Factor, but only made the second round. Much more successful was her career in dance. She's an accomplished hip-hop dancer and has performed in the London Palladium and His Majesty's Theatre as a dancer. She later taught dance and now lives in the USA with her family.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 26 - Arlene Wilkes - "This Is Where You Got It From"

Arlene Wilkes is a dancer and occasional singer with Trinidadian roots. She moved to Norway and studied at the prestigious Statens balletthøgskole in Oslo, later forming her own dance company Carte Blanche. There were many roles in stage musicals and small roles on TV. She was also the singer in a band called Coco (not that one) in the 1980s. This lady lives and breathes dance and stage performance. That confidence is front and centre with This Is Where You Got It From. Arlene wants us all to know that whatever pep, vim or fizz we are feeling today - she's the source. The whole thing is reminiscent of an opening song for a character in a stage musical - maybe even the show closer. There are so many lines, gestures and little pieces of acting that you're dying to know what happens next after the song has finished.

Arlene is ebullient. Proud, self-assured and totally in control of the stage, the audience, the band and backing, even the assistant pressing buttons on the playback machine is going to have to answer to her - but that's OK, because Arlene fills everyone listening with the same confidence that she most clearly possess. It's a masterclass in strutting while on top of your particular world.

The song made it though to the Gold Final of Melodi Grand Prix where it was beaten into second place in a fierce four-way contest for the Eurovision place. The MGP producers were impressed enough that she was invited back two years later for MGP 2006.

The songwriters, the team of Claes Andreasson and Torbjörn Wassenius, had other successes. They were regulars of the Scandinavian and Baltic national finals throughout the 2000s, with their biggest triumphs being in Latvia where they were the team behind Pirates of the Sea for Latvia in 2008 and Torbjörn was the lyricist for Latvia's 2007 entry Queta Notte. They must have a flair for the theatrical.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 27 - Enrap-ture - "Weekend (Gotta Work)"

Yes. I'm as surprised as you are. The UK have an entry in my top 30.

2004 was the first year of the post-Jemini deadzone for the UK. That experience chastened the UK like no other - and change was essential. The BBC had finally - after so many years - seen sense and ditched the Radio 2, radio-only semi-final that was essentially a filter to remove anything vaguely interesting that made it into most year's selections. They'd decided to go back to the old school. Regional voting. Making Your Mind Up 2004 had seven regions that collated televotes and delivered a ranking to be scored on a Eurovision-esque points system. To front the voting, they'd got a whole host of BBC familiar faces to give the idea to the public that they were actually trying this year.

It's a shame therefore that, for the most, part the songs they selected weren't great and came from a range of singers that no one knew, and bands made up from actors and actresses who had singing on their CVs. It would appear the whole of the UK music industry saw what happened in 2003 and thought en masse that they weren't going anywhere near Eurovision.

One of those made-up bands was Enrap-ture. They were Kelly Beckett, Mercedes Seecoomar and Stacey Ayana Rasch-Olsen, and this is their one and only song. Stacey and Kelly are (I think) young actresses. Mercedes though is definitely a singer or at least is the only one of the three that I can confirm went on to have a career in the music industry. For 2004, they were in one of the BBCs studios pretending to be TLC.

Like all of the other songs from Making Your Mind Up 2004, the song-writers of Weekend (Gotta Work) are now languishing in anonymity as the Internet has not recorded who they might have been. That luxury was reserved for writers of the winning song. For the most part it's a by-the-numbers girl-band song about hating work and partying all weekend. It's fun and reasonably contemporary high-tempo song that stood out from just about everything else in the selection. It was first on, presumably to lend the final some energy - but that gives Enrap-ture the unenviable title of being the first act to try to remedy the UK's Jemini legacy.

They came fourth. Out of six songs. The televoting public of the UK's seven regions played it safe and went with the male ballad and someone who could actually sing. There is a question about how good the performance of Enrap-ture was on the night. The YouTube version above has the studio track dubbing over the actual live show sound, which is never a good sign. However, Weekend feels like a song that could have worked, that was distinctly UK in feels and that might even have got some airplay.

After this, Kelly and Stacy got voice work and small acting roles. Mercedes however reappeared in the late 2010s as singer and rapper performing both under her own name and under the name Iris Gold, or she did until recently as all her social media accounts are now empty.

The UK Eurovision experience of 2004 was decidedly toxic for all involved and I admire those who did at least try to turn the ship around. Weekend is a good and interesting song, demonstrating that there were different directions to head into.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 28 - Athena - "I Love Mud On My Face"

Türkiye and TRT are hosting Eurovision in 2004 after winning for the first time ever the previous year. Who's going to represent the country at their home gig? Why not the biggest rock band in Türkiye, beloved of all Turkish football fans and who have a contemporary and different (for Eurovision sound) that will do well across the continent? Welcome Athena.

The one minor negative about asking Athena to represent them is that it means Şarkı Yarışması has turned into a song selection final for 2004. My least favourite format. In this case I'm not complaining too much as I really like Athena. They've been around since 1987, starting out as a thrash metal band before pivoting to ska-punk in the mid-1990s.

This change of genre confused the Turkish music industry. Thrash metal as one thing, but ska-punk? It's basically unknown in Türkiye so it took a while for their album Holigan to get a release. Confounding received wisdom, the Turkish public loved it, adopting the title track as a football terrace anthem. Athena had made it. In 2000 they supported the Beastie Boys on tour in Germany and headlined the main millennium celebration concert in Taksim Square in Istanbul. This is all before Eurovision - Athena are big. Big in a way many Eurovision acts aren't.

I Love Mud On My Face is one of the three songs they submitted to Şarkı Yarışması for their Eurovision appearance. It's authentic to their sound, and indeed their genre. It sounds closer to the original ska-punk of the 70s and early 80s and the mid-90s Britpop ska influenced bands than the ongoing mainstream skater-punk sound. It's hugely refreshing, bringing to mind outdoor concerts in the light drizzle of a cloudy summer day. It's fun, fast and very much in your face.

Of the three songs, this fared the worst, finishing last a significant distance behind the winner. What else are Athena going to put forward? Maybe we'll find out shortly...

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 29 - Rebecca - "1000 and One Nights"

2003 saw the first season of the Pop Idol franchise go to air in Norway. One year later and an alumna has made it onto MGP. Rebecca Ludvigsen may have only finished fourth in Idol 2003, but she's been chosen for a song by a group of Brits having a crack at this Eurovision thing.

Rebecca is a practicing Christian from Trondheim who spent some time in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a child. Beyond that I do not know much about her past or how she came to be pursuing a singing career on Norwegian TV.

1000 and One Nights is a song by writers who clearly looked at what won Eurovision 2003 and thought - let's do something almost exactly the same as that. It's full of eastern strings sawing microtonally in giddying swoops around the verses and chorus. The lyrical reference to the Arabian Nights serves to emphasis the Middle Eastern flavour. It does what it does well. This is the era of the girl bop and this is most definitely that. As a song, the only thing against it is the inevitable comparison to Everyway That I Can

The two strange things here are what's it doing in Norway and what's Rebecca doing singing it? Rebecca surely can sing. Her high and slightly nasal vocal tone actually suits the song. However, she's wearing a very conservative black dress garnered with a cross. She's mostly static - the choreography is around her, rarely including her. Her character and the song do not fit. This is a song that, if it gets to Eurovision, is surely going to involve not wearing much in front of a huge audience.

As to why this is at MGP - I don't know. The songwriters are from the UK and don't have a Eurovision or MGP pedigree, or indeed any connection to Norway that I can discover. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this is all the work of Rebecca's label/management trying to push her further into the limelight after he success of the previous year.

It didn't quite work. This year MGP had succumbed to the superfinal plague - of in this case a 'Gold Final'. Rebecca finished third in the first round comfortably making it through. However, in that Gold Final, she came last with the public votes, some way behind the winner. It was not to be.

After MGP, Rebecca released no more music and was not seen on any more TV talent shows or singing competitions. She did record more music (see below), however it seems that her religious life came to the floor. Musically she was singing with a gospel choir in 2012. Later she went back to Africa, as a charity worker in Uganda. The one other song by her that I've found is this, Rescue Me on her own YouTube channel

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 30 - Kerli Kõiv - "Beautiful Inside"

This is not Kerli's first appearance in my top lists - she made it in last year. It is however her first appearance in her native Estonia. Eurolaul 2004 had several Estonian favourites appearing, including Kerli. The competition would be tough.

Beautiful Inside is a marked contrast with Kerli's song at Melodifestivlen in 2003. That was a Spice-Girls-lite bop about a girl and her attitude. It was upbeat and fun with Kerli smiling her way through it. This is a downbeat, grungy, rockier number with Kerli trying to fend off negativity both from outside and from within. Kerli wants the world around her to leave her alone so that she can recover her calm, and at least some positivity.

It's a desperate, moody plea for control of her own thoughts. Although this style of girl rock was increasingly common in the charts all over Europe (and had been for a few years), this was not a genre of music, or a subject for a song that had any presence on the Eurovision stage. Grunge-pop was almost the antithesis of Eurovision. Dull not flamboyant. Introspective not extrovert. Downbeat not celebratory. Yet there is no denying that Kerli and Beautiful Inside fit with Eurolaul and with non-Eurovision mood of the moment.

It struck a chord with the Estonian public. It beat all of the songs from equally big name stars, perhaps because of its authenticity and representation of a whole group of music fans normally excluded from the Eurovision bubble. But it wasn't enough. It finished second, some distance behind something a whole lot folkier and Eurovision compliant.

There was another first going on here. Beautiful Inside was the debut of Timo Vendt as a song-writer at Eurolaul. He's a saxophonist and producer, now turning his hands to composing. He would go on to write two Eurovision entries for Estonia, including one that is not only one of Estonia's most celebrated entries ever, but is vastly different in style, genre and subject matter to Beautiful Inside.

Kerli, of course, would try again. At this point, she's in a career low. The money is running out and when not performing at Eurolaul, she's living in Sweden in an abandoned house, living off rice and sleeping on a camp bed. Better things would lie ahead, but for now Kerli is bit of a dark place.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 31 - Pay TV - "Trendy Discothèque"

When is a Melfest entry a song and when is it an art project?

Pay TV are the brainchild of husband and wife team Håkan and Ulrika Libdo. He is a producer of electronica who has had a remarkable number of aliases, while Ulrika is a children's book author, journalist and now song-writer. I don't know when they got the idea to form a band and enter Melfest with one of the campest electronic pop songs you can imagine, but here we are.

Pay TV, the band are three students of the Gothenburg Balettakademien and at least two of them appeared in the Swedish production of Rent between 2002 and 2003. Their names are Claudia Cash, Neena Fatale and Chanelle Ferarri. Or rather Anna Wilding, Thérèse Andersson, and Fatima Edell. Outside of musical theatre, none are known for their singing.

Trendy Discothèque is a joke song. A pastiche, albeit one with a full-on pulsing 80s synth heart. This is a song that wants to be there in the early 1980s, at the Blitz club in London even as they make fun of it with a distinctly Swedish sense of humour. Underneath the shallowness and rigidity of the sarcasm, there's something compulsive. That instrumental is simple but utterly addictive.

That is probably why that although this failed to make it out of its Melfest heat (sixth out the eight songs), it went on to be a huge hit in gay clubs throughout Sweden to the point where Pay TV were invited back to Melfest in 2005 for another go. The band lasted not much longer than their second appearance, having probably been put together by Håkan and Ulrika with this first appearance in mind only.

After this all three band members went on to acting careers both on stage and on the TV screen. Thérèse Andersson even had another solo attempt at Melfest in 2008 under her own name. Producer Håkan has been involved in hundreds of releases under almost as many different pseudonyms as well as being the brains behind another musical art project. He invited several music critics to write reviews for songs that didn't actually exist. He then got musicians to write and perform songs based on those reviews. The album, Jävla kritiker! (Damn Critics!) was released in 2006.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 32 - Sofie Van Moll - "Kerosene"

Sofie Van Moll has a Dutch Wikipedia entry that begins like a fairytale. At the age of 13 Sofie left Leuven with only a suitcase... Luckily she found herself in drama school. In 2004, she's still at that drama school in Maastricht. She's also a presenter on Belgian TV station Ketnet and tours with a band associated with that station, the Ketnet Band. Sofie can sing.

With this young music and TV career, she became one of the faces of Eurosong 2004 with a song written by Piet Van Den Heuvel - songwriter and former rocker himself. He had three songs in the 2004 competition that achieved a variety of results. Sofie was in the second heat.

Kerosene is rock number that keeps it under control. Despite Sofie telling us that she's pouring accelerants on the fire, and that the flames are licking around her feet as she takes all manner of risks, the song itself holds back - perhaps too much. It doesn't really take off, though Sofie tries her best with wide, determined and reckless eyes at the camera. Her voice is good and suited to this type of song and I would have loved for her to be able to really let go with it. Despite this musical reticence, it's good to have a melodic rock number sung well and with interest. 2004 seems to be the year when this genre of music was coming to the forefront of the national finals.

The radio juries loved Kerosene. They put it clear out in front of Heat 2, with almost double the points of the runner up. However the more traditional jury and the televote weren't as enthusiastic. They both favoured the same two other songs and Sofie was left marooned in third place - not good enough to earn a place in the finals.

Sofie's post-Eurosong career left music behind, though she still sang with a band called The Expendables (of whom I can find no information). She focused both on her TV presenting work and increasingly as an actor, but after 2014 left her role in front of the cameras. She coached some of Belgium's aspiring Junior Eurovision candidates and trained as a drama therapist.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 33 - Wonderwall - "Silent Tears"

Number 33 in my lists is often the position occupied by a song that might have done better if only it hadn't met a stronger song in the bracket at exactly the wrong moment. That's the case here with Silent Tears, which came up against a certain Balkan ballad leaving it marooned outside the top 20 placing it surely deserved.

Wonderwall are a band which formed at school and with a strong identity that briefly became modish. They write all their own songs and had major success in 2002 with their debut album Witchcraft, hitting number four in the German charts. They remained on the chart for 31 weeks. At that point, they were a three-piece consisting of Jule Beck, Kati Schauer and Ela Paul who had been writing songs and singing together since meeting at ballet school at the age of twelve.

Their 2002 album was driven by savvy marketing - a song from it was used on the soap opera Marienhof. That association drove soap opera fans to records stores. By 2004 their star was waning Jule had left the band leaving Kati and Ela alone. Their second album hadn't done nearly as well. Time for the national final appearance.

Silent Tears is a remarkably gentle and soft ballad with core of deep sorrow and trauma. Kati and Ela's voices work beautifully together as you might expect for a pair who'd been harmonising for most of their lives. The verses especially are filled with delicacy and unexpected melodic twists and turns.

The folkiness and tragedy of the song is far, far away from the direction that Eurovision was going in 2004 and for Germany to have selected it would have been a brave choice to go against the flow. There was also another song in the German selection final Germany 12 Point! that was the clear public favourite, so Silent Tears truly didn't stand a chance. It failed to made the second round sing-off between the top two televoted acts.

There was one more album and a couple more singles after this, but with no success the band split up in 2005. They continued with separate projects and further education. Ela tried to reform the band after 2008 but again with little success. However, Ela and Kati did work together again on music. They recorded audio books for the immensely popular and very German book series Freche Mädchen – Freche Bücher (Naughty Girls - Naughty Books), aimed at teenage girls taking on the voices of characters in the series. They also wrote and performed new music as part of this project.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 34 - Rožmarinke - "Kliše"

Back (again) to EMA and something radical. Radically wordless. Rožmarinke (Rosemary in Slovenian) are a string trio of violin, viola and cello. Shortly after this performance they became a full string quartet. They specialise in pop-classical pieces outside the normal repertoire for a string quartet. What they don't do is sing. Kliše (Cliché) is purely instrumental and the EBU rules for Eurovision state that it is a song contest. Entries must have lyrics and be sung. If Kliše had won EMA this year, it would have been a Norway 1995 situation. Words would be needed at short notice.

Using the sound of a lighter being flipped and lit as a rhythmic sample, Kliše is a moody piece. It brings to mind film noir, trilby hats and overcoats, shadows and clandestine meetings. There's drama and tension throughout as Tina Mozetič, Katja Krajnik and Petra Gačnik Greblo demonstrate a variety of string-playing techniques. They saw, swoop and pluck their way down alleyways conjured into existence solely by bows and catgut.

The song is written by Boris Benko. He is someone from a musical sphere a distance away from classical music, but much closer to the mood of this song. His main band is Silence. They produce dark and moody landscapes from synths, pianos, and yes, strings. On their 2003 album Maison des Rendez-vous, Katja Krajnik contributed her viola playing which is presumably where the link was made.

After leading Silence (and this performance), Boris Benko became a part-time member of the band that is perhaps Slovenia's most notorious (and influential) musical export - Laibach. One of the influences on Rammstein and with an aesthetic that played with ideas of totalitarianism and nationalism without ever stating their position on those ideas - much to the consternation of both the government of former Yugoslavia and their own fans.

At EMA 2004, Rožmarinke scraped through their heat in third place, snatching the last televoting qualification spot by less than 1000 votes. The final was a different story. Here there was a jury as well as a televote and the EMA jury placed them in first position. That easily got them through to the superfinal. The Slovenian delegation might have been panicking a little with this non-rule compliant instrumental piece potentially going to Eurovision. Luckily for them Rožmarinke weren't quite as popular with the voting public. They finished second to a clear winner.

The quartet stuck together for another couple of year's after this and recorded similar pieces as well as performing at other Slovenia music festivals. Thereafter they went back to their careers as sting players, orchestral work and other musical ensembles.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 35 - Alex - "I'm Still Alive"

Krajowe Eliminacje, Poland's national final is in its second year in 2004 and it's already got a distinctive flavour as well as a professional approach. TVP favour rockier and more alternative entries and do manage to attract some of Poland's bigger names to compete.

A new face this year is Alex aka Ala aka Alicja Janosz. She won the 2002 Polish edition of the Pop Idol franchise and then went on to be the Polish representative in the one-off World Idol competition. There she sang against Kelly Clarkson and Guy Sebastian. She is no stranger to international singing competitions! By 2004, she's released a successful debut album and is trying to get into Eurovision.

I'm Still Alive is one of the first cases of a national final song being written by a team of Swedes. In this case a group of rockers with a history in Swedish bands including Leif Sundin a man lauded by Jimmy Page but who also wrote songs for Swedish teen band A-Teens. Alex's sound is late 90s/early 00s transatlantic alt-rock with a skater-girl vibe. The song is a vigorous tale of relationship survival from a woman who's careless with her car keys.

This genre of music hasn't been represented so much at Eurovision itself. However it's just past its contemporary peak, it's becoming more popular in national finals, and for Krajowe Eliminacje especially, this just fits right in. It did well - although the competition was strong in 2004, Alex finished fourth of the fifteen songs. Just left out of a tight three-way battle for the win. She later donated the song and it's copyrights to UNHCR for their charity album Voyces United

What followed this seems to have been a disagreement between her and her record label. Apart from appearances at festivals and collaborations with other artists, there was no recorded output from Alex despite her popularity. It wasn't until 2011 and a split from her record label that another Alicija released another album. Four more have followed with the most recent in 2023. The past decade has seen her make up for lost time.

Here she is singing Friend with Jarek Krużołek in 2023.

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Eurovision 2004 - Number 36 - Kristina Oberzan - "Mavrica"

Kristina Oberžan is an unlikely singer to have performed at EMA. She's a saxophonist and jazz singer from Krasinec who in 2004 is part-way through a course in Berklee College of Music in Boston in the USA. For this year's EMA she's be recruited to sing a song by Milan Ferlež - guitarist and tamburitza player, and long time musician in the Slovenian jazz scene.

He'd already written one song for a Eurovision candidate... ...in 1976. He was credited as the writer of Šepet poletnih trav (Whisper of Summer Grasses) for Oto Pestner at the Opatja Festival that served as Yugoslavia's selection final in that year. That is the only Eurovision or national final experience that anyone on this song has.

So what is this song? Mavrica (A Rainbow) is a mellow dalliance that kicks off with a gentle flute and rhythms from bongos and maracas. There's a guitar (possibly Milan) and a bowed bass and a soft trumpet and a string section. This is the smoothest of jazz from the most laid back jazz orchestra you can imagine. It's so relaxed, it's almost Portuguese. That smoothness hides all sorts of intricacies and embellishments over which Kristina's voice drifts in no hurry. She only wants to take in the rainbow and it's making her happy.

There have been other jazz songs at national finals in the past, but I can't remember one that's in this style. Even though Kristina is the credited artist, this is much more of a jazz ensemble to which all of the players contributes a line woven through the whole. You can listen to this multiple times and follow what one instrument is doing and find something new.

Even though this is so out of the expected envelope when it comes to national finals, it still managed to garner enough televotes to finish fourth in its heat. This year the top three made it through to the final with the jury able to select their favourite from the remaining entrants. You might have expected a jury to go for this given the musicianship on display, but no. They left it in the semi-final and thus the only YouTube record of it is a still of a pixelated mug rather than video.

That is a missed opportunity. If you've read any more of my picks from the previous years, you'll know that I value variety in a national final almost above everything else, and Mavrica gives that. There is nothing else like it.

Experiment over, Kristina finished her studies and went on to have a career with several other bands. She has given many performances at festivals and on stages with big bands, jazz bands and even rock bands on occasion. One of her bands was called Yellow, Green and More which is one of the best band names in this, a year of amazing band names throughout the national finals.

She continues to sing, in fact here's a performance of hers from less than a month ago at the time of writing. Kristina Oberžan sings Molitva za Magdalenu

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 37 - Yanah - "Yes Or No"

Another year, another nascent pop career at the Belgian Eurosong. This is Yanah, aka Natalie Vangronsvelt, and Yes or No is the lead single from her debut album The Girl in the Picture (out in 2004 in all good Belgian record stores). The album cover shows Yanah holding something bouzouki-like. The rest of the album is full of songs with Indian and Cuban influences with the title of the album coming from the famous picture of the young Phan Thi Kim Phuc, screaming, napalm burned and naked, running from the Vietnam War.

Somehow all of that leads to Yes or No, which is a conventional Western pop-rock song with Yanah wanting some commitment from her wavering partner. There some red, alt-punk grungy guitars, an American accent, and a red-leather jacket. Yanah is trying to be Avril Lavigne. It's fun, spiky and a little bit breathless. Her record company clearly saw this is a promotional opportunity for the album - even if this song doesn't really fit with the rest of the songs on it.

The voting reflected how this was received nicely. The jury didn't like, putting it second last in the heat. For once, the televote agreed with them. However the radio juries liked it a lot, putting in a tie for second-place. Radio-friendliness is all over the sound of this. The song was written by Yanah alongside Eric Geurts who is a song-writer and producer. Eric had his name everywhere on Yanah's debut album. He'd tried to launch girl-pop duo Indiana five years previously without success and in Yanah he's found a new front-girl for his musical ambitions.

Unfortunately for both him and for Yanah, the public didn't take to her or the album. This is a one-off appearance for her at Eurosong and after 2004, there was no more recorded musical output either from her or with Eric's name on it. Maybe the incongruity of the pop tracks and the more ethnic-oriented songs put off potential fans. After 2004 there's little not no trace of Yanah/Natalie. Eric Geurts still runs Flying Snowman Records and studio focussing mainly on production. There is no mention of Yanah on any of his websites or social media.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 38 - Mira - "Reason"

In contrast to Dan Lăzărică, Mira is not a singer that I thought I'd seen before or since at a national final. Given her mononym making researching her slightly more tricky, that thought took a while to dispel. But I have seen her before. In fact she's been in my top lists previously. Sort of. She was in the stacked Finnish national final Euroviisut 2000.

Mira Hillberg and her sister made up the band Sisterhood who I put in my more interesting entries compilation for 2000. If I'd been doing top 64s for the year, they'd have snuck in too. Mira had a short pop career in the mid 1990s, releasing a couple of albums and ten singles from 1993 onwards. She's also appeared as a backing singer for Nylon Beat.

Reason therefore comes towards the end of a ten-year career for Mira seeking mainstream pop success. It's a gentle pop song about looking for a way forward. Apt. It's largely drama-free, melodic, easy pop for sunny days. There're some synth strings in the bridge to try to give it more oomph, but oomph isn't what this song wants to have. It wants you to be calm. In that it succeeds.

It was written by Jussi-Pekka (J-P.) Järvinen who had written one other song for the Finnish national final - in 2002 for Shiedi - who was also backed by Mira. J-P. then got lucky in 2005 and ended up writing the lyrics for Russia's Eurovision entry that year.

Alas for Mira and J-P., Reason as a little too unchallenging for Euroviisut 2004. It came tenth and last in its semi-final, putting an end to Mira's Eurovision dreams for good. Somehow though, this little doodle of a song about leaving the past behind and changing your life wormed its way into my memory and refused to leave. That chorus, soothing as it is has some secret hooks in it. You have been warned.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 39 - Slobodan River - "Surrounded"

They're back - the Ur band of Estonian Eurovision. After last year's experimentation with a televote at Eurolaul, ETV have flipped entirely and this year's competition is 100% televoted. Maybe the outcome of that advisory televote last year was chastening...

You would expect a band as big as well-known in Estonia as Slobodan River to benefit from that, but they are up against a couple of other big names in the competition, so they need a big song.

They've gone with Surrounded, a song about the final straw and telling him just get out. No more lines, excuses or threats, get out. There's an undercurrent of violence both in what lead singer Ithaka Maria has experienced and in what she'll do if her partner doesn't comply with her demand. The song is melodic pop-rock with alternative slant, and given the lyrics, is somewhat non-angry. It's a sing along fun song with an upbeat lilt.

This is all a bit Abba in fact. Even more so because Ithaka Maria and guitarist Tomi Rahula have been married for a while. In fact they've been a couple since she was 13 and he was 16 at high school in 1993. The band was formed with them at the centre with Maria writing many of the songs - this is one of hers. Slobodan River in 2004 are actually having their best year with their album (also called Surrounded) yielding many singles that got to the upper ends of the Estonian charts.

The band split two years later in 2006. Maria and Tomi divorced five years later in 2011. They all went on to much national success in different arenas (as I outlined in for their 2003 song What a Day). That makes this the last time that Slobodan River appeared together in the Estonian national final, but they'd all be back again either solo, as song-writers, in other bands or even as the producer for the entire show! I have no doubt that this blog bit will be linked to many times in the future.