Last month, we launched A Song for Everyone, a project in which we aimed to find out whether every single Eurovision entry in history has its fans. To achieve this, we opened a form that listed every single Eurovision entry (including entries from 1993, 1996, and 2020 that never saw the ESC stage). Respondents were asked to select each entry that they liked. Unlike other projects that aim to measure the popularity of entries, a points system was not in place and respondents were free to select as many entries as they wanted.
By the time the form closed on December 12th, we received 56 respondents. In the weeks that passed, we took the time to look at the data. We will share our findings over the course of a few articles, since there is so much data. Consider this the first article of the series.
After 56 respondents, we have found a fan for every single Eurovision entry… except for two. We also found that some entries get much more love than others, and we will look at that below.
Anyway, here are the results.
Which songs do not have any fans?
Within the first 24 hours, the vast majority of entries had already been matched with someone who likes them. A few more gradually found its fans as time passed. However, two entries were blanked by all 56 respondents.
Although Un baiser volé (Luxembourg 1991) and When You Need Me (Ireland 1999) failed to gain any interest from the 56 respondents, the years of the two respective songs were shown during #EurovisionAgain. According to the voting results from the 1991 re-watch, Luxembourg received 1204 points, coming 20th ahead of Germany and Austria. The results from the 1999 show reveal that Ireland received 951 points, coming 22nd ahead of Poland.
This shows that, even though these songs aren’t liked by any of the respondents, that doesn’t mean that they are universally disliked by Eurovision fans. With such a small sample, we acknowledge that this does not represent the Eurovision fandom as a whole.
Which songs only have one fan each?
The four songs that have exactly one respondent liking them are Kom sol, kom regn (Norway 1962), Nous vivrons d’amour (Luxembourg 1968), Nu pleca (Romania 1993), and Nomads in the Night (Lithuania 2008). Notably, Nu pleca did not qualify from Kvalifikacija za Milstreet and therefore did not reach the Eurovision stage at all.
Nomads in the Night is evidently the 21st century entry with the smallest amount of fans. Due to so-called “recency bias”, it was not surprising to see that the entries with the least amount of love tended to be older entries, though not necessarily the oldest.
Now that we know which entries have the least fans, let’s look at the other side of the spectrum.
Which songs have the most fans?
There seem to be a few songs that are always voted as favourites of the Eurovision fan community. For example, Euphoria (Sweden 2012) has won the annual ESC250 vote for 8 years in a row. Other classics such as Nel blu dipinto di blu (Italy 1958) and Ne partez pas sans moi (Switzerland 1988) are frequently mentioned year after year. Events such as #EurovisionAgain have also allowed the popularity of certain songs to be validated quantitatively.
Despite a small sample size, the data seems to reaffirm the popularity of those entries, although not necessarily in the order that one may expect. Out of 1500+ Eurovision entries, only 31 of them are liked by more than 75% of respondents.
A total of 10 entries tied for 22nd place, being liked by 43 respondents each (or slightly higher than 75%). Ties were broken in favour of less recent songs and entries that placed lower, in that order.
Curiously, Euphoria is one of the songs in this point of the ranking. Perhaps part of the reason it does not appear to be as popular as it has been elsewhere is because of the different metrics used to measure popularity. Whereas ESC250 asks people to vote Eurovision-style, in here each “vote” for every song has equal value. This means that one’s all-time favourite will get the same amount of support as one’s 50th favourite song.
Moving up, we see that a handful of entries had 1-2 more fans than the previous. This section includes a few 20th-century classics as well as more recent hits. Curiously, the most recent winner Arcade is shown to not have the largest amount of fans, despite still being fresh in the minds of Eurofans. Also appearing is Love Shine a Light — could it have experienced a boost of popularity due to the EBU’s Europe Shine a Light programme?
Finally, let’s look at the top 8 Eurovision entries with the most fans:
Surprisingly or not, If Love was a Crime takes the lead. Bulgaria’s 2016 entry is the only song to be liked by more than 90% of respondents. Serbia’s 2007 entry, Molitva, is the most popular winning song.
Iceland’s 2020 entry takes third place. Due to its popularity, Think About Things is considered by many to have won Eurovision had the contest taken place. Ahead of the ESC250 reveal tomorrow, will this mean it will come 2nd to Euphoria? Or does it have what it takes to overthrow the reigning champion?
Stay tuned for more!
In the coming weeks, we will share more data from this project. Thank you for everyone who participated in the poll. Thanks as well to you who have made it this far in the article. Please stay tuned for the next instalment of this series!
(Cover photo: EBU/Andres Putting)