It’s been a month since we launched #allkindsofESC, a project in which we share various Eurovision-related trivia from over the years. Let’s see what we learned this month. Continue reading “All Kinds of ESC: September 2021 Recap”
Author: Kalvin Lindfors
Uncovering the 1956 Grand Prix
The very first Eurovision Song Contest, held in Lugano in 1956, holds many mysteries to the modern Eurofan. As it was the inaugural edition, it is possible that the organisers did not bother to keep a recording of the show, as they were unaware of what the contest would become. Even the voting results are unknown, and the placings of each entry (bar the winner) have become lost to time. Other than an audiotape of the contest, the only recording we have is a two-minute video clip of the show.
Until now. Recently, a five-minute clip of the full winner’s reprise has begun to circulate on the internet, uncovering a previously unknown incident that occurred. Delving further, we have also been able to find photographs from the live show as well as rehearsals for the big night. These pictures give us a glimpse of what television viewers may have seen when the contest aired in 1956.
We share our findings below.
Introducing All Kinds of ESC!
For those of you following us on Twitter, you may be familiar with our now-frequent posts in which we present bits of trivia regarding all that has to do with the Eurovision Song Contest, including behind-the-scenes moments and tidbits from the national finals.
It has received a lot of positive interaction and we’d like to continue doing this. Therefore, this month, we are formalizing this by launching All Kinds of ESC! This project will be a space to capture the myriad of bite-sized Eurovision-related trivia.
Our tweeting activity will continue as usual, but periodically (we are aiming for once a month), we will post a compilation of our trivia tweets here on the blog, as an archive.
Thank you for being part of our journey and we look forward to sharing more of these fun facts with you!
P.S. In case you were curious, here are all the references made in the cover art:
Congratulations and celebrations! The story of a match made at Eurovision
Love is in the air, and at the Eurovision Song Contest, love songs have always had their presence in the contest. Throughout the years, we have heard various entries discuss virtually every aspect of romantic love that one can imagine, from love at first sight to the end of a relationship.
But perhaps what’s more interesting than the songs themselves are the stories behind them. As far as we know, Eurovision has been an integral element of the love stories of quite a few couples throughout the years. The 2008 hosts, Željko Joksimović and Jovana Janković, began dating shortly after the contest and married a few years later. Prominent songwriter Borislav Milanov met his future wife Tamara Gachechiladze at the 2017 contest, where she was competing for Georgia.
In this article, we will look at the love story of another match made at Eurovision: Phil Coulter and Geraldine Brannigan.
Continue reading “Congratulations and celebrations! The story of a match made at Eurovision”
A Song for Everyone: Most popular entries by year
This is an instalment of the A Song for Everyone series.
In our most recent post, we got to see the most popular and least popular Eurovision entries as indicated by fans. But with the large amount of data we have, the project does not stop there.
Here’s a reminder of the format of the project:
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.
Below, we will look at what the most-liked songs from each year are, as voted by the 56 participants in the project.
Continue reading “A Song for Everyone: Most popular entries by year”
A Song for Everyone: Which songs have the most fans? Which songs have no fans?
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.
Continue reading “A Song for Everyone: Which songs have the most fans? Which songs have no fans?”
Is there a Eurovision song that no one likes? Introducing: A Song for Everyone
Recently, I saw someone ask whether there was a Eurovision entry that is genuinely disliked by everyone within the Eurovision community. Some people put forth suggestions, but others came out to say that they, in fact, liked those entries.
When you think of it, in order to make it to the contest in the first place, a broadcaster needs to approve of the song before giving it the ticket. That is the bare minimum, particularly in the case of an internal selection. When a national final is held, the national final organisers need to approve of the song, and then voters decide that it is qualified. Thus, it might be hard to imagine that such a song exists.
Yet at the same time, there are many songs that don’t seem to get much love within ESC fan circles. They are hardly ever talked about, and often fail to score any votes in the annual ESC250 countdown.
So here’s a project that asks an inverse question: Is every Eurovision entry liked by at least one person?
Continue reading “Is there a Eurovision song that no one likes? Introducing: A Song for Everyone”
ICYMI: I’m Sorry, Points! Results
In case you missed it, the results show for I’m Sorry, Points! was held on Monday, October 5th 2020 on Twitter. Catch up here:
I’m Sorry, Points: Voting in the Grand Final is now open!
Inspired by the infamous line uttered by ESC host Bar Refaeli during the 2019 voting sequence, I’m Sorry, Points! is a second chance style competition for all the Eurovision entries throughout the years that have failed to accumulate a single point during the voting. Of all 38 ‘nul-pointers’ that competed in the semifinals, 22 have qualified and are one step closer to getting the justice they deserve… if you still think they deserve it, that is.
Continue reading “I’m Sorry, Points: Voting in the Grand Final is now open!”
I’m Sorry, Points: Voting in the semifinals is now open!
Inspired by the infamous line uttered by ESC host Bar Refaeli during the 2019 voting sequence, I’m Sorry, Points! is a second chance style competition for all the Eurovision entries throughout the years that have failed to accumulate a single point during the voting. All 38 ‘nul pointers’ will get a chance to get the justice they deserve… if you think they deserve it, that is.
Continue reading “I’m Sorry, Points: Voting in the semifinals is now open!”