| Eurovision Song Contest News - Germany 2011 

Phantom MJ

I first started watching the ESC in 2006, but i've started following it properly since 2008. Being English, i support the UK in the contest, and i'll be the first to admit that in recent years we really haven't taken this contest seriously. Hopefully after 2009's result and the much fairer voting system, we can once again bring the contest back to Britain for the first time since 1998.

Dublin 1997 would have to be my absolute favourite contest. Obviously you would think that the fact the UK won that year would play some part in this, but in all honesty i still would have thought of this contest as the best ever, regardless of the UK's placing back then. Why is it my favourite you ask? Well, to put it simply, there's not one song that year that i didn't like! (and the stage was way ahead of it's time).

As for the best ESC song ever, well that's a very tricky question to answer. Europe is the most diverse continent in the entire World, from Iceland to Azerbaijan and from Portugal to Finland. Also, it's hard to compare the winning song of 1956 with the winning song from, for example, 2006. Times have changed and so have tastes in music. In addition to this, there are so many different genres that are represented at eurovision from traditional ballads to up-tempo europop.

Taking this all into account, if i had to select one song that i thought was the absolute best, right now, i'd probably go for the 2007 winning entry from Serbia, Molitva (yes, i'm a sucker for a great traditional Balkan ballad!). Just the entire performance summed it up for me; simple, yet, incredible at the same time. It completely deserved to win that year in my opinion.

Since i'm fairly new to the contest, i've only seen all ESC entries as far back as 1994 and i don't plan on going back any further. Any other songs i've watched from before that time have only been the noteworthy ones i.e. the winners and other notable performances.


MY ESC WINNERS: 1994 - 2010

1994: RUSSIA - YOUDDIPH - VYECHNIY STRANIK

1995: SPAIN - ANABEL CONDE - VUELVE CONMIGO

1996: UNITED KINGDOM - GINA G - OOH, AH...JUST A LITTLE BIT

1997: IRELAND - MARC ROBERTS - MYSTERIOUS WOMAN

1998: NETHERLANDS - EDSILIA - HEMEL EN AARDE

1999: CROATIA - DORIS DRAGOVIC - MARIA MAGDALENA

2000: SWEDEN - ROGER PONTARE - WHEN SPIRITS ARE CALLING MY NAME

2001: FRANCE - NATASHA St. PIER - JE N'AI QUE MON AME

2002: FRANCE - SANDRINE FRANCOIS - IL FAUT DU TEMPS

2003: SPAIN - BETH - DIME

2004: SERBIA&MONTENEGRO - ZELJKO JOKSIMOVIC - LANE MOJE

2005: NORWAY - WIG WAM - IN MY DREAMS

2006: ROMANIA - MIHAI TRAISTARIU - TORNERO

2007: SERBIA - MARIJA SERIFOVIC - MOLITVA

2008: PORTUGAL - VANIA FERNANDES - SENHORA DO MAR

2009: TURKEY - HADISE - DUM TEK TEK

2010: ISRAEL - HAREL SKAAT - MILIM