Eurovision Special

I wanted to feature some of my favourite Eurovision performances to mark this year's competition which is taking place in Oslo tonight. The problem is that 99% of them are dreadful, so it doesn't leave you many to choose from.

So - with apologies to those of you who sat through this last time - here are the same three as I featured last year. Once you have seen them I'm sure you will agree they are all well worth repeating, which is which I am providing downloads of each of them as well.

We start with one of the countries that are among the favourites to win tonight: Iceland. I think some will vote for them in the belief that the expense of having to host Eurovision next year would completely finish off its weakened economy, and that this would be suitable payback for the bloody volcano.

Back in 2006 the Icelandic entry was a "statement" by a character called Silvia Night. For the full story, and some extravagant swearing, see last year's post. Despite all the kerfuffle, the song itself is really rather catchy

"Congratulations" - Silvia Night (Iceland 2006)



Next we go to 2008. The song itself is quite interesting, in a post-rock sort of way (did I get that right Mr F?) but it is the choreography that makes this memorable. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, completely bonkers.

"Pokusaj" - Laka (Bosnia & Herzegovina 2008)



But as good as those two are, for me there can only really be one winner.

"Boonika Bate Doba" - Zdob Si Zdub (Moldova 2005)



I haven't seen most of this year's entries so I am not going to make any predictions but, in an attempt to persuade you that Eurovision can be a hotbed of musical innovation, here is the Slovenian effort. In its own way it is as ground-breaking as when Aerosmith and Run DMC teamed up on "Walk This Way". Scandalously, it went out at the semi-final stage.

"Narodnozabavni Rock" - Ansambel Zlindra & Kalamari (Slovenia 2010)