Dimivision

The victory of squeeky little Gigliola brought the contest for the first time to Italy, thankfully in an era were nobody had yet heard of Toto Cutugno and so the evening went along smoothly. Pop music had started to surface and being a platform for contemporary music ESC would soon start to see the first symptoms of the future of music. Thank. God.Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1965: An invasion of women”

It took me a couple of minutes and a quick read in one of my Eurovision books to realise that there doesn’t seem to exist a visual record of the 1964 contest. Booh! Quite difficult to judge this one without some images to distract me from the frompy old styles to be heard, how old skool. Quite easy to find the winner however!Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1964: Euro without Vision”

As all of the top three countries from 1962 kindly declined (rude!) the organisation of the 1963 contest it fell into the lap of Auntie Beeb who was all too keen to show off her new television studios at Shepherd’s Bush. She did it in a most peculiar way, which resulted in what is likely to be the most bizarre ESC in history. Accompanied by the most talked about voting scandal in the age before Malta.Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1963: Probably the weirdest one of all”

The curve of Eurovision seems to hold a lot of ups and downs, because after the up that was 1961 we were sadly disappointed by the 1962 contest. Even though a couple of trademark Eurovision trends start to pop up to never leave again there is very little to set our spirits on fire. Except for a couple of delightfully crazy women from the dark, cold north that is.Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1962: Ringelingdingeling the tipi”

Thanks to the illustre mr. Tom Pillibi the Contest returned to the glamour soaked Cannes, again hosted by the charming Jacqueline Joubert. A promising prospect as the first edition in the French metropole was the one that stood out those first years, and with the new family members Spain, Yugoslavia and Finland things promised to shift up a gear. Finally.Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1961: Yes, I’m sure.”

After the light hearted 1959 I was hoping for something equally charming in 1960, but I was disappointed soon enough. Despite the eternal sunshine that is Katie Boyle, oozing the class and style that only the British can establish, the 1960 contest is sadly one to classify without much ado.Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1960: A year to classify vertically.”

With the huge success that was Volare the future of Eurovision looked mighty bright and I’m not sure it was entirely a coincidence that the French picked the fantabulous metropole that is Cannes as the venue for the 1959 edition. The element of show started to rear its head, be it in a rather modest way, and the presentation got a slight personal touch as well. A warm people, the French!Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1959: Good vibrations!”

With those first two snoozers of contests Eurovision needed something to make it stay afloat because its relevance hadn’t exactly been proven yet. Still, EBU held on firmly to the idea and they would soon be proven right. At this point in time we’ve probably got Italy to thank for the further existence of the contest, for fairly obvious reasons.Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1958: Bad marketing”

Almost a year after its launch the Eurovision Song Contest was back. Despite the lack of popularity of any of the participating songs in that first edition the EBU was determined to make a success of the contest. With the participation of three new countries everyone was allowed only one participating song with a maximum length of 3.5 minutes, which was more a guideline than a rule. But real relevance for the outside world or any connection with the developments in the music industry in those years were sadly not even remotely close.

Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1957: Neither hell nor heaven”

Lugano, 1956. Time and place when all the magic began. Well, not exactly the magic as we know it. And whether it was really magical we’ll never know as there is no visual record of little baby Eurovision Song Contest’s very first cry. Nor is there any proof (at least not any that’s been made public for all to judge) that the eventual winner was in fact the right one. But then again, is there ever a ‘right’ winner?

Continue reading “Eurovision Review – 1956: Let’s start at the very beginning”