This has been a  favorite of ours for a long long time now, and it was an absolute travesty that they did not make it to the final in 2008 while Isis Gee did, she looked like a deep fat fried chip with bleached teeth!. Overall Slovenia finished 11th with 36 points.

Rebeka is a singer, model, fashion designer, actress and TV presenter. She came to fame when she represented Slovenia in Miss Universe 2001, she has her own brand of knickers called “Rebeka’s Dream!”

Perhaps if she didn’t go with the S&M staging and the rollerblading gimps in motorcycle helmets she might have gotten those extra 7 points needed to qualify, but it was loud, poppy, colorful and extremely gay and we love it! But Slovenia don’t let the that deter you, please send in Rebeka again it will be fabulous!

She has recorded several versions of the song, in Slovenian – which was entered into the ESC, in English it is called “Heavy Weather” – even though the song in it’s native language is “To Hell with it”. But by far the best version I have heard is “Kao Stranci” the Croatian version. So enjoy all 3 below, plus enjoy the remix with all 3 together done by a very clever internet person.

Lyrics from Diggiloo Thrush

Seeing as how it is the week that it is playing Leona Daly’s song from 2008 seemed appropriate.

Leona came second to Dustin in the Irish 2008 Eurosong. In the words of Marija Šerifovi? the 2007 winner for Serbia, who was on the commenting panel for RTE on the night, “I like the one in the red dress”, and what better endorsement can you get then the current winner.

Unfortunately Leona and Europe lost out when Dustin was selected solely by public voting, the next year RTE made it 50:50 jury/public voting.

For high energy without added dance beats todays hit comes from the 1995 Eurovision.  Representing Croatia was the joined forces of pop band ‘Magazin’ and opera singer ‘Lidija’ on a song entitled ‘Nostalgia’.  The combined vocal and sheer enthusiasm from the artists helped this song place a very nice 6th.  The video will make you want to go away on holidays to explore some European city and hee hee next week I am, lol.  Enjoy todays hit, its a classic.

Undoubtedly Irelands best entry in years we were all delighted with Sinead Mulvey and Black daisy going to represent us in Moscow. Until they were robbed by coming in 11th place in the second semi final and crappy Croatia got in instead on the jury vote. Don’t worry girls you won in our hearts and we know you would have qualified had the voting system for this year been in it

To say that I love this song is simply an understatement. It is pure fun this is how you make an ethnic song people!!! Much better then some Apricot Stone. I learnt the dance as well, It’s a lot of fun and very Bollywood, if you find the time to do it then I highly recommend it, especially those of ye fresh from the flash mob This was Armenia’s 4th entry to the Eurovision and their worst placing so far, number 10 in the finals it gave the country a fourth successive top ten placing.. Inga and Anush are also known as the Arshakyan Sisters and are popular folk singers in their homeland of Armenia.

0.00 – 0.38 Postcard and some angry sounding Russians.

0.39 The initial Wail!!!

0.50 Bollywood with some hand gestures.

1.04 Those eyes and that bling!

1.35 The chorus and the clones go into action around the stage.

1.50 Bollywood!

2.06 The Twin Towers

2.20 Jan Jan

2.45 Twisty Turny

3.00 Fricken Lazers!

3.18 Key Change and goes more uptempo.

Happy Birthday to Amnesiac and Sheila Fitz To 2 of our contributors, have a great day guys

In honour of awful British crimes against humanity (see Frank’s earlier post) let’s remember the Greatest Crime of All…

And now, why we secretly kind of love, love, love Cry Cry Baby

• 0:00 – The opening strumming of the Spanish guitar is kind of promising…
• 0:10 – But ohoh! The heifers in black parading around do not bode well!
• 0:20 – EUROVISION GOLD! Love, love’s not enough. In some alternative universe, where the laws of Physics are very, verydifferent, Jessica is in tune. And it’s considered acceptable to wear ice skating costumes in public. But look at her face; she knows she bombed.
• 0:22 – Oh dear, Chris is doing some Joe McCaul dancing with the middle aged Scouse backing dancers. I wonder is one his Mum? She must be so proud.
• 0:28 – Ew, she’s going down on her fag. Bad fag-hag. Bad fag-hag! Your cheap fake tan will rub off all over his cheap white shirt!
• 0:33 – Is Chris having a seizure? Maybe he’s some quirky oddball with the voice of an angel to rescue this mess…
• 0:37 – Maybe not…
• 0:50 – Amazingly, she’s gone even further off key!
• 1:00 – Come on! Ooh, it speaks! I bet Chris considers himself butch.
• 1:15 – Remember when all the gays had bleached mullets? The mid naughties were a dark time for Gay Crimes Against Hairstyling.
• 1:20 – The man with the Spanish guitar seems more and more like the banjo player from Deliverance.
• 1:28 – Ok, secretly… I kind of adore the dance routine. It’s British Chav Schlager!
• 1:42 – Oh dear, the three old slappers and the two up front are now singing in five different keys. Harmonizing they ain’t.
• 1:48 – Bye bye baby. Cry cry baby. Bye bye baby. Baby bye bye. The people who wrote this are presumably native English speakers? Dear God…
• 2:00 – She’s going down on the fag again…
• 2:11 – Backing dancers clapping their hands in the air like seals! Not one drunk poof in the auditorium can be bothered to join in! Where were the Schlagerboys???
• 2:14 – COME ON LATVIA! *tumbleweed in the hall*
• 2:25 – Baby Bye Byeeeeeeeeeeee. Worst key change ever! Although the impact is invariably lost when you’ve been wandering in and out of many different keys, some only audible to small Latvian rodents for the past two minutes.
• 2:48 – Does Chris need to pee? That’s what I used to do when I was five years old and needed to go but didn’t want to leave the dancefloor.
• 2:55 – Oh yeah, don’t wanna cry no more. Oooh, it’s getting a bit R’n'B! Chris is urban. He’s relevant.
• 3:02 – Oh, poor, poor Jessica. Look at her wee face! Chris is in seventh heaven (he probably thinks his impromptu dance moves and R’n'B bit at the end went down a treat) but she knows, SHE KNOWS she’s just bought herself a life serving Maccie Dee’s in Merseyside.

So, so bad, but kind of fabulous in its own way.

For today’s hit of the day we are going back to 1999 when Israel last hosted the contest. That year a Swedish singer Charlotte Nilsson wowed Europe with her song “Take me to Your Heaven”. She received full points from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Malta, Norway, United Kingdom and ended the night on 163 points bringing Eurovision back to Sweden. This is one of my favourite winning songs of Eurovision. Its a proper Eurovision entry if you understand me!

Of course Charlotte did re-enter the contest in 2008 as Charlotte Perelli with Hero, who we featured as a hit of the day a few days ago.

Todays hit comes from Slovenia when Nusa Derenda lit up the 2001 Eurovision stage in a yellow and black leather outfit and actually made it work.  The song ‘Energy’ is simply that, an energetic dance song that builds around her voice.  It placed 7th overall which is respectable but deserved a far better placing.  Estonia won that year but can anyone actually remember the song because I drew a blank.  2001 was for me Nusa and Natasha St Pier.  Nusa tried in 2003, 2005 and 2010 to represent her country once more but unfortunately was not chosen.  I didn’t realise she was in this years selection and while I previously liked the quirky Narodno zabavani rock knowing they won at the loss of Nusa puts me off, lol.  Nusa continues to release albums in Slovenia where she has achieved much local success.  Aside from the great Darja Svajger (both entries) she is the best entry Slovenia has sent.

The first Icelandic entry ever was Gleðibankinn or Bank Of Fun in English. In 1986 the wonderful island in the north could sing about banks, these days they are trying to stave off angry airplane companies due to a teeny weeny volcano thingy.

Iceland was finally able to enter this year because they finally got their satellite communications up and running so they could vote live in the final. At the close of voting, it had received 19 points, placing 16th in a field of 20.

It remains one of my favourite Icelandic entries, the outfits however are another story