Search This Blog

Friday 9 January 2015

Eurovision Song Contest

EUROVISION HISTORY

The first Eurovision Song Contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland on May 24, 1956. Only seven countries took part. The UK wasn’t one of them — they were supposed to take part but failed to enter our details before the submission deadline.

Switzerland’s Lys Assia was the first-ever winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Voting in the first Eurovision Song Contest was conducted in secret, with countries able to vote for their own entries, and only the winner of the contest being announced.

Switzerland’s Lys Assia

Massiel's 1968 winning entry “La La La” contains 138 "la"s.

In 1974 Portugal's Eurovision song, "E Depois Do Adeus," was used to start a revolution. When played on the radio, that was the signal for people to overthrow the government.

When it became apparent that Israel was going to win the 1978 Eurovision Singing Contest, Jordanian TV stopped the live broadcast, showed a picture of daffodils, and later announced that Belgium had won.

British TV personality Bruce Forsyth's daughter, Julie Forsyth, appeared with Guy 'n' Dolls in 1979.

The Turkish 1983 Eurovision entry, “Opera” consisted entirely of the word 'Opera' being repeated over and over.

The youngest winner was 13-year-old Sandra Kin from Belgium in 1986.

A singer named Ruslana won for Ukraine in 2004 with the song "Wild Dances" and was later rewarded with a seat in parliament.

 In 2006 Ireland's Brian Kennedy, who has sung duets with Van Morrison, became the 1000th act to sing on the Eurovision stage with "Every Song Is A Cry For Love." He came tenth.

Just hours ahead of the Grand Final of the 60th Eurovision Song Contest on May 23, 2015, the competition was awarded a Guinness World Record for Longest Running Annual TV Music Competition.

The 2015 Eurovison was won by Swedish singer and television presenter Måns Zelmerlöw (see below) with 365 points, the third-highest score in the history of the competition.


FUN EUROVISION FACTS

Each song cannot be longer than three minutes and a maximum of six people are permitted on the stage at any time for each country.

 Live animals are banned.

Among the contestants who have had successful careers are ABBA, Céline Dion, Cliff Richard and Julio Iglesias. Dion won for Switzerland in 1988 with the song "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi."

The largest winning margin in the Eurovision Song Contest was 169 points, achieved by Norwegian Alexander Ryback in 2009.

Johnny Logan won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland three times; in 1980, 1987 and 1992. He sung the first two and his third win was as composer of Linda Martin's winning entry "Why Me?".

Luxembourg has won the contest five times but none of the entrants has been from Luxembourg - four were French and one, Vicky Leandros, was Greek.

Purely instrumental music is not allowed

Stage design of the 2015 contest. By Otto Karikoski - Wikipedia Commons

Norway have scored "nul points" more times (four) than any other country in Eurovision history and have also appeared at the bottom of the polls the most number of times

Norway's 1980 song was about the construction of a hydro-electric power station.

Ireland is the country with the highest number of wins (seven).

The UK has won five times and been second 15 times.

Iceland has 98% viewership for Eurovision. And 73% of the entire population tunes in to watch it live.

Here is a list of some Eurovision Song Contest songs

Source Daily Telegraph

No comments:

Post a Comment