Eurovision’s Greatest Hits takes place in London on 31 March. The one-off concert will see a host of past Eurovision stars take to the stage to mark 60 years of the contest. While the show itself will be purely celebratory, we’ve decided to add a little competition to proceedings by ranking and reviewing all 19 Eurovision entries sung by the 15 confirmed acts. Today the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of musical unprofessionals — clambers aboard the tardis one last time, and head for Baku 2012. That night, Sweden’s Loreen sucked up a record douze points on her way to victory with “Euphoria”. Are we still going up, up, up today? Read on to find out…
James: Hair. Hair everywhere. Flashing lights. Swooping arms from side to side. Thumping bass line… fantastic! It is definitely the sort of song which would chart anywhere tonight, and it did. It probably isn’t a song which we will all remember immediately, but it was a sure sign that Eurovision had entered the modern age and we must thank Loreen for that. The song is marvellous, well produced and professional. I’m not complaining.
Score: 7/10
Anthony: If there’s one entry that shows why Sweden is a major Eurovision powerhouse, this is it. With no-nonsense choreography accompanied by fake snow and a male dancer, this was truly a euphoric performance from Loreen. One line from the song perfectly sums it all up: “An everlasting piece of art”. This really was Sweden’s 21st century “Waterloo” moment.
Score: 10/10
Robyn: How often does Eurovision get it this right? A contemporary electro-pop banger, amazing vocals, simple but powerful staging – it all adds up to three minutes of perfection. And it’s a song that had a very decent life after Baku. Sometimes the competition feels like it’s getting tired, but then along comes a song like this that raises the level one more time.
Score: 10/10
Liam: Everyone knew this song would win in Baku, and rightfully so. A beautiful song sung by a beautiful woman. I will never forget Loreen, ever! She is the ultimate Eurovision winner. The Queen alongside King Johnny Logan.
Score: 10/10
Angus: As soon as this won Melodifestivalen 2012, there was no question where Eurovision would be in 2013 and never any doubt that Loreen and “Euphoria” would bring a fifth win for Sweden. Not to rub salt into Danny Saucedo’s wounds, but this is amazing and remains amazing to this day.
Score: 10/10
Judit: I will never understand the hype around Loreen, and sometimes I feel I’m the only one. How can the world go crazy about a dancing Kung-Fu panda? I can’t deny that Euphoria is a decent song, it has a good vibe, perfect for a party, and it deserved the victory. You can hate me but I will never love her.
Score: 5/10
Denise: I remember watching this in Melodifestivalen. I hated the final because I was in love with “Amazing” and “Euphoria”, and I wanted both to win. Unfortunately, only one of them could be victorious. Post Melfest I supported Loreen all the way and I was cheering and screaming every single time she got 12 points. She was phenomenal and her performance was absolutely outstanding.
Score: 10/10
Mikhail: No one can deny that Loreen is amazing and “Euphoria” is a masterpiece. She had all the winning ingredients – song, voice, performance. However, I don’t really like it. Such songs get boring real quick. When I first downloaded it, I listened for a week, but ever since I skip. Regardless, Loreen is still a great winner.
Score: 7.5/10
Sami: Loreen is an amazing artist, but after three years, I still don’t get the “Euphoria” hype. Yes, it changed Eurovision a lot (in a good way) and the performance was unique, but the song isn’t really that special. There have been much better dance songs, before and since. I understand why this won the contest in 2012, but I don’t like it as much as all the other Eurovision fans seem to.
Score: 5/10
Padraig: I could go on at length about the virtues of “Euphoria”, but why bother when one word will suffice? Perfection!
Score: 10/10
All 17 members of our jury rate each song. However, we don’t have room to share written reviews from everyone. Here are the remaining seven scores.
Chris: 10/10
Josh: 9.5/10
Kristín: 9.5/10
Patrick: 10/10
Sopon: 10/10
Ramadan: 10/10
William: 9/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 5 and a high of 10.
Don’t hate Samir and Judit, most of Italy didn’t get it either.
This is still hands down the greatest Eurovision winning entry for me. I was in an unstable mental condition in the lead up to Eurovision in 2012, and something about Loreen’s performance of Euphoria in the final lifted me to a point where I just cried and cried tears of relief and joy. I’ll never forget that moment.
Best-Eurovision-Song-Ever. Period!
Love from the Philippines!
Of course she deserved more than Lordi 🙂
Though as very few here, I never understood what was so amazing about this song…7.5/10 for me
perfection indeed, An everlasting piece of art.
it was only time when i was like “omg omg omg this is going to win”. i immediately showed it to a non-esc fan friend of mine and she also said it was great
@ Everyone
There’s no way Rise like a Phoenix would ever beat Euphoria.It sounds like outopia.
@ Judit and Sami
SERIOUSLY?
I CAN BEALIEVE EUPHORIA IS THE PERFECT “10” IS THE MOST GREAT SONG IN THE CONTEST EVER
@davved: Conchita’s average televote per country was higher than Loreen’s. Loreen had a better jury score than Conchita. They would have been neck to neck, maybe.
The former voting rules valid until 2012 helped Loreen in the combined vote, which was higher as either her televoting and the jury result.
Conchita had a higher televote than a combined vote, both with the old and the new rules.
3 years later, this is a song I would skip and I actually haven’t listened to it for a long time.
Euphoria is that kind of song that always existed but was totally unknown territory for the ESC bubble. But it’s just a house track dressed in a mysterious cloth, nothing more, nothing less.
If Loreen was a religion I would worship 24/7. If she asked me to jump into the pits of hell, I would. Nothing will ever come close to be compared to her euphoria. Pure perfection, and I doubt eurovision let alone Sweden will ever have an entry this strong again.
To those of you that claim you don’t get the hype, you’ve clearly been injected with some sort of antidote to the Loreendrug, but I’m so happy that I’m on it, and I am still so hi-i-i-igh.
Loreen come be the queen in utopia! <3
I know that my opinion will be very unpopular, but I don’t like this song. I’m not claiming it was a bad entry, but it is just not my taste. Even though I could appreciate the whole production connected with her entry, I wasn’t able to remember the melody… except “o o o o o ” – yes, I’m a little bit malicious now. Since 2012 I have never listened to “Euphoria” any more. All the same, I like very much Loreen as a person. In my opinion, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, even Spain and Denmark were all… Read more »
A worthy winner, but if mostly due to the brilliant staging and Loreen’s presence and vocal abilities. The song itself is just OK.
Sami, so would you prefer the Russian Babuschkas to win? lol
I hate Judit and Sami -_-
I’m agree with Judit and Sami.
Probably the most deserving winner of ESC in 21st century. The song is very great, very modern, and it truly marks the new era of Eurovision. I agree with one of the comments, this song is the new benchmark of the contest and the legacy still lives until now where we can enjoy some good quality songs since 2013 edition as she raised the bar quite high a year before. It is indeed very rare that Eurovision did it right, and once it did, it’s inspiring.
MASTERPIECE! My top 10 winners from 2004 to 2014:
1. Loreen (MASTERPIECE)
2. Emmelie De Forest (I still listen to this song)
3. Helena Paparizou (Always #1)
4. Alexander Rybak (I’m in loooooooooooooooooveee)
5. Ruslana (The first real dance-pop ethnic song tha won in the competition)
6. Marija Serifovic (Amazing voice)
7. Lena (Weird but i liked it)
8. Lordi (Dima Bilan was ok that year, also Anna Vissi and Carola)
9. Conchita Wurst (I prefered Common Linnets)
10. Dima Bilan (Ukrain, Armenia or Greece should have won that year)
My absolute all-time favourite Eurovision winner! It’s not often that Eurovision gets it right but they sure did in Baku 2012. It was the most successful Eurovision song of recent times and charted everywhere! My local nightclub always played it (first time I ever danced to a Eurovision song on a night out). I still listen to this song often, instant classic! I’m still waiting for another Loreen moment at Eurovision..it won’t be 2015, but there is always next year.
Good song and deserved winner, but I think is so much overrated with juries votes that years, if we all know what happened with her performance in juries final.
From the moment I heard the 1 minute version of “My Heart Is Refusing Me” prior to her first performance in Melodifestivalen 2011, I was hooked. And the fact that Loreen would win the whole Eurovision just one year later… Loreen is fantastic, “Euphoria” is fantastic and the performance was fantastic. That year was one of the rare occasions when my big favorite actually won. Heja!
Conchita, Emmelie, Lena and Alexander would all have lost to Loreen if they all had entered the same year! that says it all.
Best winner of the new millenium so far by FAR!
the best winner and i think song that ever made it to eurovision
She should have beat the record of Fairytale, which wasn’t even a good song. Euphoria still is the greatest masterpiece the contest has seen.
The best winner ever!!!!! Loreen, Lordi and Helena Paparizou are the best!!!!
from ALL eurovision entries this is #1 without a doubt!
9.17 highest score for a song on this site if i’m right :p
I prefer norway 2013, Slovenia 2011, Ukraine 2010 and Sweden 2014 above Euphoria, but still this song is for most people the best eurovision song till now.
Still… i think Ukraine would’ve won eurovision 2015 IF they participated…
It’s quite cool how this doesn’t really follow the SD/root(n) rule and that even with 17 people, its average still tops 9.
LOREEN THE QUEEN
The BEST winner in the eurovision history!! Just A M A Z I N G !!! Congratulations Sweden and thanks for giving us this perfection!
One of the best winners ever. Nothing compares to it.
Judit and Sami you in my black list! congratulations
Loreen is Queen!
She was, is and will be the queen of this contest! No matter what!
Winner!!!!