In recent years, there are a few countries that haven’t been performing so well. We love these countries and we really want to see them do well again, so we’re taking a look at nine nations that need to get their groove back and what they can do.
1. Denmark
Denmark used to be one of those countries that could always be relied on to qualify for the final. They entered good songs, usually placed on the left-hand side of the scoreboard and eventually won in 2013. But things went wrong in 2015 when Anti Social Media failed to qualify, with Lighthouse X performing even worse in Stockholm.
What should Denmark do? They’re on the right track with Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, which almost delivered the amazing “You’re Never Alone” for Stockholm. They just need to make sure that the DMGP line-up is strong, with no filler songs that might win due to strong local fanbase support that doesn’t translate to Eurovision. And ditch the Superfinal, which creates a voting situation that can’t be duplicated at Eurovision.
2. Finland
Finland’s fortunes have been mixed in recent years, failing to qualify for the final in the past two years. Finland are known for bold, memorable performances, but while “Hard Rock Hallelujah” was a winner, “Marry Me” only placed 24th and “Aina mun pitää” didn’t qualify.
What should Finland do? Finland’s national final UMK is good, but they need to ditch the jury of Finnish civilians (that’s what the televote is for!) and replace it with an international jury of music experts to replicate the tougher, professional judging environment of Eurovision juries.
3. Germany
Germany is another country that ran into trouble soon after winning the competition. They scored the dreaded nil points in 2015, then in 2016 the broadcaster was forced to scrap its disastrous plans for a show with Xavier Naidoo. They hastily put together a national selection where where the winning song was a cut-down version of The Voice winner’s single. The combination of a serious song with comedic staging saw it place last in Stockholm.
What should Germany do? They’re on the right track. In 2016, broadcaster NDR ditched the unhelpful wildcard entry in the national final as well as the troublesome two-song entry format of previous years. With more time to plan a proper national final, the broadcaster says the emphasis will be on songs, not just performers.
4. Iceland
It only seems like a matter of time before Iceland wins Eurovision, but we want that to be sooner rather than later. There’s no shortage of talent on the volcanic island, but in the past two years that hasn’t translated to a place in the final. Iceland has no trouble fielding songs that are fan favourites, but that doesn’t always work with the general Eurovision audience.
What should Iceland do? In the past two years, the winner of Söngvakeppnin hasn’t won the initial televote or jury vote, but rather picked up the win in the superfinal. Given that there’s no superfinal vote equivalent at Eurovision, Iceland should ditch the second layer of voting and just go with the initial voting instinct of both the jury and televoters.
5. Ireland
Oh, Ireland! We love you so much and it just breaks our heart to see you not getting it right year after year. The past decade hasn’t been kind to the former shining star of the 1990s. Only the Jedward years brought Ireland good results, and Ireland has since failed to qualify in the previous three years.
What should Ireland do? Regardless of how RTÉ choose their candidate, it always comes back to one thing: they keep trying to select a “good Eurovision song” and end up with old-fashioned songs that no one really enjoys in the long-term. “Lipstick” reached No.1 in the Irish charts (and is still a Euroclub hit); “Sunlight” only made it to No.68. If Ireland’s entry can’t even manage to be a hit on home turf, how is the rest of Europe expected to enjoy it? Ireland needs to stop trying to double-guess what makes a “good Eurovision song” and just work at entering an amazing contemporary pop tune.
6. Moldova
It used to be that Moldova could be relied on for crazy but good quality entries that earned decent placings in the final. But since 2014, they’ve always failed to qualify. Even though the initial stages of O melodie pentru Europa has acts of varying quality, Moldova always manage to come up with a decent line-up in its final, but that just doesn’t translate to a song good enough to qualify at Eurovision.
What should Moldova do? We don’t quite want to cry “bring back Pasha Parfeny!” but he was responsible for Moldova’s two most recent qualifying entries, both of which placed 11th. Maybe he just needs to come back as an expert to offer his guidance for the national final.
7. Portugal
Portugal hasn’t qualified for the final since 2010 and every year they never seem to pick the right sort of entry. It’s all very *cries in Portuguese*. The broadcaster took a year off in 2016, and we really hope that they used the time to have a good think about their Eurovision future.
What should Portugal do? Portugal is one of the few countries who consistently enter songs in their own language, and while Portuguese is a beautiful language, we can’t help but wonder if they should look to Israel for inspiration. If Portugal entered a Portuguese-influenced song with English lyrics, they’d be opening themselves to a much larger and potentially more receptive audience.
8. Switzerland
In the past decade, Switzerland has only qualified for the final twice – and one of those came last! But Sebalter’s “Hunter of Stars” was a bona fide success story in 2014, with the whistling Swiss prince an audience favourite. It’s been frustrating to see Eurovision’s first winning country struggling for so long.
What should Switzerland do? They need to stop being so nice. Stop giving places in the national final to mediocre songs just because there are regional quotas to fill – just pick the six (or more!) best songs overall. And ditch the cover version component of the national final – it’s irrelevant and can sway audiences to vote for acts with a weak entry song simply because they slayed with their cover version performance.
9. United Kingdom
The UK is another country that we love and want to see do really well but every year they just don’t quite get it right. They have the added challenge of being one of the biggest and best pop exporters in the world, so when the BBC enters Electro Velvet, Europe is all, “WTF is this? We want Adele!”.
What should the UK do? The UK seem to be on the right track, so they should keep doing what they’re doing. Importantly, they do seem to have learned what didn’t work in previous years, and the return to a national final format (with no hilarious novelty acts) was a very encouraging step in the right direction. The BBC should continue with Eurovision: You Decide, and pursue even better quality acts next year – that’s what Europe is expecting.
Countries who got their groove back
It’s not an impossible task. In recent years we’ve seen Austria win after two years of non-qualifying, and also make a 13th place comeback after nil points last year. Israel broke a four-year non-qualification streak by changing its tack and using a national final with English-language songs with a distinct Israeli flavour. The Netherlands broke an eight-year non-qualification streak by switching to internally selected established artists and now regularly score near the top. And France saw an end to its bottom-of-the-table finishes in 2016, giving the Big Five nation its best result since 2009.
What countries do you think need to improve at Eurovision? And what should they do? Share your thoughts below!
Awesome article Robyn!!!
I worry about Norway falling into the same downward spiral. Agnete stood out from the field but with a Euphoria song. MGP in Oslo was better this year and she did beat another ‘carnival’ act like Freddie Kalas. The new MGP general did not have an impressive debut. He is rather overenthusiastic, to put it mildly. Even the TV hosts had expressions on stage that seemed like they needed bug spray to get the ‘general’ away from them! We were at the Danish final this year and the 2nd place song from Anja was very much like Emmilie’s Only Teardrops.… Read more »
Well.. In my opinion, Latvia is also a huge comeback. After 6 years of not qualifying, we managed to get there
DENMARK: Simple fix, do not select boy bands for the DMGP participants for at least the next few years. FINLAND: This is tough. Maybe Finland should look at its brother Estonia for inspiration? GERMANY: Germany needs to get its national selection sorted out first. Also, I think the German entries have been WAY too dramatic lately. ICELAND: Not sure why they are on here? Many borderline qualifiers made the final with some luck and now they missed only 2 finals. IRELAND: Lipstick was the right idea. Ireland needs to leave the past behind. Too many forgettable entries. Sunlight may have… Read more »
You guys forgot Spain…
UK 100% perfect films 100% perfect songs and artist
you re the one of the best UK WE love you
Good luck from Armenia!!
@Marcus (Day One) @GoatyGoat Yes, the BBC tries, but the end result just isn’t good. None of the UK’s entries looked all that good or were that memorable on stage (except for Jade Ewen). The perfect example of this was Molly with “Children of the Universe.” That was the UK’s most promising entry since Jade, and everyone was looking forward to it. The UK even got a good draw and was singing last, meaning it had a great shot at being in the top 10. Then, we see the disaster that was Molly singing live dressed like a hippy. The… Read more »
Marcus (Day One)- What a breath of fresh air! Although I do have to say that you’ve been a little to generous with the BBC. I’ve heard rumors that electrovelvet were actually created around the gimmick of light up costumes. But all in all, I think too that the BBC has tried and it simply hasn’t been lucky. It’s been the same in football as well, everyday you hear people bashing England when it actually has a decent team that simply has had misfortunes along the way. One cannot look at the UK’s previous record in eurovision and not think… Read more »
The BBC (UK) gets a bit more than its fair share of criticism because British acts don’t really want to compete in Eurovision because they will be ridiculed by the press and have been brainwashed by the UK fans into thinking its all political. The BBC has actually sent credible songs 2009 – The UK sent its best song in years But sadly Norway ruined everything (Joking) Any other year and I think Jade Ewen could have took the victory. 2010 – The BBC wanted a pop song so they asked a pop producer to create a song for them… Read more »
For Germany, I think rule revising (to allow indie and aspiring artist to compete) and franchising Unser Leid to 9-10 countries would help them a lot.
Iceland has been submitting great songs, I don’t understand why they haven’t qualified for the past few years. On the other hand, Denmark has been submitting trash and therefore flopping.
@oooops
What did Switzerland do?
And now Switzerland didn’t listen to my tip, and did exactly the opposite. Why Switzerland, why?
It’s difficult to tell about reasons why certain countries haven’t scored the last few years but when sitting on the sofa during their national finals I had at least UK and Germany clear: 1) UK isn’t on the good way at all. It’s all an illusion and people shouldn’t mix up things. The audience finally being able to make the final decision doesn’t make the choice better. First , I think UK should step out of mainstream and ‘too Eurovision’ in its choices. A few weeks ago I saw Tom Odell on German tv. Just like e.g. Anouk and the… Read more »
Very interesting article. I will focus on Finland here to show the problem. Since 2015 UMK basically lost its initial identity and it is just another old Finnish selection under new name. 2013-2014 system was very beneficial for Finlan. Both domestically and on Eurovision: Krista became star at home but got so much attention during Eurovision; Softengine received the best result since Lordi (and many acts from UMK 2014 got record deals). However, the problem was that the show wasn’t really popular in Finland in 2013-2014. The change of the format in 2015 brought back the domestic interest but the… Read more »
Saying a country sends poor entries in the hope of not winning is stupid and sounds more like the usual “it’s all politics” explanation the Brits use when they fail every year. It’s a contest, people want your best not your average. Every participating country should also be ready to host it if it comes to that, that’s sort of the basic agreement. You not being financially ready for it isn’t a reason to slack around. Better then to not participate if you know you can’t afford it than send generic average pop that won’t leave an impression at all.… Read more »
Get groove back?? Sorry, but some of these countries never had much Eurovision groove to begin with. Finland — won once, but that was a fluke. They had very few top 10s, and you have to go back to the 1980s to find them. Portugal — never did well at Eurovision. Very few top 10s. Iceland — five top 10s, twice reaching #2. Moldova — only two top 10s, the highest being #6. If you’re going to talk about countries that should get their Eurovision groove “back,” you should talk about Greece, Azerbaijan, Spain and Israel. THESE four countries have… Read more »
In my opinion Portugal must write original song in English-Portuguese language. I love Portuguese language but I know too many people don`t understand Portuguese.
Moldova chooses bad songs. Romanyuta was horrible, Lidia Isac isn`t original.
Portugal has to change its selection process drastically in order to do well.
I believe Portugal would have been placed much better back in 2008 if there was the system we have right now.
Another plausible explanation could be that the rest of the competition is consistently stepping up their game in strides, while these countries are lagging behind (albeit in the right direction). As Robyn pointed out, all of these countries are in the right direction, but it’s just not *enough*. At least the countries with a set National Final format are much further along than the UK or Ireland who are still trying to figure out how they want to really run theirs. I’m hoping Timberlake’s performance removes the stigma of appearing on Eurovision, and more established artists aren’t afraid of going… Read more »
It’s nice to see so many underdogs and politically disadvantaged countries like Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Poland and Israel got their grooves back. As far as I know ORF is extremely ambitious about winning Eurovision as soon as possible again. They were not so pleased with the televote result this year and expected more. I like to see ambition. The lack of it kills my interest, like in 2013.
@V You are joking right?? i dont know where you live but i can wish your country a pop industry like the u.k. have / had : Amy Winehouse – A winner of a 5 Grammy Awards David Bowie – A winner of a Grammy Award Adele- A winner of Golden Globe, Academy Award Oscar , Grammy Award Mark Ronson – top producer- A winner of a Grammy Award Only three of these singers influenced the all world with their music and I can not write here the rest of the singers of the British Industry that appear and successful… Read more »
Iberian: what i wrote about orland? I dont know this singer 😀 keep it calm 😀
Where is Spain. However, I have a tip for Switzerland. Let televoters and online decide instead of juries in expertencheck. We know what is memorable. Polands O-o-o-oo was extremely memorable when we watched with the family, so no surprise it came third. We could have seen something as memorable from Switzerland. If they didn’t ditch Platzhirsch, it was my 2nd(My 1st was Sunanda) but Platzhirsch would have done better in ESC than Rykka. Especially among televoters.
@Thiefo
Alrhough they may not want to win, Eurovision carries large viewership and is among the highest rating event tv in Europe. They may not want to win but they will still want the people to watch it.
@V
“The UK has no good music and artists, that’s why they fail every year. (Adele and One Direction are just lucky exceptions)”
Coldplay
Ellie Goulding
Little Mix
Jessie J
Jess Glynne
Taio Cruz
Ella Henderson
Sam Smith
Leona Lewis
Rita Ora
Fleur East
Ed Sheeran
Emeli Sande
Paul McCartney
Cheryl
Cher Lloyd
Paloma Faith
Florence Welch
Calvin Harris
Charlie XCX
Clean Bandit
Amy Wine house
Conor Maynard
Disclosure
Hurts
Jay Sean
John Newman
Olly Murs
Natasha Bedingfield
Mumford and Sons
Rixton
Shayne Ward
Hurts
Tinie Tempah
The Wanted
and more!!!!!
Saying a country sends poor entries in the hope of not winning is stupid, if they really don’t have the money to host then why even bother to enter the contest? Other countries have withdrawn citing financial reasons. And if they win but can’t host they can always decline and pass the responsibility to a willing country, can’t they? So I don’t think that’s a real reason, only a perception.
Another country that got its groove back is Belgium! I have a good feeling for the little nation!
@Iberian
I agree with you 100%
ayayaya, check your concept of democracy. democracy doesn’t mean it’s ok to be homophobic. and well, your comment, just a few days after what happened in Orland is disgusting, to say the least. show some respect, try being homophobic and try defending homophobes after the victims have been buried and time has passed by a bit. so, no: if you are a homophobe, a nazi, a racist… you shouldn’t take part in a show like Eurovision, that was created to bring people together. this is about love, not hate.
Denmark has potential.
In the past two years, they missed out on “Suitcase” and “Heart-Shaped Hole”. That is a heavily-flawed system.
Iceland probably would have fared better over the past two years with the Icelandic versions of their songs. English is not necessarily better!
The other countries….I am not so hopeful about!
Germany should send finally Xavier Naidoo (don’t listen opinions, that he is homophobe, we have democracy, he can be what he wants to be, important is, that he is an excellent singer and big star), Finland should send some great metal or punk band, Iceland something mysterious, Moldova some interesting national elements and no average pop songs.
@Robyn
Wasn’t the last winner with blue lighting Germany in 2010? You may be right…
There is definitely one country missing: Macedonia!
About Germany: I think we had quite some incompetent people who were to decide about our selection mechanism and a lot of bad luck as well. We made it in 2010-2012, so we definitely can break the curse!
@WOW
The title of the article is “List: 9 countries that need to get their Eurovision groove back”, not “List: 9 countries that do horribly at Eurovision”. “Macedonia” never had the Eurovision groove.
Denmark: Their national final is great. They just always make the wrong decision. For example, Simone or Anja would have certainly qualified and they could have even been contenders for the top 10 this year. Finland: They make the wrong decision too. I actually liked their entry this year but Saara Aalto or Mikael Saari would have stood out more. I agree with Robyn about the juries in their national selection. Germany: I loved “Ghost” but I understand why people didn’t like it. It was just too average for them and the same applies to their 2014 and 2015 entries.… Read more »
I actually totally disagree with Portugal! I believe Portugal, rather than becoming bilingual, should instead refer back to the dramatic and over-the-top aesthetics and composition they used in 2008. Señora dor mar is one of my favourite Eurovision entries, and I would really love Portugal to bring that style back and modernise it with led’s and staging! (for example).
Hosting Copenhagen 2014 severely bankrupted DR1, hence why they send mediocre songs in the hopes of not winning, although not qualifying wasn’t the intention. Interestingly, Austria had the opposite reaction to winning, their 2015 and 2016 NFs had good songs (under the new system, Austria would got quite a few points in 2015) and it seems like they’re an emerging strong nation, which is ironic because they were the jokes of the contest when it was just western Europe.
A lot of broadcasters can’t afford to host, hence why they send poor entries, the BBC being the obvious exception.
How about Macedonia? They’ve only qualified twice in the last ten years
The problem is many broadcasters don’t focus on the song and just pick random songs or artist.. the results is a big fail.
Spain should be in this list. Spain didn’t reach any top 10 in the televoting in the last decade (unlike the rest of big 5).. just pathetic and something to be worry about.
I would add my country Malta also to the list. The Maltese has never grasped the concept of good staging, even when funds were available (2016), we’ve pretty much sent a singer delivering a song with no imaginative or original staging which in Eurovision is as important as the song if not more.
Very good article Robyn, I’ve been waiting for this.
Countries like Israel or The Netherlands are excellent role models for the ones mentioned above. I especially hope for better entries from Portugal, Ireland and us, Switzerland. I hope SRF/RTS/RSI/RTR (!) finally change our selection process drastically! It’s about time.
The UK has no good music and artists, that’s why they fail every year. (Adele and One Direction are just lucky exceptions)
I think the last one on the list should be Spain, but a lot has already been said about them…
My own country (Belgium) now has 2 top 10 finishes in a row and I do hope we get a third one next year! We are in the epic fail-list more often than on the left side of the board… Maybe some rivalry between the two broadcasters can be stirred up?
I think ESC in Copenhagen must have bankrupted the Danish broadcaster because they have been entering some dull songs ever since. Even cliché love song. It’s pretty obvious that Denmark are not trying to win anymore. Finland, I don’t know what’s been happening here, they enter some great/catchy songs but the last two years they just didn’t. Their 2016 song sounded good on the radio and I thought it might qualify, but the performance was awful. Ireland…AHHH my country, with the greedy broadcaster. RTE simply don’t care. If they did, there would be more of an effort with selection, song… Read more »
The new Swiss HoD announced that they will make changes to next year’s national selection process. Let’s hope for the best…
“If Portugal entered a Portuguese-influenced with English lyrics, they’d be opening themselves to a much larger and potentially more receptive audience.”
I’m quite intrigued with this and would like to see this happen. Portugal 2015 (Leonora) could have been it but still was missing something. Maybe Catarina (is that her name, the one who missed the finale a few times).
Actually all the countries listed (except Denmark and Switzerland plus Portugal which wasn’t participating) had a beautiful song this year. Not their fault if people underestimated them
“If Portugal entered a Portuguese-influenced with English lyrics, they’d be opening themselves to a much larger and potentially more receptive audience.” I thought this article was pretty well written, until I came across that bullcr*p. LANGUAGE DOESN’T MATTER, ONLY THE QUALITY OF THE SONG DOES! Serbia won in Serbian, Italy placed 2nd and 3rd in Italian, Ukraine won with dual English/Ukrainian dialect songs… And Spain placed 23rd by switching to English. “Yes but all winners since 2007 were singing in English”. This is a false analogy, correlation is not causation. All the songs that placed last since 2000 were also… Read more »
Denmark: Go back to the format they used in 2012 to 2014. At least those had a bit more fairness in the voting combination.
Ireland: Come back with a revamped national selection.
Switzerland: Give chances to songs by people whose countries don’t have a national selection as their selection process or from countries that might have already decided to internally select.
United Kingdom: Use Eurovision: You Decide again with juries voting as well. (One example of juries could be 4 panels, each one consisting of people from one of the UK’s countries, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales)