The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — are reassembling to celebrate the 2010s. Next we head to the Telenor Arena in Oslo, Norway where Germany’s Lena Meyer-Landrut became the first winner of the 2010s, giving the Big Five its first (and to date only) win since its introduction, with “Satellite“.
Lena’s catchy number coupled with a great British twang and Little Black Dress made “Satellite” an iconic track and performance. She was even one of few winners to brave the task of defending her title when she took it home the following year, snatching a top ten in the process. Will our jury still love her 2010 melody the same all these years later?
Lena – “Satellite”
“Satellite” reviews
William: There’s a fine line between puppy love and psychotic obsession — and Lena blurred it brilliantly. The playful lyrics captured an innocent who, in pursuit of a man, did her hair and bought new underwear. But by the time the chorus rolled around, she was dancing in a black void, akin to the loneliest of travellers: “Like a satellite I’m in orbit all the way around you/ And I would fall out into the night/ Can’t go a minute without your love.” Surely she was wielding Cupid’s arrow as a weapon by the end! This ability to project cute and crazy in equal measure was at once musical, memorable and fun.
Score: 9/10
Angus: This performance has aged like a delicious glass of fine Riesling. It has everything going for it: a killer song, excellent artist and smart camera angles. People often write this off as Lena wiggling her hips for three-minutes in a black dress, but the choreography is smart. At different times you can see she’s a 19-year-old singer taking a huge gamble, other times she’s just the casual girl next door, and other times she’s feeling herself and having a flirt with the camera. The overall effect is as enchanting now as it was in Oslo all those years ago.
Score: 8/10
Bernardo: “Satellite” is without question one of the few winners that aged really well. A well crafted radio friendly pop song with a goofy and charismatic performer. Lena conquered Europe with a simplistic yet compelling performance. However at the time and even know it does not conquer me. At the time I though it was a safe bet and I’m not a fan of safe bets. That being said, I think Lena is the perfect example of an artist that used Eurovision in the best way possible as a foundation for what is now a solid career in Germany.
Score: 7/10
Oliver: This song was the “Toy” of its day; not in terms of musical style but rather in how many people knew of it. Friends from opposite corners of Europe knew the lyrics and melody to Lena’s “Satellite”, even if they were not big fans of the contest. To this day, whenever I find myself in a conversation about Eurovision among friends, “Satellite” is bound to come up in the discourse. The reason being? It’s relatable. Lena was not trying to be anyone else but herself. She didn’t have explosives, special lighting or quirky gimmick infested costumes; but what she did have was a catchy pop song and a relatable attitude which catapulted her to stardom.
Score: 9.5/10
Florian: Back in 2010, many acts went for extravagant performances showcasing some kind of — more or less successful — attempt to stand out from the masses of songs. And then there’s a 18-year-old girl from Germany with a song that strikes in its simplicity. Without a doubt it was and is that natural aura Lena constantly spread wherever she goes that people fall in love with. “Satellite” is one of these songs you can just play and vibe along, even nine years after her victory.
Score: 9.5/10
Julian: Satellite by Lena is a song which will always find a place in my Spotify playlist. After 10 years, the song still is a catchy one and Lena’s sympathy in general — and especially during her performance in the final — is so entertaining. People are still arguing if Germany deserved its win in 2010, but Lena absolutely deserved it!
Score: 8/10
In the Wiwi Jury we have 24 jurors but only have room for six reviews. The remaining scores are below:
| Antranig: 10/10
Pablo: 8/10 Robyn: 8/10 Lucy: 6.5/10 Sebastian: 7/10 Jonathan: 9/10 Deban: 6/10 Calvin: 7/10 Luis: 9/10 |
Kristin: 7/10
Edd: 9/10 Lukas: 10/10 Barnabas: 5.5/10 Steinunn: 8.5/10 Natalie: 9.5/10 Katie: 7.5/10 Tom: 7/10 Charlotte: 7.5/10 |
We have removed the highest and lowest scores prior to calculating the average. This is to remove outliers and potential bias. We have removed a low of 5.5 and a high of 10.
Wiwi Jury verdict: 8.05/10
What do you think of this song? Share your own score and review below!
A solid entry from a very competitive year. Her performance won me over on the night, but she was not my initial 2010 favourite. I prefer her 2011 entry “Taken by a Stranger” over this one just a little bit. But it’s close.
There was a definite Lily Allen or Kate Nash vibe about her interpretation of “Satellite”, but I have since heard it sung by Conchita and wow what a difference! 🙂
Euphoria gets a lot of (deserved) credit for marking a step up in quality of ESC winners, but actually Satellite deserves a lot of the praise for bringing a much more modern sound to the contest too. It’s held up really well over the last decade, much more than a lot of the songs being reviewed. I still like listening to it when it comes on. Easily one of my top songs from the last 10 years.
I liked it, but I would have loved a multilingual reprise, as was the case for Germany’s other win.
noyce song
Love this song!
This is a classic!
I wasn’t so impressed when I first heard it, but it really came to strength seeing and hearing it in the final. It was refreshingly simple.
I’ve not followed Lena’s career much but it was fantastic how she came back the next year with something so different (yet equally effective!!)
Also cool how she got Aloe Black involved in the contest! Thier song wasn’t a world beater but I liked how it sounded a mixture of their styles (see ‘At All’, from a Song For Lena ’11)
One of my favorite entries ever. I simply adore her music. I’m an American so it’s hard to listen to it legally (my father was actually in Germany and was going to see if he could find physical copies of Crystal Sky, but my mom forgot to ask me).
By far the worst winner of the 2010s.
Only if you watched just ESC 2010.
This is a neutral comment. I am not going to state my opinion on this song here. But it’s interesting how these reviewers and most of the commenters here are talking about how well this song has aged and given it a high rating, when (anecdotally, so sorry for lack of evidence) I’ve also seen many people strongly dislike this song today and claim it hasn’t aged well. Thoughts?
Well, taste is subjective, we can start with that. But it also seems that different people have different notions about what it takes for a song to age well. Some seem to demand that the song needs to sound current even years later. It may happen, but you need a visionary artist behind it. I would say a song ages well when you can still listen to it without trying to remember why did you like or it was considered good back then. It’s not that the song shouldn’t remind us about the era it was composed/recorded, but how much… Read more »
Thanks for your insight!
Along with 2012 and 2014, the most iconic winner for me
Will there be an article about love injected (latvia2015) because that was deffinately my favourite entery ever
Since she wasn’t in the TOP 3, no!
A good catchy pop song that still feels fresh many years later. I agree with Oliver when he says the reason of its success is how relatable it is. Lena wasn’t trying to be sexy, diva, or cute (but psycho, but cute). Just a pretty young girl having fun with a song like she was at home singing into her hairbrush. It would be hard to find who hasn’t been her someday, wanted to be like her or wanted to be with her. I agree with those who said that “Taken By a Stranger” is best, but I love both.
Thanks for perfectly describing Lena’s casual vibe in that performance. It’s weird, how much “Taken by a Stranger” is the opposite of “Satellite” – one is bright, the other is dark, one is radio-friendly, the other is more challenging, one is cute and modest, the other is atmospheric and complex, “Satellite”‘s staging is as simple as it gets, “Taken…”‘s is very mysterious and avant-garde. It’s almost as if Lena wanted to pull the plug on her girl-next-door image, and try something more daring, like “I won, now I can do whatever I want”.
And thank you for describing so well her performance in the following year. 🙂 It’s impressive how much different she performed just one year later. While her charm in 2010 was how natural and spontaneous she was, in 2011 she was much more confident and polished. It was clearly a “girl becoming woman” situation. Maybe it was too abrupt for part of the audience to approve. The curious thing is that she also did much better with the juries in 2010.
I can kinda see why – as we’ve seen in previous years, juries tend to vote for more radio-friendly songs with slick production, and ‘Satellite” is a clear winner in that category. Plus most of the points for the “high art” act in 2011 went to Italy, and her being already a winner might also be a factor that worked against her.
Yeah, I should also remember that it was 2011, dark pop wasn’t a mainstream thing yet back then. And as you mentioned, the return champion will always feel the weight of comparison. Unless, of course, he’s Mr. Johnny Logan. 😀
Can I be objective judging my homecountry’s only winning entry since 30 years, especially after the last around 5 years? I think no xD But Lena was amazing because of the reduced staging. I think “Satellite” was the first song I knew the lyrics by heart and I really loved it back then xD And of course “Lenamania” was the main reason I became a Eurovision fan (although my name refers to the first Eurovision song I knew, which was “Fairytale”, so I am ESCFan2009, even though I started watching the contest in 2010 xD). 9/10
Same here. “Fairytale” was the first Eurovision song I got to know. But my first Eurovision was in 2010.
OK, winner for me. But for me Lena had better song next year.
it’s funny how 10 years ago the overall production, camera angles, sound mixing were a lot tighter and more professional than the last couple of years and especially than in 2019. what went wrong EBU??
E S C To-day took down their Croatia article while Euro V o i x still has theirs up so I hope it’s more or less confirmed.
Seems optimistic, at least. Hope to see you there and better than ever in 2020, Croatia!
I don’t know. As a package, I preferred “Taken By A Stranger” and I definitely preferred a few other entries in 2010. “Satellite” is a cute song but doesn’t check many boxes on my personal “What makes a good Eurovision winner” list.
It’s surely one of the best German entries, but I still do think that she deserved to win in 2011 and not in 2010. Satellite was a cute song, but both the song and the performance didn’t give me winner vibes, whereas in 2011, she absolutely fascinated me. It was a better package overall.
I personally liked Taken by a Stranger much much more and think that this should have been her winning entry.
Why are you all talking about ”this aging well”? It hasn’t been even 10 years since she won. Why aren’t you ever judging older songs like 60’s or 70’s? You should be teaching the younger ESC fans about the history.
And to this article; Lena is my favourite winner of 2010’s.
Well, it’s been 9 years, so… Does i lt really matter whether it’s 10 or 9? xD
What i went is that, i don’t see it as ”old” song. So you cannot talk about ”aging”. When a human being is 9 years old, you don’t say that ”she has aged well”. It’s weird.
These Wiwi guys are obsessed with keeping up to date (in their mind), something as little as two three years they consider accent history. Kinda fickle I think
I absolutely adore this winner, it was a breeze of fresh air to the contest.
8.05, seriously?????? Manga, Tom Dice, Paula & Ovi, Chanee and N’evergeen….. were all so much better. For me it’s one of the weaker winners. At least it’s better than Taken by a Stranger. 6/10
I might like “Taken by a Stranger” a tad more, but “Satellite” is an iconic winner nonetheless. Lena was probably one of the cutest people on Earth in 2010, and the song is just an epitome of catchiness, so it’s no wonder she got douze points from all around the Europe. It’s not a perfect act by any means and it’s got quite a lot of stuff that annoys me – creepy stalker lyrics, repetitiveness, “I gotta find a toilet” choregraphy and one of the fakest British accents in the history, but if there’s one person that could pull it… Read more »
This, right here, is one of the perfect winners. A simple, catchy pop song, elevated by a quirky but endearing vocal by a performer who is clearly happy to be there. It’s a strong song that’s just odd enough in the right places to stand out, and probably the first winner in ages to be confident enough in the quality of the song/performer to not overdo it with the staging. Germany just did everything right with “Satellite,” and countries should still look back on it and take notes almost a decade later. It’s a song that helped me get into… Read more »
There is a quirkiness and goofiness in Lena which is completely endearing. There is a fun, genuine, girl next door vibe going on which immediately wins your heart. The song itself is jaunty and the rough around the edges delivery complements it perfectly. A deserving winner for me.
Contrary to popular beliefs backs then, I don’t think Lena would have won with anything. This song didn’t get enough credit for the victory. They should be really glad the German audience selected the clever and witty “Satellite” in the NF and not that boring, annoying song that Raab and Lena wrote and wanted to win. But you gotta love someone relatively careless and unrehearsed winning over an act that a regime put millions into in order to win yet still ending up only 5th.
It’s a proof that the song matters, and the voice doesn’t have to be perfect, it only has to be the right voice for the right song. Minimalistic staging was the right thing to do, without speeches about “music first” (Duncan), “no fireworks” (Sobral), just it was the best choice for that song alone, nothing more and nothing less.
Johnny Logan has “I can’t sing anymore” (if that counts lol) while Lena had “I don’t know where to go, I’ll just continue gabbing…”.
😀
Johnny Logan very efficiently figured out how to use his winner’s reprise as an acceptance speech as well (hugging the backing singers, praising up, cutting himself off when he couldn’t hit that last note, etc). It was effectively, “hell yeah, I won, thank the band, thank the lord, I have nothing left to prove, peace out.”
Dana International also made a great little speech at a fitting moment in her song, I loved it.
“Winner moments” really became a thing in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and it’s always a crapshoot as to whether it ends triumphantly or with a whimper.
It’s a cute song but I think people elevate it nowadays because of Lena’s staying power as an artist