In just over one week, #EurovisionAgain will celebrate Eurovision non-qualifiers, with a fan rewatch and vote of 20 of the best songs that never made it to a grand final. But before that, we want to know which non-qualifiers are your favourites.
We’ve been running a series of polls asking you to pick your favourite non-qualifiers from each country that had more than one non-qualifier in the semi-finals era. Now it’s time to decide which songs are the best of the best.
The poll won’t include any songs from the Big Five countries as they never compete in the semi-finals. Likewise, Australia and Ukraine are lucky enough to never had had a song not make it out of the semis. Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Sweden and Turkey are also excluded as they’ve only ever had one song not qualify.
But there are plenty of other countries still in the running. Listen to the non-qualifying favourites from each country then vote for your favourites. As always, you can vote for as many songs as you like, but you can only vote once — so make your vote count!
What are your favourite Eurovision non-qualifiers?
- Albania: Lindita – “World”
- Andorra: Gisela – “Casanova”
- Armenia: Srbuk – “Walking Out”
- Austria: Natália Kelly – “Shine”
- Belarus: Uzari & Maimuna – “Time”
- Belgium: Sennek – “A Matter of Time”
- Bulgaria: Poli Genova – “Na inat”
- Croatia: Franka – “Crazy”
- Cyprus: Evridiki – “Comme ci, comme ça”
- Czech Republic: Marta Jandová & Václav Noid Bárta – “Hope Never Dies”
- Denmark: Lighthouse X – “Soldiers of Love”
- Estonia: Koit Toome & Laura – “Verona”
- Finland: Norma John – “Blackbird”
- Georgia: Tamara Gachechiladze – “Keep the Faith”
- Greece: Yianna Terzi – “Oniro mou”
- Hungary: Joci Pápai – “Az én apám”
- Iceland: Greta Salóme – “Hear Them Calling”
- Ireland: Molly Sterling – “Playing with Numbers”
- Israel: Mei Finegold – “Same Heart”
- Latvia: Triana Park – “Line”
- Lithuania: Jurij Veklenko – “Run with the Lions”
- Malta: Amber – “Warrior”
- Moldova: Lidia Isac – “Falling Stars”
- Monaco: Séverine Ferrer – “La Coco-Dance”
- Montenegro: Who See – “Igranka”
- The Netherlands: Trijntje Oosterhuis – “Walk Along”
- North Macedonia: Jana Burčeska – “Dance Alone”
- Norway: Agnete – “Icebreaker”
- Poland: Tulia – “Fire of Love (Pali się)”
- Portugal: Conan Osíris – “Telemóveis”
- Romania: Ester Peony – “On a Sunday”
- San Marino: Valentina Monetta – “Crisalide (Vola)”
- Serbia: Tijana Bogićević – “In Too Deep”
- Slovakia: Kristína Peláková – “Horehronie”
- Slovenia: Eva Boto – “Verjamem”
- Switzerland: ZiBBZ – “Stones”
Previous polls
- Part 1 – Albania, Andorra, Armenia and Austria
- Part 2 – Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia
- Part 3 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia
- Part 4 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark and Estonia
- Part 5 – Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Latvia
- Part 6 – Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Monaco
- Part 7 – Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway
- Part 8 – Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino
- Part 9 – Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland
Which non-qualifiers are your favourites? Who would you like to see have another shot at Eurovision? Tell us your thoughts below!
Ester Peony’s “On A Sunday” (Romania 2019) is one of my absolute favorite songs. I can’t believe it didn’t qualify, a year and a half later.
Even if excluded, I would vote for Sweden, Anna Bergendahl and This Is My Life. Already a decade ago, and even after all Swedish success, few of us can forget that unfair result.
Blackbird, Hear Them Calling, Stones
I could not decide between Sennek (Belgium) and Agnete (Norway) so I did vote for both of them. Greetings from Lithuania!
Crisalide and Blackbird 100%
They’re all winners, really.
Ireland’s staging (well the visuals) are very similar to what Salvador used. Travesty that Molly didn’t qualify.
The Why-ay-ay-ay Lady. No competition.
it will be a proper length show next saturday, 2 hours and 15 minutes
Are songs already selected? Where was the voting taking place?
If you’re asking about the Wiwibloggs poll then:
“We’ve been running a series of polls asking you to pick your favourite non-qualifiers from each country that had more than one non-qualifier in the semi-finals era.”
As far as I know the vote for #EurovisionAgain was done on Instagram
Thanks!
Too hard to choose!! ??
A lot of these song options are from recent years, which makes me think that the overall quality on eurovision entries has gone from bad to better and many, even some good enries couldn’t qualify because there’s just too many good songs
Or people just don’t remember the older entries
I believe that it’s a bit of both. While there were individual masterpieces in 2000s as well, the overall quality has gone drastically up.
Also, many fans who recently joined in, haven’t heard the older songs yet, or have heard them, but don’t equally connect them to a certain memory (which can, at times, also play a part).
I think it’s probably the latter. It’s like the top 250 has way more newer entries because people don’t know the history
Their loss. I absolutely adored going deeper into the history of the contest and discovering hidden gems along the way.
A lot of my choices didn’t win their polls so that makes the ones that did even clearer winners for me when it comes to ranking. Verona was my clear #1 and World was my #3 so they’re still there.
I respect everyone’s opinions but Blackbird over När Jag Blundar? Definitely took one of my favourites out of the running there.
När Jag Blundar will always be the winner in my heart
I think the problem is just that – they’re professional. Not actual music lovers.
Maybe I have the wrong idea about who these jurors actually are, but if they’re in the business end, then…yeah. I do recognize and admire a lot of smaller record companies with very passionate people behind them, I’m just not sure these are the ones picked for jury duty.
I’d like to see Tijana from Serbia with a scenography, costume, dancers, that someone has put at least some energy. Her vocals were amazing but she was screwed over by the people around the performance production
Finland will get my vote, still can’t believe it didn’t qualify in 2017, maybe there were just too many ballads that year and expecially in that semifinal
My votes would be… Portugal (“Telemóveis”, Conan Osíris): Arguably the most unique song Eurovision ever had. It’ll always be divisive, but I believe years from now other generations of Eurovision fans will still ask how it hasn’t qualified. And maybe they’ll even like the costume! Finland (“Blackbird”, Norma John): For me, this is the most hurtful non-qualifier, because I still can’t find an explanation, since it’s not that divisive and always had a passionate fanbase. Belgium (“A Matter of Time”, Sennek): Sennek’s pre-ESC journey was full of bumps and the final performance was still a let-down, but the song is… Read more »
National performance of Apollo was so, so good. They should’ve just done the exact same thing, lol.
This is probably the worst thing about it, they messed up when they just needed to adapt the national final staging and improve one thing or another.
Two of my all time favourite Eurovision songs on this list – I would feel so bad if I had to choose between them so it is a tie between Norma John and Agnete. Still majorly appearing on my playlists, still majorly giving me all the feels when they come on. Bravo!
It should have been Apollo for Switzerland 🙁
My vote is goin for Finland
My personal (approximate) list among these songs (several of my all time favorite NQs didn’t win their polls): .36. THE NETHERLANDS – Yeah, walk along indeed. I just don’t like it, especially not her delivery. I have no idea how this won over My Impossible Dream. .35. MONACO – I appreciate the Tahitian language and beat, but this is just too childish and not particularly well performed. .34. RUN WITH THE LIONS – It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s a middle ground incarnate. But it had no better songs to beat, so I’m fine. .33. SERBIA – Best of… Read more »
I like long lists:). Very ambitious:).
Slovakia: I remember i was 100% sure Slovakia would be in a envelope.
San Marino: i was 100% sure San Marino would be in the 10th envelope.
Ireland was a crime. So nice staging and song.
The worst: Monacos live performance, Andorras outfit and staging and Netherlands from a nice party before ESC, and to that on the night.
Thanks for appreciating my effort here. It was fun to do, but it’s still nice to hear it. 🙂
I agree on all counts. Slovakia, San Marino and Ireland should have made it in a heartbeat. Monaco’s performance was a mess. I like Casanova as a song, but that outfit was terrible and it deserved it’s Barbara Dex winner. And yeah, the Dutch performance was unfortunately somewhat annoying (Sorry, Trijntje).
Some say small countries dont Q because they are small. Often are the smallest sadly the worst. They are not great on having singers who sing in tune, modern songs, staging. Hope Andorra will fix that in 2022:)
This poll made me check who was in 2018’s first semi again… Boy, that was scary! I guess Iceland was the only country with zero chance to qualify then. All the others would qualify in different occasions.
It was the most competitive semi I can think of. There were several songs I’d think of as my winners in almost any other occasion and not a single bad song. Iceland was the least competitive one, but it was still cute and melodic.
I think that all 10 of the qualifiers deserved to make it and yet, Belgium, Switzerland and Greece would be more than deserving qualifiers. I wouldn’t mind any of the others qualifying in normal circumstances either. There were some tough semis, but I cannot think of any other example like this.
I respect your opinion, as always, but I genuinely think that it’s beautifully composed, written and performed. It’s one of my favorite ESC songs of that time. I seriously find it as good as most of recent Sanremo winners. It’s actually placed even a bit higher than Italy on my 2013 list (even if both are excellent and in my top 10). I can understand people having different tastes, or being tired of a certain style, so, all the power to diversity. 😉 Just to add, I am constantly getting surprised that some of my favorite ESC songs sometimes share… Read more »
I just went on Siegel’s Wiki page and saw how he was behind some of the really poor entries as well. I saw only up to ESC 2000 thus far. I see Crisalide (and Maybe, even though it’s less strong than the former) as bright exceptions to the rule. I don’t know, maybe it was a spark of inspiration and perhaps it was a result of collaboration with other artists. I didn’t dislike Montenegro in 2009 either, even though it’s somewhat a nonsensical song (“or just stay”, ha ha ha). Everything else… well… a “so bad it’s good” at best… Read more »
I can only speak for myself, but what I love so much about Crisalide is the perfect match of music and the message. We have inspirational lyrics about rebirth and the music always grows with them. It starts slowly, but atmospheric, then grows and grows until the epic finish! 🙂
The purpose of sharing is not to change your (or anyone’s) opinion, it’s just for sharing my personal experiences with this song. 🙂
And IMHO that’s such a petty reason to be dissatisfied. If anything, he should’ve been happy that Germany is now a two times winner.
Excellent work on your list, Colin! I enjoyed reading it.
Interestingly enough, a lot of the songs that you have towards the top of this are songs that I didn’t really care much for. I think you’ve seen my choices elsewhere so you probably kno which ones I’m talking about. 😉
Thanks, Briekimchi, that’s very nice to say. 🙂 Just like I said to Tibor, I like the diversity in expression. For me, it is interesting seeing someone not liking Crisalide or Blackbird, because it just proves there is no such thing as absolute “universal appeal” and that music just speaks to us in different ways. 🙂
This was such a hard choice but at the end I voted for: Israel, Bulgaria, Greece, Slovakia, San Marino, Switzerland, Armenia and North Macedonia. I love so many of them and I could have honestly voted for almost all of them! So many robbed masterpieces!
Justice for HOREHRONIE!
Of all of these I would say sennek matter of time .. It was an excellent entry let down by terrible staging and nervous live .. if it had the staging it needed it could have done very well at the contest .. still listen to it ..
Also norma John blackbird , atmospheric perfection .. what a shame it didn’t qualify
couldn’t agree more…it’s like i wrote this comment