The first edition of the contest that I remember is the one of 2005 , which took place in Ukraine when Greece won with Helena Paparizou-"My number one". Even though I recall that both my mother and I fell asleep during her performance, years later I started to appreciate her a lot. What actually made me happy back then was the well-deserved third place occupied by Romania with Luminita Anghel and Sistem's "Let me try" . Undoubtedly, that was one of the best songs my country has ever sent to Eurovision Song Contest: an incredible voice, an original band and an amazing stage performance were the perfect ingredients to make Romania win the contest...
2006 was the first year when I had a nightmare of a time trying to understand why the winner ... won. Apart from the fact that Romania's Mihai Traistariu was only able to get 4th place with his goosebumps-creating voice, emphasized by his song "Tornero", I was extremely infuriated by the monsters of Lordi whose "Hard Rock Hallelujah" was noisy enough to get votes from Europe's emo kids. I still believe that Finland's entry was one of Eurovision's most ridiculous winners.
I can clearly remember how much I loved Romania's entry in 2007, a controversial mix of languages and musical styles, that made me believe we had strong chances for a good ranking. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and the funny guys from Todomondo only placed 13th in the final, leaving the victory to Serbia's "Molitva", a powerful ballad.
The following year, 2008 was of good quality.My first favourite Eurovision song, which I still love was Iceland's "This is my life", so 2008 was a special year for me. Romania tried its luck with a ballad in Romanian and Italian, which definitely was a disappointment, not only to me, but also to the whole continent, as we only placed 20th. The winner was the formidable trio formed by Dima Bilan, Edvin Marton and the ice-skating legend Evgeny Plushenko.The song, Believe, was a masterpiece that totally deserved to win and probably one of the most memorable winners of ESC.
Another year, 2009, marked by the record-breaking Norwegian born in Belarus Alexander Rybak , with his folk song "Fairytale" about which I cannot really say anything. Its magic must have simply convinced voters, as it is almost impossible to find anything wrong with it. No words can describe my love for this song, or for the other creations of Alexander Rybak, whom I had the pleasure to watch live at Romania's X Factor show. Another unique entry which I appreciated was Estonia's "Randajad" by "Urban Symphony". Romania did not do so well with Elena Gheorghe and her party song "The Balkan Girls", which I personally believed that would place higher than 19th, due to its "Eurovision-ish" style.
2010, one of the best Eurovision editions, was the year when Germany won with "Satellite", sung by the overrated Lena Meyer-Landrut, whose dreadful English accent, average vocals, catchy tune, funny dance and stupid lyrics defeated some amazing entries, such as Greece's "Opa!", Ukraine's "Sweet People" or Moldova's "Run away", featuring the well-known Epic Sax Guy. Romania won another "bronze medal" thanks to Paula Seling and Ovi, with "Playing with fire".When are we going to win Eurovision? After so many close calls, I strongly believe that we stand a chance this year.
Last but not least, let's bring into discussion last year's great show. Once again, Romania chose a good song by sending the band Hotel FM, whose inspirational message to change the world wasn't followed by voters, that unfortunately decided to run scared with the Azerbaijani Ell and Nikki .Never had I thought they would win, as their ballad was not exceptional, while their live performance was not great either .Furthermore, several other entries should have battled for the victory, such as Ireland's "Lipstick", Finland's "Da da dam" or Denmark's "New tomorrow". These are just of the few songs that I liked last year, together with Estonia's "Rockefeller Street" and Italy's "Madness of love" .
Almost every year, the tension of watching the voting results makes me wake my neighbours up ( so they know it's the Eurovision Grand Final ). Usually, the final ranking is way different than mine, so that means that, once in every 12 months, I get terribly angry, but I always break my promise of never watching the competition ever again...I hope you are looking forward to Eurovision Song Contest 2012 as much as I am! Dear neighbours, please consider leaving home on May, 26th: it's the Eurovision Song Contest final!
Shirley Green
