ESC: Austria and Eurovision
Merci, Conchita!
Servus and hello everyone! Today is the first day of the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest - and I'm publishing the first of three posts about the ESC. I'll be writing about my home countries' participants from the past, the present - and... well, I can't write about future candidates. Today's topic is.... * drumroll * Austria!
5 facts about Austria's participation in Eurovision
There's a lot to say about Austria's participation in Eurovision - so I decided to pick just five interesting facts. If you'd like to learn how we managed to come in second to last although we received zero points, keep reading ;-)
1) Austria "managed" to get 0 points 4 times...
1962 - "Nur in der Wiener Luft" ("Only in the Viennese Air") by Eleonore Schwarz wasn't received too well and did not get any points.
1988 - Wilfried wasn't particularly successful with his song "Lisa Mona Lisa".
1991 - "Venedig im Regen" by Thomas Forstner was not popular with Europe's voters. Autriche, nul points.
2015 - "I'm Yours" by The Makemakes was (for reasons I don't understand, as it's definitely one of my all-time Eurovision favourites) not successful at all.
2) ... but we only won twice.
1966 - Merci, Udo! The late Udo Jürgens won the Eurovision Song Contest in his third attempt in a row with his song Merci, Chèrie. Thank you for the music, Udo!
2014 - Conchita Wurst rose like a phoenix and won with a powerful, James-Bond-like song. Her success was not only a success for amazing music, but also for the LGBTQ community. Thank you, Conchita!
3) Austria chose to boycott the ESC several times.
- 1969: The ESC took place in Spain, where Francisco Franco was in power at the time.
- 1970: Four songs had tied for first place - sever countries chose to opt out. One of them was Austria.
- 1973-1975: Nobody knows why.
- 1998: Austria didn't have enough points from the previous years to compete.
- 2001: Again, Austria didn't have enough points.
- 2006: Austria didn't enter due to the... erm... mediocre results in previous years. (But there was an entry in 2007 and Austria came in second to last!)
- 2008: Austria was still upset because of the few votes it had received. But at least the finals were broadcast.
- 2009: Austria complained that the guidelines for the semifinals were not clear enough - but at least, again, the finals were broadcast.
- 2010: Apparently, Austria still wasn't too happy about the rules (or the few points?).
4) How Austria came in second to last with 0 points
In 2015, when The Makemakes received no points, Austria still didn't come in last: Germany also did not get a single point. Due to the rules of the ESC, the song that was performed earlier in the running order is favoured. (Have I mentioned that The Makemakes are in fact brilliant and would have deserved more points? ;-))
5) Austria and the UK - a love story
As of 2017, Austria has given most points - in the grand finals and in the semi finals! - to the UK. And they've returned the favour: Austria has also received most points from the UK. Thanks for your support, Britain! And thanks for your brilliant musicians - most of whom have never entered the Eurovision Song Contest.
What's your favourite Eurovision song? Who's gonna win this year's finals? Let me know in the comments below!
Wollte gerade meinen Anti Eurovision Post neu auflegen :-) - kann es kaum erwarten ob Deutschland 0 oder 1 Punkt erhält diesmal
Mich hat euer Beitrag sehr an Ed Sheeran erinnert, aber war ganz gut meiner Meinung nach... Anti-Eurovision? So schlimm? Dabei war ja zumindest Ungarn wirklich gut unterwegs. Mal was erfrischend anderes beim Songcontest!
Your post received an upvote by the @illuminati-Inc music curation team and its partner @curie.
You may consider voting for the Curie witness; all witness payouts are used to fund Curie operations including but not limited to more than 10 curation teams (vote here).
Servus,
du hast von mir ein Upvote erhalten! Ich bin ein Curation-Bot und meine Mission ist, hochwertigen Content unter #steemit-austria zu fördern. Hier kannst du mehr über mich und meine Funktionsweise erfahren. Wie du an meinen Curation-Rewards mitverdienen kannst, wird dort ebenfalls beschrieben.
Übrigens: Wenn du den Tag #steemit-austria verwendest, finde ich deine Posts noch leichter!
Auf dem dem Steemit-Austria Discord-Server kannst du nette Leute kennen lernen und deine Beiträge promoten.
Zum aktuellen Tagesreport
I'm happy to find something about the esc here on steemit :)
Two of my personal favourites this year (Belgium and Croatia) have already dropped out in the first semi-final, but I really like the Austrian and the Czech participant, too, and think they have good chances to win due to the modern songs that really put you in a good mood. However, like every year the eurovision song contest features a lot of great songs, so there are more where I wouln't mind if they won.
I just hope my country, Germany, finally gets some points again this year.^^
Good luck, Germany! I don't think I've listened to your song yet. Looking forward to it! Let's see what is possible without Stefan Raab... ;-) (Or is he still doing the SSDSGPS?)
Unfortunately he has stepped back from show business all together some years ago.
However, there are talks about him returning to television (or at least as a producer) with another show, so who knows if he might return to eurovision in the next years. I would enjoy it.
So would I. Though I understand that he probably needs a retirement more than most people in the showbiz. He must have been working more or less 24/7, given that he had so many projects going on and that he probably still had to maintain a private life somehow.