Perhaps there was a reactionary backlash against early 80s pop’s synthesisers and makeup, similar to that which put Engelbert Humperdinck at No 1 at psychedelia’s height: how else to explain the UK popularity of Nicole’s winsome Ein bißchen Frieden (A Little Peace), which is essentially I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing without the tune? 60. Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta – A-Ba-Ni-Bi (Israel, 1978)īy now, Eurovision’s Abba tendency was beginning to look a bit clapped-out: witness the Alphabeta – three boys and three girls – and the cantering but club-footed cod-disco of A-Ba-Ni-Bi, its chorus catchy only because you are clobbered over the head with it about 7,000 times. It is startlingly pallid, although be thankful for small mercies: it originally had seven verses. The old Father Ted joke about Ireland deliberately entering a terrible song in Eurovision because it couldn’t afford to host the contest the following year had its basis in a persistent rumour about Rock ’n’ Roll Kids. Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan – Rock ’n’ Roll Kids (Ireland, 1994) It was hhistoric in some ways – Dave Benton was the first black performer to win Eurovision and it was the first entry from a former Soviet country to win – but not, alas, musically. Middling disco-house, like a less impactful version of Phats and Small’s Turn Around, with a cheesy chorus and a lot of irksome vocal ad-libbing. Tanel Padar, Dave Benton and 2XL – Everybody (Estonia, 2001) Obviously, no one was expecting Eurovision to come up with a winner that reflected 1979’s cutting-edge pop – Gary Numan, the Specials etc – but there are limits.
Milk and Honey – Hallelujah (Israel, 1979)Ī song so weedy that a light breeze would knock it flat, sung by an ineffably annoying cabaret turn in sequinned braces. Perhaps it is kindest to say that there were evidently plenty of people who found Netta’s performance of the staccato Toy, replete with onomatopoeic vocalising, chicken noises, flapping arms and much self-consciously wacky gurning to camera, endearing rather than wildly infuriating and leave it at that. Endearing or wildly infuriating? Israel’s Netta performs Toy at Eurovision in Lisbon in 2018.
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