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Celebrating 60 years of Eurovision, Compilation CD

EUROVISION 60th CELEBRATION – SONG 4 of 60

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The 4th song on the celebration compilation comes from 1995, the first year I got accreditation at Eurovision and therefore meeting the artists personally. It is from CROATIA and their song NOSTALIGIJA of Magazin & Lidija. Recently ZITA & BURGERD covered it in Afrikaans and is called DUISEND TALE (Thousand languages). The fact that songs have been in different languages is one of the things that drew many fans to Eurovision.

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Celebrating 60 years of Eurovision, Compilation CD

EUROVISION 60th CELEBRATION – SONG 3 of 60

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The third song on this anniversary compilation comes from BELARUS and is their 2013 song SOLAYOH performed by Alyona Lankskaya with a backing singer from South Africa, WILLEM BOTHA. Willem had first chance to cover it but turned it down and DUO AFRICA grabbed the opportunity and the song is in Afrikaans and Aruba, a language of Nigeria.

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Hungary at Eurovision

NEW R O W MEMBER – TAMAS of HUNGARY on his countries entries

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Tamas Vamos from Hungary has just joined OGAE Rest of the world and he will also come to Vienna. Here is his recollection of his country’s songs in Eurovision.
1994 – Friderika Bayer – Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet? – I was only 9 years old, it was the first entry of Hungary. I really like that song today too: deep and emotional but not a happy one.
1995 – Csaba Szigeti – Új név a régi ház falán – I really don’t remember about this song and singer… I think I missed the event in that year.
1996 – Gjon Delhusa – Fortuna – Delhusa is a kind of Z-list celebrities in Hungary. I cannot remember this song.
1997 – VIP – Miért kell, hogy elmenj? – This was the first ESC which I clearly remember. I didn’t really like the song, but I was sad about the result of Hungary (12th place). I had not known yet that it’s a great result and also didn’t know yet what kind of party/family is the ESC.
1998 – Charlie – A holnap már nem lesz szomorú – Charlie has a great voice. He’s still popular but doesn’t make new songs, so now is kind of retro. The song was forgetable. I’m sure about it, because I don’t remember.
THE BIG BREAK
2005 – NOX – Forogj világ – A huge hit! Another 12th place song, even they had a good odds about winning too. This year, I became a fan of ESC
2006 – Hungary missed to catch the flight to Athens, or I don’t know why we did not participate…
2007 – Magdi Rúzsa – Unsubstantial blues – She’s a great singer, now the member of the experts in A Dal, the Hungarian selector show. The song had a good result (9th place), but the next year, there was no automatical qualification to the Final by the last year’s result – bad luck! The song is good, but not my favourite. A little bit slow, a little bit blue… But what else should be a song with “blues” in the title… In this year, I finally understood what is ESC – thanks to the performance of Verka Serduchka and the Lasha tumbai (TANZEN!)
2008 – Csézy – Candlelight – The only last place song by Hungary in ESC. No comment… This song was boring. Afterall, this year was the first, when I realised, that an ESC show can be also boring…
2009 – Zoli Ádok – Dance With Me – He didn’t qualified to the Final, but I love this song. I didn’t hear about Ádok before ESC 2009, and I also have heard nothing since then too… But this song was great. And the show too. This was the first and the last time, when my favourite won the contest.
2010 – Norway is cold and expensive, so Hungary stayed home… :
2011 – Kati Wolf – What about my dreams? – I think I don’t have to introduce this song to OGAE, do I? 🙂 The result was disappointing, the song is still a big hit in Hungary. This was the first year, when I listened the song before the event and catched the favourites. (The Danish New Tomorrow and – shame on me – the Jedwards’ Lipstick)
2012 – Compact Disco – Sound of Our Hearst – A Dal started in this year, so finally we got a national selection show. They was not my favourite. I think they are not original, a bit too dark. It was a miracle that they qualified to the final. This year the ESC show was not really good… But the songs were awesome!!! I think this year had the most great hits.
2013 – ByeAlex – Kedvesem – I was satisfied with the result of A Dal. This song was my very favourite. Everyone in Hungary expected a Nullpoints or last place results – he catched the 10th place with a 12 pts from Germany. I remember I was at a party and we drank at every points was given to Hungary. We didn’t expected to drink so much…
2014 – András Kállay-Saunders – Running – good song, good singer. That’s all…  And a 5th place. It was amazing to enjoy ESC at a party in Berlin with many ESC fans and watching the results with a Swedish guy. And also a big experience to see the first time the Hungarian entry to lead the scoreboard – a while.
2015 – ? – This year, I cannot imagine about the entries of A Dal that can be as good as Kállay-Saunders or ByeAlex. But after good years, has to come a weak one.
2015 Eurovision Song Contest, Celebrating 60 years of Eurovision, Competitions, Covers

EUROVISION – 60 YEARS CELEBRATION

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Today is the official launch of the big project OGAE Rest of the world has undertaken to celebrate 60 years of Eurovision. A 3 CD set will be made and will be available in Vienna during the Eurovision period. Celebrating 60 years, so the 3 CD set will contain 60 COVERS of EUROVISION songs by artists from South Africa. Each CD will contain 20 songs. Only 60 copies will be printed and handed out in VIENNA during promotions and competitions.

Deciding on which 60 songs took a lot of effort since there were over 400 to consider and only 60 could be chosen.

I have tried to take into account several factors

– countries of the original song (trying to give each country at least one song) but it was not always possible as some like Czech republic has no cover done and others, notable Sweden and Iceland could almost fill 33% of such a project.

– SA artists – trying to use as big a variety as possible, making sure no-one is there twice as solo artist. Some do appear twice but then in duet with someone else.

– New and old songs, classics and hidden gems

– Big hits at EUROVISION but also big hits in South Africa (this does not always correlate)

After selecting the 60 songs, I also consulted with about 10 people who each could add one song and now the final 60 is there.

In the next 6 weeks, I will introduce these 60 songs ONE by ONE in the order they will appear on the compilation set.

Once all 60 songs have been unveiled, I will do a post as to how people can get a copy – keeping in mind there are just 60 copies. Because it is a promotion, the CD’s are not for sale.

I hope by the time we do the cover around beginning APRIL, we will have a logo for the club which will be on the compilation.

The original idea was to hand the first set to UDO JURGENS in VIENNA, but unfortunately that is no longer possible since his death in December.

2015 Eurovision Song Contest, Austria 2015 Selection, Bojana Stamenov, Serbia, Vienna 2015

SERBIA SEND BOJANA STAMENOV

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Earlier this evening Serbian broadcaster RTS held their national final Odbrojavanje za beč to choose their entry for Vienna.

A combination of jury and Public vote choose Bojana Stamenov as their winner singing the song Ceo svet je moj which was written by the composer of their 2007 entry Molitva, Vladimir Graić.

We welcome Serbia back to the Eurovision Song Contest after missing the 2014 contest in Copenhagen. What do you think of their energy?