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1999
Eurovision Song Contest,
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Please send your news to me, Geoff Harrison at my contact page |
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1999
Eurovision Song Contest,
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|
This
Feature needs Javascript, which you don't have working.
Please send your news to me, Geoff Harrison at my contact page |
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Index to 1999 Reports - all with pictures!
2000 Contest Venue:
Selma's CD
came out in Europe at the end of June. External Links: |
I just want to give a big thanks to all of you who surfed to my site on the day of the contest, and the day after - I had over 6000 hits each day, which has really stunned me!
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Croatia 'punished'
for synthesised voices
On
September 24th, the European Broadcasting Union announced that on
September 15 the Television Commitee had decided to reduce the votes
gained by Croatia in the 1999 contest by 33% because the song, 'Maria
Magdalena' used synthesised male backing voices, and no male backing
singers were on stage. This means Croatia now scored 79 points, but
the European Broadcasting union have now confirmed to me that the
placing for Croatia is unchanged for the 1999 contest at 4th. There
is no change to those disqualified for 2000 by low scoring. You can
see the changes in my 1999 score table.
The rules for 1999 did not expressly forbid the use of synthesised voices, but say that all performers must be on stage. The score reduction will affect Croatia's future chances of disqualification.
The EBU also issued the rules for 2000, which include a number of interesting changes. All the National selections must be completed by 28 February (earlier than before), there will be no more than 23 songs for 2001. No backing vocals or computerized vocals are allowed on the backing track (This rule seems to have applied in 1999 to Croatia - an interesting example of a retroactive rule), and participants are urged to get a written undertaking about the originality of the song (Germany & Bosnia take note).
Charlotte
Nilsson speaks out
Charlotte Nilsson,
the singer of the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest winning song "Take
me to you heaven" was interviewed on Radio Sweden on
October 10th. Two songs from her new album were played, one of which
is her current single "I write you a love song" (left),
a cover version of a Scandinavian hit by model-actress-singer
Izabella Scorupco. Charlotte also talked about the dispute over the
song and album.
If you missed the
interview (which is in English, by the way), click
on this link to play the interview in Real Audio.
Globe
Arena awaits
I was in Stockholm
a few weeks ago and visited the Globe Arena complex - the venue for
the 2000 contest. It is only a few steps from the Globen underground
station which is about fifteeen minutes from T-Centralen in the city centre.
The picture on the
right shows just how big the arena is - this was a snowboarding event.
The area around the
Arena is dominated by ugly concrete, and the only hotel close is the
Globe Hotel - expensive - and not taking bookings for that week.
However its easy to get to Globen from anywhere in Stockholm.
I was given a
booklet about the arena which is full of pointless facts like:
In the ten years
since the Globe arena was inaugurated, we've served 1,750,000 litres
of beer and 320,000 litres of wine, making the Globe one of
Stockholm's most popular restaurants!
In some configurations the Arena can hold up to 16,337 (Bruce Springsteen, 1992).
The Arena has its own web site at http://www.globen.se
Your can read the announcement at this link, and the new rules for 2000 at this link (PDF file)
of
you visited this page between January 11th & October 25th, 1999.
Counting has now
stopped here, but I'm now counting on the 2000
page
![[Eurovision database]](db.gif)
