The strangest and most underrated performances (yes, it’s a turkey) in Eurovision history

The Eurovision Song Contest was launched in 1956, as a means of uniting the countries of Europe in song. Shocking the rest of the world with campy performances, truly crazy stunts and song lyrics that leave your head shaking was just a happy by-product.

Each participating country – some are occasionally banished for awful performances – sends a three-minute song, to be performed live by a singer or a group of up to six people. They are then scored by professional juries and television viewers – think the Oscars meets the Logies – who assign one to eight, then 10 and finally 12 points to their 10 favourite songs.

There is a well-worn history of Eurovision that will take you through the high-profile highlights, from Cliff Richard (in 1968) and Julio Iglesias (1970) to Celine Dion (1988), Engelbert Humperdinck (2012) and, of course, ABBA, who won in 1974 with Waterloo and are wheeled out as living proof that someone who wore satin on the Eurovision stage can not only live to tell the tale but make a quick billion, to boot.

This is the alternative history. There are some less-known performances that should have made the history books, which teach the all-important lessons that make a performance memorable and give an artist (and country, and song) a fighting chance to carve off their slice of the Eurovision meringue.

Nothing is ever too strange

With a stage look that stepped straight out of J.R.R. Tolkien’s oft-overlooked second-best bestseller Lordi of the Rings, Lordi are the Eurovision-winning act that represented Finland at Eurovision in 2006. A mash-up of monster masks, glam rock, horror make-up and, somewhere in all that, a kind of post-KISS vibe, Hard Rock Hallelujah hit Eurovision hard. Of course, they won, and the rest is Eurovision history.

If you’re shopping fabric, don’t go past satin

French twins Sophie and Magaly Gilles – known on stage as Sophie & Magaly – dialled up the shimmer in this memorable performance, representing Luxembourg in 1980. Their song Papa Pingouin (“Daddy Penguin”) is memorable, but best remembered here are the ABBA-inspired satin jumpsuits they wore on stage. Setting aside the shocking risk of static electrocution, this is the shimmery glam look that defined Eurovision in the ’70s. (Shame it landed a year late.)

Yodelling? That’s a hard yes

It is almost surprising there isn’t more yodelling in Eurovision, but this 2017 performance put Romanian entrants Ilinca and Alex Florea on the stage in Ukraine performing Yodel It! Written by Alexandra Niculae and produced by Mihai Alexandru, Yodel It! was a hot mess of genres and techniques, a bit of rock, a bit of pop, rap vocals from Florea and, of course, Ilinca’s yodelling. Nothing has lit a yodelling fire like this on stage since The Lonely Goatherd.

When in doubt: clowns

Djambo, Djambo, Switzerland’s entrant for Eurovision in 1976, is a poignant reflection by an old man playing a barrel organ for coins in the street on his younger days as a clown. But, let’s be honest, the poignancy stops there. Peter, Sue and Marc, a Swiss group from Bern, were wearing so much denim the screen almost warped. And Djambo, Djambo himself? He was smirking on stage the whole time.

When you run out of clowns: vampires

Romanian singer Cezar brought It’s My Life to Eurovision in 2013, performing the song in what looked like a sparkly, sequin-studded robe borrowed from the wardrobe of Drag Dracula. Chuck in some dancers and a lot of wafting red sheets and you have … well, who knows. In musical terms, Cezar was genuinely compelling, belting out a Bohemian Rhapsody-beating falsetto set to an electronic dance beat. Shame about the Dracula shtick. Move over, Beelzebub, the Prince of the Undead is in town.

Bring Your Nana to Work week is real

It may have gone down in Eurovision history as one of the greatest shtick moves ever, but Buranovskiye Babushki rocked the house. An Udmurt-Russian ethno-pop band comprising eight elderly women from the village of Buranovo, Udmurtia (yes, they were legit), their song Party for Everybody was a showstopper. Alas, it came second, beaten only by perennial Eurovision winner Sweden.

When you run out of vampires: turkeys

The fact this was basically a novelty pop song – the Irish equivalent of sending Shaddap You Face to Eurovision – Irelande Douze Points, as the name suggests, was nodding to the fact that the objective of any song in Eurovision is to secure 12 (douze, in French) points. The inspiration? The preceding year’s Irish entrant, They Can’t Stop the Spring, performed by Dervish, had been ranked 24th out of 24 competing countries.

Jim and Keith. Hashtag no judgment

Leave it to Norway… In 2022 they sent a British-Norwegian pop trio named Subwoolfer to compete: Keith and Jim the wolves – wearing stylised yellow wolf-head masks, no less – and DJ Astronaut (Carl-Henrik Wahl), wearing a gold space suit. The wolves were later revealed to be British singer Ben Adams and Norwegian singer Gaute Ormasen. Their song? Give That Wolf a Banana.

The Eurovision Song Contest will be held May 13-17 and screened live on SBS and SBS On Demand.

What is your favourite Eurovision performance? Tell us in the comments below.

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