The best of the Worst: Part 2 of the “nul points” countdown

Welcome back to the countdown of the best worst songs in Eurovision history. Out of the 1250-odd songs that have competed in a Eurovision final, only 36 have ever failed to score, with a mere 16 of those coming in the last 40 years, when with all the countries voting and points on offer, leaving with nothing is quite a feat in itself! Last time we started looking back at some of these notorious anti-classics, trying to figure out why they met with such a fate, and finding the hidden qualities amongst them - easier in some cases than others. Click here for the first half of our countdown. It's time for the top five songs to have landed at the very bottom of the pile, including the champion of the losers, the ultimate nul points song of all time. We'll also have a look at another song we felt was utterly deserving of being the lowest of the low. If you don't agree, make sure to leave a comment underneath! It's time once again to resurrect the ghosts of nul points past... 5. Ann Sophie - Black Smoke (Germany 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGMJOchTRPc Redeeming features? In a lot of ways this isn’t really characteristic of what you’d expect a nul pointer to be – then again, until this year we hadn’t had any in the modern week-long era of the contest. It’s a contemporary song written by experienced pop songwriters, Ann Sophie gave a professional performance and for me personally I have always said it would be one that I continued to listen to after the contest and it has been. So what went wrong? Well first of all alarm bells could have started going prior to the contest when despite the song being generally quite liked, hardly anybody would have had it listed as their favourites, and they’re the ones that get votes. Ann Sophie was also incredibly unlucky to be placed more or less at the start of an incredibly mid-low tempo predominantly female run of songs. All of this points towards a song being forgotten, and that’s just what happened – a look at how middling the jury scores were across the board for Germany will attest to that. 4. Finn Kalvik – Aldri I Livet (Norway 1981) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmR6p6Kn15I Redeeming features? This is the song that really cemented Norway’s reputation as Eurovision flops at the time, which is a crying shame, because it’s very lovely, particularly the studio recording - but then of course it would be, with Finn’s friend Benny Andersson of ABBA on production duties. In something of an “Easter egg” for Eurovision fans, the studio version also features Agnetha and Frida on backing vocals, which makes the song all the more pretty. That’s not to rob Finn Kalvik of credit for actually writing the song, but everything fits together nicely here. What went wrong? Unfortunately however, when you strip away the lush production and the haunting backing vocals from the female half of ABBA, it leaves Finn Kalvik somewhat exposed. It’s just a singer-songwriter with not much stage presence, in an ill-advised outfit, timidly singing a little song. It’s still a nice little song of course, but it’s nothing compared to the studio recording, and only a quick look at the winner from that year will tell you that it just wasn’t what the juries were looking for. 3. Seyyal Taner & Lokomotif - Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne (Turkey 1987) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZjdblOuqT4 Redeeming features? Turkey’s first decade at Eurovision was a pretty dismal one, with two last places already under their belt, but they must have felt that they were onto something with this one. Seyyal was a big star, and the song took inspiration from the schlager songs that had done very well in the prior years but kept a distinctly Turkish sound while adding elements of contemporary pop. It’s very catchy and energetic, and one would have thought it could have earned Turkey a respectable result. What went wrong? Now we’re at the business end of the countdown, this part gets a little bit trickier. Sure, there have been undeserving losers mentioned already, but their fates have been mostly easy to explain. One feels that this one had all the ingredients to do much better than it did. Perhaps jurors still were just reluctant to vote for Turkey, who never did well until the televoting era. Was it the language? Maybe the sheer unadulterated energy of the song was a con as well as a pro – it’s extremely fast and furious, and perhaps the whirlwind choreography, the key-changes and the ridiculous tempo simply left the jurors exhausted. The singers themselves were certainly out of breath by the end! 2. The Makemakes - I Am Yours (Austria 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f993p0CAV8 Redeeming features? Now we get to the real head-scratcher of the countdown. How could this song have left with absolutely nothing? Not one of my favourites at first, in the run-up to the contest I started thinking I had underestimated its chances, as it did well in pre-contest polls and was singled out by non-fans as one of the better songs. It had a great melody, mixed retro and contemporary well, and it looked great visually, with the flaming piano capturing people’s attention. Come the night of the contest, it was felt that this would give the home country a very respectable result. What went wrong? As you’ll gather from the above description, I have no idea, but I can think of two factors that may have played a role. It could well have suffered from coming after an incredibly strong run of songs (three of the four preceding songs ended up in the top five) and just not being able to keep up the pace. It could also have been a victim of the system, getting reasonably good televotes and reasonably good jury scores, but not enough to land in the top ten of any country. That being said, both of those factors were outside of their control and it’s hard to imagine either robbing a country of any points whatsoever – ‘I Am Yours’ really stands out as something you would not expect a nul pointer to be. 1. Jahn Teigen – Mil Etter Mil (Norway 1978) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVj8tlXQ1Vg Here we have it, and really it couldn’t ever have been anything else. There may have been better songs to have scored nul points, but there can be very little doubt that this is the best nul points song. I have abandoned the format for this one because really, its good qualities and the reasons it failed are one and the same. It’s like from the moment Jahn started clowning around in the backstage footage and then came bounding onto the Paris stage, he knew that a big fat zero was coming, and went all out to make it happen. The red trousers, the failed attempts at rockstar wailing, the manic eyes, the leap into the air, and of course the “oh whatever” moment in the last chorus – the brace-twanging – all contributed to assuring the performance has become an iconic Eurovision moment, and rightly so. It’s usually presented as a masterclass in getting nul points, but as we know, with the possible exception of ‘Opera’ moments like this don’t come along where everything and nothing fits into place at the same time. It’s an ultimate example of everything going so wrong, yet being so right. The song itself is pretty catchy too, which helps, even though the cheesy orchestration butchered what was a tasteful country-rock ballad, something Jahn himself was none too happy with (perhaps explaining his performance choices). Still, as we know the result didn’t phase him, and he managed to capitalise on his result to become an incredibly successful Norwegian artist in spite of – or perhaps because of – that night in Paris. Another reason why Mil Etter Mil is the ultimate nul pointer. "Rock-Bottom" Jemini - Cry Baby (United Kingdom 2003) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAJ62IG3gBo We come, finally, to another notorious Eurovision moment, but one that definitely deserved every point it racked up on the scoreboard. The most fame nul points occasion of our time, we all know what happened here. Whilst accusations of political voting initially flew around, and would continue to dog the UK at Eurovision for many years, nobody could deny that this was one of the contest’s all time worst vocal performances, or argue that it should have received anything more than it got. Of course the vocals are enough to let you ignore the boring staging and the empty song, so as well as being a case of a truly bad performance getting a truly bad score, it is also a prime example of a “this will do” attitude from the United Kingdom. This was the start of the dark years for the country, and the recovery is yet to happen. The political voting excuse was enough to ensure the BBC didn’t try any harder, but 12 years later, this really should serve as a warning that sooner or later, history will repeat itself...

The best of the Worst: Part 2 of the “nul points” countdown

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