Here we go then. We're starting our countdown - or should that be countup? - of the 43 songs in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, from worst to best, in my humble opinion.

Thank you for your comments yesterday, when I asked you to guess which song we'd be starting with today. In other words, who do you think is bottom of this year's pile? Sadly, I think it tells you all we need to know about the lower quality of this year's songs that you made eleven different suggestions for worst song. That's a quarter of the entire total. How depressing. It took nine suggestions before the Schlagerboys mentioned the one we're actually starting with. Let's beat around the bush no longer. It's Montenegro.

Yes, we begin with the song which also kicks off this year's Eurovision triumvirate of shows, as Montenegro perform first in semi-final number one in Belgrade. It's a terrible start to the contest, which will probably have viewers turning off in their droves. Even worse, there are another four dull songs immediately following them, with nothing interesting until song six. But we'll get to them later.

When Montenegro finally split from Serbia in June 2006, they had nearly a year to come up with something decent for their first independent Eurovision entry last year, but all they could manage after their final (in a TV studio with no audience) was Stevan Faddy's hopelessly dull Itchy Crotchy song, which came 23rd out of 28 songs in the qualifying round. Montenegro only received points from neighbouring Albania and the other five former Yugoslav countries.

Then they had to witness the ignominy of their former dominant partner Serbia actually winning the damn thing! This year then, with their neighbours hosting, Montenegro will be pulling out all the stops with their song, to avoid a local embarrassment, right? Wrong. They have chosen this dullness instead.

Montenegro - 'Zauvijek Volim Te' - Stefan Filipović



My good friend, musical commentator and sometime musician Mr Roy D Hacksaw has pointed out many times that it's not the controversial or awful (or controversially awful) songs that come last at Eurovision. It's the ones no one can be bothered about or can't remember because they don't provoke any reaction. This is one of those songs. There are worse singers and worse songs to come from this year's competition, but none of them are as deathly dull as this Montenegrin effort. But hold on, maybe that TV performance was on a bad day? Maybe we're being unfair? Perhaps if we look at their video, we'll see the song presented in all its glory and realise how brilliant it really is?



Oh dear. They're doomed. Doomed, I tell you.

Labels: Eurovision 2008, Montenegro

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