Customer Reviews

Eurovision Song Contest 2003

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD cannot be recommended to anyone who didn't see the Eurosong show. This CD is a complete release of all the entries, so here you will get all the songs you liked along with all the songs you didn't like. Personally I enjoy listening to about half of the songs (hence the three stars), while the other half is more often than not simply awful. The CD is wonderful for fans of the Eurovision, viewers who enjoyed most of the music on the show, and friends and family of the contestants. It is NOT an interesting CD for anyone who is unfamiliar with the Eurosong tradition and it certainly does not give a very good impression of the state of contemporary European pop music.

It does, however, include the track "Ne ver ne boisja" by t.A.T.u, which is not available anywhere else, and so this CD might be a worth-while investment if you're a die-hard t.A.T.u. fan.

This album contains all the entries of the 2003 edition of the Eurovision Songcontest. It is a must for the fans of this contest. The beautiful ballad from Norway, the "funny" entry from Austria, the song from Belgium in a non-existant languige, the very modern popsong from Russia, the exciting winning song from Turkey: they are all on it. Even if you are not a Eurovision-fan: this album contains a great selection of 26 popsongs.

Well, I live in South America and I'm a fan of Eurovision Song Contest, so this CD is a perfect way to get the songs I liked, but yes, some of them are not that good. But having it is a way to experience music and musicians from different countries of Europe.

Reviewer: Lisa from Latvia
I am from the country where this Eurovision contest took place, from Latvia. I was really surprised aaabout the beautiful song of Norway which had to win this year. I liked also Belgium song which reminded me Enigma and of course our latvian song "Hallo From Mars". It was extreemely good. I did not like the turkish song and I can not understand its 1-st place. Also russian Tatu song was of low quality. These girls have no voices but only big ambitions.
It is pity we can not see the beautiful show of this 2003 competition in CD.

This is the CD of the songs that came up for competition in 2003's Eurovision song contest. I bought the CD after watching the competition on television, and so my perceptions of the musical acts are influenced by what I have seen as well as what I have heard. All in all, this collection is good, and it impressed me a whole lot more than the Eurovision 2002 competition.

My favourites of this collection are probably Estonia, with the song "Eighties Coming Back" by Ruffus (formerly Claire's Birthday) and Norway's "I'm Not Afraid to Move On" by Jostein Hasselgard. Belgium's entry - "Sanomi" by the group Urban Trad is a cool mixture of traditional and modern musical types with lyrics made up of an invented (or nonsense, however you look at it) language. Poland with "Keine Grenzen - Zadnych Granic" had one of the few non-love songs, this being one of idealism, sung in three languages, none of which were English (Polish, German, and Russian.) t.A.T.u. made their appearance, and came in a respectable third, even with them opting to sing in Russian. I can't say that their song was brilliant, but it wasn't terrible, and it probably had the best performance of the lot.

On the other side of the spectrum, the group representing the United Kingdom, Jemini, with "Cry Baby" is probably the weakest song of the group. This was an opinion that I think many others had, as the UK was the only competitor who finished the contest not having earned a single point. (They can't even blame that on Britain's recent politics.) Ukraine's Olexander Ponomaryov's "Hasta La Vista" can get annoying really fast, as it goes from melodramatic to fast pop, with the oh-so-catchy refrain of "Hasta La Vista baby, baby bye bye" repeating over and over. Austria's entry, Alf Poier's "Weil der Mensch Zaehlt" is said to be somewhat of an offbeat hit in Austria, but having heard it (even understanding German, but he's singing in a dialect) I still don't get it. Latvia's "Hello From Mars" performed by F.L.Y. left me wondering if I understand (continental) European English at all.

In the middle were a lot of fairly good stuff. Turkey's entry "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener ended up winning the competition. Nicola's "Don't Break My Heart" may have a fairly weak line that it's resting on, but besides that, it's got an interesting sound. And for some cuteness, Karmen Stavec's "Nanana", the entry for Slovenia, is a great ender for the album, being a kind of bubble-gum tune that gets caught in one's head without doing too much damage.

I was glad, too, for the non-English songs, though they were in the minority.

Americans often look at the Eurovision song contest with disdain, considering it a great celebration of mediocre Europop. The Grand Prix is a fairly big deal over in Europe though, and it is nice to see the countries of Europe coming together and competing through the medium of music.

The Eurovision song contest which takes place every year in spring is one of the favourite shows of the whole continent . It combines music , dancing and , in a certain level culture with the excitment of the voting process . Everyone though who listens to music frequently and knows all about modern rock , pop and alternative music will probably find a number of these tracks uninteresting and flat .

Indeed , song-entries by Britain , Sweden , Croatia , Germany , Slovenia , Cyprus and Latvia were all lively perfomed by various different artists dressed up in colourfull outfits yet on final analysis lacked decent hooks and any form of personallity . The songs which do stand out are ofcourse Turkey's powerfull and original " Everyway that i can " , Estonia's healthy britpop song " 80's coming back " and the sensual french ballad . Tatu's song is certaintly another plus of th cd . It's exactly the kind of song Eurovision needs in order to move on and reveal a more modern face . Austria's song is more of a joke than a proper melody while Belgium's entry is a welcome ethnic addition to the contest but not really anything special if you compare it to any track of a Dead Can Dance cd .

Eurovision though manages to gather for one night all europe countries together and all european families in front of the t.v . Maybe it's true that the songs work more as memories connected with that night in Riga rather than stand out as music propositions of their own yet that doesn't mean that many of them don't have the soul and the right elements to top the charts and be deeply loved by people all around the world . In the spirit of the contest i give 1 point to Malta , 2 points to Greece , 3 points to the Netherlands , 4 points to Spain , 5 points to Norway , 6 points to Portugal , 7 points to Russia , 8 points to Estonia , 10 points to France and 12 points to Turkey .