Eurovision 2008 - Slovenia

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Rebeka Dremelj

History (1956 to 2007):

Slovenia's previous appearances: 13 year(s) out of 52
Years participated: 1993; 1995-1999; 2001-
Best result: 7th (1995, 2001)

Making its début in 1993, Slovenia (along with Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) was one of the first wave of east European countries to appear at Eurovision. Sadly, the country's record has been unremarkable, peaking with two 7th places in 1995 and 2001. Both of those were achieved by Slovene divas with big voices; Darja Švajger in 1995 (who returned in 1999 and came a respectable 11th) and the fantastic Nuša Derenda in 2001, whose song 'Energy' deserved to finish higher than it did. Slovenia has tended to do less well when it has sent men (1998, 2005, 2006), men dressed as women (2002's camptastic Sestre), or even one of each (2004). However, Slovenia has only missed 1994 and 2000 through relegation, which is a better record than many other countries.

Having used either 100% jury voting or 100% televoting to select its earlier entries, one of Slovenia's biggest problems since 1999 has been its insistence on using a 50/50 hybrid, causing havoc and incriminations when the jury and televoters disagree with one another. The weighting of votes meant that the jury's preference overrode the viewers' choice in both 1999 ('Zakaj' by Tinkara Kovac) and 2001 ('Ostani tu' by Karmen Stavec), though it didn't matter too much given that the winners both ended up doing quite well at Eurovision. 2002 was more controversial, however, with Sestre getting the Eurovision ticket despite Karmen Stavec - back for another go with 'Se in se' - winning the televote by a hefty margin (31,944 votes compared to just 8,454 for Sestre).

After the uproar of the year before, broadcaster RTVSLO twiddled the system for 2003, seemingly in the televoters' favour. Now, the winner would be selected via two rounds of voting: the first round would choose the top 3 songs using 50% televoting and 50% international jury; these top 3 songs would then be performed again, with the winner chosen wholly by televoting. Unfortunately, this system merely exposed the gulf in musical tastes between the televoters and the international jury. Despite getting nearly double the televotes of anyone else in the first round, the group Bepop (winners of Slovenia's Popstars show) received no points at all from the jury, who instead favoured Alenka Godec. Unfortunately for Bepop, this left them in overall 4th place, thus missing out on a place in the final runoff. With their overwhelming favourite knocked out, the televoters had little choice but to plump for their original second choice - the ubiquitous Karmen Stavec, this time singing the enjoyable 'Lep poletni dan' ('A beautiful summer day'). Though no-one could deny that Karmen deserved her shot at Eurovision after cruelly missing out for the last two years, it was hardly a satisfactory outcome, with neither the jury (who had originally ranked Karmen as 4th) nor the televoters ending up with their favourite. To compound one flawed decision with another, it was decided that Karmen would perform the song in English at Eurovision, the rather attractive 'Lep poletni dan' morphing into the excruciatingly banally-titled 'Na na na'. Even before the Contest, I felt that this was a classic example of a good foreign language song being ruined by a poor translation into English, and so it proved - Karmen, singing last on the night, finished a terribly disappointing 23rd with just 7 points. Indeed, had it not been for Slovenia's obliging neighbours - 4 points from Bosnia and 3 from Croatia - she would have scored nothing at all. To be fair, Karmen's pink make-up and dress was much scarier than her song; rather than disproving the theory that singing last is an advantage, Karmen reminded us that singing last might well be an advantage, but only if the song is actually any good.

Despite this disaster, the new format of the Contest gave Slovenia a chance to take part in the 2004 Semi Final. Unfortunately, the two-round voting system - unwisely being used for a second time - threw up an almost identitical fiasco to the year before, with the televoters' overwhelming favourite (Natalija Verboten's 'Cry on my shoulder') once again scoring nothing from the jury, who gave top marks to Rožmarinke's 'Kliše' instead. Just like Bepop in 2003, this meant that Natalija could only finish 4th overall, therefore failing to make the final runoff, and leaving the way clear for Platin - original 2nd choice of both the jury and the televoters - to win. By sending a male-female duo to Eurovision, Slovenia appeared to have embraced 2004's trend, with Malta, Lithuania and Belarus all going down the same route. However, Platin went further than most by kissing on stage during the performance of 'Stay forever'. This was not quite as dreadful as it sounds, given that Simon and Diana of the duo Platin had decided to make the most of their trip to Istanbul by arranging their wedding for the day after the Semi Final. Unfortunately, their onstage snogging - perhaps an effort to distract viewers' attention from the song - proved to be the kiss of death, with Slovenia mustering even fewer points than the year before (a measly 5) and once again having to rely on neighbourly contributions from Bosnia (1) and Croatia (3). This time Macedonia also joined in the act, but its 1 point was not enough to prevent Slovenia finishing second from bottom, the country's dignity only remaining intact because Switzerland's terrifying entry scored nothing at all.

Given the experiences of previous years, the decision to ditch the jury in 2005 and rely on 100% televoting was perhaps a sensible one - at least then the televoters could only blame themselves if Slovenia's entry did badly. Even with 100% televoting, however, the result was not clear cut, with Rebeka Dremelj's 'Pojdi z menoj' narrowly winning the first round televote ahead of Saša Lendero's 'Metulj', but with both losing out to Omar Naber and 'Stop' (only 3rd in the first round) in the final runoff of the top 3 songs. Unfortunately, Omar fell foul of the curse of Slovene men, his 12th place in the Semi Final better than many had expected, but not quite enough to qualify Slovenia for the Final.

For 2006, Slovenia inexplicably brought back its 'expert' jury, with the gulf between the jurors' and the public's taste contributing to possibly the most farcical EMA selection yet. The viewers' verdict was unequivocal, with Saša Lendero's 'Mandoline' and Atomik Harmonik's 'Polkaholik' picking up 12 points and 10 points respectively in both the SMS and telephone votes. Incredibly though, neither scored anything at all from the jury, leaving the way clear for Anžej Dežan (the jury's favourite) and Plan B (later translated into English as 'Mr Nobody') to sneak through with 26 points to Saša's 24. Due to Omar's result from the year before, Anžej had to first try and qualify from the Semi Final; it was always going to be a challenge, but his 16th place was still a little disappointing.

Last year’s song was FABULOUS! It wass everything a Slovene Eurovision entry should be, with an attractive female singer in a beautiful dress, well-toned male dancers, a wind machine, and an ear-shattering high note at the end.

This year's entry:





My opinion & prediction:

I can’t say much about this, until I hear the final version.

My prediction for the Semi Final: 12th to 14th
My prediction for the Final: Possible qualifier; 13th to 14th