The ninth esctoday.com TOP TEN list continues today with the places 7 and 6 being announced. As announced on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN fallen favourites.
The list features acts and songs that have been considered favourites to win the Eurovision Song Contest according to bookmakers, media and predictions. Fan favourites (e.g. as detemined in OGAE votings) will not be onsidered. The ranking is based on the placing an entry achieved in the contest compared to the number of contestants competing. (In the years since 2004, if an entry reached the final, the number of contestants in the final is considered but if an entry was elminated in the semi final, the total number of contestants is considered. This is due to the fact that betting odds and predictions are usually updated after the semi final results are in.)
So we continue…
No. 7 – Maywood with Ik wil alles met je delen (Netherlands 1990)
For the first time in many years, the Netherlands were considered hot favourites to win the Eurovision Song Contest again in 1990. Their duo Maywood, who had released a series of hit songs in the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany in the 1980s, won the national final and went to Zagreb. The song Ik wil alles met je delen was one of their few recordings in Dutch, although an English version called No more winds to guide me also existed. Like most of the songs they recorded, it was written and composed by Alice May herself.
The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was no good year for the bookmakers. Winning country Italy had not been given a very high chance of winning and top favourites Maywood only finished in 15th place among the 22 contestants. Although they received points from about half of the other countries, their entry only scored 25 points in total with the highest mark being six points from France. Germany and Sweden, where Maywood had entered the charts in the early 1980s, gave no points to the song at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrRS-9I6uhE
No. 6 – Kate Ryan with Je t'adore (Belgium 2006)
In 2006, it was the Flemish broadcaster's turn to choose the Belgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. A big national selection with quarter finals, semi finals and a final was organised, although the winner was already considered to be known before the first show took place: Kate Ryan, one of Belgium's biggest stars with one of her few orignal recordings Je t'adore. Due to her fame and the style of the song, which was seen as "classic Eurovision", she was an early favourite to win the contest according to the bookmakers and the media.
Despite the effort that was put into the stage show and the very expensive outfit, Belgium did not make it past the semi final. Kate Ryan came rather close however finishing 12th. The entry scored 69 points and the highest marks were seven points from Andorra, Malta and the Netherlands. As 2006 was a year when the semi finalists were considered stronger than the finalists (which resulted in all ten semi final qualifiers reaching the top twelve in the final), Kate Ryan might have made it to the final in another year. However, a victory was out of reach, unlike it had been predicted.
Tomorrow, we will introduce no. 5 and 4 on the list.