#kaliopi

Meet Kaliopi. A dumbass dragon.

North Macedonia, formerly participating under the title F.Y.R Macedonia, has participated in Eurovision a total of 22 times. The nation has only made it to the Grand Final nine times. Three of those times were prior to the 2004 introduction of semi-finals:

In 1998, Vlado Janevski's 'Ne Zori, Zoro' placed 19th. In 2000, XXL's '100\% Te Ljubam' placed 15th overall, and in 2002 Karolina's 'Od Nas Zavisi' once again took 19th place.

In 2004, the nation made it to the first Grand Final thanks to 'Life' by Tose Proeski, which placed 14th. The following year, Martin Vucic placed 17th with 'Make My Day,' Elena Risteska's 'Ninanajna' took 12th the year after, and in 2007 Karolina took home 14th with 'Mojot Svet.'

Five years later in 2012, North Macedonia made it back to the Grand Final thanks to Kaliopi's 'Crno I Belo' which placed 13th. Another seven years passed before the country saw success again. Tamara Todevska made her nation proud by earning their best result ever in 2019. Her song 'Proud' placed 7th overall.

[Source]

110. Hotel FM - “Change” Romania 2011

“Oh what a lame. It’s just a lame 😍” -- Bendik Singers, BorisBubbles

God what an unabashedly ANNOYING song LOVE!!! 😍 I should leave it at that, probably, but since we are at #110 so I shall elaborate a bit further. “Change” is a barrage of OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD PIANO PANDAEMONIUM, blasting everyone’s eardrums with its irritatingly sweet / sweetly irritating charity clamours. 

This however, is a good thing, because “Change” is also refreshingly cheerful and unpretentious, and, yes, incompetent. 😍 It is basically a very, very rambunctuous take on the Banality Anthem. David adds to the hilarity by donning a pair of unsightly pin-striped trousers, punctuating the lame libretto with dopey smiles. However, the 2011 Mini Babuskha Award for Best Supporting Character goes to GABRIEL, whose attempts at mugging the camera during the endgame are even more conspicuous than his piano soundtrack. 

In the vote tally, Hotel FM took the lead briefly when Raffaela Carrà cheerfully awarded them 12 points, completely oblivious to which song she awarded points to <3 and then they quickly dropped the bottom of the scoreboard, earning ONLY diasporia votes and little else. Crusaders of incompetence. 😍

CONGRATZ PAULA AND OVI 1.0 FOR BEING THE HIGHEST RANKED ROMANIAN ENTRY.

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109. Safura - “Drip Drop” Azerbaijan 2010

Did someone say... Safura?

OMG I do love me some Safura though. I spoke earlier that ZENA might be the Eurovision equivalent to Veruca Salt but Safura was definitely the the original Veruca. Privileged upper class brat who bought her way to Eurovision with a Beyoncé reject of a song, despite having ZERO singing talent. 😍 And she was a FAVOURITE TO WIN!!!! 😍 Finishing 5th place based on scrumptitude alone. 😍 Actually, “Veruca” might be underselling it. Safura is our PARIS HILTON. 😍

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108. Chingiz - “Truth” Azerbaijan 2019

When Chingiz was first announced as the Azeri entrant my friend André remarked that he at no point resembled an actual living person in the videoclip and he and I would soon spend our days joking that Chingiz was a mere figment of our imagination, a glitchy hologram constructed from adobe photoshop pixels and leftover scraps of Kirkorov cartilage, a mirage conjured up by horned-up instaquacks. Imagine our reaction when this happened:

CHINGIZ DOWNLOADING HIMSELF INTO THE CYBERNETIC CONSCIEOUSNESS. 😍 LOVE YOUUUUU (um as much as I can love a man who celebrates via flexing 😒) FOR MAKING OUR DREAMS COME TRUE~

“Truth” has everything I’d want in a modern Azeri entry: An utterly nonsensical title, a deceptively addictive beat, a song that tries way too hard to be current, but is in fact utter gutter trash,  an overstaged and oversung hot mess of an act, backed by a press mill that would of course overpimp it like nobody’s business. The fact that Azer actually USED a digital virus/laser/hologram as the means to portray the song’s message (which was... um... :pages through notes:, ahem, a “toxic relationship”, in which THE WOMAN is the toxic one, might I add 🙃), added an extra layer of amusement.

In conclusion, um... I’ll let this “fan account” draw the conclusion. Take us away, chingizmustafayevfan:

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107. Amandine Bourgeois - “L’enfer et moi” France 2013

The second Amandine blessed us with a psychedelic rock song about a toxic relationship (um... also one in which the woman is the toxic one? 😂), I knew she would blow my socks off. And I mean, what else is there to add than to say that Amandine delivered EXACTLY what I expected she would? I’ll let the gifs speak for themselves:

Deliciously delirious, Amandine delivered a top tier acting perfomance. The only really downside is the she was perhaps a bit too realistic. She was such a convincing Arkham Asylum escapee, many of the casuals probably believed she was An Actual Crazy person and didn’t vote for her. Bless you, esoteric princess. 

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106. Kaliopi  - “Crno i belo” F.Y.R Macedonia - 2012

You know we are getting to the high quality when I have to park the LEGEND that is Kaliopi a breath away from the top 100. “Crno i belo” is very good, but it doesn’t hold up to the remaining songs and even some of the songs I ranked before it. It does a great job at showcasing Kaliopi, but otherwise it’s a fairly standard rock ballad.

However I have nothing but praise for the magnificent artrock maven that is Kaliopi, obviously. She was a glorious presence, both off stage (Telling off xenophobic Greek reporters  😍 / finding true love with Can Bonomo 😍 / Presumably other great moments which are now sadly buried underneat the sands of time) and on the stage, delivering a powerful, emotional, fiercely real performance, topped by her characteristic shrieking. 😍 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s mostly my respect for Kaliopi that made me rank her this high, but I’m not the only person who feels that way. Only a true Eurovision legend could inspire a vid such as this one. Regardless, it’s her time to leave this ranking. 😭

(Congratulations JANA for being the highest ranked Macedonian entry ^__^)

Ni reč odavno nije istina

Nek mi uzmu sve

Ja imam snage iznad oblaka.

Neka govore,

Psi laju, karavani putuju