The 49th Annual Eurovision Song Contest held in Istanbul took place over two days with a qualifying round and a final held in May. This DVD covers all of the footage from the shows as well as an interview with the winning entry, Ukraine's Ruslana with Wild Dances.
As usual, 2004 saw a broad selection of entries covering a number of genres, although we did appear to be missing the "joke" entrant this year
on second thoughts
..both Estonia and Israel had questionable tracks! After a 24 year break we welcomed back Monaco, with their French euro-pop number Notre Planète, performed by Maryon. The UK entrant was former Fame Academy participant James Fox asking to Hold On To Our Love. Other more notable ballads competing for points included the Elton-John sounding Du Bist by Austrians Tie Break, Icelands Jonsi with Heaven and the Irish entrant, Chris Doran whose song If My World Stopped Turning was co-written by ex-Westlife member Bryan McFadden.
Euro-dance came courtesy of Belgiums Xandee with 1 Life, Swedens Lena Philipsson with It Hurts and the Maltese who managed to combine a house beat with some rather operatic singing in Julie & Ludwigs song On Again...Off Again but it was Bosnia Herzegovina who really pumped up the BPM with Euro-beats from Deen on In The Disco. Others to look out for included the French love song from Jonatan Cerrada - A Chaque Pas, Germanys smooth pop from Max: Cant Wait Until Tonight and The Netherlands Re-Union whose acoustic ballad Without You reminded one of 90s hit More Than Words by Extreme. The Greek entry was Nana Mouskouris protégé Sakis; the first man to grace the cover of Greek Vogue, the face of Greek Pepsi and Vodafone as well as a spokesperson for Greek-Turkish relations his song Shake It was produced by Ricky Martin producer Desmond Child.
