About Slovenia...

2004 Result
History (1956 to 2003)
This year's entry
What I predicted...
What you thought...
What actually happened
What the bookies thought...

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2004 Result

Points in Semi Final: 5
Position in Semi Final: 21st

Points in Final: Failed to qualify
Position in Final: Failed to qualify
More about the 2004 result for Slovenia

2005 Contest: Must compete in Semi Final

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History (1956 to 2003)

Slovenia's previous appearances: 9 year(s) out of 48 [note]
Years participated: 1993; 1995-1999; 2001- [note]
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), or even men dressed as women (2002's camptastic Sestre). 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. Nevertheless, Karmen at least managed to score more points than Latvia, Malta or the UK; unfortunately, while the UK gets a place in the Final by default due to its 'Big 4' status, Slovenia must battle it out in the Semi Final first.
Get 'The Eurovision Song Contest: The Offical History' at Amazon.co.uk

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This year's entry

Position in Semi Final draw: 16
Position in Final draw: Failed to qualify

What I said prior to the Semi Final:
"Slovenia has experimented with male singers, female singers and male 'singers' (I use the term loosely) wearing dresses, so in 2004 it's trying a different combination - yes, it's yet another male-female duo, of which there are so many this year. Unfortunately, Slovenia's entry - 'Stay Forever' by Platin - is not as good as the male-female combos from Belarus or Malta, though it probably is better than Lithuania's. 'Stay Forever' is not a terrible song, it's just rather old-fashioned - it reminds me of the 70s duo Peters and Lee, or the 1977 UK entry, 'Rock Bottom'. Perhaps Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran were an earlier incarnation of Platin, just with bigger hair? Having said that, gentle, old-fashioned songs sometimes do rather well at Eurovision - such as the Danish entries in 2000 and 2001 - so could Platin cause a shock and bring the 2005 contest to Ljubljana?"

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What I predicted...

My prediction for Semi Final: 19th to 22nd
My prediction for Final: Will not qualify
See all my predictions for 2004

What I predicted prior to the Semi Final:
"The bookies rate Slovenia's chances as pretty slim, while the fans seem similarly unimpressed - it's probably a song that appeals more to their mothers. Much as I love Slovenia (I'm going on holiday there this year), I see little chance at all of Platin making the Final. It's a pleasant song, but I don't think pleasant will be good enough. Slovenia should do what it does best, and send its divas to Eurovision - can we have Nuša Derenda back in 2005, please? Meanwhile, Platin are due to get married during their stay in Istanbul, so at least they'll have something to celebrate - just as long as they haven't got Switzerland's Piero to sing at the reception."

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What you thought...

Final Poll Ranking: out of 36 ()
(Updated 15 May 2004; change refers to movement over final week)

In the run up to the Contest, over 5,000 visitors to this site voted for their favourite song in the Soult.com Eurovision Poll.
See full results of Poll 2004

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What actually happened

In the Semi Final, 'Stay Forever' was another performance marred by poor sound quality, but it failed to make too much difference to an already tuneless song. To their credit, Platin certainly seemed to be enjoying the whole experience, and made the best of a bad job; little defence, however, when they wrote the song themselves. For those who managed to stay awake during the performance, Simon and Diana's onstage smooching was probably more memorable than the song, as the whole of Europe urged them to "get a room"...

My prediction that Platin would finish 19th to 22nd in the Semi Final was one of the few I got spot on, their actual position being 21st place with just 5 points. Only Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia gave Slovenia any points at all, and even then not very enthusiastically. As an aside, I visited Slovenia in July 2004, and - perhaps feeling bad about slating their singing and songwriting - I bought Platin's new album, also called 'Stay Forever', having liked one of their other songs - 'Sto in ena zgodba' - when I saw the video on Slovenian television. As it turned out, the album is actually rather good, including a particularly beautiful cover of Sarah McLachlan's 'Angel'. Proof, if it were needed, that Eurovision does not always provide a positive reflection of an artist's talents (q.v. Brian McFadden's songwriting skills...). Ironically, it was only when I got home that I realised that 'Sto in ena zgodba' was actually Platin's first attempt to represent Slovenia at Eurovision, finishing a less than impressive joint 13th - i.e. last - in the 2003 Slovenian selection, EMA. There's just no justice...

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What the bookies thought...

	Slovenia to win:	15/05/04 (prior to Final)	-
		13/05/04 (after Semi Final)	-
		11/05/04	66-1
		08/05/04	50-1
		06/05/04	50-1
		04/05/04	50-1
		31/04/04	50-1
		24/04/04	50-1
		17/04/04	50-1
		07/04/04	25-1
		24/03/04	25-1

Opening at over-optimistic odds of 25-1, Slovenia entered the Semi Final at 66-1, and few were surprised by Platin's failure to qualify.

(Odds quoted here were those offered by Coral.co.uk. 'F' indicates favourite, 'JF' joint favourite.)

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Links

http://www.platin-life.com/
http://www.rtvslo.si/ema/

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Notes (see 'History' above)

• The 1956 Contest (where each country had two songs) is counted as a single appearance;
  
• Countries eliminated in the 1993 preliminary heat (EE, HU, RO, SK) ARE NOT counted as making an appearance in that year's Contest;
  
• Countries eliminated in the 1996 preliminary heat (DE, DK, HU, IL, MK, RO, RU) ARE NOT counted as making an appearance in that year's Contest;
  
• Countries eliminated in the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Semi Finals ARE counted as making an appearance in that year's Contest.
  

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