About Slovenia...

2006 Result
History (1956 to 2005)
This year's entry
What I predicted...
What you thought...
What actually happened...
What the bookies thought...

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2006 Result

Points in Semi Final: 49
Position in Semi Final: 16th

Points in Final: Failed to qualify
Position in Final: Failed to qualify
More about the 2006 result for Slovenia

2007 Contest: Must compete in Semi Final

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History (1956 to 2005)

Slovenia's previous appearances: 11 year(s) out of 50 [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, 2005), 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. As a result, Slovenia finds itself marooned in the Semi Final for the third successive year in 2006.
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: 3
Position in Final draw: Failed to qualify

What I said prior to the Semi Final:
"Given the limited success of Slovene men at Eurovision, having a National Final (the EMA) where 9 of the 14 acts were entirely female seemed like a good start. The 2006 EMA was unusual in featuring no former Slovene Eurovision entrants (though it would be foolish to bet against Nuša Derenda or Karmen Stavec coming back for another try in 2007), but more than made up for it in EMA retreads. Indeed, 10 of the 14 acts had tried to represent Slovenia before, with an 11th bringing together two former participants in the form of Rebeka Dremelj and Domen Kumer. Hence, there were only three EMA newcomers - Nuška Drašcek, Anžej Dežan and the immensely popular 'turbofolk' group Atomik Harmonik. With the 2006 EMA participants notching up 22 previous National Final appearances between them, this must surely be some kind of record?

In the end, however, it was one of the newcomers - and one of the men - who walked away the honours, in the form of Anžej Dežan and his song 'Plan B'. Even with Slovenia's past experience - and the the return of the dreaded 'expert' jury - it would have been nice to have a clear-cut result for once, but no, another EMA, another controversy. 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 to sneak through with 26 points to Saša's 24.

Against this backdrop, it is always quite difficult to give an impartial critique of the song that actually won. To be fair, though, 'Plan B' IS pretty good, if you like dramatic Nuša-style Slovene pop with the requisite key change. Its composers - the husband and wife team of Matjaž Vlašič and Urša Vlašič - certainly have a good record of producing hit songs, with Urša being the lyricist behind Omar Naber's 'Stop' in 2005, and the pair of them being responsible for much of Natalija Verboten and Nuša Derenda's material (including Natalija's 'Cry on my shoulder' from EMA 2004, as well as her 2006 effort 'SOS'; plus Nuša's 'Energy' from 2001, 'Prvič in zadnjič' from EMA 2003, and 'Noe Noe' from EMA 2005). Indeed, such is the sense of familiarity around 'Plan B', I find it hard to listen without hearing 'Noe Noe' at the start of the song or singing "Cry baby, cry on my shoulder" over the chorus.

Others have made more serious allegations, arguing that 'Plan B' plagiarises the melody of a song called 'Santa Maria' by (1990's Austrian Eurovision singer) Simone (you can listen to Simone's song here) - admittedly, parts of the chorus of both songs are very similar, but whatever your view of it the plagiarism claim certainly appears to have come to nothing.

Anžej, meanwhile, is a good looking boy, despite dubious facial hair making him look much older than his 18 years. Interestingly, he is yet another graduate of the TV talent show 'Bitka Talentov'. That series produced 2005's Slovene singer Omar, the winner having been guaranteed a spot in the 2005 EMA - ironically, even the 'Bitka Talentov' voting was complex, with Anžej the first choice of the jury then too, but losing out to Omar thanks to the votes of the TV viewers. To be fair, Anžej may in fact be the better singer of the two. He does have a very good, strong voice, and gave a powerful - if slightly camp - performance at the EMA, assisted by a bevy of ladies. With Slovenia having to finish top ten in the Semi Final if it is to progress any further, I think much will depend on the quality of the vocal and visual performance, and on whether the song is translated into English - like 'Stop', the version performed at the EMA was in Slovene, despite its ambiguous title. More recently, an English version has been recorded under the title 'Mr Nobody', and it appears that Anžej will indeed perform his song in English in Athens. Anžej is also apparently an enthusiastic Eurovision fan, so we can but hope that this enthusiasm is reflected in his performance.

Overall, I feel that this is not a bad entry from Slovenia, though I can't help feeling that 'Mandoline' would have been a better - if more obvious - choice for Eurovision. My main worry is that the Slovene viewers will get fed up of voting every year, when their own favourite routinely fails to win. When people are paying money to vote by telephone and SMS, any broadcaster surely has a duty to make sure that those votes mean something, and cannot simply be overturned by the very different preferences of an 'expert' jury. Having said that, if the Slovene media is to believed, RTVSLO is rumoured to be going for an internal selection in 2007, selecting the artist and song itself - possibly a more honest way of choosing an entry in the light of recent events, though it would be a shame to lose the EMA show, undoubtedly one of the highlights of the annual Eurovision calendar.

Still, for now let's see how Anžej does in Athens - there will be plenty of time for more analysis after the event. I would love Slovenia to win Eurovision one year, and it just gets very frustrating when year in, year out, the wrong song ends up going through... "

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What I predicted...

My prediction for Semi Final: 8th to 10th
My prediction for Final: Possible qualifier; 14th to 16th
See all my predictions for the 2006 Semi Final
See all my predictions for the 2006 Final

What I predicted prior to the Semi Final:
"Well here's a surprise - the 100% English version of the Slovenian song is really very, very good. Assuming that this is the version that Anžej performs in Athens, Slovenia still has a chance of climbing out of the Semi Final for the first time. I do find it hard to watch the video for 'Mr Nobody' without questioning why Anžej's stylists insist on making a handsome boy look so unattractive and about twice his actual age. Equally, I can't help picturing Nuša Derenda resplendent in leather (no, not like that), and thinking that if she was performing this song it would sail through to the Final with no trouble at all. However, we know that Anžej is a very strong live performer, and I sincerely hope that he makes it through. I initially feared that Slovenia could just miss out for the second year in succession, but now I'm beginning to think that 'Mr Nobody' might just make it to Saturday's Final.

Once there, I would predict a solid result around 14th to 16th place, but a position later in the running order could do wonders for Slovenia's prospects. Anyway, with odds of 66-1, this is another of my each-way bets - an outside chance, but one that will pay handsomely if it comes off."
Want an alternative prediction? See Simon Hylands' 'Je t'adore, Eurovision!' site

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What you thought...

View the final leader board

In the run up to the Contest, 1,721 visitors to this site awarded points to their favourite songs in the Soult.com Eurovision Jury Vote 2006, voting as a representative of their own country's 'jury'. The votes awarded by representatives of each country were totalled, with each of the 38 participating countries (plus the 'Rest of the World') then awarding points - 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - based on the overall voting preference of its representatives. The points awarded to the entry from Slovenia are shown in the tables below:

Points awarded to Slovenia overall:
AL	0	HR	5	GR	0	MK	0	PL	0	ES	0
AD	0	CY	0	IS	0	MT	0	PT	0	SE	0
AM	0	DK	0	IE	0	MD	0	RO	0	CH	0
BY	6	EE	2	IL	0	MC	0	RU	0	TR	0
BE	0	FI	4	LV	0	NL	0	CS	3	UA	0
BA	2	FR	0	LT	0	NO	0	SI	X	UK	0
BG	5	DE	0	WO	0	Last updated: 18 May 2006 Next scheduled update: None
Total points: 27, from 7/39 juries
Position: 23 out of 37

Points awarded to Slovenia in the Semi Final:
AL	4	HR	7	GR	0	MK	3	PL	1	ES	1
AD	0	CY	0	IS	0	MT	5	PT	2	SE	3
AM	0	DK	0	IE	0	MD	0	RO	0	CH	0
BY	8	EE	6	IL	0	MC	0	RU	5	TR	0
BE	2	FI	7	LV	0	NL	1	CS	7	UA	1
BA	7	FR	2	LT	0	NO	0	SI	X	UK	2
BG	6	DE	0	WO	1	Last updated: 18 May 2006 Next scheduled update: None
Total points: 81, from 21/39 juries
Position: 10 out of 23

Points awarded to Slovenia in the Final:
AL	0	HR	5	GR	0	MK	4	PL	0	ES	0
AD	0	CY	0	IS	0	MT	0	PT	0	SE	1
AM	0	DK	0	IE	0	MD	0	RO	0	CH	0
BY	6	EE	2	IL	0