This is my personal top 36 songs in Eurovision Song Contest 2004. Enable the subtitles for the comments. Please, enjoy!
Footage borrowed from: @svetv
Grand Final Source: • Eurovision Song Contes...
Semi-Final Source: • Eurovision Song Contes...
The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the 49th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Istanbul, Turkey, following the country's victory at the 2003 contest with the song "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), the contest was held at the Abdi İpekçi Arena, and (for the first time) consisted of a semi-final on 12 May, and a final on 15 May 2004. The two live shows were presented by Turkish actors Korhan Abay and Meltem Cumbul. It was the first time that Turkey had hosted the contest, 29 years after the country made its debut, and was also the first time since the 1998 contest in Birmingham that it was not hosted in the host country's capital city.
Thirty-six countries participated in the contest, beating the record of twenty-six in the previous edition. Albania, Andorra, Belarus and Serbia and Montenegro took part for the first time this year. The old relegation system was replaced with a semi-final format. This was done in order to accommodate the increasing number of countries who wished to participate. The new format allowed all countries to participate every year, rather than being forced to sit out per the relegation rules, which had been the standard since 1994. Because of this, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia, Monaco and Switzerland all returned to the contest.
The winner was Ukraine with the song "Wild Dances", performed by Ruslana who wrote it with Oleksandr Ksenofontov (her husband). This was Ukraine's first victory in the contest after only 1 year of participation. Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus rounded out the top five. Due the expansion of the contest, this year was the first time in which a non-winning entry scored over 200 points. Prior to this contest, only the winning entries in 1994 and 1997 had passed this mark. In this contest, the top 3 songs all got over 200 points. An official CD was released and, for the first time, the entire contest was released on DVD which included the Semi-final and the Grand Final.
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