The Good, the Bad and the Wurst: The 100 Craziest Moments from the Eurovision Song Contest

by Geoff Tibballs

Sixty extraordinary years of Eurovision, from Céline Dion to Dustin the Turkey, from Abba to Conchita Wurst - the drag acts, the bad acts and all the nul points heroes.
For 60 years the Eurovision Song Contest has existed in a parallel universe where a song about the construction of a hydro-electric power station is considered cutting-edge pop, where half a dozen warbling Russian grandmothers are considered Saturday night entertainment, where a tune repeating the word 'la' 138 times is considered a winner, and where Australia is considered part of Europe

During those sixty years we have witnessed in 1957, Denmark's Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler enjoyed an outrageously long 13-second kiss because the stage manager forgot to say 'cut' during the live broadcast. We have witnessed national the 1976 Greek entry was a savage indictment of Turkish foreign policy in Cyprus. But most have all we have witnessed silly costumes, terrible lyrics and performers as diverse as Celine Dion and Dustin the Turkey.

This book chronicles the 100 craziest moments in the history of Eurovision - the drag acts, the bad acts, the nul points heroes and the night in Luxembourg when the floor manager warned the audience not to stand up while they applauded because they might be shot by security forces. It captures some of the magic from this yearly event that continues to beguile and bemuse in equal measure.

Genres: Nonfiction, Childrens, Music, History

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 14, 2016

Reviews

[Sarah Dobbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know why someone who clearly fucking hates Eurovision would want to write this book.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Recycled Eurovision stories with recycled British jokes about Eurovision.

[Anne Maagaard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a Danish die-hard Eurovision fan since I was a child.
This book is written specifically for British people, who think the Eurovision is mildly entertaining and like to patronize anyone related to it. So; no match.

Silly me, I expected the book to have sort of a broad European view, but it is very much about British contestants (incl. some that didn't even get selected to represent the UK in the Eurovision), and then a few moments regarding other nations' contestants in-between.

Of course I knew it was a book poking fun at the show, that's obvious, and I am very much aware of the ridiculous aspect of Eurovision, too. That's part of why I love it! However, at the same time, I actually enjoy a lot of the songs, and do NOT agree with Mr. Tibballs, that the show has not "produced a truly memorable song" since Abba's "Waterloo" in 1974. Shut up! I can't count how many times while reading this that I wanted to tell him that!

The title claims that the book contains the 100 craziest moments from the show, but that's really over-selling it. They should have made it very clear on the cover that this is according to Geoff Tibballs. Because I failed to find a LOT of the crazy moments, I remember from my years of watching, and I also read a lot about boring political stuff, going on behind the scenes.
So, you have been warned: If you truly love the Eurovision, and you're not British, this book is really not worth your time or your money.

And just because I have become so annoyed at Mr. Tibballs from reading all of his generalized opinions, I am going to point out a really lame mistake he made when writing about the Polish entry from 2014. (I won't mention the title, because if you're a true fan, you'll know what I'm referring to, just by reading ahead). The Poles put on quite a show that year, including a young woman wearing a very low-cut dress, who was pretending to be churning butter. However, Geoff Tibballs called her a "young washerwoman" and even named this paragraph "Banishing the Washday Blues"... Mr. Tibballs, if you're going to write about the Eurovision, at least pay attention and get it right. They even have the phrase "churning butter" in the lyrics.
But thank you for at least confirming my decision that you're not worth taking seriously.

[Norma · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a traditional British boomer, Geoff sees the contest as a parade of bad lyrics and glitter, and if you are not familiar with the contest you might just believe it by reading his reviews. He only sees the contest as a big joke so I don't see where's "the good" on his book because he only focuses on "the bad and the wurst" throughout it disregarding the very good songs that have been part of the contest. Yeah he tries to be funny and tongue-in-cheek but it only works if you're a 50+ year old Briton. Basically, his book only works as a good revision of "weird fun facts" from the point of view of a Briton about the contest. I hope somebody makes a better book about Eurovision.

[Steve Baumgartner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents short articles about each of the Eurovision Song Contest editions, held annually every year. He starts with the very first contest, held in 1956, and continues through the 2015 contest. The articles are short, typically about 1-2 pages each, though a couple of them stretched a little bit longer from that, and from a very British point of view. Geof Tibballs definitely appreciates the self-deprecation of Eurovision, and that comes across throughout the book. For the early contests, the author typically limits himself to one article per contest, though once we start getting in to more modern times (2000 and up), there are more articles for each contest. While I didn't fully get into Eurovision until 2017, I had been given a CD of the contest from 2014, and I was keenly aware of the top two songs from 2015. With that in mind, I have gone back and watched and listened to some of the songs and contests from previous years. Obviously, the author picked those aspects of the contest that he thought were truly good, truly bad, or just plain crazy, in some of the last contests featured in the book, there are many that the author chose to feature that I don't know if I would have, and things that I might have featured or focused on that the author didn't. I guess that's just a matter of personal taste and perspective--when dealing with 60 years (66 years now), there is obviously a lot of history and a lot of things that you could definitely highlight from such a rich contest.

[Nine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely a very interesting book about some lesser known Eurovision stories of the last 60 years. Each Eurovision year (up to 2015) has a couple of short, compacted posts about participants or other people that were somehow involved. Tibballs has a witty writing style that is easy to follow, but some things – as someone not from the UK – can be a little bit dull and difficult to really comprehend. He talks quite often about people or other trivia that I didn’t know, so there are some jokes that obviously didn’t land.

There were also some mistakes (for example Lordi isn’t a Death Metal band) and altogether I found some of the older inputs of the Eurovision years that I didn’t watch, not as exciting. But for the most part the narrative was quite funny, silly and absurd, even though I think the book format isn’t really the best medium to tell these stories. As a film this would have indefinitely worked better, especially if you could actually see clips about the people or situations talked about.

Aside from these flaws, I would still very recommend this book, especially for long time viewers of the Eurovision Song Contest.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A summary of the Eurovision most outrageous, shocking, kooky, weird, controversial and funny moments throughout its 60 year history (1956-2015). Really informative and funny but probably one of the only times a book would've been better in a video/audio format, just so you could relive the great eurovision moments!

[Zamueh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ver, no se le puede pedir mucho al libro siendo lo que es. Pero el escritor debería de hacerse mirar el escribir un párrafo entero sin un punto, aunque haya algunas comas. Llamadme raro por no querer quedarme sin oxígeno mientras leo

[Beki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have liked some pictures but I enjoyed reading some eurovision facts that I didn't know!