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...surprising winners
esctoday.com TOP TEN: No. 1
The list features Eurovision Song Contest winning performers or songs that were not consideredf favourites for first place before the contest. As reliable information on pre-contest media reports is only available since the introduction of the preview videos in 1971, only entries of the last 39 years are considered. It is regarded how much an entry was of a favourite at the time it took part, so "retrospective" surprises are not considered. The following criteria were included in the ranking:
- Betting odds
- Media predictions
- Reactions by the audience in the hall and the commentators
- Reactions after the victory
- Commercial success of an entry compared to the success of other songs that year
So we continue...
No. 1 - Riva with Rock me (Yugoslavia 1989)
Yugoslavia was one of the least successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest for a long time until their entries managed to finish fourth in 1983, fourth in 1987 and sixth in 1988. In the 1989 Yugoslav national final, Riva narrowly won by one point and went to Lausanne with their song Rock me hoping to continue a streak of successful results. Although Yugoslavia was drawn last in the running order, the entry was by no means one of the many favourites for vicotry in a year that was generally considered among the stronger ones.
Yugolasvia got no points from the first jury but 12 from the second one, which led to Terry Wogan's statement "Predicting the winner of the Eurovision is the most difficult thing in the world". Riva got another three sets of twelve later. Remarkably, Yugoslavia got its last top three mark from Austria, which was only the 13th country to vote. In the second half of the voting, they mostly got lower or no points. It was no overwhelming victory in general with only 137 points and four sets of 12. At that point, it was the lowest average number of points given to the winner (6.52), but Helena Paprizou would get even less in 2005 (6.05).
Rock me is considered one of the worst selling Eurovision Song Contest winning songs ever. In the bigger music markets, it only reached the charts in the Netherlands peaking at no. 56. However, some people claim that the song helped making Yugoslav rock music popular in Europe, which should be seen as a debatable thesis. In 1991, Riva disbanded, but lead singer Emilija Kokic established a successful solo career in Croatia. In 2008, she competed in the Croatian national final again.
Tomorrow, we will take a look at some winning entries that were close to making the list as well as at some entries before 1971 that were probably big surprises.
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maybe the worst winner ever!
Yugoslavia were so underrated in the early years! With so many great entries they deserved to win, or at least place better, in 1968 
, 1973, 1981, 1983 , 1984, 1986, 1987 , 1989 , 1990 . I loooooooove "Jedan dan".
Expected and deserved 1st place : unpredictable and imo totally undeserved..a catchy tune but that's all...although there weren't a lot of good songs in 1989..greece is one I remember vividly as it was kind of sweet..
Chart exhausted???
Next useless charts ideas - Most fininished at No 10
Well, YOUR No 1 -
And //
WHAT?????????
Andy Germany
well dear, then you must have not followed eurovision properly, or ignored the fact that the whole europe vote not only your opinion counts, this one won in 1989 because it received most of votes that year, what is so difficult to understand about that lol
Yugoslavia had much better entries that Rock Me but I would not call it the worst winner ever . Latvia 2002 and Estonia 2001 were much worse . 2002 was the weakest year in history I think but 2001 was extremely strong year with one of the worst winners .
In 1989 my favourites were Greece , Denmark , Finland , Spain and especially that beautiful entry from The Netherlands which is one of my all time favourites .
@ everyone
The roundup article is postponed to tomorrow, sorry.
@Luis
well I'm glad to hear your Mom enjoyed the Spanish ESC CD songs, Raphael is still very famous here in Spain, sometimes not just for his singing!..
and 1989, well a strange year, like many contests of that era I think the juries were divided between classic Euro ding-a-dong type songs and ballads (the previous year, ballads were the favourite), I remember watching the 89 contest and thinking Yugoslavia could win, just because it was last in the order after a series of inoffensive, yet dull songs...
my favourite from 89 is Greece..such a great song on the night!
anyway, ESC winners have never been either fan favourites nor the general public's favourites, so conclusion is winning ESC never means automatic success in the music world...
Where the jury giving Yugolslavia anone and only chance to host before the whole country collapsed?
I couldn't believe it when "Rock me" won. There were so many better songs that year! "Nur ein Lied", "En dag", "Flieger"... "Rock me" was perhaps the weakest one.
I Guess right 
Zohar.....yes, I'm surprised too that A-Ba-Ni-Bi is not here, but Rock Me is the correct winner for sure. So many good songs in 1989 and yet this came top.
Denmark '89 was even worse then UK and Yugoslavia. Incredibly old-fashioned. None of the songs really deserved the victory. The real favourite was missing all the way.
this was not only the most surprising but the most undeserved winner ... horrible .. i still can't understand how something like that could ever win the contest. and number two was not much better ... if there really ever was a year the juries got paid for voting it must have been 1989. the real winners that year were sweden!! and denmark who became 4th and 3rd
Aaa OK Luis! 
You know thatI'm too slow..
I meant to say "Shevek, make it 4 fans (of Tii)"
Luis
What?
I can't understand, what's wrong with this song? It's quite good!
Graham Ridge
You are right, that w s thing doesn't know what he is talking about
anyway, I respect eurovision results and all the winning songs and no excuse for me, whether they were favourites or not or popular or not after eurovision, the winners were decided as result of all the votes from europe and thats what matters, together we find the winner winner gets most of the votes, total votes 
Like Liam said, it's a cute song but winner mmm...
Marko, make it 4 fans.
Hola, Pabilto. 
I burned my mom 3CDs with all of Spain's entries. She knew both of Raphael's songs, Julio Iglesias', and she knew Paloma San Basilio but not her Eurovision song.
sorry Nina,(Catalan! Spain 89)), director of studies for the famous OT (2001- 2003)
then after in musicals/politics (a candidate for CIU party, Catalan nationalist party(?!), in the famous resort of LLoret de Mar, where she is from...), she lost...
now in musicals, catalan version of "Mamma Mia"!
http://www.youtube.c(...)/watch?v=XT53kWIN9RQ
Marko, thanks for the link, that song would not have been of my favourites either.
I see what you mean, the bald guy can be startling, but he does nothing to diminish the song's quality imo. Despite not having reached the final, 'Tii' has three fans at least: Paschalis, you and myself.
Good night.
Yes Paul, we know and...?
nina (Spain 89)
Paschalis
Earlier I saw that was your favorite of 2004!
Shevek
It was so good - not fake ethnic (they sandg in traditional way for some part of Estonia) like 90% of ethnic entries in ESC! 
But bald guy was so annoying, I will exclude him from that performance, he looked silly and maybe gave silly image to whole entry, thus it was 11th in the semi final (almost qualified).
Shevek
It's so funny that Croatian jury in Jugovizija 1989 didn't recognize at all that Riva have potential to win, other republics chose Riva!
You know every year Zagreb TV voted the biggest points for Croatian entries (there were several of course so they chose one which they think can win easily), Serbian jury gave the biggest points for some Serbian entry from TV Belgrade and so on.. Yeah i know that was horrible!
Croatian jury voted this song the most in 1989, not Riva, they didn't have confidence in Riva at all:
http://www.youtube.c(...)/watch?v=uMS9tBLNA-s
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