Democracy rules! Austria return!

Thanks to an online petition from Eurovision fans, the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest will see the return of Austria after they sat out of the 2006 contest in a sulk. After only scoring 9 points at the 2004 contest with the drab boy-band ballad (understatment) Du Bist, they were relegated into the 2005 semi final. The band that were chosen to try and restore Austrian spirits were a traditional Alpen-pop group called Global.Kryner, with the song Y Asi, a genre breaking latino/alpen song about 'a girl from Cuba', surprisingly... Oddly, it worked very well.

It was rather well received by the fans and had the privilige of opening the 2005 semi-final. However, it was a rather long evening with a lot of better performances, and in the end it only managed to scrape 30 points, and 21st place out of 25. The Austrians were not happy. A statement released by their national broadcaster ORF announced that Eurovision could no longer help spread the joy of Austrian pop music and so they sat out last year.

But what about the Austrian eurofans? Well, devestated they were and rightly so. It was rather a case of sour grapes their sitting out (however, not so much as France's absence in 1982. Just five years after winning the contest for the fifth time, they sat out claiming that the contest was a 'monument to drivel' - they were just bitter because their big 'chanson' the year before had come in 3rd to the fun-loving skirt-ripping Eurocheese champions Buck's Fizz). Poor results can happen to anyone, and, although I loved Y Asi, its absence from the final did not surprise me.

So what did the Austria eurofans do? Set up an online petition, demanding Austria's return to the Eurovision fold. And guess what... ORF were so moved by this outporing of love for Austria's Eurovision return that they said hey, let's give it another try. And so, the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest Semi-Final will see the presence of Austria, as they aim to sing their way to the final, and maybe to victory.

Victory, of course, that would come 41 years after their first and only victory. Yes, Austria have a bad Eurovision record. It's no wonder that they thought Europe were against them after the poo-pooing of Austrian favourites Global.Kryner. After all, in the last 20 years, they've only finished above 10th twice. But, their excuse for sitting out last year was because of Eurovision's lack of interest to traditional Austrian music. Yet, the their two highest results since '86 were with Nur Ein Lied (5th in 1989), a song owing more to the synthesizers of the 80s than to the Alps and their entry in 2003, Weil der Mensch Zahlt by a certain Alf Poier. You can see his picture here. You may remember his song - silly nursery rhyme, stupid rapping, mental heavy metal, stuffed and cardboard animals, nonsense of the highest order... how very traditionally Austrian. I didn't hear them complaining when they scored 101 points with this...