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The following CITY PAPER report
was released several weeks before the 2002 Song
Contest, which the Latvian entrant ended up winning:
This year's official Eurovision magazine gave its highest song rating
to underdog Latvia—picking it, along with Britain, Estonia, Belgium
and Macedonia as having the best entrants for the 2002 Song Contest.
The pan-Baltic CITY PAPER gave
its highest mark among the 24 participants surveyed, an 8 (out of 10),
to Latvia's Marija Naumova; she sings a funked-up, Latin-tinged song
called
I Wanna. "This is a song that does stand out in the
crowd," CITY PAPER wrote. "This is a commendable follow up
to Latvia's highly acclaimed 2000 entry,
My Star, by BrainStorm."
The magazine, which will be
handed out to thousands of journalists and other VIPs before the May
25th show, gave Britain and Estonia a 7+ rating and handed both
Belgium and Macedonia a 7.
"Between 1-10, we saw a 1 as
being a completely unlistenable song. A 10 would have been, say, on
the level of The Beatles or at least an ABBA hit," explained CITY
PAPER editor Michael Tarm. "We didn't hear any 10s I'm
afraid."
Croatia received the lowest
rating from CITY PAPER, a 2+. Denmark and Romania also fared badly,
scoring 3s.
Lithuania received a 5+.
Many international commentators
have predicted that this year's
Eurovision winner will be either Britain, France, Germany or
Spain. CITY PAPER gave France a 6, Germany a 5+ and Spain a 4+.
Frances song, CITY PAPER wrote,
"could have been sung by Celine Dion for the soundtrack of a film
about a sinking ocean liner." It quoted one commentator as
calling the French entry "a poor man's Celine Dion."
But CITY PAPER—a 10-year old
news and tourist magazine that early this year won a competition to be
the sole official guide for the 2002
Song Contest—conceded that judging any
Eurovision tune is a dicey business.
"One guy's favorite Eurovision
song is the worst song the next guy has ever heard in his life,"
it wrote in an editorial.
(See full report on Latvia's
subsequent victory,
here)
—CITY
PAPER-The Baltic States
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