Best of the Bunch: Spain

Out of the 61 years of Eurovision, Spain has participated 56 times, and during those years, the nation has won the contest twice, and those two times were two years in a row, 1968 and 1969. In 1969, Spain was part of a four way tie for the win, therefore sharing first place with three other nations. Today, we’re heading back to 2006 to journey our way through 10 years of Spanish Eurovision songs, up until 2015. Once we reach the end, it’s your time to vote for your Best of the Bunch!

2006 is where we are starting our journey, where Las Ketchup were the act to represent Spain. The song was called Un Blodymary, however did not reach the heights of their internationally popular song The Ketchup Song. The song ended up in 21^st place with 18 points.

The following year, Spain sent a boyband called D’NASH, who represented their nation with a very energetic pop number called I Love you Mi Vida. The passion on stage didn’t bring them much closer to a top 10 result, finishing in 20^th place, only one better than the previous year.

In 2008, Rodolfo Chikilicuatre was the chosen representative, a Spanish comedic character, singing the humorous song called Baila el Chiki-Chiki. Rodolfo was memorable, but again not enough to reach the top 10, with this song finishing in 16^th place with 55 points.

Soraya Arnelas was the chosen act for Spain in 2009 with the song La Noche es para mi. The song was energetic, and even featured some magic! Despite the effort into the stage show, the song still failed to make an impact on the voters, who placed it 24^th with 23 points.

The next year, Daniel Diges performed on the stage with the song Algo pequeñito. An otherwise standard performance was made interesting when Daniel was interrupted by a notorious pitch invader, who joined Daniel and his performance team on stage and was later removed by security. Under the rules, Spain was allowed to perform their song again after all the other songs had been performed. Spain received the best result since 2004, ending up in 15^th place with 68 points.

After the drama of the 2010 performance, Spain returned in 2011 with another fun performance by Lucía Pérez. The song was called Que me quiten lo bailao, and even with the energetic performance, Spain once again underwhelms the European audience, ending up in 23^rd place with 50 points.

In 2012, Spain internally selected Pastora Soler, an already popular artist in Spain. Her song, Quédate conmigo was chosen in a special show, and penned none other than Thomas G:son amongst others. The song finally reached the top 10 at 10^th place with 97 points, the best result for Spain since the early 2000’s.

The band El Sueño de Morfeo were chosen in the following year in the hopes to build on the success of Pastor Soler in 2012. In another televised show, the band presented four potential Eurovision songs, and the song Contigo hasta el Final was chosen as the winner to represent Spain. The song didn’t fare as well at Eurovision, heading back down the results table to 25^th spot.

In 2014, popular artist Ruth Lorenzo was chosen via national final to represent her nation with the song Dancing in the Rain. The stand out vocal performance on the night gave Spain another 10^th position, this time with 74 points.

Last in our Best of the Bunch journey today is 2015, where Edurne was internally selected by the broadcaster, and the song was also selected internally and presented at a later date. The song, Amanacer was sung in Spanish, and expected to do well, although in the final only managed to reach 21th place.

Now you’ve read about and listened to the songs, make sure you vote for your favourite down below!