eurosong.net - closed - for now?

Dear visitors,

It is with some sadness that I announce that eurosong.net has now closed.

Frequent visitors to the site will have noticed that in the past few years, updates have become less and less frequent. There are several reasons for this: primarily, my personal life has become busier. I don't earn money from eurosong.net, and I have to concentrate on my loved ones and my career. The website has always been a hobby for me - and my time has had to be allocated to it accordingly. I now no longer have spare time to pursue the site.

Additionally, the Eurovision Song Contest has changed beyond all recognition. I still remain a fan: the Contest holds too many fond memories and strong feelings for me to let go. The Eurovision Song Contest - and my website - have been a huge part of my life - and remain so. That will never go away. However, the reasons I became a fan in the first place now no longer apply. Quite simply, I love beautiful music. I remember a time during the 1990s, where a good two-thirds of the songs in any one year were fantastic; and most of the rest were at least good, leaving only the odd few poor ones. In recent years, however, the balance has shifted dramatically. Now there are only the odd few good songs, which I am hard pressed to pick out among a bunch of entries which are dull - or simply bad.

The Contest is no longer about music. It's hard for me to concede this, but it is plain for all to see. Perhaps this will change in the future: it has happened before that we've seen bad years, only to be pleasantly surprised the next year with a bunch of good entries. However, the long-term pattern can not be ignored. As a lover of good music, my interest in devoting my time to the Eurovision Song Contest has waned in accordance with the quality of its output. There are now more and more "parody" enties, which may be briefly amusing, but which contain no musical quality - and will certainly not be songs I choose to listen to for pleasure in years to come.

I would like to thank all the wonderful people who have visited my website over the past eleven years. In particular, those people who have contributed to the eurosong.net community: the message board and the chatroom. We had some amazing times together, truly. Nothing made me more happy than to hear from people whose fanship of Eurovision grew as a direct result of having discovered my website in passing, and then joined the community. People who became friends online - then in person - and in some cases fell in love. To these people, I say - I will never forget the good times.

So... will I ever open the website again? I've heard Ralph Siegel say too many times that he will never enter the Contest again, only to submit a new song the very next year, to rule it out! Who knows: time will tell.

All that remains for me to say - in the immortal words of Alma Cardžic - is:

Goodbye. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Zbogom ljubavi - goodbye.