Eurovision in 'Blue and Red': Slovenia at the Song Contest

Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has announced its intention to join us in Basel next May for the 69th Eurovision Song Contest. And it's going to be something of a milestone for Slovenia - the song chosen to compete in Switzerland will become the country's 30th Eurovision entry.

With that in mind, and to mark the big 30, we take a look back at some of our favourite memories of Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest. 

30, to be precise - what with the occasion that's in it.

🇸🇮 01. We've since had several drag acts compete at the Eurovision Song Contest, and even go as far as victory in 2014. But the very first country to send a drag queen as its lead artist was Slovenia. And it sent three of them, at that! The group Sestre finished in 13th place at Tallinn 2002 with the song Samo Ljubezen.

🇸🇮 02. And can we talk about the glimpse five years into the future that was their flight attendent attire?! Ljubljana to Berlin, all the way from Paris to Tallinn...

🇸🇮 03. Slovenia's best result at the Eurovision Song Contest (so far!) is the 7th-place position it achieved on two occasions; in 1995 with Prisluhni Mi performed by Darja Švajger and again in 2001 with Energy by Nuša Derenda.

🇸🇮 04. You can keep your Broadway. You can keep your West End. That moment in Lisbon when Lea Sirk staged a fake technical blunder in her Semi-Final performance of Hvala, Ne!? That was theatre right there.

🇸🇮 05. Ever the trendsetter, Slovenia made its debut at the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest, one year before the well-documented musical migration of 1994, when a record 7 countries would participate for the first time.

🇸🇮 06. The soothing sounds of Sebi turned out to be the slow burner of the 2019 Contest, with the sparse ballad of electronica going on to become a standout moment in the Grand Final, thanks to an innovative performance by Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl. 

🇸🇮 07. The 105 points that Sebi achieved on the Saturday night remains Slovenia's top score in a Grand Final. But even that is dwarfed by the score that Sebi earned in its Semi-Final - those 167 points are Slovenia's all-time high.

🇸🇮 08. A passionate participating broadcaster, RTVSLO has never missed a Contest of its own accord. It's only the old regulation rule of the Eurovision Song Contest that has made Slovenia have to sit out an event; twice since its debut - 1994 and 2000.

🇸🇮 09. In the modern era of the Contest, the band Joker Out have been an inspiring example of how to leverage Eurovision exposure into a career once you've arrived back home. Since representing Slovenia at Liverpool 2023, the group have been able to tour all across Europe to their fresh army of fans.

🇸🇮 10. Darja Švajger competed for Slovenia twice at the Eurovision Song Contest; in 1995 and again in 1999. Though if the artist had had her way, we might have seen a lot more of her in the '90s. Darja also entered Slovenia's Eurovision pre-selection in 1993, 1997 and 1998.

🇸🇮 11. Darja isn’t the only artist to have represented Slovenia at the Contest twice. Omar Naber waited much longer between turns, however - debuting in 2005 with Stop and returning over a decade later in 2017, with On My Way.

🇸🇮 12. Country music is the 'genre du jour' in 2024, seeping into pop, rap and rock songs and turning them into Top 10 hits. You can't tell us that ManuElla's country-pop bop Blue and Red wouldn't have fared better had it competed at the Contest today. Stockholm 2016 was simply not ready. 

🇸🇮 13. Slovenia's Eurovision pre-selections have given us some nail biting results over the years. In the EMA 2016 super final, our aforementioned ManuElla beat runner-up Raiven by just 127 televotes. In the end, however, both divas got to grace the Eurovision stage - with Raiven being invited to represent Slovenia via an internal selection in 2024.

🇸🇮 14. The country's pre-selections have also given us some eternal pop gems to enjoy, too. Saša Lendero's Mandoline narrowly missed out on making it to Eurovision in 2006, but it has since cemented itself as a firm favourite among national-final followers.

🇸🇮 15. Ice skating may have assisted Dima Bilan's Believe with the Eurovision win in 2008, but actually Slovenia was the first to get its skates on in Belgrade. Situated 10 songs before Russia in the running order of the First Semi-Final, Rebeka Dremelj had her backing dancers whizz around the stage in roller boots for her performance of Vrag Naj Vzame. 

🇸🇮 16. She also got them to wear helmets, too. Obviously.

🇸🇮 17. While Rebeka herself got to be tied up in chains.

🇸🇮 18. Inside a LED light-stick prison, you see. 

🇸🇮 19. Thanks to Slovenia's artists' commitment to showcasing their national language, the Eurovision Song Contest has been beautifully seasoned with Slovenian over the past three decades. The majority of the country's Eurovision songs have been performed in Slovenian, including their three most recent entries: Disko, Carpe Diem and Veronika. 

🇸🇮 20. And when they did participate with an English-language song for the first time, they did it with style. In the banger-heavy year of Jerusalem 1999, Slovenia allowed us a bit of a breather with a blockbuster ballad - the new millennium-coded A Thousand Years. Darja Švajger - a millennium doesn't even cover it, you will always be famous. 

🇸🇮 21. Slovenia's most recent entry to the Eurovision Song Contest was Veronika. The artist Raiven treated audiences to a vocally powerful and visually dramatic performance, in tribute to the song's protagonist - a Countess who was tried for witchcraft in the 15th century. 

🇸🇮 22. Slovenia missed out on qualifying during the first three years of the Eurovision Semi-Finals, from 2004 to 2006. But when they finally did qualify, they did so via quite the flex. 18 countries missed out on qualifying from the infamous 28-song Semi-Final of Helsinki 2007. But not Slovenia! They landed in a comfortable 7th place thanks to Alenka Gotar's Cvet Z Juga.

🇸🇮 23. Alenka Gotar served up some show-stopping soprano vocals in Helsinki. But arguably the real scene stealer of her performance of Cvet Z Juga was the surprising light show she introduced viewers to halfway through the song. 

🇸🇮 24. Slovenia have yet to win a Grand Final. Or a Semi-Final, for that matter. But they did triumph in their very first competitive outing at the Eurovision Song Contest, topping the vote in the 1993 qualification round Kvalifikacija za Millstreet.

🇸🇮 25. Remember dubstep? Well we do; thanks in large part to Slovenia writing it into our history books back in 2013, with Straight Into Love, performed by Hannah. 

🇸🇮 26. When Nuša Derenda rocked up to Copenhagen in 2001 with her song for Slovenia, Energy, little did we expect the title would turn out to be so prophetic. But the centrepiece for Nuša's performance was a monster of a megawatt power-charge to Parken Arena, lighting the whole building up especially for that big moment in her high-velocity dance banger. 

🇸🇮 27. Energy finished 7th, equalling Slovenia's best result to date. And for now, it's the last time that the country has finished inside the Top 10 in a Eurovision Grand Final. 

🇸🇮 28. When Slovenia sent Maraaya to the Contest in 2015, the duo's choice of accessories drew attention from viewers when the pair opened the Grand Final - with both performers wearing headphones throughout the performance. But the head gear was no gimmick, with Marjetka from the pair telling Eurovision.tv: "I use my headphones to evoke my emotions from the studio. When I am on the stage and performing with headphones I feel as if I am in the studio. That’s how I stay calm and it is easier to me to give people my true emotions."

🇸🇮 29. "Tell me... Who′s that lucky hero? Sleeping tightly on your pillow" Slovenia went all-out schlager in 2006, via the song Mr Nobody performed Anžej Dežan. The commitment to the tropes of the genre was impressive - with Anžej even remembering to bring along a wind machine for his band of backing-dancer babes.

🇸🇮 30. You know your Eurovision song is going down well when the audience starts applauding before you've even finished performing it! Tanja Ribič did THAT in 1997, with Zbudi Se still standing as Slovenia's third-best result at the Contest all these years later.