I could go on about disappointing results forever, but the list about disappointing entries is short and simple. A disappointing entry is an entry for which you see a bad result coming before it is even picked in a national final.
1st
Winfried - Mona Lisa (1988)
This song is so bad. Probably among the all-time worst of all countries. Deserved 0 points (unlike Thomas Forstner in 1991, a song that I loved). It's disheartening because the stage was glorious and the winner was epic. And we were so meek and ridiculous.
2nd
Petra Frey - Für den Frieden der Welt (1994)
We had a national final back then, which wasn't great, but we had better options. I was rooting for Three Girl Madhouse "Solitaire" and Simone "Radio". Petra Frey was a sweet girl with a cheesy bland song about world peace. She is a superstar now in the German schlager scene and quite fierce for her genre. But the song was completely out of place. 1994 was quite peaceful and happy for most parts of the world and this song made no sense. I guess Austria still felt the heat of the war in Yugoslavia, but for me it was unnecessary virtue signalling with no entertainment factor at all.
Whole national final:
euroviiaonsion ondosnog conetsntts
www.youtube.com
Wow, Alfons Haider looks like a hairdressing model for women from 1980's. The best part of the show was Niamh Kavanagh singing her own winning song.
3rd
Ric Papilaya - Get alive - get a life! (2007)
ORF was disappointed by the result they pulled out for three years. There were some good reasons for it, like a hopeless semifinal format, televoting only against massive voting blocks, but this song was dead on arrival in any case. Virtue signalling that had no fun, no entertainment. I pity Eric Papilaya, because I rooted for him at Starmania, but this song may have buried his career. His guitarist looked like a baked potato in tinfoil and the dancers gave me cringe spasms. Complete and utter waste of Swarovski crystals. The funniest thing about this entry is that ORF for the first time did a PR tour and they toured the Balkans and Baltics, with this song! I just can't.
Dishonorable mentions: Tie-Break 2004, Natalia Kelly 2013, Vincent Bueno 2020, Tony Wegas 1993
In 2005 I was disappointed that ORF rigged the final for global.kryner and against Alf Poier. Y así wasn't bad, but Good old Europe is dying was amazing. But ORF tried to throw a wrench at Alf Poier with a federal state voting system (every Bundesland had the same voting power), because they are such dogooders. Alf Poier won the public vote by 45.000 votes but was drowned by the scores from the smaller states.
www.youtube.com
