The most cringeworthy Eurovision entrants from the UK

The United Kingdom has produced some great songs for the Eurovision Song Contest over the years, even managing to win it on five occasions; but of course, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there have been the absolute worst acts, those with songs that make your ears bleed and in some cases, might even make you want to pull your eyeballs out.

It’s been nearly 22 years since the UK last won the contest, when Katrina and the Waves romped home after singing “Love Shine a Light.” In this year’s Eurovision betting odds, you can get the UK, who will be represented by Michael Rice singing “Bigger than Us” at a price of 30/1.

Hopefully he won’t produce a cringeworthy performance on the same scale as those on our list.

Scooch – Flying the Flag

If Sir Terry Wogan had been correct, Scooch would never have been entered into the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007, and Britain wouldn’t have suffered from the embarrassment, well not that year anyway.

The fact that they were chosen by the British public is an indication of just how little you can trust public opinion, something only further proven by Brexit. Four nobodies dressed up as flight attendants, providing pure camp cringe comedy, the quartet informed us that they were “Flying the flag, all over the world”, preferably they weren’t going to visit any important world leaders.

Much to everybody’s surprise, that monstrosity of a song didn’t finish last, but instead, finished joint 22nd, out of 24 countries, with France on 19 points. Somehow the song actually managed to impress people enough to vote for it.

Thankfully a British dignitary grounded their flight shortly after the Eurovision Song Contest, and Scooch disappeared into a sound proof padded room, so we’d never have to hear that bloody song again.

Daz Sampson

One of the creepiest entries by the UK in the history of the contest, Daz Sampson, and his “Sampsonites”, performed “Teenage Life” and somehow managed to get enough points (25, in fact) to finish in 19th place.
The performance in Athens consisted of Sampson, dressed as a man trying to be cool, despite being anything but, and his “Sampsonites”, who were women dressed as schoolgirls singing about school life.

Sampson’s rapping hardly inspired the continent, although he did get eight points from Ireland, but they always give us points. Thankfully the UK have not gone back to Daz for another song, although he did try to become Belarus’ entrant for this year’s contest. Clearly, the Belarussian public showed considerable more sense than the British public in rejecting him.

Jemini

Here it is, the most cringeworthy song the UK has ever produced for the Eurovision Song Content. Jemini, with “Cry Baby” is infamous amongst British Eurovision history in being the first, and so far only British entry to have received “nul points.”

In some instances, like Germany’s 2015 entrant Ann Sophie, who sung “Black Smoke”, scoring zero seems incredibly unfair. But Jemini’s atrocious, out of tune performance means that they are fully deserving of such a score.

The song was uncomfortable to hear and the choreography was uncomfortable to watch. The pair looked mismatched, with Gemma Abbey wearing a rather short red dress and Chris Cromby dressed in scruffy jeans and casual shirt. It looked as though they had received different memos on the dress code.

The whole performance was way off and the pair were dropped by their record label and the pair later went their separate ways.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com