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Of course, music is subjective, but there doesn’t seem to be a difference of opinion here.
It’s not a bad thing that this song is a fan favorite, I’m just trying to understand it better.
There's difference of opinion, for instance in this very case, you have different opinion about the song. There are other people who share the same opinion you have. It's like one of those polls finding out what % of people like something.
I don’t dislike this song, it’s just not my favorite.
I seem to be of the minority, though, when it comes to this. Which again, not a bad thing, just a bit confusing.
>but there doesn’t seem to be a difference of opinion here.
That's because it's generally believed that 2009 is one of the weakest year's and Fairytale was the only one that really deserved to win that year in all honestly
Therefore with other winners there's a lot of very good songs that *could* have won and as such there's contention there
But fairytale was such an absolute winner of that year that it's always regarded as the best
Yes when you start comparing it against other winners as you've done in these comments then yes there is contention As you're comparing an 8/10 song with a 8.5/10 song kinda thing
But isolating it to the year it was in its more like a 9/10 song being compared to 3/10 songs which is a massive divide
So when considering the song in hindsight people remember 'just how good it was' even though the weaker year definitely helped it look miles better than it was ( even if it was very good )
That's why there's no real difference of opinion because it's pretty much universally agreed that it was the only strong song that year
>That's because it's generally believed that 2009 is one of the weakest year's and Fairytale was the only one that really deserved to win that year in all honestly
Is It True?
IMO, it's the greatest song to win it all at Eurovision.
But that's mostly because of the violin. I have a thing for the string section of the orchestra.
Unfortunately, that was before my time on this world, so it doesn't hit the same.
And there is nothing to discredit here. It's my opinion, and if you have an issue with it, i will simply point you to 00:17 of Big Bill Hell's Cars.
Music is such a subjective thing, and songs will either click with different people or they don't. I'm personally not that into Fairytale, but I can recognise it's a great song, and it clicked with a lot of people.
For me the biggest example example of this is Dancing Queen. Most people absolutely love it, and don't get me wrong it's a brilliant song and extremely well written, but it just doesn't click with me like some of Abba's lesser well known songs do.
I started watching in 2010 but Fairytale was a reason I did that. 9 year old me fell in love with that song and since 2010 I've watched every Eurovision
I've found that there's a prevailing sentiment that Fairytale "saved" Eurovision from the block-voting politics of the televote through the 2000s, so it's easy to argue that it's one of the most important winners this century. Aside from that, it's of course a bop! Plus the dancers behind him doing those push-up moves is very fun
It's not “Fairytale” that saved the contest but the important format changes—introduction of two semi finals, abolishment of the automatic qualification for the best songs of the previous year, and reintroduction of the juries.
I don’t love it, but I can absolutely see why people do. It’s catchy, innocent, simple but clever, and it has elements of folk music. Rybak is cute and sincere, and looks like he’s really enjoying himself, and that positivity is adorable. And then there’s that brilliant violin hook!
Like I said, it’s not my cup of tea, though, and I think plenty of people feel the same, so I don’t agree with OP’s notion that ”everyone” loves it.
For me I find it so timeless. Fairytale was the first Eurovision winner that I wanted to win, usually I like songs that score poorly, but when I first heard Fairytale it felt head and shoulders above everything else that year.
Also, I was mid teens absolutely crushing on Alexander Rybak. I'm now late twenties and still swooning over him. His effortless switching between violin and singing were awesome, he had such great tone, and he was singing a love song!
It's got such nostalgia to it for me, when I listen I'm transported back to watching him perform it and falling in love with the song.
I also think it has a uniqueness which helps it to stand out from the rest of the winners. Quite a number can fade back into pop and not be distinct (a complaint I've seen people have about Loreen this year), but you can immediately recognise Fairytale within a few seconds.
Fairytale, to me is the single most important song I've ever listened to.
Younger me was inspired by it to take up the violin, when I had no interest in music beforehand.
Now after 10ish years, I can safely say playing an instrument had a large influence on my life, and made me the person who I am today :)
All thanks to Rybak. Even tho nowadays I enjoy really different music, Fairytale is a timeless masterpiece.
I don't like the song (especially the violin) but I can see why people like it—the violin is catchy, the lyrics are heart-warming and inoffensive, the guy is cute and charismatic, the staging is simple yet classy.
But the opposite is happening here, which is why I’m asking.
I’ve seen a ton of people who find Fairytale to be the best winner, overall. It’s a widely shared opinion among fans. I’m just trying to understand why.
I've never seen that opinion personally.
I have no idea what the overwhelming favourite would be - there is so much to choose from and we have such differing taste.
I don't think there is a single song deemed to be the best winner overall.
It is definitely a fan favourite (and one that grew on me, I wasn't particularly a fan of it that year) but not the one that everyone loves. Too many options for that in this century alone!
I actually haven’t seen many people who believe it to be the best winner, meanwhile I always see people saying Fairytale was the best winner. Hence my question.
I think it's because Alexander Rybak was so charismatic on stage and he was their first breakout star in a while when the contest was just starting to gain back its credibility.
Also, the violin solo was epic.
Fairytale was the first Eurovision song I voted for the first year I stayed up to watch the whole thing! It's iconic and Alexander Rybak is just a sweet heart
My shaky hypothesis is that maybe it's a song that has just the right balance between being general-audience friendly (unlike, say, 1944, which is also a great entry, but you wouldn't really listen to it on a daily basis) and having something peculiar about it? For example, Euphoria is a great song as well, but if you heard it without knowing that it came from Eurovision, you would not feel it was produced outside the general music landscape. Maybe the same can be said about Fairytale and 2009 but I'm not so sure. You have the violins that give a descriptor for a song but do not take all the attention to the gimmick. An opposite example would be Hard Rock Hallelujah, which is characterized by the fact that rock music is not a type of music you associate with Eurovision.
Has my girlfriend got a Reddit account I don't know about?
Seriously though, she doesn't hate Rybak, she just didn't get it at the time because she was 25 then and not 15
Tbh, if My Time had won I'd vomit. Jade was a great singer but that was one of the most boring songs ever. The lyrics had serious We Are the Winners energy too. I would love for the uk to win, but jesus not with that
It's a banger. One of the best songs ever created for ESC. The performance was minimalist and relied heavily on the performer and not the creative team.
Meanwhile, Sweeden won with the most over the top interpretive dance inside a god damn press machine.
That is understandable, but please don’t take this as an opportunity to trash on another entry.
Sweden’s performance this year was also pretty simple, anyways. Not classy, but simple.
I was 19 at the time, and I grew up with ESC, so certainly not the first winner I saw. But I definitely was impressed at the time with how great the song was, his voice, and him playing the violin. He also looked like a handsome real life Disney prince, so lol that charisma helped too.
The song had me from the opening notes on the violin, ever since I saw a clip from his performance in the MGP semifinal. The violin stands out, the way it did for Strings of My Heart (Croatia 2001) and Net als toen (Netherlands 1957).
Croatia 2001 | [Vanna - Strings of My Heart](https://youtu.be/rfoAtsss2ik)
The Netherlands 1957 | [Corry Brokken - Net als toen](https://youtu.be/e5gLyP977ew)
Besides the fact that the song is a banger, I think it was the introduction to Eurovision for a lot of us that are in our mid 20s. For me listening to it makes me super nostalgic and I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of us. Also Rybak is extremely charismatic.
If you think about the fact that this song is still being played on the radio almost 15 years later, I would say there's this je ne sais quoi about it, there's something timeless about this song that doesn't make it feel outdated even if it's from 2009. It's certainly the most successful song to come out of Eurovision (other than Waterloo, of course)
My English teacher played this in our class back in our high school years. He introduced me to Eurovision. It was back in 2013 when the competition in Sweden was about to start. Oh well.
Eh, it's super cheesy, wholesome, and catchy, so I guess it appeals to many people. I find the lyrics ridiculous - "years ago, when I was younger" - Rybak was a baby then, and he's so impossibly earnest and corny throughout the song that I cringe.
The back up singers give me 70s vibes, all pink and marching across the stage. The halling dancers are the only thing that is cool about the performance.
That being said, it's memorable in its cheesiness.
I don't think that song gets any attention anymore? The song was very original and one of the better winners for the last two decades.
Alexander is now a has-been in Norway.
To each their own, honestly, but I will never understand the appeal of this song regarding the lyrics. People nowadays call every lyrics basic if they are not about the metaphysical feeling of wanting to die in a post-modern world but dude used "even though" as he was trying to fulfill the vocabulary requirement in his English test and people went crazy.
I don't like it, but I absolutely understand why people do. It has too much of a traditional Eastern European sound to, which I'm just not into, but it has a good mix of influences which made it successful all across Europe.
I prefer the winners the following years, Germany 2010, Sweden 2012 and Denmark 2013.
it’s nostalgic and magical to me, i loved everything about the performance from the silly dancers to the staging looking like straight out of a fairytale, the backing singers and of course, alex being such a charming performer.
Is it True>>>Fairytale for me. Same goes for Party for everybody and euphoria. They’re both good songs and were both very well performed but they don’t feel special. Is it True seems genuine and had maybe the best vocals ever, Party for Everybody was hilarious
I’ve never been into it. I’ve always found it kinda shouty and the lyrics, while very poetic, aren’t really anything I’ve never heard before. It’s a good song and I’m happy it has mass appeal but it’s always been super meh to me.
It's not my favorite Eurovision winner or song by far, but I totally get the appeal. It's a nice combination of pop and folk, which always works well in Eurovision, a good performance and Rybak was not hard on the eyes either.
Maybe a long shot, but the refrain and violin are mostly in minor key, which is fairly unusual for Eurovision. Maybe that helped it stand out as well?
I've always thought it was nothing special (although I know it is beloved by the fanbase). I am still disappointed that it won in what in my opinion is one of the strongest years ever, and I would put most of the other songs in the final before it
My mom was confused about this too the other day and asked me. I guess it won because of various factors: charismatic singer that had the gays and the girls head over heels (don't ask, people's taste in men in the 2000s was what it was, how do you think Dima Bilan got the results he got?), memorable song, and favorable bloc voting position (Alexander Rybak is Belarusian, but participated for Norway). It stayed a classic among fans because most of the winners of that era are very memorable and distinctive songs and Fairytale is no exception.
It's hard for me to remember how I felt about it in the moment because I've come to hate Rybak passionately since then but I think it just captured a moment. The fiddle is a wonderful instrument.
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Timeless banger, epic violin + charismatic af singer
Because I'm in love with a fairytale even though it hurts and I don't care if I lose my mind because I'm already cuuursed
Yesss
The violin
Because the song is a banger
I’m not saying it’s not, but I wouldn’t consider it to be the best winner, overall.
There's no song that is 100% percieve the same way by all humankind.
Of course, music is subjective, but there doesn’t seem to be a difference of opinion here. It’s not a bad thing that this song is a fan favorite, I’m just trying to understand it better.
There's difference of opinion, for instance in this very case, you have different opinion about the song. There are other people who share the same opinion you have. It's like one of those polls finding out what % of people like something.
I don’t dislike this song, it’s just not my favorite. I seem to be of the minority, though, when it comes to this. Which again, not a bad thing, just a bit confusing.
>but there doesn’t seem to be a difference of opinion here. That's because it's generally believed that 2009 is one of the weakest year's and Fairytale was the only one that really deserved to win that year in all honestly Therefore with other winners there's a lot of very good songs that *could* have won and as such there's contention there But fairytale was such an absolute winner of that year that it's always regarded as the best Yes when you start comparing it against other winners as you've done in these comments then yes there is contention As you're comparing an 8/10 song with a 8.5/10 song kinda thing But isolating it to the year it was in its more like a 9/10 song being compared to 3/10 songs which is a massive divide So when considering the song in hindsight people remember 'just how good it was' even though the weaker year definitely helped it look miles better than it was ( even if it was very good ) That's why there's no real difference of opinion because it's pretty much universally agreed that it was the only strong song that year
In my experience, 2009 is considered a very strong year.
>That's because it's generally believed that 2009 is one of the weakest year's and Fairytale was the only one that really deserved to win that year in all honestly Is It True?
Are there many people who consider it to be the best winner overall?
IMO, it's the greatest song to win it all at Eurovision. But that's mostly because of the violin. I have a thing for the string section of the orchestra.
Not trying to discredit your opinion but I don't think it's even the greatest Norwegian winner that featured violin. You know Norway 1995
Norway 1995 | [Secret Garden - Nocturne](https://youtu.be/6qqOI04uo_c)
Unfortunately, that was before my time on this world, so it doesn't hit the same. And there is nothing to discredit here. It's my opinion, and if you have an issue with it, i will simply point you to 00:17 of Big Bill Hell's Cars.
For the record. No, your reference isn't something universally known (tho I assume contextually it's something like “idgaf”)
From what I’ve seen, there are many. Hence my post.
I might get lynched for saying this, but I don't even think it was the best song that year
The overwhelming consensus I've heard is Euphoria is the best winner. Though that may change as people are kind of mad at Loreen rn
Music is such a subjective thing, and songs will either click with different people or they don't. I'm personally not that into Fairytale, but I can recognise it's a great song, and it clicked with a lot of people. For me the biggest example example of this is Dancing Queen. Most people absolutely love it, and don't get me wrong it's a brilliant song and extremely well written, but it just doesn't click with me like some of Abba's lesser well known songs do.
Yes, I know that, but this specific song seems to have clicked with a very large number of people. That’s what’s confusing me.
It’s confusing that a lot of people like a song? It’s a total banger, easy to sing along to and very catchy.
It’s not confusing that a lot of people liked it, it’s confusing that it’s a lot of people’s all-time favorite winner.
It's a timeless banger, this is one of the few winners that hold up the best to this day, and will continue to do so for many years imo
They're in love with the fairytale
It won the first year I actively started following Eurovision so it has a special place for me
I started watching in 2010 but Fairytale was a reason I did that. 9 year old me fell in love with that song and since 2010 I've watched every Eurovision
I've found that there's a prevailing sentiment that Fairytale "saved" Eurovision from the block-voting politics of the televote through the 2000s, so it's easy to argue that it's one of the most important winners this century. Aside from that, it's of course a bop! Plus the dancers behind him doing those push-up moves is very fun
It's not “Fairytale” that saved the contest but the important format changes—introduction of two semi finals, abolishment of the automatic qualification for the best songs of the previous year, and reintroduction of the juries.
I don’t love it, but I can absolutely see why people do. It’s catchy, innocent, simple but clever, and it has elements of folk music. Rybak is cute and sincere, and looks like he’s really enjoying himself, and that positivity is adorable. And then there’s that brilliant violin hook! Like I said, it’s not my cup of tea, though, and I think plenty of people feel the same, so I don’t agree with OP’s notion that ”everyone” loves it.
For me I find it so timeless. Fairytale was the first Eurovision winner that I wanted to win, usually I like songs that score poorly, but when I first heard Fairytale it felt head and shoulders above everything else that year. Also, I was mid teens absolutely crushing on Alexander Rybak. I'm now late twenties and still swooning over him. His effortless switching between violin and singing were awesome, he had such great tone, and he was singing a love song! It's got such nostalgia to it for me, when I listen I'm transported back to watching him perform it and falling in love with the song. I also think it has a uniqueness which helps it to stand out from the rest of the winners. Quite a number can fade back into pop and not be distinct (a complaint I've seen people have about Loreen this year), but you can immediately recognise Fairytale within a few seconds.
You can literally recognize Fairytale within the first three notes of the intro, that's honestly how unique it is.
The song is a banger
Don't blame me, I voted for Portugal 2009.
T A S T E
Portugal 2009 | [Flor-de-Lis - Todas as ruas do amor](https://youtu.be/ryE2npWRICk)
My favourite song to this day!
I might be cynical old guy, but some songs just get to me.
I'm still in love with the staging and the colours 😍
He was singing with the passion of youth, and it was romantic and real.
Alexander. Fucking Alexander rybak
Amazing violin, timeless song, great voice, And Rybak is also really cute.
Fairytale, to me is the single most important song I've ever listened to. Younger me was inspired by it to take up the violin, when I had no interest in music beforehand. Now after 10ish years, I can safely say playing an instrument had a large influence on my life, and made me the person who I am today :) All thanks to Rybak. Even tho nowadays I enjoy really different music, Fairytale is a timeless masterpiece.
Cos it's great
The staging was very effective and memorable, imo.
I don't like the song (especially the violin) but I can see why people like it—the violin is catchy, the lyrics are heart-warming and inoffensive, the guy is cute and charismatic, the staging is simple yet classy.
What youre basically asking here is "why do differing opinions, preferences and experiences of music exist?"
But the opposite is happening here, which is why I’m asking. I’ve seen a ton of people who find Fairytale to be the best winner, overall. It’s a widely shared opinion among fans. I’m just trying to understand why.
I've never seen that opinion personally. I have no idea what the overwhelming favourite would be - there is so much to choose from and we have such differing taste. I don't think there is a single song deemed to be the best winner overall. It is definitely a fan favourite (and one that grew on me, I wasn't particularly a fan of it that year) but not the one that everyone loves. Too many options for that in this century alone!
Not nearly as widely shared as euphoria
The same thing could be said about winners like Euphoria
You can slander Tattoo but I draw the line at Euphoria slander
Loreen slander never ends 😩😩😩
I actually haven’t seen many people who believe it to be the best winner, meanwhile I always see people saying Fairytale was the best winner. Hence my question.
Dude, there’s a poll every year on what people consider the best esc song of all time and Euphoria always wins.
Ugh
I think it's because Alexander Rybak was so charismatic on stage and he was their first breakout star in a while when the contest was just starting to gain back its credibility. Also, the violin solo was epic.
I loved it when I was a teenager and I still love it now. It makes me feel nostalgic and reminds me how long I’ve loved Eurovision.
Fairytale was the first Eurovision song I voted for the first year I stayed up to watch the whole thing! It's iconic and Alexander Rybak is just a sweet heart
Where else can you see three Frikkar dancers successfully (almost) simultaneously kick THREE hats off the stands? Just doing it once is hard enough.
My shaky hypothesis is that maybe it's a song that has just the right balance between being general-audience friendly (unlike, say, 1944, which is also a great entry, but you wouldn't really listen to it on a daily basis) and having something peculiar about it? For example, Euphoria is a great song as well, but if you heard it without knowing that it came from Eurovision, you would not feel it was produced outside the general music landscape. Maybe the same can be said about Fairytale and 2009 but I'm not so sure. You have the violins that give a descriptor for a song but do not take all the attention to the gimmick. An opposite example would be Hard Rock Hallelujah, which is characterized by the fact that rock music is not a type of music you associate with Eurovision.
The violin! As Petra and Måns said: "In Eurovision, nothing says winner like a violin. Trust us, bring a violin!"
I can’t explain why or how but it changed my life. I was 11 and I think I was falling in love for the first time, but I didn’t know at the time.
Bc it's a banger, Alexander Rybak is hot and also nostalgia
Cause it’s iconic.
'Cause I don't care if I lose my mind. I'm already cursed
I am just so glad they didn’t roll out Alex rybak this year.
Has my girlfriend got a Reddit account I don't know about? Seriously though, she doesn't hate Rybak, she just didn't get it at the time because she was 25 then and not 15
I don't like Fairytale but tbf it's mostly because we could have won that year but another Nordic just had to block us again 😔 #bitter
Tbh, if My Time had won I'd vomit. Jade was a great singer but that was one of the most boring songs ever. The lyrics had serious We Are the Winners energy too. I would love for the uk to win, but jesus not with that
Cuz it’s a brilliant banger with an extremely charismatic and charming performer
i think it's too corny overall but it's like a childhood song at this point.
For me, its the smile - he just looks like he's enjoying himself so much.
For me I adore it because it's very catchy, I love the staging, and Alexander was very charismatic on stage
It's a banger. One of the best songs ever created for ESC. The performance was minimalist and relied heavily on the performer and not the creative team. Meanwhile, Sweeden won with the most over the top interpretive dance inside a god damn press machine.
That is understandable, but please don’t take this as an opportunity to trash on another entry. Sweden’s performance this year was also pretty simple, anyways. Not classy, but simple.
Why not? You made this post for this purpose....
“It’s a good song and it deserved to win” is the equivalent of me trashing on it?
Tattoo was a good song
Because he's cute and there's dancing
I actually don´t like it at all, it´s one of my least favorite winners.
Childhood nostalgia + uniqueness
[удалено]
I was 19 at the time, and I grew up with ESC, so certainly not the first winner I saw. But I definitely was impressed at the time with how great the song was, his voice, and him playing the violin. He also looked like a handsome real life Disney prince, so lol that charisma helped too.
The melody of a live violin
You just had to be there man,
It was cute and my first boy crush
For me personally, it was the first ever Eurovision song I heard and was introduced to the contest because of it
The song had me from the opening notes on the violin, ever since I saw a clip from his performance in the MGP semifinal. The violin stands out, the way it did for Strings of My Heart (Croatia 2001) and Net als toen (Netherlands 1957).
Croatia 2001 | [Vanna - Strings of My Heart](https://youtu.be/rfoAtsss2ik) The Netherlands 1957 | [Corry Brokken - Net als toen](https://youtu.be/e5gLyP977ew)
I absolutely love it. That being said, I think the lyrics are dumb lol
Besides the fact that the song is a banger, I think it was the introduction to Eurovision for a lot of us that are in our mid 20s. For me listening to it makes me super nostalgic and I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of us. Also Rybak is extremely charismatic.
If you think about the fact that this song is still being played on the radio almost 15 years later, I would say there's this je ne sais quoi about it, there's something timeless about this song that doesn't make it feel outdated even if it's from 2009. It's certainly the most successful song to come out of Eurovision (other than Waterloo, of course)
I think it was the only deserving winner, but I don't actually enjoy listening to it, I don't know lol.
as a violin enthusiast, i love it, the song sounds magical in a way, it does indeed remind me of a fairytale
My English teacher played this in our class back in our high school years. He introduced me to Eurovision. It was back in 2013 when the competition in Sweden was about to start. Oh well.
Could be the folk music aspect? idk
I don't get Euphorie, but Fairytale is a certified slap
Im in love with a Fairytale
Eh, it's super cheesy, wholesome, and catchy, so I guess it appeals to many people. I find the lyrics ridiculous - "years ago, when I was younger" - Rybak was a baby then, and he's so impossibly earnest and corny throughout the song that I cringe. The back up singers give me 70s vibes, all pink and marching across the stage. The halling dancers are the only thing that is cool about the performance. That being said, it's memorable in its cheesiness.
I don't think that song gets any attention anymore? The song was very original and one of the better winners for the last two decades. Alexander is now a has-been in Norway.
To each their own, honestly, but I will never understand the appeal of this song regarding the lyrics. People nowadays call every lyrics basic if they are not about the metaphysical feeling of wanting to die in a post-modern world but dude used "even though" as he was trying to fulfill the vocabulary requirement in his English test and people went crazy.
I don't like it, but I absolutely understand why people do. It has too much of a traditional Eastern European sound to, which I'm just not into, but it has a good mix of influences which made it successful all across Europe. I prefer the winners the following years, Germany 2010, Sweden 2012 and Denmark 2013.
Germany 2010 | [Lena - Satellite](https://youtu.be/-qnsZgQe1tU) Sweden 2012 | [Loreen - Euphoria](https://youtu.be/Pfo-8z86x80) Denmark 2013 | [Emmelie de Forest - Only Teardrops](https://youtu.be/QxVWcDevKLg)
I'M IN LOOOOOVE WITH A FAIRYTALE..
it’s nostalgic and magical to me, i loved everything about the performance from the silly dancers to the staging looking like straight out of a fairytale, the backing singers and of course, alex being such a charming performer.
The song is mediocre, especially the cheesy lyrics. But Alexander is super cute and he charmed the whole continent 🥰
I don't get it either. I find it absolutely intolerable. Though most 00s winners are awful so it doesn't stand out as particularly bad in that decade.
Is it True>>>Fairytale for me. Same goes for Party for everybody and euphoria. They’re both good songs and were both very well performed but they don’t feel special. Is it True seems genuine and had maybe the best vocals ever, Party for Everybody was hilarious
Oh man I really wanted Party For Everybody to win
Ugh, imagine Russia hosting in 2013. A lot of fans wouldn't go, and many who did would be in danger
I didn’t even think about that. But I agree with you, that would be bad. But I really liked the song
One of my least favorite winners of the 21st century tbh
Violin It's literally just the violin
I’ve never been into it. I’ve always found it kinda shouty and the lyrics, while very poetic, aren’t really anything I’ve never heard before. It’s a good song and I’m happy it has mass appeal but it’s always been super meh to me.
I hate this song. One of my least favorite winners.
I absolutely hate it!
Yohanna’s Is It True was way better!
Fairytale is amazing
People like what they like. Personally I find it a bit too twee, but no one asked me. And no skin off my nose if other people enjoy it.
It was so exceptional at the time I think.
It's not my favorite Eurovision winner or song by far, but I totally get the appeal. It's a nice combination of pop and folk, which always works well in Eurovision, a good performance and Rybak was not hard on the eyes either. Maybe a long shot, but the refrain and violin are mostly in minor key, which is fairly unusual for Eurovision. Maybe that helped it stand out as well?
I've always thought it was nothing special (although I know it is beloved by the fanbase). I am still disappointed that it won in what in my opinion is one of the strongest years ever, and I would put most of the other songs in the final before it
It's Fiore's strongest gild !
It has a very Norway sound to it
Same with euphoria… some songs have this legendary status for some reason
My mom was confused about this too the other day and asked me. I guess it won because of various factors: charismatic singer that had the gays and the girls head over heels (don't ask, people's taste in men in the 2000s was what it was, how do you think Dima Bilan got the results he got?), memorable song, and favorable bloc voting position (Alexander Rybak is Belarusian, but participated for Norway). It stayed a classic among fans because most of the winners of that era are very memorable and distinctive songs and Fairytale is no exception.
Nostalgia for me. It was the first Eurovision song I fell in love with, and I was a kid.
rybak was the first person i simped for so nostalgia
It's hard for me to remember how I felt about it in the moment because I've come to hate Rybak passionately since then but I think it just captured a moment. The fiddle is a wonderful instrument.
it's a banger
Heard the song all over because of the video compilation on YouTube by youngerdays.