Interesting to see how the musical styles have shifted in this half century. It started with pop-like songs, accompanied by a large orchestra, was followed by the time of the Happy Sounds and ballads. Over the past decade, the style of the Song Contest seems finally to approximate the actual current Popgeschehen - more attention to rhythm and arrangement with ethnic touch, unfortunately at the expense of melodic invention. This externalization might be a dead end: the West Europeans are creative paralyzed, and the Eastern Europeans to present what they hold so just for Eurovision Song Contest Pop.
But this compilation shows that there have always been periods of idle times and then again very professional numbers that simply expressed joy of music. The large, typical SC-ballad, fervently sung by a (often overworked) singer, it will probably be the next 50 years.
The CD box has two extremely detailed booklet with information on all presented artists and songs as well as to the specific sites (although only in English).
Again and again he is ridiculed by his opponents, but the Song Contest is better than its reputation. For contempt there is no reason - this CD-Box makes it surprisingly clear.
