After weeks of speculation on social media (would Loreen maintain her first place?), the full 2022 Eurovision Top 250 has finally been revealed. People massively voted for Chanel’s SloMo. In spite of removing obviously manipulated and multiple votes from the same people, she still has a comfortable lead which enables her to push Loreen down to second place in our ESC250. In this article, we outline some facts and figures about the ranking of past New Year’s Eve.

Most entries per country

With 11,314 sets of valid votes, we again broke all previous voting records. Entries from no less than 49 different nations appear in the ranking – remarkable when you know that throughout Eurovision history a grand total of 52 countries have taken part. The only absent nations in the ESC250 are Morocco, with their one entry Bitaqat hub by Samira Bensaïd in 1980 (place 386), Andorra (first entry at 271), in spite of their six entries, and Monaco (first entry at 345). On the other end of the spectrum, Sweden still holds the record for having the highest number of entries in the list, although their share dropped considerably from 25 in 2021 to ‘just’ 17 in the most recent edition.

Sweden is followed by Italy and Spain with 14 entries each and Greece with 13. The Netherlands has seven artists in the list, one more than Belgium. The highest ranked Dutchman is 2019 winner Duncan Laurence on #7 (#4 in 2021). Looking at Belgian participants, we see that Blanche and Loïc Nottet have effectively swapped places with Blanche now at #23, beating the Rhythm Inside singer at #26.

When only taking into consideration the seven ‘OG’ nations that took part in the very first Eurovision edition back in 1956, Italy has the highest number of entries in the ESC250 (14), followed by the Netherlands and France with seven each.

Entries per decade

In 66 different editions of the Eurovision Song Contest and also taking the cancelled 2020 edition into account, 49 years have at least one entry in the list. The following years have no entries in the top 250: 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986 en 1989. This means that every year from 1990 onwards appears at least once. Whereas 1959 and 2002 were not featured in the ESC250 in 2021, they succeeded the next year thanks to Birthe Wilke’s Uh, jeg ville ønske jeg var dig (Denmark) and Rosa’s Europe’s Living a Celebration (Spain). Thus, two of the four 1950s editions appear in the list. For other decades, the overview is as follows:

• 60s: 3
• 70s: 8
• 80s: 6
• 90s: 33
• 00s: 47
• 10s: 91
• 20s: 60

Rises, drops and newcomers

The best scoring edition in the current ESC250, to the surprise of literally no one, is the 2022 edition held in Turin, with 28 entries in the list and including the new number one, Chanel’s SloMo. Compared to the 2021 edition, 44 other, older Eurovision songs have entered the ranking, including the Dutch 1978 entry ‘t Is OK as the new #250. The biggest riser (+1067 places) is Mălina Olinescu with Eu cred (Romania 1998). Two 2021 entries show the biggest drops with 137 places each: Moldova’s Natalia Gordienko with Sugar and Lithuania’s The Roop with Discoteque.

Winners

The 2022 top 250 feature 31 winning entries, five less than in 2021. The highest is Loreen’s Euphoria (Sweden 2012), now ranked second, with the lowest being Marie Myriam’s L’oiseau et l’enfant (France 1977) at #204. Kalush Orchestra, the winner of 2022, enters the list at number 39. Compared to 2021, the number of winners that made the top 20 dropped from eight to six, with the three Scandinavian 1974, 1995 and 2015 winners ABBA, Secret Garden and Måns Zelmerlöw pushed out. Helena Paparizou’s winning 2005 entry for Greece My Number One, however, rose from #31 to #20. The very first Eurovision winner, Lys Assia, only ranks at number 772 with her entry Refrain, dropping nearly 200 places (#587 in 2021). Her other 1956 entry, Das alte Karussell, only ranks 1322nd with three points.

The best scoring entries per year of the 21st century

• 2001: Antique – Die for You – Greece (#53)
• 2002: Rosa – Europe’s Living a Celebration – Spain (#206)
  
• 2003: Beth – Dime – Spain (#8)
• 2004: Željko Joksimovic – Lane moje – Serbia & Montenegro (#54)
• 2005: Helena Paparizou – My Number One – Greece (#20)
• 2006: Lordi – Hard Rock Halleluja – Finland (#51)
• 2007: Marija Šerifovic – Molitva – Serbia (#27)
• 2008: Kalomira – Secret Combination – Greece (#99)
• 2009: Alexander Rybak – Fairytale – Norway (#16)
• 2010: maNga – We Could Be the Same – Turkey (#34)
• 2011: Eric Saade – Popular – Sweden (#76)
• 2012: Loreen – Euphoria – Sweden (#2)
• 2013: Emmelie de Forest – Only Teardrops – Denmark (#43)
• 2014: Ruth Lorenzo – Dancing In The Rain – Spain (#33)
• 2015: Il Volo – Grande Amore – Italy (#21)
• 2016: Jamala – 1944 – Ukraine (#15)
• 2017: Blanche – City Lights – Belgium (#23)
• 2018: Eleni Foureira – Fuego – Cyprus (#4)
• 2019: Duncan Laurence – Arcade – Netherlands (#7)
• 2020: Diodato – Fai rumore – Italy (#9)
• 2021: Måneskin – Zitti e buoni – Italy (#5)
• 2022: Chanel – SloMo – Spain (#1)