- Kyriakos Tsinivits
Eurovision runners-up songs ranked by Spotify streams

Out of the 63 Eurovision runners-up songs, 53 of them can be streamed on Spotify in Australia.
Several weeks ago we had a look at how the Eurovision winning songs stack up against each other based on Spotify play counts (which you can check out here), so we thought we would take a look at how the Eurovision runners-up songs rank.
Ten Eurovision runners-up songs don’t appear on Spotify in Australia.
They include:
Paule Desjardins - 'Le belle amour' - 1957 - France
Esther Ofarim - 'T'en va pas' - 1963 - Switzerland
Paola del Medico - 'Bonjour, Bonjour' - 1969 - Switzerland
Jean Vallée - 'L'amour ça fait chanter la vie' - 1978 - Belgium
Live Report - 'Why Do I Always Get it Wrong?' - 1989 - United Kingdom
Amina - 'C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison' - 1991 - France
Michael Ball - 'One Step Out of Time' - 1992 - United Kingdom
Elisabeth Andreassen - 'I evighet' - 1996 - Norway
Marc Roberts - 'Mysterious Woman' - 1997 - Ireland
Chiara - 'Angel' - 2005 - Malta
When adding up the total play counts for each song we included all versions of the runner-up song bar from any remixes. The total play counts include radio edits, live, symphonic, acoustic and remastered versions.
This ranking of Spotify play counts were collated as of October 03:
1. Mahmood - 'Soldi' - 2019 - Italy - 165,828,475 play counts
2. Eleni Foureira - 'Fuego' - 2018 - Cyprus - 79,785,821
3. The Common Linnets - 'Calm After the Storm' - 2014 - Netherlands - 36,989,651
4. Mocedades - 'Eres tú' - 1973 - Spain - 25,362,722
5. Dami Im - 'Sound of Silence' - 2016 - Australia - 17,853,806
6. Kristian Kostov - 'Beautiful Mess' - 2017 - Bulgaria - 15,323,442
7. Verka Serduchka - 'Dancing Lasha Tumbai' - 2007 - Ukraine - 6,106,925
8. Buranovskiye Babushki - 'Party for Everybody' - 2012 - Russia - 3,303,939
9. Cliff Richard - 'Congratulations' - 1968 - United Kingdom - 2,653,138
10. Polina Gagarina - 'A Million Voices' - 2015 - Russia - 2,008,451
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11. Željko Joksimović & Ad-Hoc Orchestra - 'Lane moje' - 2004 - Serbia & Montenergro - 1,710,031
12. Edyta Górniak - 'To nie ja!' - 1994 - Poland - 1,653,771
13. Lena Valaitis - 'Johnny Blue' - 1981 - Germany - 1,337,871
14. The New Seekers - 'Beg, Steal or Borrow' - 1972 - United Kingdom - 1,311,641
15. maNga - 'We Could Be the Same' - 2010 - Turkey - 1,221,555
16. Wind - 'Lass die Sonne in dein Herz' - 1987 - Germany - 1,092,404
17. Farid Mammadov - 'Hold Me' - 2013 - Azerbaijan - 1,080,414
18. Ani Lorak - 'Shady Lady' - 2008 - Ukraine - 1,049,303
19. Yohanna - 'Is It True?' - 2009 - Iceland - 756,142
20. The Allisons - 'Are You Sure?' - 1961 - United Kingdom - 713,285
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21. Catherine Ferry - 'Un, deux, trois' - 1976 - France - 677,703
22. Raphael Gualazzi - 'Madness of Love' - 2011 - Italy - 674,762
23. Imaani - 'Where Are You?' - 1998 - United Kingdom - 572,626
24. Rollo & King - 'Never Ever Let You Go' - 2001 - Denmark - 563,484
25. Karina - 'En un mundo nuevo' - 1971 - Spain - 558,906
26. Katja Ebstein - 'Theater' - 1980 - Germany - 523,413
27. Wind - 'Für alle' - 1985 - Germany - 471,006
28. Sonia - 'Better the Devil You Know' - 1993 - United Kingdom - 366,575
29. The Shadows - 'Let Me Be The One' - 1975 - United Kingdom - 335,387
30. Lill Lindfors & Svante Thuresson - 'Nygammal vals' - 1966 - Sweden - 289,739
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31. Selma - 'All Out of Luck' - 1999 - Iceland - 282,670
32. Anabel Conde - 'Vuelve conmigo' - 1995 - Spain - 226,103
33. Joëlle Ursull - 'White and Black Blues' - 1990 - France - 212,116
34. Dima Bilan - 'Never Let You Go' - 2006 - Russia - 211,360
35. Ira Losco - '7th Wonder' - 2002 - Malta - 194,566
36. Ofra Haza - 'Hi' - 1983 - Israel - 179,195
37. Alsou - 'Solo' - 2000 - Russia - 153,989
38. Betty Missiego - 'Su canción' - 1979 - Spain - 144,896
39. Gigliola Cinquetti - ‘Sì (Go (Before You Break My Heart)’ - 1974 - Italy - 81,512
40. Avi Toledano - 'Hora' - 1982 - Israel - 61,745
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41. Liam Reilly - 'Somewhere in Europe' - 1990 - Ireland - 57,723
42. Scott Fitzgerald - 'Go' - 1988 - United Kingdom - 40,790
43. Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson - 'Sing, Little Birdie' - 1959 - United Kingdom - 30,651
44. Sean Dunphy - 'If I Could Choose' - 1967 - Ireland - 27,503
45. Kathy Kirby - 'I Belong' - 1965 - United Kingdom - 25,332
46. Mary Hopkin - 'Knock, Knock Who's There?' - 1970 - United Kingdom - 16,959 (play counts from Liv Maessen cover)
47. Lys Assia - 'Giorgio' - 1958 - Switzerland - 13,752
48. Urban Trad - 'Sanomi' - 2003 - Belgium - 13,078
49. Linda Martin - 'Terminal 3' - 1984 - Ireland - 12,219
50. François Deguelt - 'Dis rien' - 1962 - Monaco - 6,218
51. Matt Monro - 'I Love the Little Things' - 1964 - United Kingdom - 5,824
52. Daniela Simmons - 'Pas pour moi' - 1986 - Switzerland - 3,921
53. Bryan Johnson - 'Looking High, High, High' - 1960 - United Kingdom - 1,148 (play counts from David Hughes cover)
It comes at no surprise that ‘Soldi’ is the most streamed Eurovision runners-up song on Spotify. ‘Soldi’ garnered a huge following during and after Mahmood’s win at San Remo 2019 with strong Spotify streams. ‘Soldi’ was also one of the favourites to take out the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, finishing in runner-up spot overtaken by Duncan Laurence with ‘Arcade’.
As expected the more recent Eurovision runners-up songs have been played more, with seven Eurovision runners-up songs from the 2010’s making the top 10.
Australia’s runner-up entry from 2016 ‘Sound of Silence’ makes it into the Top 5. Dami Im’s top song on Spotify ‘Sound of Silence’ has over 17.8 million streams, which makes it the most streamed Australian Eurovision entry ever.
The oldest Eurovision runners-up song with the highest ranking in the Top 10 is Mocedades’ 'Eres tú' from 1973 reaching the top 5 in 4th place, it is no surprise given it became a worldwide hit.
The second oldest entry in the Top 10 is Cliff Richard’s 'Congratulations' in 9th place with over 2.6 million play counts.
Out of the countries with multiple Eurovision runners-up songs, we thought it would be interesting to look at their best song ranked in this list - with countries with three or more runner-up positions in Eurovision are:
United Kingdom (14 runners-up entries) - 9th place - Cliff Richard - ‘Congratulations' - 1968 - 2,653,138 play counts
France (4 runners-up entries) - 21st place - Catherine Ferry - 'Un, deux, trois' - 1976 - 677,703
Germany (4 runners-up entries) - 13th place - Lena Valaitis - 'Johnny Blue' - 1981 - 1,337,871
Russia (4 runners-up entries) - 8th place - Buranovskiye Babushki - 'Party for Everybody' - Russia - 3,303,939
Spain (4 runners-up entries) - 4th place - Mocedades - 'Eres tú' - 1973 - 25,362,722
Switzerland (4 runners-up entries) - 47th place - Lys Assia - 'Giorgio' - 1958 - 13,752
Ireland (3 runners-up entries) - 41st place - Liam Reilly - 'Somewhere in Europe' - 1990 - 57,723
Italy (3 runners-up entries) - 1st place - Mahmood - ‘Soldi’ - 2019 - 165,828,475
And lastly how do the total play counts of the Eurovision runners-up songs compare to the Eurovision winners songs?
Well interestingly we found a few surprises!! ‘Soldi’ has over 6.8 million more streams than the 2012 Eurovision winning song ‘Euphoria’ which came in at first place in our ranking of Spotify streaming Eurovision winning songs. It is a huge feat given ‘Soldi’ has only been streaming for over a year.
‘Soldi’ is so huge that it has been streamed over 46 million times more than the Eurovision winning song for 2019 ‘Arcade’ by Duncan Laurence.
We have found that this has been a regular occurrence more recently where the Eurovision runner-up song has garnered more Spotify streams than the winning song, with 4 runners-up songs over the last decade achieving this.
This includes Dami Im’s ‘Sound of Silence’ having over 7.2 million streams more than the 2016 winning Eurovision song ‘1944’ by Jamala.
Interestingly in the 2000’s only one runner-up Eurovision song has managed more streams than the Eurovision winner. This is Verka Serduchka’s 2007 ‘Dancing Lasha Tumbai’ which has 6,106,925 play counts compared to the Eurovision winner of that year ‘Molitva (Destiny)’ by Marija Šerifović with 4,641,296 play counts.
Lets compare the streaming of the winning and runner-up songs over the last ten years. The more popular streamed song out of the two is shown in bold. All the Spotify play counts were collated as of October 03:
2010
Winner: Lena - ‘Satellite’ - Germany - 43,952,415
Runner-up: maNga - ‘We Could Be the Same’ - Turkey - 1,221,555
2011
Winner: Ell and Nikki - ‘Running Scared’ - Azerbaijan - 3,528,275
Runner-up: Raphael Gualazzi - ‘Madness of Love’ - Italy - 674,762
2012
Winner: Loreen - ‘Euphoria’ - Sweden - 158,982,944
Runner-up: Buranovskiye Babushki - ‘Party for Everybody’ - Russia - 3,303,939
2013
Winner: Emmelie de Forest - ‘Only Teardrops’ - Denmark - 38,099,897
Runner-up: Farid Mammadov - ‘Hold Me’ - Azerbaijan - 1,080,414
2014
Winner: Conchita Wurst - ‘Rise Like a Phoenix’ - Austria - 16,977,915
Runner-up: The Common Linnets - ‘Calm After the Storm’ - Netherlands - 36,989,651
2015
Winner: Måns Zelmerlöw - ‘Heroes’ - Sweden - 120,366,586
Runner-up: Polina Gagarina - ‘A Million Voices’ - Russia - 2,008,451
2016
Winner: Jamala - ‘1944’ - Ukraine - 10,625,223
Runner-up: Dami Im - 'Sound of Silence’ - Australia - 17,853,806
2017
Winner: Salvador Sobral - ‘Amar pelos dois’ - Portugal - 21,680,799
Runner-up: Kristian Kostov - ‘Beautiful Mess’ - Bulgaria - 15,323,442
2018
Winner: Netta - ‘Toy’ - Israel - 66,171,816
Runner-up: Eleni Foureira - ‘Fuego’ - Cyprus - 79,785,821
2019
Winner: Duncan Laurence - ‘Arcade’ - Netherlands - 119,433,006
Runner-up: Mahmood - ‘Soldi’ - Italy - 165,828,475