United Kingdom’s James Newman during the second semifinal of the 65th edition of the “Eurovision Song Contest” at the Ahoy convention centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on May 20, 2021. Photo by Kenzo Tribouillard / AFP).

Since I’m the RIFF Magazine… lemme check the about page real quick… managing editor, apparently, I should care much more about things like traffic figures and reader engagement. But I couldn’t even remember my title off the top of my head, so clearly I’m not very good at it, and as such I tend to ignore all that stuff, opting instead to focus on things I think readers should know and things that amuse me.

What I’m saying here is that “Eurovision” fascinates and amuses me so I’m doing another “Eurovision” column despite the apparent lack of interest. Roman, please direct all complaints to my email so I can delete them without reading.

Back to “Eurovision:” The U.K.’s James Newman got zero points. Total. That was utterly unprecedented. You see, how scoring works is that each country has a telephone vote, and each country has a panel of expert judges who vote. The top 10 in both get points: 12 points for first place, 10 for second, then 8 to 1 point for the rest. To get zero you had to fail to rank in the top 10 of all competing nations for both the fans and the judges.

Upon further research, it turns out that while Newman was the first to get zero overall, since 2016, when the current scoring system was put in place, he’s one of nine to get zero in either the jury or the fan vote. Four, including Newman, were in 2021, and I don’t want to listen to those again. So that leaves five.

As I think most “Eurovision” songs deserve zero points, I’m fascinated by who would be the worst of the worst. So let’s listen to the worst of the worst.

Gabriela Gunčíková — “I Stand”

Gunčíková got zero votes via the fan vote in 2016, but 41 points overall from the juries. For context, Ukraine won with 534 points, and by that standard, 41 still feels a bit low. There’s nothing wrong with “I Stand” exactly, it’s just nothing great. It’s a C+.

Interestingly, despite the chicken egg, it’s not the lowest score of the competition that year. That honor went to “Ghost” by Germany’s Jamie-Lee with 11 total points. It’s also not terrible so I’m not sure what the voters’ deal was in 2016. Maybe they were just mad in general. I know I was back then so it makes sense.

Manel Navarro — “Do It for Your Lover”

Moving on to 2017, Navarro got no jury votes. But there was a reason for this: His voice cracked, badly, during the final performance.

I actually feel for the guy. Probably the biggest moment of his life to date and his voice decides to fail on him. Right there in front of his whole nation, and continent, and world. And, thanks to the Internet, it would be immortalized forever.

Interestingly though, not immortalized by “Eurovision.” All they posted is the above performance from the Spanish national final along with a music video of the recorded version, the only records of his Buckner moment are from third parties. So I guess that’s decent of them.

Nathan Trent — “Running On Air”

The Austrian entry in 2017 also had a zero from the telephone vote, but it ended up coming in 16th thanks to 93 points from the juries.

Like “I Stand” from 2016, I don’t know what Europeans found especially disagreeable about this song. Maybe it just sounds too much like “Do It For Your Lover” and they got confused? Because they’re essentially the same song. It’s really uncanny.

Also of note is the languages. As long as I’ve been writing about “Eurovision” I’ve been annoyed by hardly anyone singing in their native language, so the Austrian entry being in English rather than Bavarian (the predominant type of German spoken in that country) isn’t new. But in this case, Trent also released versions in two other languages… Italian and Spanish.

Kobi Marimi — “Home”

On to 2019. This one is embarrassing: Israel, the host country, got no points from the juries.

I actually understand this one. The song is awful. I had to struggle to make it to the end. Dude’s trying to sound operatic, but he doesn’t have the voice for it so it just sounds like he’s passing a kidney stone.

Hilariously, not only did this song get votes from the fans, it got 12 voted from France. Which means the French people liked this more than any other song in 2019. That is utterly insane in a year that included the masterpiece that is Hatari’s “Hatrið mun sigra.”

God, I love Hatari.

S!sters — “Sister”

Our final notable loser is “Sister” by Germany’s S!sters, who got no fan votes in 2019.

I get it. I wouldn’t have voted for this with Hatari as a possibility, either. And even if there wasn’t a masterpiece in the running, this isn’t really fantastic. It’s just more melodramatic “Eurovision” filler. But still, France ranked “Home” in first place in the same year, so you’d think someone would like this.

My theory? Despite their band being called S!sters, and their song being called “Sister,” the members of the duo aren’t sisters. They are the unrelated Carlotta Truman and Laurita Spinelli. They split up the band in February of 2020 so maybe it took them that long to realize their mistake.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.