New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Jemini, featuring singers Chris Cromby and Gemma Abbey, won the BBC Song for
Europe contest in March 2003 receiving around 100k public votes. Their song Cry Baby made the contest after being chosen from almost a thousand songs.
Jemini went on to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest in Riga, Latvia in May 2003.
Following the BBC Song for Europe,
Jemini and Cry Baby received an overwhelmingly positive response from national press and media and appeared on: Top of the Pops, The Saturday Show, GMTV, Graham Norton, Newsround, Richard & Judy, Blue Peter, This Morning and many other national and local TV and radio programmes with many pundits tipping the duo to do well in Europe.
Eurovision however, is about much more than just the song. In 2003 the vote relied solely on a European public vote and BBC host Terry Wogan, a keen observer of the influence of politics in the contest, speculated that the invasion of Iraq without UN support, may well have provoked an anti UK sentiment.
A litany of technical disasters resulted in
Jemini being unable to hear themselves on stage on the night and similar organisational and promotional disasters meant
Jemini went into the competition final without having made a single appearance on mainland Europe, which is essential for any entrant to build profile, support and votes. Taken together, this car crash resulted the UK's first zero score.
Despite this, following Eurovision, Cry Baby charted at number 15, whilst none of the other entrants that year (bar Tatu) were even released in the UK. The song has remained very popular amongst Eurovision fans, the remixes are club and dance classics and a number of mash ups with the 2023 entry I wrote a song appearing on YouTube, demonstrating its longevity.
After 18 years of bottom and very low scores in Eurovision, the UK scored zero again in 2021, despite thousands more points to be won due to there being both a jury vote, a public vote and votes from all the semi-finalists. In the light of that continued UK failure in Eurovision,
Jemini slowly began to be seen in a new light, with big Eurovision fans such as Rylan @rylan leading the way calling for #Justice4jemini, most recently on the BBC One Show on the run up to Eurovision 2023. Following Sam Ryder's triumph in 2022 and the announcement of Liverpool as the host city, the UK mood towards Eurovision and
Jemini is now much more positive.
Since reforming,
Jemini have been greeted with a wave of affection and delight from audiences, performing to sell-out crowds as part of the Eurovision 2023 festival and have also featured on BBC
Radio and national TV with 'Cry Baby' being described as 'an absolute banger' (BBC 1 09/05/23).
Riding this new positive wave, their new single Constantly, which will be released on Saturday 13th May 2023, is an instant Eurovision style classic and is sure to cement the duo's ever going popularity.
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Twitter: @Jemini_Euro
Facebook:
Jemini Music.
