Another year, another Eurovision
Following another year of failure for Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, the country is going through its usual post Eurovision Sunday handwringing about voting blocks and it all just being plain unfair.
This may indeed be the case, but I’d just like to point out:
- Eurovision is pretty much entirely funded by the UK, France, Germany and Spain, countries which clearly don’t take the contest very seriously (compared to our Eastern European counterparts). So why do we bother funding it? And why do we think that contributing wads of cash to the contest means we should automatically qualify and that people should actually be expected to vote for us? What’s worse - being part of a political voting block or buying your place in the final?
- Britain gave its 12 points to one of the worst songs in the contest - a Beyonce rip-off song from Greece - rather than to France, Norway, Israel or Bosnia whom at least made some effort. We may not be part of a political voting block, but the British voting public has ears of cloth. Which kind of renders invalid all complaints about Russia’s equally rubbish song winning because of political voting.
Tags: music = opinions
May 26th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Didn’t know that Britain, France, Spain & Germany funded it. I suppose that explains their automatic entries. You’re right, for all the griping about philistine east Europeans, the British & French voting was hardly in order of song merit as far as I was concerned.
May 26th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
‘The Big Four’ who fund Eurovision have automatically qualified each year for a while now - there is no other way that some of the lame British entries could get through otherwise!
Actually, another argument against the whole political voting thing is that it clearly didn’t work in favour of Poland who came equal last with 14 points. Have they been expelled from the Eastern European voting block?!
May 26th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I think you know my views on the whole thing (i have rant on my blog). I think it terms of block voting Poland has always been on it’s own ie not quite western Europe not quite eastern so i’m not surprised they got stiffed. why with computers and that some degree of proportionality couldn’t take place. Has there ever been a EV song you would buy /download and listen to for pleasure with no post-modern irony?
May 26th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
BLTP - I fully appreciate your views on Eurovision, but I have to say that there are quite a few Eurovision songs that I would freely listen to and do. This year’s French entry by Sebastien Tellier is superb and was a Song of the Week on here a few weeks back - http://cocktailsandrecords.net/blog/2008/05/05/song-of-the-week-divine/
And there is tons of great stuff from the past - ABBA, Lindsey de Paul ‘Rock Bottom’ , France Gall’s ‘Poupée de cire poupée de son’ for starters.
For some interesting Eurovision stuff check out: http://left-and-to-the-back.blogspot.com/2008/05/eurovision-song-contest-part-one.html
Sorry BLTP, but you did ask!
May 26th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
abba was in 1975 (?) and it’s not their best (but i had forgotten it doh!) I think we could expect afew more from over 1100 songs since 1956! Each to their own i suppose.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Let us not forget the fantastic Ruslana from Ukraine, who won five years ago with ‘Wild Dances’, a song which still gets a good sprint out of me when it comes up on my running playlist. She was a woman who could probably crack walnuts between her thighs.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Hello ISBW - I have no recollections of this song at all, but I’m pleased to see that someone else has a running playlist of erm, oddities.
Did you happen to hear this year’s Spanish entry while you were over there? And are Spanish people as embarrassed by it as they ought to be, I wonder.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
ChikiChiki!! =D
It’s one of those car-wreck songs. You just have to look and listen, even though you know you shouldn’t. It’s like a bizarre Macarena. Should such a thing be possible…………..
Strangest of all were all the French people on Youtube expressing their disgust at Sebastien Tellier’s entry. What do they want? Identikit power ballads to impress the Russians and Moldovans? gives further creedance to the notion that the audience for Eurovision do not buy, nor like contemporary pop music.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Ill Man - France has tried the power ballad more than enough times in the past and it hasn’t got them anywhere, so I’m just impressed that they tried something different. And yes, Chiki Chiki - that song has the power to plague your mind all summer if you let it.
I have to say Ill Man that I’m quite taken aback by how much you are into Eurovision. Lets hope you never encounter BLTP on a deep, dark Eurovision night!
May 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Wouldn’t say I was ‘into it’. Amused by it, and somewhat more interested this year due to the prescence of a genuinely great song. Normally it’s nigh on unwatchable and now without el Tel’s arch wit to cling to, it won’t be worth bothering about at all.
May 28th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Cocktails, yes, the Spanish entry was being heavily plugged and trailed on Spanish TV. I don’t think they’re big on irony, so I have to assume that it has genuinely generated a tremendous amount of affection and warmth from the Spanish people! But you have to bear in mind that dubbed re-runs of ‘George and Mildrid’ are also hugely popular in Spain. Hemingway would have had a bloody fit.
You can find Ruslana’s fabulous performance on Youtube….ah,go on!