Eurovision song contest: Belgium comes in 2nd

[mke]

Amazing result by Belgium's Urban Trad.

Belgium alternates between Walloon (don't you just love that word?) and Flemish entries. This year the Walloons chose, but apparently sent a Flemish group. Odd.

This loveable pair from Russia came in 3rd:



Turkey won, and France came in 18th! (Nelson voice) Ha ha!

And in last place, with an INCREDIBLE 0 POINTS (!!!!!), is the UK. Ha ha to Nat. That has to be some kind of record... 0 points, wow.

Note: I didn't actually watch the show, but if I would've, had I not been out to see some decent music.

[Sergio Zamora]

I suppose congratulations are in order.

Those lesbians are hot.

Has anyone other than Mocedades ever made it big after winning the Eurovision contest?

[Pete C]

Perhaps this is the beginning of a Flemish/Waloon detente, but I doubt it will deter the French from Waloon jokes.

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

Very happy that the UK got nil point. The entry was worse than I ever could have imagined (i.e. not bad enough to be funny, just painful).

Shame Austria didn't get it.

Did anyone watch it (I made it to 14 songs with liberal use of the mute button, then couldn't manage anymore, even with Terry Wogan's commentary which usually makes it watchable)? There was one song ripped off from "Sex Bomb" another was markedly similar to "Perfect Day", several other favorites mushed in with '70s electro-pop and sickly verses to avoid getting done for copyright. The Bosnian sex bomb was actually pretty fun though.

[Dr Dave]

I would just like to say that I'm totally in favor of teenage Russian lesbian poseurs. On the other hand, Redneck lesbian poseurs are the best. Let's hear it for the one and only Nashville Pussy:

[moneyp]

Originally posted by mke
This loveable pair from Russia came in 3rd:

Thereby invalidating any credibility the Eurovision Song Contest may have had.

Didn't ABBA win way back in the day?

[Monte Smith]

I am just going to sit back and ponder the conjunction of the word "credibility" with the phrase "Eurovision Song Contest."

....

[Philip]

Norway used to (consistently) score no points without having gone to war.

[mke]

Originally posted by mone peterson
Thereby invalidating any credibility the Eurovision Song Contest may have had.

Didn't ABBA win way back in the day?

Credibility?

ABBA won with "Waterloo". Interestingly (well, maybe not THAT interesting), I live right next to Waterloo.

Céline Dion represented Switzerland once, can't remember if she won.

[Knike]

Céline Dion represented Switzerland once, can't remember if she won

She did. The song was " Ne partez pas sans moi" !

Am I the only one that really hated the Austrian "output" of Alf Poier. He may be a good comedian (actually , he is ) but as a musician, it's nothing more than embarassing. I glad I'm not austrian. I'd prefer Switzerland didn't take part this year , rather than Alf Poier !!

Together with some fellow musicians, I decided to compete for the Contest in one or two years. Either as a composer or composer and musician. I have to find out, if it's enough in these days, to put out a really good song without that Comedy-Schluns !!

[mke]

From the NYT:

Russia placed third with its hottest current commodity, the pouty, pubescent minxes of t.A.T.u., who were up to their old tricks in Riga. During their news conference, the pop duo declared they had no plans to explore Riga's cultural offerings because they would be too busy having sex.

[yardbird]

Philip, I think it's great that Norway on several occasions scored nil points - I mean, if there's one field in which I couldn't care less whether Norway did well or not, it's the ESC.

We're doing fine in other and more important music styles, classical, folk, jazz, electronica -

and in less than two weeks we'll try to beat Denmark qualifying for the European Soccer Championship.

[Sand]

Originally posted by yardbird
Philip, I think it's great that Norway on several occasions scored nil points - I mean, if there's one field in which I couldn't care less whether Norway did well or not, it's the ESC.

We're doing fine in other and more important music styles, classical, folk, jazz, electronica -

and in less than two weeks we'll try to beat Denmark qualifying for the European Soccer Championship.

We're way ahead in music. Don't mention soccer in this context!
Oh, this is a Eurosong thread. Don't mention music in this context :-)

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

You used to be able to award nil point when there were less countries in the competition. I think they changed it to save Belgium too much embarrassment. A fair few entries have got nil point in the past. That's the only reason to watch it, the winner is rarely interesting.

Knike - do they take Eurovision seriously where you are? I only found out a couple of years ago that most other countries consider it a proper contest. The funniest thing is the voting.

And to our nordic/meditarranean/slavic neighbours douze points. The most shocking thing about this was that some countries didn't do their usual 12 point reciprocal vote - Austria/Germany for example.

[Monte Smith]

Originally posted by Nathaniel Catchpole


Knike - do they take Eurovision seriously where you are? I only found out a couple of years ago that most other countries consider it a proper contest.

Wow! If it is true that most European nations take the Eurovision Song Contest seriously, then I am finding out about it right here!

I'd be amazed, but willing to believe it. You learn something new every day.

[Knike]

Knike - do they take Eurovision seriously where you are? I only found out a couple of years ago that most other countries consider it a proper contest. The funniest thing is the voting.

No, normally they don't. But my intent is to come up with a serious song, but I'm not going to take it seriously, if you know what I mean. I'm not going to make a comedy-sonng. I just want to find out, if it's possible in these days to win (or have at least some success) with a serious song, like it used to be years ago. You know, a dramatic song with strings and choir and a pompous (?) Chorus, not to forget a mendatory raising of the chorus for the last repetition. Maybe with strong lyrics containing words like "vision", "together" and "freedom"....

how could I take a competition seriously, that is decided mostly by a phone / SMS -Voting ?? I'd rather have them return to local jury in each country.

[mke]

Apparently, some countries take it seriously, notably the East European ones:


Rise of the New Europe in Euro Pop
By Y. EUNY HONG


IGA, Latvia, May 25 — The Eurovision Song Contest — which has provided nearly half a century of evidence that globalization comes to a screeching halt when it approaches the borders of Euro pop — was held here on Saturday night, and Turkey won.

Twenty-six nations, including most of NATO, large swaths of the former Warsaw Pact and Israel, sent their top pop stars to this, the 48th annual Eurovision contest, to perform previously unpublished songs. American interest in it is almost nil, but the contest's having first been broadcast in 1956 makes it the longest continuously running program in Europe. It is shown in 42 countries worldwide, with 150 million viewers.

Though America created the vocabulary for pop music, Euro pop has long since pidginized the genre, making it all its own. This year's winner is a prime example. "Every Way That I Can" is an exotic belly-dancing tune that was sung in English by Sertab Erener, an established Turkish star whose biggest prior boast was having once sung a duet with Ricky Martin.

The band Urban Trad of Belgium placed second with a song whose lyrics were in a made-up, Tolkeinesque language, presumably dodging the wrath of both the Flemish and Walloon communities. (Traditionally, Belgian Eurovision entries alternate each year between Flemish and French, to keep peace at home.) Russia placed third with its hottest current commodity, the pouty, pubescent minxes of t.A.T.u., who were up to their old tricks in Riga. During their news conference, the pop duo declared they had no plans to explore Riga's cultural offerings because they would be too busy having sex.

Eurovision, originally conceived as a means of unifying a war-torn Europe, was arguably the most visible symbol of European unity prior to the European Union. In keeping with political trends, the former Eastern bloc countries were invited to join the contest shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Regardless of the merits of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comment about the virtues of the New Europe (a comment that apparently delighted the Latvians), his statement does apply very loosely to Euro pop. In recent Eurovision contests, some Western European countries have slacked off (this year, Britain placed a jaw-dropping last place, with zero points), while former Eastern bloc countries have invested copious funds and unsmirking enthusiasm in the contest. The last three winners — Estonia, Latvia and now Turkey — are all vying for membership in the European Union. Aware that all eyes were on Latvia, the Latvian government spent the equivalent of $11 million to put on the show, an enormous sum for a newly capitalist nation with only 2.3 million inhabitants.

As further evidence of its enthusiasm, the Latvian postal service offered a "special stamping session" on Saturday, during which locals got the chance to queue up for the privilege of having their mail stamped with a commemorative Eurovision postmark.

The Eurovision winner is determined by an hourlong, logistically nightmarish system in which each participating nation conducts its own telephone vote (or in rare cases, a jury vote), with the stipulation that the callers cannot choose their own nation's entry. Typically, anywhere from 100,000 to 800,000 viewers per country phone in. These votes are then distilled into a baroque 1-to-12-point ranking system.

This voting process may explain, in part, why the United States has never broadcast or otherwise shown any interest in Eurovision, despite the program's immense cultural importance in Europe. (The only Eurovision winners who subsequently succeeded in America were ABBA, who won in 1974, and Celine Dion, who won in 1988 as a hired ringer for Switzerland).

"I shudder to think what it would take in the U.S. to have an all-American phone-in vote," said Karlis Streips, a Chicago-born Latvian-American who served as Latvian television's Eurovision commentator. Americans "can hardly manage a presidential election," he continued, adding, "If we had a Eurovision election, there would be chads in the ballots."

But this is not the only reason the contest will never witness American participation. It has been observed that the more that Euro pop tries to sound American, the more distinctly European it sounds. Take, for example, this year's German entry, "Let's Get Happy," sung by an orange-haired Phyllis Diller look-alike named Lou. Lou belted out the first line, "Last night at the discothèque," in a near-flawless R&B down-home American accent, yet "discothèque" is a word no self-respecting American rock star would say.

Latvia did a bang-up job as host (though it placed a disappointing 24th). The nation's top artistic talent designed the staging and lighting for the contest, and the result was slick and spectacular. The hosts engaged in Catskills-like banter in English (in this, the real Borscht Belt). On the surface, a typical Eurovision Song Contest telecast resembles a fancy American television spectacle, but oh so slightly off-kilter. The Eurovision performers are clad in overly self-conscious leisure wear, and their movements are choreographed with the accuracy of a Bavarian glockenspiel figurine; they smile with such unnatural intensity that they look as if they're on the verge of a manic episode. The singer seemingly becomes one with the song and can't get out. In short, a typical Eurovision broadcast looks like a cross between a chewing-gum commercial and a Leni Riefenstahl film.

An outsider might conclude that Eurovision participants cannot possibly take this seriously. But Latvia cannot afford to be tongue-in-cheek about the affair. It won the right to be the host of this year's contest by winning first place last year, and the Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, explained the importance of this coup: "We were behind the Iron Curtain for half a century, during which time we didn't exist. When our athletes won Olympic medals, it was recorded as a Soviet medal. We have to put ourselves back on the map and regain the identity that was robbed from us."

Ms. Vike-Freiberga attended the contest on Saturday, as did the better part of Latvia's elite. As a former Latvian exile, who lived in Canada for 55 years before returning to her native Latvia just a few years before being elected president, Ms. Vike-Freiberga said she saw Eurovision as a sacred haven safe from American cultural imperialism. "It is the one chance for pop singers, other than those who have been created by the grinder of the American entertainment industry," she said.

As further evidence of how seriously Europeans take Eurovision, the war on Iraq weighed heavily in the atmosphere. Some English Eurovision fanatics who attend the contest nearly every year predicted that their nation's entry would be unlikely to win many votes from its European neighbors because of Britain's participation in the war. And the Polish participant, a swaggering, muscular, metal-studded youth named Michal Wisniewski, told a news conference that the meaning of his antiwar song "No Borders" was simple. He said it was about what he called the "Bush problem."

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally posted by mke
...presumably dodging the wrath of both the Flemish and Walloon communities...

He he