I have zero energy to come up with anything clever to write today ... so I won't. I'll just post a video and hope for better things to come. :-)
Paz and I got to talking about the ESC yesterday ... and that reminded me of how much I love the ESC. I listened to old ESC songs for hours last night. ;-) Diva, Nocturne, J'aime la vie, Fångad av en stormvind, Making Your Mind Up, Parlez-vous francais?, A-Ba-Ni-Bi, Ein bisschen Frieden, Insieme: 1992 ... Unite, unite, Europe!! Indeed. So true, so true. Although it must not be inferred from this that I support Norwegian membership in the EU, as that could not be further from the truth.
Anyway. I love the ESC. Which - dreadful thought - some of you reading this may be entirely unfamiliar with. :-( Well, what I'm talking about is the Eurovision Song Contest, the biggest show on earth. Which I love :-) and which I will tell you all about some other time. Seriously, I will tell you more than you could ever want to know about it. >:-) This year I plan to follow the whole thing from way before start to finish ... I won't settle for the regular previews, I will make my own previews by following the national finals and discovering the songs for myself as they are selected. Yay, youtube. ;-) I will of course post about it all here. Maybe that way, next May won't see me posting 100+ entries like I did this year. ;-) Some of you may want to - or be forced to - take the opportunity to try to learn to appreciate the ESC (Findabair, I'm looking at you ;-).
Anyway. This is one of my favorite entries ever. It's the winner from 2007, when Finland hosted the show. I had it pegged as the winner as of the semis (just ask KAS or trilltrall ;-) and although everyone else at the party mocked my faith in it, I was vindicated in the end. Any bullshit you may have heard about this being final proof of the evils of bloc voting and a sad day for the ESC, etc, forget it. This song winning was the best thing that could possibly have happened to the contest. Seriously. Every year there are soo many 'standard' girls sent to perform, tall slim blondes with gorgeous long hair and big boobs who can dance well but can't sing which doesn't matter anyway cause they're just there to look pretty in their skimpy dresses and all their songs sound the same anyway. Most of these songs are quicktempo upbeat songs so that the choreography can have sexy young people shakin' it. You see it again and again. Look at Portugal's entry in Helsinki, that's the perfect example. And then Serbia - Serbia! - send this chubby little bull dyke in a bowl haircut and glasses, she wears a man's suit and sings a sad ballad - in Serbian! - and they win the whole fucking thing. I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
The song also proves that it really is the song that counts - the vast majority in the audience did not understand the lyrics, but the melody is so beautiful and Marija performed it with such feeling that it touched us anyway. So go hide in a barn, Eirikur Hauksson ... nobody likes a sore loser, and least of all one who's deserved to lose. The right song won in 2007. :-) And this is it - Molitva, by Vladimir Graic and Sasha Milosevic Mare, performed by Marija Serifovic competing for Serbia. :-)
Molitva means 'prayer'. Lyrics with translation here.
Don't forget the giveaway! :-)
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Disclaimer: I am not a homophobe just because I used the word dyke in this post. Far from it, in fact I strongly support gay rights. Anyone planning to point out that it's 'rude' of me to use that word: please take your political correctness elsewhere. >:-)
I must admit a guilty little secret of mine, I used to like watching the contest when it was on the weekend(notice I said watching), the bar I used to drink had the TV on with no sound. Being blokes we tried to pick the winner from the "sexy young people shakin' it", can you imagine the shame that the homophobe's felt the year Viva la diva won. I agree with you, there are too many blondes, I would prefer more brunettes,I know this makes me shallow to enjoy this, but some of my flaws I enjoy and indulge from time to time.
notice none of the many Irish songs there, IMO a good thing
is this some sort if American idol? (i can't watch the video)
never mind i fixed it... that song sounds pretty damn familiar i could swear its a metal or hard rock cover!! seriously!!!
The ESC isn't so big over here in Australia so it's really interesting to hear these discussions :). My impression was that there was a lot of homogenized pop so it's good to hear diversity sneaks in!
The ESC isn't so big over here in Australia so it's really interesting to hear these discussions :). My impression was that there was a lot of homogenized pop so it's good to hear diversity sneaks in!
Hmmm... I remain unconvinced that my attitude to the ESC will change, I must say ;) But we'll see!
Paz: Thanks for reminding me! The Voice!! I love The Voice!! :-D
Truand: That American Idol comparison has been mentioned before :-) but no, the ESC isn't really comparable. The contest is set up in a rather different way, and it's been going on for so much longer than any of those Idol things. 52 years and counting. A different order of magnitude. When I say the biggest show on earth, that's exactly what I mean. :-)
Bree: Hi, nice of you to stop by! If you're interested in ESC discussions, I hope you've come to the right place. Bulgaria will choose their entry pretty soon and then we'll be on a roll. ;-) I plan to post about all the entries as they're decided on and hopefully we can indeed get some discussions going. Diversity is definitely the thing in the ESC these days - there used to be a lot of homogenized pop songs, as you say; the 90s were kind of a walk in the desert. :-) But over the past few years a lot has changed, and while there still always are a number of similar-sounding songs, and most countries go with pop songs, there is much much more diversity in the contest these days. Some examples of different music styles from the past four years:
Glam rock (Norway 2005)
Hiphop/rap (Ukraine 2005)
Country (Germany 2006)
A cappella (Latvia 2006)
Metal/monster rock :-D (Finland 2006)
Blues (Hungary 2007)
Opera (Latvia 2007, Slovenia 2007)
Dance (Bulgaria 2008)
So ... to the discerning ear, there is a good bit of variation these days. :-)
Findabair: 'Don't knock it till you try it' is a pretty good rule to live by, can we agree on that? :-) If so, then you shouldn't knock it, cause I know you haven't tried it ... and in pretty exactly six months from now, we'll talk again. ;-) Husk - du får ikke mere moro enn det du lager sjøl ... ;-)
what type was Dustin the Irish entrant besides crap in a shopping trolley :D
LOL!!! Actually, I think you summed it up perfectly!! :-D
I am so relieved to hear that you think that - back in May, before this year's contest, I posted my opinions on all the entries on the BookCrossing Chit-Chat forum. (Same comments as posted here on the blog, filed under May 2008.) I got slammed by some Irish members because of what I said about the Irish song. It was totally irrational - they were cheering for it because it was Irish, that was the only reason they even cared. (I said worse things about other entries but they didn't care about that, just their own song.) They claimed to have no interest in the contest (and to believe that the turkey song had chances of doing well! :-D) but they were defending that song like they'd written it themselves. So weird.
I'm glad to see there's one rational person in Ireland, at least. ;-)
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