Defamer Australia’s Slightly Belated Eurovision Wrap Up
(Praise be! Euro Correspondent Will has just sent in the last part of his Eurovision coverage, a delicious wrap up of the final. As Bruce McAvaney might say, truly special stuff…)
ON THE EUROVISION 2008 GRAND FINAL
Please excuse my slight delay in filing this report but I am still feeling quite numb after what has to be the least deserved win in this competition since Estonia took it out in 2001. An ugly iceskater? Inexplicable gurning? A turgid, overblown ballad? These things, to me, are not ingredients for Eurovisional delight. Still, let’s look at it for a time perhaps:
When this qualified for the final, it seemed fairly certain to win - people love Dima Bilan and they also love voting for Russia. So I can’t say I’m surprised. Moscow 2009 is not a terrible prospect and Russia do deserve success in this contest - just not with this song. I suppose they will host it well, given how badly they wanted it, and I always like it when countries win ESC that have never won before. REGARDLESS - this was all a bit of a downer and I am actually quite disappointed and confused as to what would motivate people to vote for such a celebration of all things ill-judged.
Let’s accentuate the positive instead.
1. Iceland came 14th. That’s not terrible, particularly for a western European country. If it was 1998 instead of 2008, this would probably have won.
(Click here, the bastards won’t let us embed the video! - ED)
With dancers, this could have done much better, but Euroband opted to use their 6 person onstage allowance on backing vocalists instead, which admittedly paid dividends in the massive, warm harmonies you get in each chorus, but left the stage looking a bit empty or something. This was one of my favourites of the night though and it pleased me to see Europe voting - at least a bit - for proper, uplifting, pop music without the identikit “ethnic flair”.
2. INSANITY FROM SPAIN.
My Eurovision party guests considered this the strongest entry of the night and it was admittedly far better than I was expecting. Here was a novelty entry which (a) respected the need for a catchy and aurally pleasing song and (b) was actually funny. The falling over dancer! Why has this not been thought of before! This came 16th which sounds bad but sadly it’s the best a country like Spain can hope for these days. What is most interesting about Spain’s choice to send this is that the national selection was run through Myspace and resulted in a wildly popular TV show and a considerable resurgence of interest in ESC in Spain - bucking the trend of other western European countries who pretend not to care about ESC since they seem unable to do well. I like everything about this entry.
3. Greece should really have won with Kalomoira’s ethno-pop GEM.
Although her idiotic green room remarks were very irritating (I am SURE I heard one of the backing singers from Sweden at a neighbouring table mutter “God, shut UP Kalomoira!” while she was banging on), this one had it all. Pretty girl, great routine, perfect song, sharp performance. Even given the block voting I thought Greece was going to take it this year - she was actually winning for a while there, early on in the scoring. “My Secret Combination” is twenty times the song “Believe” is, and although it only came third, this is one of those rare-ish entries that is an immediate Eurovision classic and Kalomoira can count on an income from performing at national ESC selection finals for at least the next 10 years, though I imagine she probably never wants to hear her song again by this stage.
4. Everyone is asking me what I thought of the Ukrainian song.
Look, it was very competent! Ani Lorak looks like a star, this was an impeccably constructed performance and it was nice to see her hop up on top of the lightbox without a safety harness. What was lacking here was a tune, a skyscraping chorus, something to hum. Greece had that. So did Sweden’s disastrous entry (which I am coming to), and for that reason I felt that this deserved to place about ninth, rather than second. I know, I know, block voting. WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO.
5. France, I think, are finally getting to grips with the modern Eurovision brief.
A cute song, a rather wry presentation and the supposedly coveted 19th position in the running order couldn’t get this higher than 19th place but again I feel sure that, was the voting system different, a song like this would be a beneficiary. The business with the blow-up globe was a bit of a debacle but otherwise, VERY GOOD INDEED. The Frenchies AND the hipsters I was viewing with all found this immensely pleasing. So that’s nice.
6. I would like also to mention Armenia.
This came fourth, but, like almost everything, would have been a far more deserving winner than Russia. The best thing about this is the little “plink! plink!” sound at the end of certain parts of the verses, necessitating a jaunty head movement by Sirusho, who thankfully got her hair out of her face for the final. A pleasing, ethno-pop stomper.
Now. POOR SWEDEN. 18th place! How humiliating, for a country which takes the national selection more seriously than anyone else - 4 weeks of regional heats and two subsequent weeks of finals, 40-odd songs, massive mainstream interest and support, an incredibly strong tradition of songwriting and construction of melody - and what do you get? Europeans who don’t want to vote for your song because the performer looks just like an unconvincing tranny, that’s what.
(Click here, the bastards won’t let us embed the video! - ED)
“Hero” remains one of the strongest songs Sweden have sent to ESC in years and I would consider this abominable result to be due to the choice of performer rather than any inherent problem with the song itself. Charlotte looked like shit on Saturday and I am convinced that this would have done better if the Swedes had given the track to a more attractive, Kalomoira-style performer - which is unfortunate, as Charlotte Perrelli is Eurovision royalty and should really be able to piss it in no matter what she does. I also think the black-and-white camera effect used on Charlotte for the first verse did her no favours at all, only accentuating her weird appearance. (A fringe would also have helped to hide that impossibly high hairline.)
Oh, this was so disappointing! Another point of interest about the Swedish entry is that it was recently revealed that this only qualified to the final due to the jury vote (9 televoted songs and 1 jury-voted song from each semi progressed to the final). This is all extremely embarrassing for Sweden, particularly that commentators were calling this “iconic” and a very probable winner last week. I would hope that, if this song was presented by someone more appealing its brilliance would be ackowledged by Europe - but I have my doubts.
So what is going to happen to Eurovision now?
Something needs to, bloody! The biggest concern for me as a fan is that western Europe is rapidly losing interest in the contest and confidence in the fairness of the voting outcomes, which is fair enough when countries like the Netherlands have been sending very strong songs and performers with a great deal of consistency with uniformly bad results. I wonder if it would make a difference to somehow get more western European countries in the contest. The UK could be split into England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland who could all vote for each other, Liechtenstein could join, Luxembourg and Monaco and Italy and Austria could all return … I don’t know how much it would help though. Western Europe just doesn’t block vote! The Netherlands and Belgium both gave 12 points to Armenia, surely due to pesky immigrants, when if they were doing things the Russian/Slavic way, they’d be voting for Germany or France or the UK. (It’s quite hard to think about solutions for these problems without coming off all Front National.)
Perhaps a rule could be instituted whereby no country can vote for a country with whom they share a land border … but that would probably be widely derided and too difficult to explain. Although I do generally subscribe to the view that the best song won in respect of most years this decade and also think that western Europe needs to get over itself, Saturday’s result has underlined the terrible disadvantage suffered by certain countries under this voting system, and we are in real danger now of losing long-term Eurovision participants like the UK, Malta, Belgium and Switzerland unless something fairly radical changes. People think that ESC will just run forever but the EBU need to be alive to the unhappiness of some of the contest’s most culturally, historically and financially important countries, if it is to survive as the truly pan-Europe spectacle that everyone loves.
Comments
Last night just felt wrong :(. Did anyone see the large Ausi flag in the audience!?
Sweden should have won by a mile. By far the catchiest song and strongest chorus. The fact that the singer looks like a tranny doesn’t entirely hold up considering she won it in 1999.
Russia only won because they had an olympic gold winning ice skater in their performance - Evgeni Plushenko.
If the UK wants to get anywhere then they’ll have to get rid of the public voting, otherwise the they’ll continue to vote for whoever was in X-factor (most popular) or the funniest/dumbest song. Put a board of 10 or so people working in the music business and let them vote.
Hehe
The Spanish entry was choosen just to tell Europe what most people think about Eurovision in Spain: ESC has NOTHING to do with talent or good music. Look the winner. Look french position. If there´s no place for good music, at least let´s make room for humor
Spain is tired of Eurovision. Spain decided in MySpace to laugh, not to win. We will never win because Eurovision is not a musical event, it’s a political event.
Viva Chiquilicuatre!!!! BOICOT!!
Eurovision has been going downhill since about 2003. The songs are absolutely shithouse and all these obscure countries are gaining so many points because of politics! San Marino?! WTF?!
BTW, the UK, Germany, France and Spain are always guaranteed a place in the Eurovision. They are the ‘big 4′. Italy hasn’t been in a Eurovision since around 1995 and is apparently ‘not interested’ in entering another Eurovision.
A real let down for me was the absence of Ireland in this year’s Eurovision. They’re like the Rabbitohs of Eurovision: they’re won the most, yet not even a song from them this year; instead we’re treated to Azerbaijan or whatever the goddamn country is called. Bring back classic Eurovision, instead of this brand-spankin’-new lukewarm crap.
Although the Swedish song had undeniable pedigree it was dated. It was never going to get votes.
Russia and the Ukraine were always the favourites. Sure it’s upsetting when your favourite doesn’t win - for me it’s Malta - but you know it’s a contest, it happens.
Russia sent a super star who was joined by two super stars with a song that was produced by superstar (Timbaland). There should not surprise that after all those superstars in came the votes.
More importantly, get over this east and west divide people. It exists, it will now always exist. Accept, move on!
Finally, I love this contest and I had a blast watching it and I will have a balst watching it next year.
I genuinely liked Greece’s “Secret Combination”, with the lovely Kalomira and tortured English lyrics (”I’m not easy but I’m true”? Really?)
One of the best solutions to this I’ve seen is to have a mechanism for reducing the value of a countries votes based on their previous voting record .. that way if Greece gives 12 points to Cyprus as usual, this would get devalued somewhat. There’s definitely some way to easily define this mathematically, it’s just about drawing the boundaries.
I enjoyed reading your review of Eurovision. I think you summed it up very well.
I think all the negative comments made would be a lot less had Ukraine won. I cant stand they way that Dima Bilan carried on. He may be a superstar in that part of the world but I just cant imagine someone like Justin Timberlake squealing and carrying on like a 5 year old in the green room.
Something really needs to be done to fix Eurovision. They did it in the 90’s when the contest was getting old fashioned and the ratings boomed. But if we want the ESC to continue it needs to change.
I think that phone voting has to go or be moderated in some way. A prime example is that the winner of Australian Idol is often not the most deserving one. Number two in these style of contests around the world have often done better than the winner. But teenage girls or people from a distinct community (like a country town) get behind a contestant and vote en masse. Look at the way the British audience votes for their Eurovision contestant. I cant believe people vote for the blandest or tackiest entry (like Scooch). I dont underestimate the British tendancy to vote for a poor entry purely out of sympathy or to put a more “famous” competitor into their place.
I know that many people think the juries picked old fashioned songs as winners but they had heard the songs before hand and were familiar with things. One example is in 1996 when Ireland won over the UK’s Gina G. Gina G may have had a popular song but now ten years later the Irish entry still stands out as a quality song.
I guess if juries were combined with a televote a happy medium could be achieved. I would also lessen the impact of people who make repeated phone calls to vote for one song which really throws things out of whack. It seems to work with programs like “Dancing with the stars”. Most viewers seem happy with the winner.
I honestly think that Eurovisions overseer Svante Stockselius sees nothing wrong with the direction the contest is going. I am sure he just thrilled to see money pouring in, especially for phone votes. I hope he is investing his money wisely because if he carries on this way there will be no more Eurovision, and the world would be a sadder place without this unique event.