I Feel Very European

I'm sitting at my window, drinking a glass of red wine, and watching the Eurovision song contest...

I first heard of this in high school, but I'm not sure that everyone in North America has necessarily connected with it, so here's a quick refresher: Each year (since 1956), most European countries (the national entry is determined by the a major national TV network) nominate a single musical act to represent their country at the finals. The finals are held in the home country of the previous year's winner, and are one of the biggest TV events on the continent every year. "Europe" is defined rather broadly, and includes, for example, Israel (every year since 1973), Morocco (one year) and Cyprus (every year since 1981)

There are political overtones, though usually just domestic ones, for example: The Italians once censored their own entry, because it contained a pro-divorce (which was illegal at the time) message. The French are very unhappy this year, because their entrant has chosen to sing some of his lyrics in English. The Belgians on the other hand, whose country is very close to breaking up over linguistic divisions, are very happy, because their entry will be singing in an invented language, neither French nor Flemish. (that's before we even get into the Israeli transsexual who won...)

The event, however, is resolutely EuroTrash, with pop & techno dominating, and absolutely ridiculous costumes. The winning entry usually uses some variation on the ABBA formula (ABBA won in 1974) - attractive women, pop (often to the point of techno) , and well-designed for TV. The winner is decided by popular vote, through one's cell phone.

The Estonian entry this year, on the other hand, appears to be three overweight men singing about food, complete with backup props that include pictures of the food in question. Their backup dancers, on the other hand are gorgeous, scantily clad women. (At the same time, gorgeous, scantily clad backup dancers are a bit of a common theme.)

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Well, I've now seen 10 entries, and they've underwhelmed me. I think that I like the San Marino dude best. It was a good, sort-of rock ballad - it's also neat that a country of 60 square km and less than 30,000 has even bothered to enter - and he's really from there, and he's not half bad.

WAIT. Stop the presses. Ireland has entered a turkey puppet. In good old-fashioned Irish fashion, they have decided to mock the entire contest. Their song is a sarcastic take on the whole thing - they're doing things like naming every country, and then claiming that if you do that, you'll get extra votes. (Lyrics also include "We're sorry for RiverDance") There are dancers in the most outrageous costumes, flagrantly sexual, and yet not at all, because the whole thing is so sarcastic. Wow. I think I'm going to have to spend 5 kroner and vote for Ireland.

...even after watching Bosnia & Hercegovina, with the go-go dancers in enourmous wedding dresses, who were knitting while dancing. Indeed.

Okay, enough of that - I think you get the point.

I promised pictures of Stavanger. Here you go...

Stavanger - 10 May 2008

Cheers,

Ashley