Eurovision!

Nothing says "good times" like a "continent-wide song contest"....


I saw on Twitter one of the trends they're following is Eurovision. Eurovision starts today in Russia!

For those who don't know, Erin introduced me to the insanity that is Eurovision. Her and Tim, that is. So every year the countries of Europe writes each a pop song, and the people of Europe vote on the best songs. I don't know which rounds are voted on by people, and which ones are voted on by a jury. Hard to tell.

One of the draws of prior songs I've listened to is that the songs tend to be extremely cheesy, poppy, and somewhat dated, compared to other country's standards of pop songs. Like they could be from the mid to late-90s. I'm thinking also because there are some stringent rules and, much like American Idol, it's for a wide audience so they tend to trying to apeal to a mass audience and not to a subset, like an Indie Rock group for example. Sigor Ros, while widely popular, would probably not compete in Eurovision, because they may not appeal to all of Europe, since their music is for such a specific taste and audience. But I digress, and probably invoke the ire of all of Iceland.

The performances also rely heavily on light displays, crazy costumes and characters, and other bells and whistles like that. Look up any of the prior years of Eurovision on Youtube, and you'll see what I'm talking about. My examples below are good for that as well.

Several popular bands or performers have competed in prior years and gone onto win. I'm thinking of France Gall with Poupee de Cire in teh 60's, ABBA with Waterloo in the 70's, and Celine Dion with some song I can't think of for Switzerland in the 80's. The artists don't have to be from that country, but I think the country's committee picks them. Especially since Celine won for Switzerland, and she's Canadian.

I looked up Day 1 of the Semi Finals, and I was happy to see Armenia made it! My stepdad is of Armenian descent, so it's always great to see them do well.

I'll have to update Erin that Eurovision is going on right now. She'll appreciate the crap.

Here's the Armenian song, so you can see what to expect or not. Also note that it doesn't have to be in the language of the country it seems, as this is in English:




And here's Celine Dion going onto win Eurovision in 1988 for Switzerland. This is, for better or worse, her "big break". I also like the tutu look she has going on. And the bad perm:




Here's France Gall singing Poupee de Cire in the 60's, which also went on to win. In a prior post, I posted Arcade Fire's kick ass cover of this song. She looks cute as a button and manages to keep it classy:




And finally, ABBA singing Waterloo in the 70's. And as they are want to do, they glam it up with their look. A lot:




So yeah, lots of cheese, but pretty entertaining for that reason alone.