The Eurovision Song Contest

[chewy5000]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 8:55am

Do any of you watch this, or is everyone on this board 'above' it?

I for one love it, but i'm not sure whether it's for the occasional good music/musicians or the completely ridiculous nonsense.

Discuss.

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 9:04am

I don't have digital cable so I don't even know what channel it is on but we have a channel here that shows limited Eurovision broadcasts and they did a whole thing on it last night. I would love to be able to watch it. Evidently it is huge. Looks way bigger than Idol.

Updated On: 5/29/10 at 09:04 AM

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 9:39am

hehe well im here in the UK so yes i watch it....just to laugh.

The voting is so horrid, they all just vote for the countries next door to them, it's so funny.

And the music is so bad, every song we enter to the Eurovision does not represent the music scene here, it's so tacky.

However this year i can't be angry that the UK gets snubbed again, after all the song we have is horrid, more so than normal lol

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 9:51am

I have watched the Swedish prelims the last two years. Some of them are HORRID. This year I actually like the Swedish winner, but she didn't make it to the finals. It's the first time that's ever happened.

Winner, This Is My Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnImIrB4ROw

This one will be stuck in your head for DAYS:
Manboy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_UtWu7JSmQ

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 9:52am

Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I remember, it was late when I saw it, they are trying to stop people from voting for their own countries and I remember them saying something about voting for the countries next to them. I will see if I can find the clip.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 9:53am

I love Eurovision and watch it every year! For the first time, I'll have to watch it a week late, so I have to avoid this thread until then.

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 9:57am

Also, I seem to remember them saying something about the country that is hosting it can't afford it or something. I may be wrong!
edit: This is what they said:

"This year, Norway's NRK revealed it had spent $32 million on the three nights of competition -- which includes two semi-finals and a final -- but added that it could not afford to stage the event again if it successfully defended its title on Saturday."

CNN did a piece on it also.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/28/norway.eurovision.song.contest/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Updated On: 5/29/10 at 09:57 AM

[Hulmeman]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 12:23pm

The whole thing is wonderfully tacky and much beloved by us eurohomos.

Here is a flavour: http://www.bbc.co.uk/eurovision/

Many of us make it into a party night and join in with the whole silliness, although for many European countries, it is a statement of their nationhood and they take it all very seriously. Here we have Graham Norton commentating on TV and treat the whole thing as a campfest.

The winning song is decided by the results of televoting all over Europe and yes, everyone votes for their neighbouring country, well except Greece and Turkey who are out of sorts.

One thing I never understood is how Israel gets into a "European" competition? However they did win a few years ago with a transexual singing a song called "Viva la Diva"

Oh do watch if you can. It will bring an end to all your worries, and there again, it might give you a whole new batch!!!!
Updated On: 5/29/10 at 12:23 PM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 4:33pm

Not this Eurohomo!

It totally goes over my head.

And I hate the way it is cross-pollinating with musical theatre (Michael Ball, Frances Rufelle, Lloyd Webber all having entered whilst the West End has/had Mamma Mia and Eurobeat - the latter written by Australians for goodness sake?!).

If this is supposed to inspire my vision for a United States of Europe then I'd rather stick my head up my Little British arse.

One of the few good things the last Labour government did was keeping us out of the fcuking currency.

The whole thing is a bag of ****e.

Even my gay Eurovisionistas have stopped inviting me to their Euro-parties, so I'm stuck at home on a Saturday evening.

I'm so pissed off I'm going to post the winner on this thread as soon as it is announced and spoil everyone's fun. :-P

[Scripps2]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 6:11pm

GERMANY.

And it was always obvious that the island off the coast of Belgium was never going to win.
Updated On: 5/29/10 at 06:11 PM

[Hulmeman]

Posted: 5/29/10 at 7:03pm

Scripps

The Eurovision Song Contest has been running since the 1950's, modern politics should not be allowed to cloud the competition. It is nothing to do with a United Sates of Europe. In fact it works to prove such a thing is not possible.

As for "cross polination" with musical theatre, this years UK entry was written by Pete Waterman, who has (as far as I am aware)steered clear of musical theatre.

Frankly, I'm not surprised you don't get invited to Eurovision parties anymore!

to most in the UK,it's a bag of s**t because we don't win. Well, we don't win becasue we enter s**t songs and, on tonights evidence we can't hold a tune in a bucket!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/9/10 at 12:22pm

Okay, so I finally got the opportunity to sit down and watch this (with the fun Graham Norton commentary). It was one of the better Eurovision shows without too much that was absolutely horrific, though there were some hilarious moments. The butterfly dresses and giant apricot pit on stage come to mind.

It was hard to tell how awful the UK song was because it was so atrociously performed. Those girls were off-key the entire song! It was probably the worst train-wreck Eurovision performance I've seen yet. And that includes the guy running up on stage to spoil the performance from Spain this year.

My favorites were Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Albania, Azerbaijan and Russia. Why was Russia always booed? I enjoyed the song and thought there was much worse in the competition. France and Portugal weren't bad. I can't remember which country it was, but there was one particularly nightmarish man/lady with a hideous haircut that gave me nightmares. He was worse than when Plushenko made an appearance.

Honestly, I thought Iceland was robbed. I guess everyone was mad about the volcano, which is hardly their fault. But it sounded like a winning Eurovision song to me and the audience seemed to eat it up. I'm happy for Germany, though. I think they have had many good songs and this one was quite fun and charming. Lena was adorable to watch.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 9:18pm

Any thoughts on the 2011 contest? I thought it was a good year overall. Not so sure about the winner though!

[vmlinnie]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 10:19am

Bit late, no?

The same terrible "music" as ever, but a wonderful guilty pleasure all the same. I didn't watch all of the final, nor did I watch any of the semis, but it was worth it all the same. Can't even remember the Azerbaijan song that won.

In response to some of the above comments that were left slightly open from last year, countries cannot vote for themselves, yes people vote for their neighbours, and yes it has happened that people deliberately didn't try to win because they couldn't afford to host the eurovision again. Ireland won three times in a row in 92, 93 and 94. Our song in 95 was absolutely horrific, because the national broadcaster just didn't have the fund to stage the show again. I actually am close friends with the singer/songwriter who came second in our "eurosong" competition (which is used to determine the national entry) that year, and she still feels it was a fix, which most of the country would agree with.