Sunday, May 16, 2004

 

And the winner of this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul is Xena the Warrior Princess performing for Ukraine. Okay, the name of the singer is Ruslana and her song was a deserving winner in my opinion. One of the two best songs in the contest, an interesting blend of traditional Ukrainian folk music and modern beats, and a thrilling performance, too. That Ruslana is one really hot chick probably didn't hurt her chances either. The second place went to Serbia and Montenegro with another folkloristic song (this one didn't really thrill me, but the instrumentation was interesting). Third place went to Greece with a Ricky Martin wannabe who in my opinion didn't really deserve the many votes he got. My second personal favourite, Turkey with an unusual blend of Turkish folklore and punk/ska music, finished in fourth place.

This is the fourth year in a row that an outsider country has won (after Latvia in 2001, Estonia in 2002 and Turkey in 2003). At least in the Eurovision Song Contest, the pop music heart of Europe is moving eastwards. The many Balkan countries that made it into the final (this year there was a two-tier system with a semi-final a few days before the big event) and their overall strong showing is further evidence of this. On the other hand, Britain and Ireland - traditionally very strong Eurovision contestants - have had a number of unusually weak showing in the past few years. Neither country's entry was particularly good this year, but they were not as bad as they were placed. Conspicuous by their absence in the final were the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, who had very strong showings including two wins in the past few years. Eurovision veteran Israel was also absent from the finals, although the folkloristic pop usually offered by Israel would have been right at home amongst the finalists. But then, Israel did not receive a lot of points in the last few years. Anti-semitism at work? Or maybe this year's song was really bad. I can't say, as I didn't watch the semi-final.

In case anybody is wondering why countries such as Russia, Turkey or Israel which geographically are on the fringes of Europe or - as in the case of Israel - not part of the continent at all are allowed to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, the reason is that all of these countries are members of the European Broadcasting Union which organizes the annual contest. The full member list shows that quite a few countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East are members.

The second element of the Eurovision Song Contest that regularily mystifies first-time viewers is the highly elaborate voting process. Technically, it would be absolutely no problem to compile the televotes from all countries all at once and get a final result in ten minutes or so. But it will never ever happen. Why? Because the voting is actually the coolest part of the contest. You can miss the songs, but you must never ever miss the voting. And as all participants, even those that did not make the final, were entitled to vote this year, we got more votes than ever before. And even more shots of the world's most exciting scoreboard.

This year's voting patterns were very interesting. Since the introduction of televoting, some of the political bias of the Jury voting has gladly vanished. In the old days, Austria never gave Germany any points in a "You're our neighbours but we hate you" gesture, while Israel always got at least 7 points from Germany (the cynically minded had a not very nice name for this). Televoting abolished all that and good riddance, too, but introduced new patterns such as the "neighbour country vote" (which was also very prevalent under the old system), the "immigrant vote" (hence Turkey always gets 12 points from Germany) and the "holiday vote" (which is why Germany usually gets lots of points from Spain). Things that really stunned me this year that all the former Yugoslav countries voting for each other, including such stunners as 12 points to Serbia and Montenegro from Bosnia-Herzogovina. Let me get this straight: Not even ten years ago, people from these countries were busily slaughtering each other, not to mention threatening to drag the whole world into their private mess, and now they're giving each other 12 point votes in the Eurovision Song Contest? Colour me amazed.

The only disappointment by the ranking of the German contestant Max. Okay, eighth place is a respectable result. But most Germans had hoped for a higher placement, especially as Max is the best contestant Germany has had in a long time. For starters, he can actually sing. Plus, Max won the German qualification (almost as elaborate as the big event) against strong competition with a 92% landslide and was No. 1 of the German charts for several weeks. Most national Eurovision contestants are so awful that they never make it into the charts at all. Personally, I would have placed Max firmly in the top 5 if not in the top 3. And several of the countries placed higher than Germany had songs that were considerably worse, e.g. the Ricky Martin wannabes from Greece and Spain, the Chatham schoolgirl singing for Cyprus, the "same crap as every year since 1972" entry from Sweden and the awfully dressed Britney Spears wannabe from Albania. Okay, the Chatham schoolgirl probably wasn't that bad, but for some reason my housemate and I decided to hate her the moment she went on stage. Probably because in spite of her alleged 16 years she managed to look older than the thirtysomething singers from Romania and Sweden. I suspect that part of Max's relative lack of success has to do with the fact that he did not have a spectacular show-and-dance routine unlike some of the other contestants. But to be fair, neither had the Chatham schoolgirl from Cyprus.

All in all, the trend of the past few years continues. The Eurovision Song Contest has become more professional and more international. The presentations are almost indistinguishable from each other, whether the show takes place in Turkey or Latvia or in Western country such as Sweden. And unlike previous years, there were only two mindblowingly awful songs, the entries from Austria and Bosnia-Herzogovina. And the painful Bosnian song actually got quite a high number of votes. By the way, all those Islamophobes in the US and elsewhere should take a good look on all the naked flesh to be seen on stage (the contestants from Romania and Poland looked like random hookers taken from any big city street) - and the show took place in an Islamic country, albeit a liberal one.

BTW, there actually is an Eurovision blog written by a Brit currently in Istanbul. He thinks that poor Max looks like a troll, but we'll forgive him for that.

posted by Cora link 03:25