This Week's British TV Review:
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
This weekend I finally got to experience something I have been looking forward to since I moved here, I have heard about it before and I was fascinated by the idea. This grand event I speak of is the Eurovision Song Contest. It is a competition involving all European countries, they all submit a song and those that make the cut are performed during a one night extravaganza. This year the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Moscow. I had heard so much about what happens at this competition I couldn't wait, one thing I heard was that the songs and performances are all ridiculous and over the top and that usually the country that wins is the one that has the least political enemies, so pretty much always a Scandinavian country.
The top 25 countries perform in one show, which is followed by a round of voting. Each country has a chosen jury as well as a public vote and they award points to their top ten choices. The bottom 7 receive 1-7 points in ascending order and the top three receive 8,10 and 12 points. There are great pains taken to make voting fair. Each country gets the same number of points to award and the biggest catch is that you can't vote for your own country. One interesting phenomenon is that countries with a lot of political upheaval often end up scoring very well because there are many displaced nationals living in neighboring countries. Turkey tends to have a good showing every year because there are so many Turkish nationals living abroad in Europe so they have a bit of a loophole and Turks living abroad can vote for their own country.
This year Britain tried to change their image in this competition. Britain has a reputation for not taking the competition seriously and always sending in their B squad so this year a huge campaign was launched to change this perception. Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber was recruited to write the song and the artist was chosen through a reality show format contest. What do you do when you want people to take you seriously? Make it into a reality show of course! In the end a West End performer, Jade Ewen was chosen to represent Britain.
I couldn't wait to see this show, even if for a laugh. I suppose I have already fulfilled my duty as a British resident to not take the competition very seriously. I especially love the Eastern European countries entries! Here is one of my favorites from Romania:
Another favorite is the Greek entry, which was one of the songs favored to win. This guy is like the Greek version of Ricky Martin.
The song was heavily promoted all over Europe and hopes were high that this could be Britain's year! In the end Britain did do fairly well, winning top marks from Turkey and several top 5 showings from other countries and in the end Britain finished 5th. I think the European community voted for Britain as a reward for stepping up to the plate and sending in a top performer and composer team. Sadly, I think the performance fell flat. Andrew Lloyd-Webber's song "It's My Time" was incredibly cheesy, and Jade broke under the pressure and what should have been an impressive vocal at the end turned into a mess of undershot notes but the European community still awarded Britain an"A" for effort.
Going into the competition Norway was favored to win. I still don't get quite why the Norwegian song was so heavily favored but the hype was effective and Norway won the night by a landslide and became the most popular song in Eurovision history. The song was written and performed by a dashing young man named Alexander Rybak and although I think it was catchy, I don't think it was best.
My choice for the best was the runner-up Yohanna from Iceland. It was a great song and Yohanna is really talented. Iceland won last year so I think the voters decided to go for Norway to avoid a two-year streak by Iceland. I think this song is great, if only Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber could have come up with something like this...
There was a clear "worst" performance of the night, although this wasn't reflected in the final scores. Before the Russian act went on the commentator mentioned that she was a "last minute addition" and it just so happened that her father is a Russian billionaire. The performance was awful and I found myself wishing Simon Cowell was somewhere in the audience to put her in her place. I won't even post the video because I like you all and it isn't something that anyone should have to listen to. Despite the terrible performance, Russia still managed to place 11 out of 25 finalists which is a great example of how political the voting is.
I can't wait for this event next year, it is so entertaining. I just hope next year Britain can put together a better act and maybe even win!
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