Is There Any Such Thing as a Eurovision Song?
Thank heavens there are some of the British public who have their heads screwed on and can recognise a half-decent song. I only watched about ten minutes of the main show, and the results show of this weekends annual effort to pick the British entry to Eurovision, and that was enough.
At one point, John Barrowman came out with the comment that ballads didn't do very well in Eurovision – you only need to listen to what won for Ireland over a number of years – all big ballads… Based on their voting it is pretty clear what the judges thought would be good – cheesy, gimmicky songs – possibly true, you only need look back a couple of years to Lordi to confirm that, but what it also needs is a half decent song to go along with the gimmick. The gimmick to some extent is there to make your act stand out from the other forty odd in the competition – but once you've got that reminder it needs to be a decent song. To my mind there is a common misconception of what is a "Eurovision Song", but when you look at the reality, that's not correct. For example following on from Lordi there was a noticeable increase in rock numbers the next year – not that they did overly well. Cheesy europop has won at times, but other years it's totally the opposite. The trick is producing a song that is memorable for the right reasons, and of course one that can rise above the political voting.
Another Eurovision, and another block vote spectacular!
For a long while it looked as though the UK was heading for a repeat of their 'nul points' performance by Jemini in the 2003 contest. In the end a grand total of two out of the forty-two voting countries actually gave us points – the two countries that most often give us points, 7 points from Ireland, and top marks, a 12 from Malta. Ironically it was the Irish vote that relegated their own entry to last place.
Ironically, considering the mess when our song was selected, when Scooch ultimately won, the second placed song was a big ballad, and that is what won – a big ballad from Serbia. Having said that, whatever we would have put forward, I would have been surprised if we had come that much higher. Most of the western European countries were knocked out in the semi-final, and those that remained, including the big four who automatically qualify – the UK, Germany, France and Spain – were all in the bottom six.
There was a real eclectic mix of styles this time around, with glam rock from Sweeden, a German swing number, and traditional Irish folk (that came last with only Albania giving them any points at all). There was a definite Lordi effect though, with a noticeable increase in the more hard rock numbers.
Temporary Blip – Or a Total Change?
Now on the basis of all the pre-publicity, thanks to the number of Finns complaining about their entry, I thought that Finnish Rock Band Lordi would probably do fairly well. However, they pretty well walked away with the whole competition, beating the second place song by almost 50 points. Considering that Father Mitro Repo, who appeared on the BBC complaining about the band said that he thought it was a protest by youngsters annoyed that Finland had failed to score highly in Eurovision the previous year, perhaps the youngsters seem to have a better idea of what would go down well than the rest of the country!
In terms of the competition as a whole, Lordi stood out mainly because they were something a bit different. Indeed one of the old ladies at church today commented that she thought they were entertaining as a band – which did slightly surprise me. It did also help that Finland is in one of the many Eurovision voting blocks, which gave it a boost over and above the Russian entry, which as usual was helped by big votes from all the former Soviet Republics (which of course all have large Russian minority populations). Ireland made a big improvement by sending Brian Kennedy, who I first came across supporting the Corrs on tour a few years ago. Their song was really the kind of thing that won them the competition a number of times a few years ago, however with the block votes of the Balkan countries, the former Soviet republics and the Scandinavian countries they ended up in the middle running – enough to keep them in the top flight next year. The UK finished well down the rankings again – better than last year, but still in a spot where if we weren't paying a large part of the costs of the competition we'd be relegated to the semi-final next year.
So the real question will be whether this is just a temporary blip, or whether the win by Lordi will result in something a bit different next year from the pop numbers and ballads that usually get performed. The thing is that they are not the first to try something different. For example the UK entry this year was a rap number, which didn't do overly well, and the Germans put in a Country and Western song, which didn't do much better either. Of course whether it is a change or not, trying to win against the block votes is getting increasingly difficult – and largely it won't change much until the EBU come up with a voting system that can negate the effect of the block voting.