Entertainment For Lively Minds
Boom-Bang-A-Bang, Ab-An-Ni-Bi, Diggi-Loo-Diggi-Ley, La La La, Ding-a-Dong: Time To Go Back to Eurovision Basics?
Pete Waterman is the mastermind behind this year's Eurovision entry. If he wins we'll say who better to have been in charge than the king of manufactured pop. If he loses, we'll say we don't care because we were just being ironic and anyway, we don't take it seriously.
Not that I over-care about this, but instead of trying to change it into something we think we SHOULD win by using Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Pete Waterman, etc., shouldn't we look to Europe to see what they like and go with that to give us a better chance of winning?
So make it either a Euro-friendly ballad about love and peace or a retro Europop confection that we'll all be singing along to?
And let's remember the unserious camp approach does not work. The over-serious approach is a mistake as well. Finland's hard rock win was surely an abberation.
Do we care more than we think? And what's your favourite Eurovision winner/entry?
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I'd be surprised...
...if any WORD blogger gives a flying monkey's.
Why
Because you don't consider it to be 'proper' music?
Eh?
There's music on Eurovision? Who knew?
Il pleut de l'or
Myself I was rather amused by this-from popbitch:
>> What a (golden) shower <<
Eurovision goes back to the 70s
Despite having made some significant steps
towards being a credible force again in the
last 10 years it seems the 2010 Eurovision Song
Contest will mark another sea change in the
competition’s history. The same sea change
it saw in 1969. Yes, the Eurovision has gone
bafflingly 70s. Next to this lot, even UK's
decision to get Pete Waterman involved looks
modern.
Cyprus has gone for a John Mayer clone,
Norway and Iceland have gone cruise ship,
Switzerland's entry has extraordinary ears
and a song called "Golden Shower", while
Holland's decision to get Father Abraham
as songwriter somehow turns out to be
worse than you even imagined:
Listen/watch:
http://www.popbitch.com/home/eurovision-2010/
Actually
I do care
Amidst the camp and trash aesthetic reason for professing to like Eurovision there actually are some good tunes - one thing for sure they are never the UK entries.
Last years winner 'Fairytale' was a nice piece of cute pop but the Baltic states always deliver a few good tunes. Also, I dont think its too much of a stretch to imagine a world where this Spanish entry from 2008 was a cult cuter-than-Gorillaz bit of hip-hop-pop.
The UK entries are out-of-date and hideous
I can't stand
The Chiki Chiki song, possibly because of how much it was played over here around the time it came out - and also because of the horrible English pronunciation in it, which my colleagues appeared to believe was normal "el Brekkin dants"...
Also, had a UK entry used that repetitive Casio keyboard rhythm I'm pretty sure it would have been mocked heavily from all corners, but as we expect The Maccarena Part II from the Spanish it's OK.
Finally, I really don't understand how you win Eurovision, it seems to be entirely random, and not at all representative of the best music from any country.
Generally
I think the best song - or one of the best songs - in the competition wins.
Anyone else
have a fondness for Love City Groove?
No? Just me then...
In the morning, when the sun shines
I do.
Hooray!
Me
too!
LCG
Paved the way for So Solid Crew, N-Dubz and other such critically-acclaimed pop groups.
Love this
I can honestly imagine Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong penning this, circa 1968. On a good day. In some parallel universe.
It's a
terrible lyric, but an utterly fantastic tune.
but even if we produced an uber
euro song it wouldn't win because of all the geopolitical voting that goes on. I'm not sure why we still stump up for it ,its a poor spectacle and is desert of good music. If we want campery (not a bad thing in and of itself) there must be better source? The only outside chance is to go for novelty if PW can find that may have some chance but its unlikely. Oddly it all mirrors the current problems with the Euro Germany, France bailing out irresponsible smaller countries who don't seem very grateful!
Geopolitical voting
I'm not sure that really happens - isn't it simply more likely that people voting in, say, Serbia, will share a common musical heritage with whoever performs the Croatian entry, and therefore prefer that particular song? If geo-political voting really was a problem with Eurovision, I suspect it might often have the opposite effect - the last thing some of these nations would do is vote for each other.
Nul points
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505071
fraser you may have something
but it would mean nobody has any feelng for UK pop music which is odd considering it still sells abroad if in lower amounst than before. Also if France, germany and Uk don't get more votes their national broadcast won't pay for the thing and macedonia will have to shoulder the burden!!
I did care
in a nostalgic way. Childhood memories of Brotherhood of Man, Abba, Bucks Fizz and that German girl with a guitar made Eurovison an annual bit of fluff that I could watch with the family and mock the costumes and the nil points. But since the voting has become so obviously rigged that you know who's going to give what points to who it's become too serious and self defeating. So I haven't watched it for years, shame really.
Favourite, you can't beat Cliff and "Congratiulations"
I always liked this one ...
Eurovision 1977 - Marie Myriam - L'oiseau et l'enfant
A few gems
Written by Serge Gainsbourg:
A pretty good Brit entry:
And a glorious tune from Lulu:
It's such a lovely feeling...
The France Gall one..
really is classic Eurovision, one of the best ever. That drummer though, a ham-fisted Moon wannabee..
Actually,. she had this 80s hit as well..
It's a great thing
And amazing that some songs stick with you, even though it is likely you only heard them the once. I don't recall the country, but there was once a song called "Boom Boom Boomerang", which went:
"Boom Boom Boomerang, Diddley-dang
Kangaroo, toodle-oo, digeridoo-oo
Ding Dong! Sing this song
Hear the guitar twang
Boom Boom Boomerang - Boom Boomerang"
I remember the tune, too.
Come to think of it, it sounds like a spoof. But I don't think it was.
I just remembered the internet
And the fact that you can look these things up. The lyrics are even better than I remember:
"Boom boom boomerang, snadderydang
Kangaroo, boogaloo, didgeridoo
Ding dong, sing the song, hear the guitar twang
Kojak, hijack, me and you"
Apologies to the people of Austria for getting the words to their 1977 entry slightly wrong.
The Bardo entry (missis)
made me feel very confused when I was a nipper, especially the leg kick. Although my memories are more racy but thats usual as its from a time when a glimpse of stocking was seen as something shocking. This was probably the moment thanks to some low camera shots from the BBC
Its the lady i'm talking about not the uber mulleted Neighbours outcast.
and when they used to roll out this clip of Jahn Teigen I never used to think 'crap song' (in fact there are thousands worse in the history of Eurovision) but, like Leggy Mountbatten, "wow, look at the trousers!"
maybe it was the Bobby Cannon like brace business that sunk it?
They're all classics
Perhaps it was Michael Ball who ruined it?
Go on, go on, go on
My favourite was those two Irish priests and the song about the horse.
My lovely horse
has become a kind of catch phrase in my household:
Author Author!
More Lost Euro Gems
Heard this one on one of those interminable isnt it funny clip compilations and thought 'actually thats pretty catchy..'