Nearly a good Eurovision winner

Subject: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 May 03 - 01:34 PM

Anyone else watch the Eurovision Song Contest? A frightening experience. Notable for the UK entry's achievement in scoring zero points, first time they've achieved that.

Big hooha in the media here (in a small way) about how all those nasty foreigners phoning in their votes gave it the thumbs down as a protest against Iraq. I'd say zero was a very fair score. But then it would have been a very fair score for almost all the entries.

However there was one pretty good one, from Belgium, and it came in a very close second - and here is a link to it. The lyrics are in a made up language, on some kind of principle. complete with bagpipes and a generally folky approach by the group assembled for the purpose, Urban Trad.

If you hunt around you can find all the other songs too, but I wouldn't bother. But it is a shame this kind of event can't actually be made up of good songs and good performances, in whatever style. That certainly ain't true as it is.

But that Belgian entry is worth listening to, I think, and it was encouraging that all over Europe there were a lot of people who voted for it in preferance to the rest of the crap.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 26 May 03 - 01:45 PM

Tried to listen, and tried to watch the video.   Zero. Nil. Nada. Nothing.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: GUEST
Date: 26 May 03 - 02:01 PM

Missed the contest which I wanted to listen to just for Terry Wogans comments! Any gems in there btw?

I had a listen to the Belgian one and think it's pretty good. How do you know it's a made up language though? Did I miss that in the spiel or was it somewhere else?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 May 03 - 02:23 PM

The ENGLISH duo were so out of tune it was excruciating, what a load of old twaddle it was anyway.
Giok

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 May 03 - 02:26 PM

Check that link I gave you there and it tells you about that about how it's it a madeup language, as well as having a link to the lyrics and video and sound files. I haven't found a translation of the words anywhere mind you.

I think the idea was that, what with Gaelic lyrics, and with Elven lyrics in Lord of the Rings and with Latin Gregorian Chant, it is clear that lyrics in languages listeners can't understand can work quite well - and of course they are international by definition.

Next year maybe there'll be a Heavy Metal entry in Klingon. The UK could try it. N obody guives "Nul points" to a Klingon...

Presumably, Dave, you don't have some appropriate bit of software in your computer for that link. The title of the Belgian entry is "Sanomi", so maybe if you google around you could find a site with a file your computer might like better.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 May 03 - 02:30 PM

And the BBC site has the whole show on its site for seven days. Except they've got the radio version instead of the telly one, so it won't have Terry Wogan's comments.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alanabit
Date: 26 May 03 - 02:39 PM

Sorry to disagree Kevin, but although I thought the Belgian entry was less excrutiating than the other one or two which I heard excerpts of, it still sounded like plastic - let's give this gimmick a try -pop to me. I take perverse amusement in watching a few mínutes of this annual tawdry orgy of the mediocre and banal. I bet I wasn't the only Brit who derived enormous pleasure from seeing our (no doubt appalling) entry get nil points. Of course, it is galling to watch the Germans look smug about anything, but if I live to see England beat them at football again - even just once - they can win the bloody Eurovision Song Contest every year for all I care! You are right that most of the other entries deserved zero points too - certainly the ones I saw. God aren't we sick to watch this crap!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 May 03 - 03:59 PM

"Urban Trad" are a genuine band rather than a slapped together for the contest operation, I see from the net, and they seem to have put out some fair enough stuff prior to this. I'd suspect that the version of their song they did for the event might have been a bit plasticised.

I wonder why it is that the quality of this event is so appalling. I mean, the football played in the World Cup is pretty good, and the Olympics has incredible performances - so why is it so different for popular music? Why isn't it the best of its kind on show?

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alanabit
Date: 26 May 03 - 04:17 PM

Good question Kevin. This one could go on a while. My pet theory is that the quality of the music produced is in inverse proportion to the amount of money invested in it. The Michael Jackson/Madonna principle...

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: RolyH
Date: 26 May 03 - 04:35 PM

A quote from Wogan a few years back.

"The trouble with the Eurovision Song Contest is that the rest of Europe thinks it's a contest"

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 May 03 - 04:38 PM

Think also of the process followed to choose each country's entry, and the motives and tastes behind it.

Some countries use a "committee" of appointed musical "luminaries", who as often as not are given the line to follow: "Something showing off the country's culture" used to be the rule, and still is followed by the more insecure countries, without thought or even appreciation of whether such material would be palatable to foreign ears; then there is the "follow the recipe" rule, done to death over the years, giving rise to so many entries sounding like each other that the listener can't remember which is which. Etc etc...

Some countries us a "popular vote" process nowadays, playing the candidate songs on national radio or TV and inviting listeners/viewers to vote. But if these programmes are aimed at a specific age-range of listener, then the result will unsurprisingly be restricted to what THEY think is good.

For me the ESC is dead in the water culturally. It could be rescued, of course, but I see nobody rushing to do that.

I used to watch it religiously and allocate my own votes, taking pride in having my choices turn up 10th or below in the general vote. But not any more. This year I only watched the last 15 mins of the voting and listened to the winning song (twaddle) while waiting for Have I Got News For You to start.

What foxes me, following TW's comment that the UK would not be "relegated" despite getting zero points because they put so much money into it, is this: WHY do they put money into a comtest that is not popular in the UK, has not thrown up any decent song for years, and people only watch it out of the perverse pleasure in listening to Terry bitch? Cut the funding and let it loose, I say. Great TV it isn't...

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: GUEST,T-boy
Date: 27 May 03 - 08:16 AM

McGrath's question prompts another in reply - who are the judges?

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: GUEST
Date: 27 May 03 - 08:49 AM

I haven't watched it for years but saw a clip of "our" effort on the news. They would have been refused a floor spot in most folk clubs. They were truly appalling.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 May 03 - 08:53 AM

Does anyone have a link to our efforts before someone takes them off the web out of embarasment?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 27 May 03 - 08:54 AM

That explains why I couldn't figure out what language the Belgian entry was in! Thught the tune and arrqangement were the best of a (very) bad lot, mind you.

Regards

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 May 03 - 09:33 AM

There aren't any judges. Phone in votes by whoever feels like voting decide how each country's votes are allocated.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alison
Date: 27 May 03 - 09:37 AM

UK entry

doesn't sound too bad in the link..... well its the usual Euro-pop rubbish (if you close your eyes it could still be the "Brotherhood of Man")... but what else do you expect in Eurovision..... maybe they just couldn't sing in tune live

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alison
Date: 27 May 03 - 09:44 AM

just listened to the Turkish entry..... it won!!.... and it is awful!!

I missed it over here in OZ... I like to listen to Terry bitching..... but apparently he wasn't doing it on the version we got.....


slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: sweetfire
Date: 27 May 03 - 09:54 AM

never knew the voting could be so polictical

terry was the only reason i watched it!!!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 May 03 - 09:54 AM

Yea - I'd heard the proper song Alison and, llike yourself, thought it not too bad in that eurovisionish way;-) I wanted to hear the actual version they did on the night though. Without going to the BBC website and listening to the whole show! Arrrggghhhh - anything but that..

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Firecat
Date: 27 May 03 - 03:00 PM

I actually voted for Jemini in the Song For Europe, so they CAN sing!!!! They've actually released it as a single now!!!


BTW, does anyone have the lyrics for t.A.T.u.'s entry (Russia). I couldn't work out what they were singing cos of all the electronic effects that got put on the girls' voices. I wouldn't mind being able to read them and translate them. More practice for my written Russian exam!! I know the first bit though "Want, don't want (Khochet, ne khochet), Love, don't love (Lyoobet, ne lyoobet)"!!!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alanabit
Date: 27 May 03 - 03:55 PM

Firecat, you are one brave moggy owning up to that!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 May 03 - 05:41 PM

The excuse given by the group for singing so badly was that they couldn't hear their foldbacks - they couldn't hear anything over the noise of the audience apparently... maybe a link to the 'bad manners at singarounds' thread needed here?

The recorded version is in tune (I hesitate to say it's good), but the version performed live during the contest, was truly appaling and it deserved every point it got.

Terry did comment that we would have to send a gunboat out, but I forget for whom.

LTS

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 May 03 - 08:17 PM

I'd have thought thta the sound system so far as monitors and thta would have been more or less the same for all of them, so I can't see that excuse as standing up. Nerves and inexperience seem more likely to explain such a bad performance by the English. The Belgian lot seemed to have no trouble staying in tune anyway. And once again, most of the rest were crap, they weren't.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 May 03 - 04:25 AM

Like most things, crap and perceived crap is in the eye/ear of the individual. I'd heard it on the radio without realising what it was, and just thought 'more mindless pap with no tune and no decent lyric', just right for all those I saw in Thurrock on Saturday, wearing football shirts and Adidas jogging bottoms as a fashion statement. The live performance of it just served to reinforce that first thought.

I saw bits of the contest and thought that the majority of the entries were mindless pap with no tune and no decent (or in some cases, even with subtitles) intelligable lyric. But then who watches this thing for the musical content?

LTS

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: GUEST
Date: 28 May 03 - 05:28 AM

I thought it was a dancing contest? Songs? What songs?
(Harvey Andrews, who once had the English lyric to a Belgian entry that after five juries was number one, and then didn't get another single vote!)

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 May 03 - 05:47 AM

I can remember when the Eurovision link-up was a real technical achievement, in the days before microwave and satelite links (or satelites!); the songs weren't important so much as being able to watch them live from across half a continent. Everything has got so much better, except the acts. As a founder member, I don't think they could easily chuck us out; although suspect some countries would like to make room for Iraq to enter next year.

I don't watch it, except just enough to take the piss over the next few days. I did think the Belgian entry was unusual for Eurovision, and quite listen-to-able. But I thought they spoke a made-up language in Belgium anyway? Fair enough, I say, if the alternative is to speak French!

I was a little astonished at the Turkish entry: scantily-clad young ladies cavorting exhibiting themselves in public like that -- and in front of so-called Christians, at that. I didn't think that kind of thing was encouraged in Muslim countries?

Steve

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Hamish
Date: 28 May 03 - 08:21 AM

I understand most acts used the in-ear monitors which were working okay, but Jemini, the British act, opted for the stage monitors which weren't up to the job. Presumably they were okay during rehearsal before crowd noise was added in.

Anybody, even in the folkie world, would sympathise with any act in any musical genre where they can't hear what they're singing.

But, as has been pointed out above, it doesn't excuse the song, the arrangement, or that dress

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 May 03 - 05:47 PM

Presumably they were okay during rehearsal before crowd noise was added in.

In an interview afterwards they said they'd been complaining about it all week. In which case why hadn't they sorted it? Inexperience, presumably.

I still think that a competition in which there was a genuine attempt to present a sample of the best of what each country preferred in its pop music would be a lot more enjoyable.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alanabit
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:15 PM

It probably would Kevin. As it is, it is a purely commercial enterprise. I do not know what the minumum sum is that needs to be invested in a song to make it a contender. I do know that there is not that much in my piggy bank!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: GUEST
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:38 PM

My favourite Wogan comment this year:

'Look out for the great lump of a woman in a baseball cap'

We did, and there she was...

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 May 03 - 04:18 AM

Perhaps it is a getting-old problem, but my impression is that the winning titles and the singers from the 70s back to the 50s were better.

List of all winners since 1956

My personal all time favourite winner was 1964's Non ho l'eta.

Both German language winning titles still get a lot of air time. "Merci, Cherie" (Austria winning) is not my type of music but I still enjoy hearing it. The only German (language and country) winner (1982) is a good reason to change the station.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alanabit
Date: 29 May 03 - 04:36 AM

You are ashamed to mention it aren't you Wolfgang? You were hoping nobody else would remind you of it. So I shall cheerfully spoil your whole day by reminding everyone that it was the blond waif Nicole with "Ein Bisschen Frieden", which she sang miming to a grotesquely oversized, white guitar at the age of sixteen, I think. And why doesn't Wolfgang want to recall this moment of national achievement? Because it was every bit as bad as he remembers it - that's why. It was very much parodied over here - and deservedly so. God it was tacky. I can't recall a time when Eurovision Song Contest winners were anything but awful, but then I must be a lot younger than Wolfgang!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 03 - 05:22 AM

It's a bit as if they had a Football World Cup and sent along teams of basketball players and dartsplayers. There must be some commercial logic to it, but I don't get it.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: mooman
Date: 29 May 03 - 07:16 AM

I didn't see it (never watch it!) but I know the singer for that night, Veronica Codesal (not the usual singer for Urban trad - that's another interesting story) who usually sings in the Galician vocal group "Ialma" and also their guitarist Philippe Masure with whom I've occasionally played music myself.

For further inrormation about the band for anyone interested:

Urban Trad

All power to them I say and perhaps a good portent for the future?

moo (from Belgium)

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 May 03 - 07:59 AM

You are ashamed to mention it aren't you Wolfgang?

You've looked into my heart, Alan. However, looking only at the visual side of that moment of (f/sh)ame you should admit it was still far better than the acoustic side of it.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: alanabit
Date: 29 May 03 - 08:15 AM

I'll give you that Wolfgang!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: DaveP
Date: 29 May 03 - 08:34 AM

Well I've read the commects above and I'm afraid a lot of it sounds like SOUR GRAPES.

No wonder folk clubs are struggling if the ONLY type of music that is acceptable to us is in the folk medium.

The winning Eurovision song is, in my opinion, a good song.
Many modern pop music tracks are moving from the 'standard' western musical format.

The performers were on the whole excellent. Singing live in that situation must be very difficult. Unfortunately Gemini were the only group who had problems. The lady was just in the wrong key when she started. In fainess she did continue and did sort it out.
A shame something was wrong!

Many of the songs this year were interesting.

It would appear that using televoting is introducing a change to the EUROVISION experience. The songs are more likely to be found in the charts for their respective countries. In a way the British entry was one of the most 'classical Eurovision' songs. Next year perhaps a more radical song will be chosen.

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: tooligan
Date: 29 May 03 - 09:17 AM

Regarding the possible sabotage and subterfuge, Jemmini's dressing room also got trashed just after the show. Seems a bit sus to me - No monitors, dressing room trashed tho the performance deserved the score. But hey, who hasn't had a bad night

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 29 May 03 - 06:27 PM

Missed Terry Wogan, unfortunately, and the songs as well.

But Belgique beaucoup beaucoup de points: how about that, it must be the first time ever!

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 May 03 - 04:05 AM

Russia have lodged a formal complaint after allegations that countries that they expected to give them good points, didn't do so this year... so whoever thinks that the voting is done on musical merit is sadly mistaken! Witness Turkey and Greece (two nations who've fought with each other since the dawn of time, particularly over Cyprus) both gave each other top marks, complete with patronising little remarks like 'to our freinds and neighbours'.

LTS

Subject: RE: Nearly a good Eurovision winner
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 03 - 06:15 PM

Witness Turkey and Greece (two nations who've fought with each other since the dawn of time, particularly over Cyprus) both gave each other top marks,

Not strictly true, for what it matters, which isn't much.