Euroaudiovision

For the first time in years, longer than I can remember doing so, I watched the Eurovision Song Contest in its entirety. The British entry Blue did respectably, concluding the night with 100 points and (just) finishing in the top half of 25 countries. It was a good single (‘I can’) but generic ultimately and on Monday morning the tune hasn’t really stuck in the mind. Which, for better or worse, can not be said of Jedward, the brothers Grime. They had a melody for ‘Lipstick’ which still twangs in the mind 48 hours later and wearing ridiculous, red-sequinned blazers boasting out-size shoulder straps, they bopped around manically, irrespective of synchronisation with the tune or each other. And they were fun, reflected in the higher placing of them over Blue.
The biggest shock was Azerbaijan winning the whole shebang. It was a pretty song but unremarkable compared to some other entries. Some might even argue that if Israel is included for its European tradition, Azerbaijan has more of an Asian heritage, any Euro inclinations deriving from long domination by Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. At least the UK can claim a small win through its British-born female lead vocalist (something that Romania did as well). It will be interesting to have it staged along the shores of the Caspian Sea though.
What was disappointing was for a European singing competition so many of the entrants delivered their verses in English. This is not exactly a new phenomenon and, of course, it is designed to garner international success but it is a shame only three non-English native speaking countries delivered their whole submission in the language they were born to (and a few others having a hybrid, parts done in English, others in their mother tongue). Maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising that France, Serbia and Spain suffered in the final vote (Spain’s performance was criminally undervalued).
I liked Hungary, Spain and Sweden particularly, though most of the songs were decent enough. All three has high-class pop as their theme. As the voting results progressed and it seemed clear which way the points were going, I hoped Sweden would take the crown but they faltered in the final reckoning. Some of the acts were amusing for their ‘uniqueness’, to put it kindly. Georgia sang with a woman who looks similar to one of the senior employees at the place I work and most of the lyrics seemed to have been hauled at random from an English thesaurus. Moldova was absolutely ridiculous with those long pointy hats and a girl in what looked like a bridal gown peddling around on a unicycle. I predicted correctly that Switzerland’s entry was so dull it would finish bottom and, duly, it did.
Graham Norton did a sterling commentary, as waspish as Terry Wogan used to be, while praising those he thought worthwhile (I reserved the right to disagree with some of his picks). The arena held around 35,000 – the size of a mid-sized football stadium I thought to myself – and that was what it turned out to be, converted very impressively. The German hosts were mainstream and inoffensive and thus the humour pandered to the lowest common denominator but they were effective in regard to the real business at hand.
So Eurovision is gone for another year, but the UK is now, hopefully, on the right track. They have the template with Blue and know that if they score between 5 - 6 points for each of the 43 participating countries they should win (Azerbaijan won with an average of about 5.1). Some states haven’t won for 40 - 50 years and that can’t be put down solely to tactical voting – this year’s top two, the Azeris and the Italians don’t have very strong connections with their neighbours (e.g. Portugual giving Spain twelve points or, a little surprisingly until you consider the ethnic make-up, Croatia and Bosnia giving hefty points to Serbia). Maybe other nations are bemused that we have followed one Irish-born compere with another and so don’t give the rights to hosting as a result (though the public face to Europe was the delectable Alex Jones when delivering the UK’s results). The UK surely has too strong a music culture to not win it in the near future.