Copenhagen 2014 – Semi final #1

Strike up the notes, it’s Te Deum time!  Emilie de Forest is back, still shoe-less, but with an army of YouTube karaoke clips and a choral cover to launch the show – there were Only Teardrops from this blogger, as the whole thing was JUST TOO MOVING.

Unusually, my emotional spirits weren’t dampened by the arrival of our hosts – mainly because one of the presenters (the one that’s not bespectacled or wearing a flower larger than her own head) was Kasper the troubled spin doctor out of Borgen – and MAN OH MAN, do I love Borgen.  In cultural terms, Kasper’s appearance is not dissimilar to, say, David Morrissey stepping up to present it alongside Graham Norton and Emma Willis: i.e., it's special.  Anyway, Pilou Asbaek, for that is his real name, has a fun wavy side quiff and appears to be having a whale of a time (well DUH!).  I'm not sure how much crossover there is in the Venn diagram of Scandi Noir and Eurovision, but I am FIRMLY in the middle bit. I can only hope that the PMILF Brigitte makes an appearance at some point - although I might spontaneously combust in excitement.

But enough Danish TV waffle, it's time for European song waffle!

Armenia

Remember J-Lo's second (third?) husband? He of vampire eye bags who ended up dating her out of Made In Chelsea and my-daddy-owns-Topshop fame? (What do you mean, no?) Well it's the Armenian him, singing what I am reliably informed is called 'dubstep'. The dubstep bit is quite good actually, but it takes a hundred years of dull orchestral warble to get there.  Incredibly, this is the FAVOURITE!

Douze points for: his leather fingerless gloves.

Lativa

Popbitch called them Mumford and c*nts - what this lacks in politeness, it makes up for in truth.  The theme of the song is finding it difficult to bake a cake. Guys, even I can manage a Victoria sponge.

Douze points for: I don't know... smugness?

Estonia

Impressive performance from a technical perspective: yer lady here is singing with big-lunged gusto whilst performing athletic ballet techno in massive white pants – helpful when one is being thrown about the stage by a white-vested Arena poster boy.  Shame it's to by-numbers Eurobeat.

Douze points for: flashing her Bridget Joneses, even if the gusset shot to the stage was unlikely to hit an appreciative target audience.

Sweden

Mature popstrel singing electro-dirge - think a low budget All By Myself, but with added slow electronica.  Disappointing, all in all - but I am judging this by Swedish Eurovision standards, so we're talking a high bar here.   It needed a high NRG dance remix, although I did enjoy the emotionally fraught, grammatically-creative lyric "Undo my sad".

Douze points for: her perfect messy bob. HAIR ENVY.

Iceland

Possible drinking buddy rivals to Lena herself – this lot look excellent fun, as evidenced by their impeccable rockabilly suits in the colours of the Teletubbies and ironic Status Quo guitareography

Douze points for: backing singer dudes with full ZZ Top beards and coloured boiler suits.

Albania

The theme of each introductory vignette was to have the singer recreate their own flag in some creative way; Armenia produced a broach, the Swede used a pool and yellow lilos, the Latvians managed to bake a fucking cake after all.  Lady Albania, however, went for FULL ON BACK TATTOO.  Yes it *seems* crazy, but think of all those Olympians who get their rings done. (Erm, that didn’t quite come out right.)  Not much to add about the song, which was essentially Kiss From A Rose being covered by Shakira in the style of Muse.

Douze points for: a man guitarist in a cream leather snood.

Russia

Oh Russia.  I was all set to hate this.  On paper, this was a terrifying recipe for creepy disaster: hair entwined Junior Eurovision champion blonde twins with Putin-approved fembot smiles singing about showing love (HA!) while holding glass staffs on a seesaw.  But of course it was bloody amazing.

Douze points for: the audience booing.  That was hilarious.

Azerbaijan

Lady in red sings a ballad whilst other lady in red does some trapeze stuff.  Meh.

A grudging douze points for: circus skills.

Ukraine

Ok, so much has been made of the use of a human hamster wheel in this number and whilst I accept it was impressive, it is important to note that this is not the first or best use of a human hamster wheel at the Eurovision Song Contest. Hell, it's not even Ukraine's first or best use of a human hamster wheel at the Eurovision Song Contest.  (It’s also not as good as this - omgtotesbigmegalolz!)  But don’t get me wrong, this was still great – I mean it's Ukrainian Eurovision which used the lyrics “Tick Tock Tricky Tricky Tock Tock Tock”, so what would you expect? 

Douze points for: not getting annexed by the Russian twins halfway through the performance.

Belgium

The Go Compare man singing opera about his mum.  Oedipal.  And awful.

Douze points for: Ghent's largest waistcoat.

Moldova

Bring on the Lady armour!  Bring on the medieval skirted men dancers! Bring on the Bucks Fizz inspired moment when she ripped off her own pigtail and threw it at the audience!

Douze points for: oh come on - who else can boast onstage hair removal?

San Marino

Come on Valentina – here’s to third time lucky.  If you’re not going to do it with a song about Facebook, then why not plump for an overblown Streisand-esque throwback yelly number with a breathy talky bit?

Douze points for: So seventies they probably put vaseline on the camera lens. Hello soft focus!

Half-time: Pilou looks blissfully happy. By which I mean blissfully drunk.

Portugal

Well, *this* is a departure!  Yes, it’s a woman, but this year SHE IS BLONDE!  And she’s not in black robes, but in a slutty chiffon top with flowers over the boobs!  And sure, she’s wailing in Portuguese, but there’s a Baleric Summer Hit beat behind the whole thing!  I suppose we can’t accuse Portugal of being stubbornly and exclusively fixated on their own cultural output when they’ve nicked the backing track from a foreign country; even if it is Spain.

Douze points for: carefully-placed tit tape.

Netherlands

I liked the performance at the time, but I have zero memory of the song today.  So I imagine it did well because it was fronted by a Country and Western duo who oozed professionalism and musical ability - who knew THAT approach would work?!!  For me, it lacked Juliette Barnes throwing evils from the side of the stage.  NASHVILE FOREVZ.

Douze points for: Amsterdam twang.

Montenegro

So the opening VT was Mr Montenegro – not *the* Mr Montenegro, but their singer for this year (a cross between Andrew Ridgely and Jason Segel and the brother out of Everybody Loves Raymond) – doing a jigsaw of Montenegro's flag helped by two adorable Montenegrin children.  Turns out that the 'but where is the last piece, oh no, but hooray that cute child has found it, phew' plot was enough to blind my critical eye, as by the time the song appeared, I was too busy ‘awwwww’-ing to really listen.  We’ve seen accompanying ice-skaters before, but Plushenko wasn’t given free reign of the whole stage, or his own on-floor lighting sequence.

Douze points for: being the song I wanted through even though it was probably terrible and I won’t remember in any way come the final.

Hungry

Finally some hotness!  By which I mean, man hotness - I imagine the stadium erupted with testosterone at this point, as a million gays finally had a hunk to scream at.  Flagpoles up, eh boys?  This was good old high-tempo Euro pop, where hot dude gets to referee a domestic row through the medium of dance.

Douze points for: he hawt.

Voting time entertainment: body-popping Dane in a glittery tracksuit and the cast of Cats. Clearly no Riverdance, but it did trump the time the Azeris failed to remember the words to Waterloo.  I am STILL shocked and appalled by that one and will definitely be writing a letter of complaint to Jon Ola Sand.  At some point.

The results: Many congrats to Armenia (eventual dubstep), Sweden (electro-dirge), Iceland (coloured suits), Russia (yay/boo twins), Azerbaijan (trapeze), Ukraine (hamster wheel: the sequel), San Marino (seventies Valentina - hooray for persistance!), the Netherlands (country and western), Montenegro (ice-skater) and Hungary (hawt) – the final beckons!  

May Countdown to Copenhagen: memories of Düsseldorf 2011

2014 Semi-final #1 musings to follow later....

As for 2011, well we're talking about a special, special year, as I was actually in the arena in 2011; it’s one thing to watch it – and what a joyful thing that is - but being at Eurovision itself is a whole other extraordinary experience indeed.  The main difference, for me, was getting even more immersed in the whole shebang – even a big city like Düsseldorf gets taken over to a degree by the Eurofans, and being there meant increased exposure to all the musical offerings, which in turn meant we get to know the actual entries far better than the one-shot TV show can ever offer – almost like it’s a song contest.  We also got to high-five each of the performers as they came off stage, so HELLO.

The other brilliant bit is the Euroclub, a dedicated Eurovision party temporarily set in up town, where up-tempo Eurovision numbers from years past are played in a loop, and every Eurogay lipsyncs every word.  In Düsseldorf, there was even an amateur* Israeli dance troop on stage, with dance routines (like, *the* dance routines, like, from *the* shows) prepared for every single tune - they had even delegated which one of them got to take the lead vocals for each particular song, so everyone got a go at the emotional air microphone.  

*I say ‘amateur’ in that they probably weren’t being paid to be there – but they were truly professional.  It was joyous, and not just because I’d had mucho vodka.

In fact, the whole thing was so exhilarating that I barely noticed the winners, Azerbaijan’s Running Scared.  I accept it wasn’t a vintage year song-wise, but I was still surprised that Europe was so taken with this blandathon.  Maybe it’s because it included a firework golden shower.  Probably Europe loves a gold shower.  I mean, there’s no way the juries tried to fix it because Azerbaijan were one of the few countries who could still afford to host the thing in 2012... 

Tell you who the jury didn’t like – and that was the UK’s entry, Blue.  Although their performance in the stadium was a teeny bit ropey, it wasn’t atrocious, and the public phone vote would have placed them a happy fifth place (see, Europe doesn’t hate us!).  The jury however (who judge things a day or so earlier, during the rehearsal show) stuck poor Blue in 22^nd place – leaving them in 11^th overall.  I Can remains a GREAT pop song, even if police cell wee-er Lee Ryan was involved.

But, really, 2011 should be remembered for two things and two things only: Jedward.  Turns out Louis Walsh really does know what crappy old cheesetosh will get the cash registers ringing.  I thought Europe would be far too confused by John and Edward "Together We Are Jedward", but it actually decided it quite liked the bonkers duo and the catchy Lipstick.  The whole thing was a delicious car crash – amazingly they made their way through their three minutes without breaking anything, managing most of the dance poses, singing sufficiently quietly into their microphones that the backers took on most of the tune and getting their hair quiffs to stay erect throughout.

A quick note on my favourite Eurovision nations before I go – I was most disappointed by the Greeks’ dirgy Watch My Dance (probably they had checked the piggy bank and were pulling a Father Ted) and Ukraine’s Angel (which focused less on heavy bass, mini-skirted MILFs and hamster wheels, and more on sand painting – impressive SURE, but also: zzzzzzz).  But Sweden were back on excellent track with Eric Saade’s Popular and quality rhymes like: “Stop, don't say that it's impossible / Cause I know it's possible”.

GOOD TIMES.

May Countdown to Copenhagen: memories of Oslo 2010

Glory for the Big Four, as Germany stormed a win with Lena’s bonkersly brilliant Satellite.  Turns out that the West can absolutely win the Eurovision Song Contest when it bothers to churn out a genuinely good pop song and a, let's call it, 'striking' performance - low key botch job can work a treat sometimes.  I’ve already blogged about my Lena lurve - she just looks like a right laugh.  If ever she's up for bier and currywurst, I am IN.

Meanwhile, the UK totally failed to learn anything from Suga-Lloyd-Webber ‘success’ (it’s all relative and a Top 5 is no mean feat these days), for this year we came last.  LAST! -  we even came below Spain doing, well, Lord only knows what that 'Juan' was about.  (It was even subject to a stage invasion, but was so strange no-one could really tell if that was part of it or not.)  The UK's plan was to try and recreate the Stock, Aitken and Waterman glory days, only a decade later.  Key words there - A DECADE LATER.  Josh Dubovie (who? Well, exactly) did his best, but turns out Europe doesn’t go for popstars who look like prefects, singing rejected Rick Astley b-sides.

Elsewhere, Romania got some excellent double piano action in (they’re back for Copenhagen with a circular piano, no less); Serbia got some excellent bowl cut action in (worth a watch for a great camp jump-yelp), and Greece got some excellent 'white-clad men singing OPA! with a Game Boy backing track' action in.  Not that you'd expect anything less from Greece - if they're not presenting a mini-diva in a teeny dress, it's, ahem, older men in white rousing the crowd.  And Giorgos ‘Keifer Sutherland’ Alkaios and his Friends did a sterling job – why let a receding hairline and beer belly get in the way of rocking a tight deep cut V?

GOOD TIMES!

May Countdown to Copenhagen: memories of Moscow 2009

OK peeps, prepare to have “I’m in looooooooooooove with a fairytaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale” in your heads for the next hundred years, as that’s just a factual inevitability of talking about Alexander Rybak’s record-breaking win.  Who’d’ve thunk a violin riff would be so potent?  It probably helped that Europe's ovaries found Alex and his waistcoat somewhat dashing.

As for us, well it was time to bring out the big guns – Andrew Lloyd Webber himself mounted the charge, touring Europe, getting Putin himself on board, then sitting at a piano plinky plonking whilst Sugababe-to-be Jade Ewen wafted about a smoke filled floor, power-ballading her way through a song called It’s My Time – well most of the notes, anyway.  It was like the eighties had never gone away and Europe loved it – a solid fifth place. 

It was actually ballad overload this year – far, far, far too much big lung-warbling.  However, in amongst all the yodelling and emoting, was an absolute diamond of a ballad: Is It True by Iceland’s Yohanna.  I just unashamedly love it, in all its Disneyfied glory.  Whether I’d have given it my douze points is another matter though, as 2009 threw up what might be my favourite Eurocrazy performance to date.  Ladies and gentleman, I present to you, the Anti-Crisis Girl - Ukraine’s Svetlana Loboda with Be My Valentine.  I’ve already detailed here why I love it.  It’s the one I always turn to when I’m trying to convince someone who Eurovision can be simultaneously terrible and amazing.  By which I mostly mean AMAZING, obvs.

It would be shame to leave without a quick spin via Turkey’s Dum Tek Tek - belly dancing doesn’t play as prominent a role at Eurovision as one might expect – and a respectful mention of Greek ‘Adonis’ Sakis Rouvas, an experienced Eurovisioner who can wear white like nobody’s business and found the time to incorporate a giant stapler into his routine.  I mean, that is special, special stuff.

GOOD TIMES!

May Countdown to Copenhagen: memories of Belgrade 2008

From dirgy overblown ballad winner to dirgy overblown ballad – but with added Soviet ice dance!  Dima Bilan donned his tightiest-y whitest-ies and unbuttoned an extra button for Russia to finally achieve the big win they’d been long bribing the judges gunning for.  Time for total mullet domination, big time homoeroticism and the world’s most depressing game of shag, marry, kill.  

Mind you, those familiar with Olympic multi-gold medallist Evgeni Plushenko (the power of his skate only rivalled by the size of his nose and ego) will find this Eurovision performance a bit of a disappointment compared to what he gets up to in his day job.  I mean hello and hello.  And HELLO.  

Meanwhile, the UK put the Uniform Dating dress-up box aside and opted instead for disco binman Andy Abraham – who consequently bombed to a very harsh 25th place.  Even If might not be a stone cold classic, but it’s quite some way from the worst song in the world - and is certainly a catchier number than winner Believe.

Fortunately, there were plenty of other highlights in Belgrade – Latvian pirates, a Bosnian bridal convention, Ukrainian Shady Lady pop brilliance (ANI WOZ ROBBED) and France and Spain competing in I-don’t-care-about-the-kray-kray. 

Of course my personal highpoint was when I bitched to a roomful of Eurovision party-goers that I disapproved of the Georgian singer’s blatant pretension – I mean what kind of twat wears sunglasses indoors?  I was quietly informed that she was, in fact, blind.

GOOD TIMES.

May Countdown to Copenhagen: memories of Helsinki 2007

Helsinki 2007

Here’s Wikipedia’s take on Serbia’s 2007 winner: "Moltiva was the first time a ballad has won since televoting became the standard.  The song is notable for its stage presentation because it lacked dance routines, revealing or showy costumes, pyrotechnics and other gimmicks. The Eurovision Song Contest is often accused of concentrating on these things instead of the music itself."

Marija throws her glasses off as the modulation kicks in

Or, to put it another way, YAWN YAWN YAWN YAWN YAWN.  Because the main problem with Serbia’s Moltiva wasn’t the Balkan balladness or the lack of bizarre showmanship – it was that it was a bit of a boring dirge.  Music wasn’t the winner here!  (Perish the thought.)  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still some joy to be had at Marija Šerifović’s super caj, Bieber-haired, lesbian-at-a-wedding, bespectacled get up (Heels? My trainers will be fine, thank you Euro judges).  And I did enjoy her terrifying army of imperial sash and suited fembots - with their apparent penchant for curling tongs and stroking (Wikipedia might not think there’s a gimmick at play here, but this performance is how I imagine the show Touch The Truck, only in musical form).  

From what Wikipedia’s implying, in Serbia, Moltiva has a similar status to Candle In The Wind over here – it gets wheeled out at ‘important’ emotionally charged moments.  More fabulously though, Wikipedia has let me know that “the UK oompah band Oompah Brass recorded an instrumental version of "Molitva" on their album Oompocalypse Now, which they premiered at the 2007 Belgrade Beer Festival.”  I can’t find it (*sobs*), but here’s an excellent rendition of Nine To Five.

Would you like something to suck on for landing, sir?

Anyway, if Europe was a bit gimmicked-out, the UK chose the wrong year to throw up a reformed bubblegum pop group dressed as air hostesses, oozing out fake tan, non-stop camp and innuendo.  Personally, I loved Scooch’s Flying The Flag - it made me chuckle heartily.  Although I accept that such dependence on auto-tune might not have translated too well to a large stage.  Or a TV audience of 100 million Europeans, with limited understanding of English language puns.  

It came 22^nd with a measly 19 points, although Malta gave it twelve points.   The really interesting story though, is that Morrissey could have represented the UK in Helsinki – JUST IMAGINE.  The rumours on that one veer from him refusing to take part in the televoting selection show to him simply not having been approached in time to write something.  (Amazingly the rumours don’t include him saying the whole story is total rubbish.)  I love Mozz and mourn the sad loss of what would have been an amazing opportunity for us all.

We can only speculate as to whether Morrissey would have rivalled winner Marija (durrr, YES).  Instead, Serbia's main threat was a high NRG earworm from Eurovij experts Ukraine.  This one, well, again, it speaks for itself.  It’s elderly bacofoil drag queen time, with a song quite blatantly telling Russia to piss off, all to the sound of heart-attack inducing BPM.  Singer Verka Serduchka doesn’t quite have the breath to get through the dancing, but she does make it to the key change.  It went down a treat in the hall and Europe love it too – just 33 points away from the win.  Russia came third and promptly annexed Crimea.   (Well, I say 'promptly'...)

GOOD TIMES!

May Countdown to Copenhagen: memories of Athens 2006

HARD (pause) ROCK (pause) HALLELUJAH.

HARD (pause) ROCK (pause) HALLELUJAH.

Sure the monstery masks were gimmick gold, but we all know you don't win Eurovision on costumes alone – this was some catchy RAWK.  

Oh Lordi!

Yes, the day of Rockening hit Athens in 2006 and Europe fell hard for the Arockalypse – cue glory for Lordi and the first heavy metal winner.  But underneath the amped up guitar action, Hardrock Hallelujah ticked many tried and tested Eurovij boxes: fire on stage (coming from their guitars, no less), hints of patriotism (a jauntily perched Finnish top hat atop the prosthetics), Scandi-lously high platform boots (that made Agnetha's look sensible), a slightly obscured backing singer who was probably doing most of the voice work (she still got her monster on though) and a major costume change during the middle eight, as Mr Lordi's wings extended before us all. And who needs key changes when you have AN AXE FOR A MIC STAND!

I'd say it put the UK entry to shame, but, to be blunt, the UK entry - Teenage Life by Daz Simpson - put itself to shame.  A middle aged painter and decorator 'rapping' amongst school 'girls' played by women some way off school age, caked in levels of foundation that TOWIE girls would baulk at. The song's philosophy was that teachers were sooooo old they didn't know how to have any fun (those with teacher friends will raise an eyebrow at that one) and that there was no point in school, because it taught you nothing, so you should just be nice to children and that would end crime.  Daz put himself on a pedestal as the proof of such a life's success – having failed to obtain A Grades, he was now “driving fast cars” and was “five stars”.  I'm not au fait with the charts these days, but I have a sense that critical acclaim and record contract domination wasn't entirely forthcoming. 

No, if you're going to do BAD, you follow Icelandic Silvia Night's lead and commit to a level so WTFesque that one can only conclude it is nothing short of MAGNIFICENCE. 

There's too much to describe really - the best plan is to just watch, but I will make a special mention of Silvia's phone call to God though: "What's up dog? It's me, Silvia, Your favourite person in the world."  And when she unexpectedly takes a "golden shower".  And when she slides down a giant shoe.  And when she is stripped of her clothes whilst faux-orgasming. And when her backing dancers do the hand-to-ankle-hand-to-ear move in Bermuda shorts and fringing. And when she makes said dancers crawl on the floor in gimp wrestling masks.  And when... SERIOUSLY, ALL OF THIS STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPENS! 

Frankly though, the most WTF thing of the lot is that she failed to reach the finals and was roundly booed off stage.

Truth is, Silvia Night is a fictional, satirical creation played by an Icelandic actress, designed to showcase all that is awful about the awful. She kept in character throughout EV week, swearing and insulting her way through the rehearsals and interviews - publicly calling Swedish Eurovij stalwart Carola "an ugly old bitch" and calling the production team "fucking retards" during rehearsals.  You'd think that might have ruffled a few feathers in and of itself, but, perhaps even more incredibly, the journos thought she said "fucking Greeks" and went on a tabloid takedown frenzy - hence the boos from the home crowd. (Cause it's not cool to take a pop at the mentally unwell, but it's UNACCEPTABLE to criticise the Greek worth ethic - I mean, ask Angela Merkel.)

One last special mention to Cyprus - well maybe, anyway. I do not remember the song AT ALL, but I do remember my friend Anj serenading me on a very packed tube train with a Cypriot song - it *might* be this one. His performance included pelvic thrusting around the tube poles, getting down on one knee, pretending to face the wind machine, and - of course - a key change. 

GOOD TIMES!