Eurovision from a non-European POV...

A couple of years ago, Alexander's sister Jessica, introduced me to the wildly wonderful world of the Eurovision Song Contest. I had, of course, heard of it before but never had the...erm...pleasure of seeing it for myself. I can honestly say there is no American equivalent to the sheer extravaganza that is Eurovision. I can also honestly say that I love every minute of it.

Every year many countries in Europe hold their own song contests with the winner being moved on to compete at Eurovision. The songs that make it to Eurovision are heavily touted and are usually sung by either the song writer or writers or by some well known recording artist from that country. The winning country gets to play host the following year. The first year I ever watched (live stream on eurovision.tv) I had no idea what I was in for. There were some seriously beautiful songs, some so-so songs sung badly, and then some that can only be described as "WTF was that??" I remember distinctly that that was where I first heard of Verka Serducka from Ukraine. Google it...you can thank me later. :D

This year the contest was broadcast live from Russia. The first semi-finals were on Tuesday, the second on Thursday and the grand finale was tonight. Having seen a number of pageant like shows in the US (again, NOTHING like this) I am pretty amazed that it all runs without too many intrusive hosts and goes from one song to the next quite smoothly. At the end, the "world" aka Europe gets 15 minutes to vote and, here's the catch, you can't vote for your own country. Televoting counts for half of the votes and the other half is from music professionals. They manage to get a winner in that 15 minutes. It takes us months to get a new American Idol.

Norway won this year with a cute song that didn't have a whole lot of substance. There were other countries there who, IMO, had much better songs and better singers but, eh, I can't vote so there you go! The set was enormous. I mean ENORMOUS! And it had more lights than the Vegas strip. Some countries chose to just have the singer sing and leave it at that and others seem to run with the idea that more is more. There were dancing girls, dancing men, dancing BEARS, something that, I think, was supposed to be dancing but I'm not sure, women in short, short skirt, women in long skirts, women in just a sheet of fabric, men in Lycra and spandex and traditional Moldavian costumes and then there was the Russian Army (no...not kidding...they were there) on stage with a hot pink tank and the Russian Folk Ballet and then there was some Greek guy in the tightest white pants I've ever seen and then there was some guy dressed in what looked like a green sequined pickle suit. It was over the top and FABULOUS! I love this show. Truly. I'm hooked. It makes me wish I was living in Europe so I could vote. Cause I totally would.

I suggest you Google this. Better yet...go to Eurovision.tv... you can watch the whole thing right there. Have fun!

I have seen the future....

The Eurovision Song Contest is the mother of all televised music contests. Many big name music stars found their start there. (Think, ABBA...) I was introduced to this glamarama wingding of a show last year and I am hooked. The contest consists of song entries from European countries (hence the name...duh!). Each country first has it local contest to determine which song and artist they will send to the big show. Then each country gets the chance to show the rest of Europe what it is they have to offer. This year's competition is being held in Belgrade and it is being shown worldwide via the Internet at eurovision.tv

I can't accurately explain the nature of this show. The production is big...no, ENORMOUS and part of the reason for that is the host country gets this opportunity to show off what they can do. The thing is, they don't often follow the old adage "less is more". In fact, I think they go out of their way to prove "more is more". The songs themselves run the gamut from the very beautiful to the absolutely insane. Last year, I fell into some kind of strange obsession with this entrant.

It's weird, it's over the top, it's kitschy, and, to me, it's wonderful.

The first semi-finals for 2008 happened yesterday and you can see for yourself the strange wonderfulness that is the Eurovision Song Contest. It has everything. Over blown production values, sometimes excellent music, sometimes really bad music, mostly really bizarre performances (see Ireland's 2008 entry) and in your face artsy fartsy everything make this my new most favorite thing in the world.