… broadcast to most of Europe simultaneously. This latter was the point. All one big happy Eurofamily and some catch tunes.
Back in the day, some were quite good. Remember Sandy Shaw? She won with “Puppet On A String”. A decent pop song, sung well. As was “Congratulations” [1968] by Cliff but he was pipped "by María de los Ángeles Felisa Santamaría Espinosawith the song “La, la, la”, .
*‘*La, la, la,’ I ask you.
When I was in Spain in 1962 Spanish radio played a particular song several times a day for the whole 10 weeks I was there. It was called "Brigitté Bardot"
I wonder how “Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks would get on if presented as the UK entry next year? Or “Lazy Sunday” by The Small Faces?
How catchy this song is can be gauged by the way a 16-seater-load of Irish racegoers sang it over and over again all the way back from Cheltenham to London. Yes, they’d had a good day and plenty of Bushmills and Jameson and this song expressed how they felt - jolly.
These are out and out pop songs - but really good ones. Something with a bit of crunch but not a head-banger? “Happy”, sung by Keith Richards on the Stones’ “Exile on Main Street”.
Not racism at all seeing they are a subgroup of the most powerful and advantaged sector of the world population.
It is their opinions and attitudes that are the problem, not their colour or ethnicity.
Eurovision is light hearted fun, why all the angst? To me it looked like a lot of folk, from a lot of nationalities we’re having a good time, that works for me. I don’t care who won, don’t care if the music was good or bad, it was simple entertainment, can’t we just enjoy something without trying to analysis it? I’d have voted for Moldova, brains out, foot stomping fun.
It’s not really though, many countries actually take it VERY seriously, which is at least partly why the U.K. has done so badly for a very long time, there is a huge stream of half the U.K. music industry trotting off to Melodifestivalen every single year with songs that Swedish singers will perform in the hope that they’ll win and get through to Eurovision. I didn’t watch last night but in most years look at the writing and production credits of all the songs and you’ll see name after name of British talent. Other countries take the show incredibly seriously and having your song chosen to go to the final will guarantee you a significant jump in your career forever whether you’re the performer, writer or producer, because it’s seen as a prestigious important thing to do and a good showing in the vote a validation of your talent. British musical talent has been visible on there for a very long time… just not in our entries which on the whole are poor efforts with very little money put behind them. Acts from other countries spend time touring Europe doing promotion before so audiences know them and their songs, as they don’t just want to win the competition but want it to be a springboard into a lasting long term global music career. Måneskin who won in 2021 are doing incredibly well off the back of it, building a real career, their U.K. tour sold out incredibly quickly and they opened for the Stones in Vegas as part of their US tour. It might be fun to watch, but the fact that the U.K. tends to view it as some lighthearted piece of nonsense to enjoy for a night once a year is part of why we generally do so badly.
Most people on here won’t like this, I know, but it is down to Boris Johnson’s actions in support of Ukraine. Apologies if this has been said by anyone else (although I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it has) but I haven’t read the full thread yet.
I fully understand the importance of the competition to the music industry, I have a few friends that are writers/musicians and they do see it as a valuable opportunity. However I was speaking as a viewer, for me it’s entertainment and nothing more. I asked my friends from various European countries what they thought, all said a similar thing, it’s light entertainment and often amusing. As to UK entrants doing badly in recent years, I accept there are varied reasons but for me it comes largely down to the song or sometimes the singer that wasn’t great, This years was way better plus he’s well known on a social media site with a large following and seems like a genuine nice bloke.
Personally, I lost interest in Eurovision when the visual theatrics/dancers/whatever overtook the actual song.
I would be interested in a Eurovision where one didn’t actually see the person/group performing and could make a judgement purely on what one heard…
Quite a few European nations are supplying weapons to Ukraine. Even the Germans shipped them a load of cold-war era Panzerfaust 3s which might stop a Russian truck on a good day.
Millions rather than billions - simply because we haven’t given billions of £ worth of aid or arms but, yeah, gotta wonder if someone is skimming the fat out of that deal.
