der Wettbewerb - the contest
last night dan and i spent four hours (8pm - midnight) watching german television. warum? you ask. i'll tell you why.
"eurovision song contest" is the grand-daddy of music competitions here in europe. it's like battle of the bands on a continental scale. sure there are probably better ones on smaller scales, but if you win those you, and your country, don't get the bragging rites that winning eurovision's "grand prix" allows. how many acts can say that they are the best in 38 countries? they sometimes go on to take the entire world by storm. ABBA won the eurovision song contest in 1974 with "waterloo."
the contest showcased 24 acts, each representing a different country. some countries chose to send acts that exemplified their culture: croatia's group sang in croatian and did a traditional, if updated for TV, dance. others chose to go with the ever-popular sappy pop song a la "american idol" or "deutschland sucht den SuperStar": sweden, greece, and the ukraine, all made me want to channel simon cowell. and some went with the so-out-there-it-might-just-work approach: germany's country-western band, finland's heavy-metal monster-costumed band, and lithuania's dark-suited middle-aged boy band tipified this approach.
surprisingly one of each category type were in the top three. the fins ended up taking top prize.
unfortunately, our favorite group - the lithuanians - amused people but not enough to clear the top 5. they sang a song called "we are the winners" borrowing the tune of "nanny nanny boo boo" that said "we are the winners of eurovision." during the bridge a guy who resembled dan's junior high principal busted out some crazy-ass dance moves. (after being a junior high principal, i think lithuanian rock star sounds like a fairy sane retirement activity.) picture the mighty mighty bosstones if they were from a depressed northern baltic republic.
"american idol" could take a cue from the "eurovision song contest" on more than a few points, but mainly in the voting system. you vote by phone or text message and all voting is done in 10 minutes. boom, instant gratification.
the voting proved interesting, not just in it's efficiency, but in the voting trends of each nation. because one cannot vote for his or her own country, the vote totals end up being a pretty good representation of immigration patterns and political alliance. for instance, the german voting results showed a huge percentage of votes for turkey - illustrating our giant turkish population. countries often voted for bordering countries sharing similar cultures. the scandinavian countries were a pretty good example of this. the former soviet territories are so numerous that russia ended up in second place even though the russian act was pure crap, in my totally unbiased opinion, of course.
if you get a chance i highly recommend visiting the link above. from there you can download the lithuanian song - or any of the other acts - and see the nasty finnish monster costumes.
"eurovision song contest" is the grand-daddy of music competitions here in europe. it's like battle of the bands on a continental scale. sure there are probably better ones on smaller scales, but if you win those you, and your country, don't get the bragging rites that winning eurovision's "grand prix" allows. how many acts can say that they are the best in 38 countries? they sometimes go on to take the entire world by storm. ABBA won the eurovision song contest in 1974 with "waterloo."
the contest showcased 24 acts, each representing a different country. some countries chose to send acts that exemplified their culture: croatia's group sang in croatian and did a traditional, if updated for TV, dance. others chose to go with the ever-popular sappy pop song a la "american idol" or "deutschland sucht den SuperStar": sweden, greece, and the ukraine, all made me want to channel simon cowell. and some went with the so-out-there-it-might-just-work approach: germany's country-western band, finland's heavy-metal monster-costumed band, and lithuania's dark-suited middle-aged boy band tipified this approach.
surprisingly one of each category type were in the top three. the fins ended up taking top prize.
unfortunately, our favorite group - the lithuanians - amused people but not enough to clear the top 5. they sang a song called "we are the winners" borrowing the tune of "nanny nanny boo boo" that said "we are the winners of eurovision." during the bridge a guy who resembled dan's junior high principal busted out some crazy-ass dance moves. (after being a junior high principal, i think lithuanian rock star sounds like a fairy sane retirement activity.) picture the mighty mighty bosstones if they were from a depressed northern baltic republic.
"american idol" could take a cue from the "eurovision song contest" on more than a few points, but mainly in the voting system. you vote by phone or text message and all voting is done in 10 minutes. boom, instant gratification.
the voting proved interesting, not just in it's efficiency, but in the voting trends of each nation. because one cannot vote for his or her own country, the vote totals end up being a pretty good representation of immigration patterns and political alliance. for instance, the german voting results showed a huge percentage of votes for turkey - illustrating our giant turkish population. countries often voted for bordering countries sharing similar cultures. the scandinavian countries were a pretty good example of this. the former soviet territories are so numerous that russia ended up in second place even though the russian act was pure crap, in my totally unbiased opinion, of course.
if you get a chance i highly recommend visiting the link above. from there you can download the lithuanian song - or any of the other acts - and see the nasty finnish monster costumes.
posted by jordan at
6:33 PM
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