Monday, May 07, 2012
This is the first post in a series about the Eurovision Song Contest. If you don't know what that is I strongly suggest you follow my posts. You'll learn a lot.
May is Eurovision month. The time of year where I get all excited about a song and a dance and seeing the latest in European white clothing.
This year marks my 10th Eurovision Song Contest viewing and I'm excited to revisit previous contests. Not to mention extremely pleased with myself that within that time I GOT to one (that story will surface in the days to come).
I must give credit to Penny, the one to introduce me to the contest proper through knowledge passed down to her. Watching the 2003 contest changed everything I thought I knew about music.
I rejoiced at having two default countries to support (Greece and to a lesser extent Cyprus), loved the constant costume changes from the female host and was informed rather quickly that Eurovision voting is predominantly political. 12 points to Greece? Wonder who they were from...
In the ten years much has changed. 2003 was actually the last contest to be held over one night as more and more countries chose to compete, calling for one, and then two semi-finals to be introduced. The Big Four (UK, Germany, France and Spain) are now the Big Five once more with the return of Italy to Eurovision in 2011. And voting politically has become less of an issue after a panel's judgements form half of the overall results.
The 2003 winner happened to be Turkey, something I didn't particularly appreciate at the time. To be fair, the song is catchy, but Sertab Erener just bugged me. I was intrigued by the controversy at the time though - originally, Everyway That I Can was to be sung in Turkish but a last-minute change to English caused a lot of debate around the place. Whether she would've won in Turkish is another story.
At least she beat t.A.T.u., who were big hopes for Russia even after their brief world domination had started to wane. They wanted to kiss on stage leading up to the show, which to officials threatened the integrity of the contest. But perhaps it would've made the song more interesting, because to be frank it was shit. They still placed third.
*If there's something you want me to write about within my Eurovision series, I would love any suggestions. Otherwise please share my stories or provide some feedback if you can :)
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