EUROVISIONS

Once more it is the day of the annual “Eurovision Song Contest”, a rather strange event with a rather strange pedigree that, for many, many years, I remained rather hostile towards and avoided like the plague once I had a home of my own, despite it having been one of those annual staples in our house when I was but a spudlet in those long ago “three channel” days of my youth. Those were the days (my friend) when there was one and only one televisualiser in the family home and the content we watched on it was dictated by older, wiser heads than mine and someone actually had to cross the room to change the channel over.

For those who don’t know anything about it, the Eurovision Song Contest is actually pretty much what it says it is. Each of the ‘European’ nations who choose to enter the contest submit an original new song performed by an individual or group that they feel best represents their country’s musical taste (Like “Scooch” God help us!), usually from amongst a selection made from the winners of a national song contest held a few weeks earlier. Twenty five songs are then performed live to a viewing public across Europe, votes are counted from each of the individual countries, added up, and those votes are converted into a complicated points system which eventually (usually) produces a clear winner. For many, it is the entertainment provided by the scoring system, that is the highlight of their evening, not least because of the infinite variety of bizarre seeming spokespersons from the various nations who have to read them out in vision.

There’s a whole other debate as to whether the final song, or indeed any of them, is actually any good, but to think that is to rather miss the point. Equally, whether what is actually considered to be ‘music’ by the wider European public gets much representation in the songs that get chosen isn’t much of a priority either. The contest itself really just serves a dual purpose of putting some of the more obscure - and sometimes relatively impoverished - nations onto an international stage and helping them to draw attention to themselves whilst simultaneously bringing some kind of a sense of a spirit of unity and cooperation to Europe as a whole.

With songs.

It’s just such a simple and yet outrageously hopeful and positive idea when you think about it – trying to bring nations together through music. When you consider the post-war Europe that the contest was born out of in admittedly simpler and less media-savvy times, it does have the air of bonkers genius about it.

The modern day song contest is also considered to be irredeemably naff or kitch by many - perhaps it always was - but it also has its fans, and there is also the fact that so many people now really involve themselves in it and perhaps enjoy it as a slightly guilty pleasure for just one slightly ridiculous night of the year. Actually “Eurovision Parties” are now quite the thing amongst those who don’t try to take things too seriously – does anyone really take it that seriously? - and many look forward to that evening with as much fondness as other do towards the last night of the Proms.

I wasn’t ever a huge fan of the contest myself, but my beloved is and so, when we came to be living under the same roof, as is generally the nature of such things, it was rather inevitable that certain compromises would have to be made, and accepting the Eurovision Song Contest into my life once a year was one of them. The beloved of course explained the whole bananas philosophy of it all to me and also explained to me all about her unique voting system based upon a number of variables that were probably seldom considered by the official voting panellists.

She would mark highly for abstract concepts like the “Eurosonginess” of a song. Did it sound like a ‘proper’ old-fashioned and massively kitch Eurovision number? Basically, did it pass the “Waterloo” test of greatness?

Other criteria would mean that points could be added or deducted if the hairstyling didn’t reach a ridiculous enough level of wackiness, bigness or glitteriness, and whether the clothing worn by the performers manages the required degree of sparkling, sequinned preposterousness or otherwise the always-hoped-for level of bizarreness, whether that may be structural, transformational or inspirational. Yet more points can be gained for an inventive or completely pointless and stupid dance sequence. Many, many points have been frittered away in recent years by earnest young things too busy pouring out their hearts to a microphone or clutching their instrument of choice as if they could actually play it rather than cartwheeling about in the most inappropriate of ways. Bonus points are added for anything that could cause an exclamation along the lines of “Only in Eurovision!” or similar, which can only really be achieved if you spot something that really does have to be seen to be believed.

This system rarely manages to predict the eventual winner, although it has been known, but does add a certain level of enjoyment to the whole proceedings which might otherwise seem excessively drawn out, or painful, and might very well cause the gravest of  concerns for any viewer who happens to be a music lover, but who is taking the whole thing far too seriously.

Inevitably, with my creative ‘talents’ a scoresheet was created for the first year we sat down together to endure, sorry, enjoy the contest, and creating this has now become something of a tradition around this time of year, one which has been made slightly more difficult to be achieved too far in advance nowadays since the dawn of the age of the semi-finals which are held during the week leading up towards the contest itself and therefore leave the final running order unknown until there are only two days left to do it in.

Of course the ‘ding-a-dong’ truly bonkers years of Eurovision seem to be behind us now as everything seems to have got terribly professional and slick, and in recent years a number of performances that could actually be considered to be really rather good have been creeping into the proceedings. Luckily, you can always rely on someone to make a mockery of the whole thing, or totally surprise you with an off-the-wall piece of performance that is so far ‘out there’ that it starts to resemble a kind of work of (performance) art.

The voting system still seems to cause much consternation to many, especially amongst the ‘old guard’ who seem to think that the United Kingdom should be guaranteed a win at least once in a blue moon. However it is only fair to point out that the UK songs have not been all that great over the last decade or so as if the nation’s songwriters were either kind of embarrassed about being associated with the whole event or attempting to follow what they thought of as a ‘trend’ set by the previous year’s winner. We suffer from a focus group mentality in this country which is very hard to get away from, and which seeps into so many aspects of our popular culture and yet somehow leaves us with little but the lowest common denominator thanks to those people who ‘reckon’ they know what’s best for us and what ‘people’ like to enjoy. Why else do you think our television has got so bad?

Interestingly there is a theory that the so-called ‘bloc voting’ that people seem to think goes on every year is not actually motivated by political expediency at all, but more by cultural similarity. Many of the countries who seem to vote for each other are close enough to have been exposed to similar musical styles over the years and if there are enough countries of a similar background and who like a particular musical style then the votes are bound to pile up.

The so-called ‘big five’ countries (France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK) who provide most of the funding for the contest do not have to suffer the indignity of having to qualify for the final through the relatively recent introduction of the semi finals. These are a blessing really as otherwise, the contest would consist of 43 songs and not the already seemingly interminable 25 that it actually does, and it would probably go on all night. Sadly this also has the unfortunate side-effect of tending to filter out some of the cheesier elements of the entertainment, but there are always two sides to any coin.

Meanwhile, on the night itself, where in the running order you play is sometimes just as crucial as you’re your song sounds like. Personally I think that you’re never going to do well if you go on first as you are merely setting a benchmark that other songs will be judged as being better or worse than, but equally (and it might be the way my mind works) it’s difficult enough to get that many fresh songs into your mind and process then anyway, which is why I think that we miss a trick by not having to qualify anyway. I happened to catch the end of the first semi-final this year and the montage of songs was played through twice during the voting period and after a couple of listens the memorable ones were starting to feel like old favourites… More opportunities to hear any song will make it seem familiar, and once a tune gets into your head, it can be ridiculously difficult to remove it again. Generally, in our house we usually hear them “cold” for the very first time on the night, of course, which sometimes means that the brain feels like its been bludgeoned with a naffstick but also sometimes means that you can miss a little gem as it gets swamped by the razzle and dazzle going on all around it. Maybe having heard those snippets during that semi-final will change things this year but I doubt it. I quite liked the bit of the song I heard song performed by Armenia but they didn’t qualify so that’s already heading for the dustbin and lift-music vault of history.

So, if you’ve got nothing better to do this evening and are in the vicinity of a European TV station, sit yourself down with a bottle of wine and an open mind and, if you approach it in the right spirit, you never know, you might just enjoy yourself as you watch the entry by the much loathed UK plumb the giddy depths of the inevitable last place again. Unless everyone now loves us again because of that recent wedding, of course…

Personally I find all that languishing at the bottom of the leader board somewhat comforting if I’m being honest. I feel that these heroic failures are something we achieve together as a nation, something that we’re really good at, and we wouldn’t be truly British without something to whinge and complain about, would we?