And Bosnia's "Call Me" had loads of Eurovision references in it's national version - though they were ditched for the contest. The video had loads of clips of B&W Eurovision voting and stopped mid way with a "Hello - Copenhagen" bit on the phone.
"Guten Tag. Hola. Hello. How much lower can we go?"
"Irlande Nul Points".
It reminds me of "My Lovely Horse" sung by Father Ted. It is funny though and it's a great tribute to the Emerald Isle and it mentions the great Sir Terry Wogan.
During the 1990s Ireland and the UK had some great entries, Ireland won it 4 times and minus 1999 the UK never finished below the Top 10. The reason the Irish and UK eurovision entries are so low quality now is because artists don't need Eurovision to be successful. British and Irish artists can have success on the continent without going through Eurovsion. Other countries take Eurovision more seriously in order to promote their artists but any artist on the continent is rarely popular outside a certain area e.g Swedish singer Carola has represented Sweden 3 times isn't heard of outside Scandanavia.
During the 1990s Ireland and the UK had some great entries, Ireland won it 4 times and minus 1999 the UK never finished below the Top 10. The reason the Irish and UK eurovision entries are so low quality now is because artists don't need Eurovision to be successful.
That is one reading of the situation. However the UK haven't entered chart performers for many, many years. Sonia and Michael Ball are probably the closest we've come to entering chart acts in relatively recent years - though Katrina and the Waves also were a known act they hadn't had much success.
I think the MAJOR issue with our lack of success post-1999 is that 1999 was the first year, for many years, that the language rule was dropped - allowing countries to enter in any language they liked (usually English) rather than being forced to entire in a national language. This aided understanding and appreciation of the lyrics and not just the music and performance.
That said - Ukraine's Wild Dances wasn't entirely in English, and neither was Serbia's winning entry of last year. Winning songs don't HAVE to be in English, but it does help that other countries can enter in English (or French, Italian or entirely made up languages) if they want to.
Ireland did enter some very strong, and often quite distinct acts, in the 90s - though sometimes their success was a surprise (I still don't know how Rock'N'Roll Kids did so well...)
Interestingly Malta - who were able to enter in English along with the UK and Ireland - have done quite well on a number of occasions since. The UK and Ireland haven't done anywhere near so well.
Quote:
British and Irish artists can have success on the continent without going through Eurovsion. Other countries take Eurovision more seriously in order to promote their artists but any artist on the continent is rarely popular outside a certain area e.g Swedish singer Carola has represented Sweden 3 times isn't heard of outside Scandanavia.
Hmm - that isn't quite the case any more. A large number of Scandinavian acts in particular now have considerable success in the Baltics and former Soviet areas as well as other former Eastern European countries. BWO are big in Russia and Ukraine, Mans Zelmerlow and other Swedish performers are popular in places like Poland I believe. Mihai from Romania had major success across Europe with Tornero a few years ago - in fact ISTR that his single made more money than any other ESC entry that year - even though it didn't win it was popular in clubs across the Med.
What IS true is that some countries - like Sweden - take Eurovision and the song selection process incredibly seriously, and it is a major event in their music industry, with major record label support (unlike the UK of late). After all - it isn't unusual for most of the top 20 in Sweden to be filled with Melodifestivalen entries.
I think the MAJOR issue with our lack of success post-1999 is that 1999 was the first year, for many years, that the language rule was dropped - allowing countries to enter in any language they liked (usually English) rather than being forced to entire in a national language. This aided understanding and appreciation of the lyrics and not just the music and performance.
That said - Ukraine's Wild Dances wasn't entirely in English,
I would have thought that the phone voting has a lot to do with it, before that it was a song contest judged by juries on the basis of the songs. Now the public vote there's any number of factors - how famous the person is in neighbouring countries, the performance, how attractive the singer is etc.
I'm sure that, for example, Wild Dances or Lordi would have won had it been judged on the songs - I doubt many men voted for Ruslana Lyzhichko because of the tune
I think the MAJOR issue with our lack of success post-1999 is that 1999 was the first year, for many years, that the language rule was dropped - allowing countries to enter in any language they liked (usually English) rather than being forced to entire in a national language. This aided understanding and appreciation of the lyrics and not just the music and performance.
That said - Ukraine's Wild Dances wasn't entirely in English,
I would have thought that the phone voting has a lot to do with it, before that it was a song contest judged by juries considering the songs. Now the public vote there's any number of factors - how fanous the person is in neighbouring countries, the performance, how attractive the singer is etc.
I'm sure that, for example, Wild Dances or Lordi would have won had it been judged on the songs - I doubt many men voted for Ruslana Lyzhichko because of the tune
Yep - though phone voting has actually ironed OUT some of the oddities of the jury system IMHO.
In recent years the winning song has won because almost everyone voted for it - not just because of neighbour voting, migrant communities etc.
You are right though, that performers are often famous in neighbouring regions - particularly in the former Yugoslavia (where competitors have moved around a bit, performing for one country, writing for another)
There is a strange little community of Eurovision songwriters as well - with some, Thomas G:Son for example, entering songs in lots of different countries selection shows...
What is interesting is that even WITH phone voting the traditional alliances still continue (Cyprus and Greece anyone?)
