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Well, well, well... it's that time again!
Time when the world puts aside its sense of restraint, blows millions on bright colours and funky haircuts, hangs huge-ass swimming pools full of scantily clad dancers over an audience of thousands, in front of an international audience of half a billion...
It's Eurovision 2009 - brought to you once again by your Euro-savvy Mediterranean host, the GrubLord!
Chances are most of you didn't even realise it was happening, what with being chumps and all, so allow me to give you the run-down:
Eurovision this year was excellent. So excellent, in fact, that it absolutely sucked!
Where were the joke entries, the weirdoes, the flippy skirts that carry the nation to victory over a half-remembered soundtrack no-one cares about? Nón, these things did not eventuate, and for the first time that I can remember, everyone TOOK IT SERIOUSLY.
I was forced to sit there in horror for song after song watching musical numbers that sounded as though they'd been put together in a Frankensteinian fashion from the mangled corpses of pop hits, genre classics and rock power ballads... in a way that sounded indefinably familiar, but nevertheless very enjoyable.
It's a goddamn travesty, and resulted in some embarrassingly good music creeping in where it has no business at all: in the Eurovision song contest you and I know and love.
I suppose it bears mention here that Norway won the contest with flying colours. Almost every country put Norway in the top ranks, and their points were far and away higher than any other countries'... but the pin-dick they had singing for 'em hardly rates a link on NWTJ in my own opinion, so you can go find it for yourself if you give a stuff - because here is where the good songs are, in order of t3h awesomes:
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Romania
Can ya fuckin' believe it - a good song out of Romania! Don't ask me why it's at the top when half the list consists of songs you probably like better, 'cause I ain't listening. Much like yours truly, these Romanian girls are talented, fabulous, totally hawt, and they like to party. Get to clickin'!
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Estonia
I have a lot of respect for those groups who didn't sell out, and actually sang their entry in their native language. Sure, English-language songs are statistically more likely to win, but this is Eurovision, not America's Got Talent - show some fuckin' pride. Anyways, Estonia's entry was one such, and moreover it was an excellent song. I could swear they stole the melody from something off The Fifth Element Soundtrack, but I happen to love that soundtrack, so I'm not going to hold that against them. Also, the woman singing this is one beautiful lady - and that always helps.
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France
Did I mention that good music snuck its way in where it has no business being? Well, this here pretty much puts the big red bow on that assertion and kicks it on out the door: France's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest was Patricia Kaas. Ridiculous! Patricia Kaas in Eurovision? That's like Ian Thorpe showing up to your school's swimming carnival. What business anyone had voting for Norway with competitors like this in the mix, I'll never know.
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United Kingdom
Oh, wait, I'm sorry... did I say France's entry was overkill? The United Kingdom got international superstar Celine Dion to write a song, put one of the best composers in the world, Andrew Lloyd Webber, on the piano, and found themselves the next Beyoncé to do the singing. You could probably buy six stealth bombers for the cost of every two-minute performance of this song. People still voted for Norway... has Europe just gone deaf?
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Albania
What do you get when you mix two painted midgets, one ... green dude... and a 15-year old girl in a tutu? Ashnil's wet dream for this Eurovision, and a surprisingly powerful song! Ms. Armenia has an incredible voice for one so young, and really ought to have placed a lot higher.
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Denmark
And finally, I think Konrad would hold it against me if I didn't mention the solid entry from Denmark this year: maybe this guy picked a bad year to be entering this song, what with the sheer amount of musical skill in evidence for this year's Eurovision, but I think this song (apparently written by Ronan Keating) stands quite strongly on its own despite the saturated field. Good goin' Denmark.
So that's my list, although it didn't end up in the order I originally intended. 
Go ahead and look around the SBS site if you're interested in seeing some more - certainly you might enjoy some of the Trojan tomfoolery on offer. Generally speaking, however, I think this was a pretty weak Eurovision year all around: nothing stands out, in my mind, as particularly outstanding - and while this may be because the songs on offer were all uniformly good, it doesn't change the fact that two to three days from now I probably won't remember a single one. |
Forget Norway
Syfro: My guess was that Iceland would win, but alas, they placed second. Of course, my decision was based upon little more than half-heard songs from downstairs, the colour blue and a quick scan of the entrant list.
Lunzo: Dita von Teese sounds sort of German 
. The silver pants in Germany's entry should have got them more votes than they did.
GrubLord: Dammit, I keep making that Armenia error! 
Konrad: agreed! 
