Sunday, May 17, 2009

Why There Is a Eurovision Song Contest

…and why, with a little more justification than with the League of Nations and the International Criminal Court, the United States is sitting this one out: The winner by 1.6 kilometres: Fairytale (one word), by Alexander Rybak, Norway.

Need I say more?

ADD: I am pleasantly surprised to learn that I can understand Norwegian. Every single word. There must be something in the adulterated water tonight.

4 comments:

Jan Moren said...

Ahh, Eurovision, the contest everyone loves to hate. When students we'd actually sit in a large group by the TV, beer and snacks at hand just so we could really dislike it properly and in detail. We'd even listen to the British commentator rather than the Swedish one since nobody does hilarious cynical putdowns like the Brits.

Of course, what nobody said aloud was that we all actually really liked the whole thing, shlock and all. And some of the songs (usually not the winners) have become classics, songs that "everyone" knows even if they're too young to even seen that song live.

Jun Okumura said...

When students we'd actually sit in a large group by the TV, beer and snacks at hand just so we could really dislike it properly and in detail.

As Yoda might say, forever young I must be.

Nomad said...

Apparently Eurovision isn't as uptight as American Idol about letting their show appear on Youtube, that's a plus right?

Jun Okumura said...

That is definitely a plus, Nomad. Moreover, the Eurovision Song Contest manages somehow to transcend its kitschiness (I see Janne’s point) while American Idol cannot prevent the tightly scripted commercialism of the US media industry from glowing radioactively through the superimposed layer of the American Dream.