Since
1956, when the first Eurovision Song Contest took place in the Swiss lakeside town of
Lugano, the Eurovision Song Contest has infamously provided a few hundred million viewers with an annual glimpse into their neighbours' pop scenes and all the
kitsch they could ask for on the side. The contest has produced a handful of
bona fide international stars, and rather more embarrassing indiscretions,
laughable song titles and
hideous frocks.
Eurovision was devised by the
European Broadcasting Union in a wave of 1950s
optimism for
European integration: exactly how a shared experience of
schlager and knocked-off
chansons is supposed to help iron out the
Common Agricultural Policy isn't quite clear. Strangely, the second half of the contest, in which national juries relay their votes, tends to attract more viewers than the songs themselves.
The Cast List
From the seven states represented in Lugano, modern Eurovisions now feature up to 25 countries at a time, apparently the maximum which can be crammed into the show's three hours. Such is the demand for places, strangely enough, that countries at the bottom of the scoreboard could normally expect
relegation the following year, unless they happened to be the
United Kingdom,
France,
Germany or
Spain, the EBU's biggest contributors. From
2004 onwards, Eurovision will reportedly stretch over a whole weekend to allow for a preliminary semi-final.
The overcrowding is largely the result of the former
Eastern bloc joining Eurovision in the early 1990s. All have now competed at least once since
1993, with the exception of
Belarus,
Albania and the
Ukraine who are now on the
waiting list, and the
Czech Republic, who seem not to be able to care less.
Tito's emphatically non-Soviet
Yugoslavia, in fact, first showed up in
1961.
Since the EBU's remit extends to any country with a
Mediterranean coastline, participants have included
Israel, an annual fixture, and
Morocco, who made one underwhelming appearance in
1980. The statelets of
Monaco and
Luxembourg, who regularly roped in Francophone
ringers from elsewhere, have come and gone, although even tinier
Liechtenstein's attempt to enter was knocked back in
1978 for want of a national broadcaster.
Italy hasn't been seen since
1997, apparently on the grounds that their own
San Remo festival is miles classier than anything Eurovision has to offer.
Nul Points
The contest has become infamous for supposed neighbourly voting,
Greece and
Cyprus being the most persistent offenders. The interactive
televoting system phased in from
1997 onwards, which allows viewers to directly vote for their favourite songs, throws the
wild card of immigrant communities into the mix, so that
Turkey, for instance, can count on an all but guaranteed 12 points from
Germany each year.
From
1975 onwards, juries have voted for their top ten on a scale of 1 to 8, 10 to their runner-up and 12, for some reason, to their favourite song. Scores are traditionally read out in both English and French, giving Eurovision its unofficial motto in the 1990s of '
l'Irlande, douze points.'
The corollary of the coveted
douze is
nul points, with which a dreary entry may well finish if it happens not to hail from a recognised voting bloc. Norway, Austria and Finland have all attained the dubious accolade three times over.
With five victories, France dominated the
roll of honour until the 1990s, despite temporarily pulling out of Eurovision in
1982 on the grounds that it was nothing but a
monument to drivel, and this from the country whose entry the year before had been entitled
Humanahum. In 1992 the torch was passed to
Ireland, who added four wins in five years to the three already chalked up by
Johnny Logan and
Dana, now plying her trade in the
European Parliament instead.
More recently, Eurovision seems to have put down firm roots in the
Baltic Sea, if that metaphor's appropriate to anything other than an
oil rig*:
Sweden and
Denmark walked away with it in 1999 and 2000 before free-market darlings
Estonia took the trophy in 2001 on the basis that anything
Scandinavia can do, they'll try to do better.
2002's winner, and hence the host for
2003, was
Latvia, whose
Marie N combined a crowd-pleasing
Victor/Victoria act with what was a version of
Mambo Italiano in all but name. Join the dots from the last few years, and you'll see that either
Lithuania or Russian
Kaliningrad should be making contingency plans against having to hold the thing in 2004.
First, Choose Your Song
A number of countries hold elaborate
preselections to select their Eurovision entry:
Croatia uses the annual
Dora festival, which often contains more songs than Eurovision itself and is an event on the
Croatian pop calendar in its own right. The same can be said for
Melodifestivalen in Sweden and the
Eurolaul in Estonia, although not for the British effort,
Song for Europe, which showcases four songs on a
Sunday afternoon and tends to be presented by somebody roped in from
Blue Peter. Others, such as France and Israel, make an internal choice.
In
2002, Spain chose its performer by means of a show called
Operación Triunfo, a seamless blend of
Pop Idol and
Big Brother, itself an established hit in Spain. The mammoth process went on for seventeen weeks, producing seventeen chart-topping compilation CDs along the way, until the winner,
Rosa López, was rewarded with a
Eurodisco number called
Europe's Living A Celebration. Irish viewers know
OT as
You're A Star; Britons, as
Fame Academy.
Every so often, a country's representative is beyond dispute. In
2003, the appropriately named Russian television station
Pervyi Kanal knew that it had to be
Tatu or, to coin a phrase,
bust.
Before They Were Famous
Certain Eurovision winners have gone on to better things:
ABBA made their breakthrough in
1974 with
Waterloo, and
Celine Dion - who'd already been something of a
child star on the
Francophone scene - first made herself noticed elsewhere by winning for
Switzerland in
1988 swathed in a
puffball skirt. The
new age group
Secret Garden won in
1995 with the ethereal
Nocturne, which, with only eighteen words in the whole piece, hardly qualified for a song contest at all.
A win, however, is by no means a prerequisite - one
Julio Iglesias didn't suffer too badly from his fourth place in
1970, although nowadays tries not to mention his entry
Gwendolyne. In fact, it isn't even necessary to be a contestant, as the organisers of the 1994
Dublin contest proved when they commissioned a
tap dance extravaganza by the name of
Riverdance.
Eurovision also attracts its share of
comeback merchants, not least
Katrina and the Waves, whose victory with the anthemic
Love shine a light produced, unaccountably, the highest winning score to date.
More intriguing, however, are those contestants who are household names back home and unknowns anywhere else.
Russia and
Croatia, to name but two, normally manage to rustle up a genuine star, including
Vanna, the Croatian
Anastacia,
Vesna Pisarovic, their
Britney Spears, and Russia's kings of glam rock
Mumiy Troll. The Russians have had a Britney Spearski of their own in
Tatarstan-born London schoolgirl
Alsou.
Two more of the Russian contingent -
Michael Jackson-a-like
Filip Kirkorov and
Gorbachev's favourite diva
Alla Pugacheva - are now married in what became the
celebrity wedding of the year.
Edyta Gorniak, who sang on
Poland's debut in 1994, fetched up at the
2002 World Cup with an idiosyncratic rendition of the Polish national anthem.
Viva La Diva
Even with the best will in the world, the association of Eurovision and kitsch is inescapable. Some performers, of course, realise it, such as the comedian
Stefan Raab, Germany's answer to
Chris Evans, who took part in 2000 with
Wadde hadde dudde da. The song came in fifth, suggesting that many viewers either possess a higher level of
irony awareness than one might think or were prepared to vote for the hook of
2 become 1 regardless.
Other performers, unfortunately, don't. In the same year as Raab, Sweden's
Roger Pontare entered
When spirits are calling my name, an impassioned ode to his
Sami brethren which sounded as if ABBA had got their hands on the
Gladiators theme. Unfortunately, the average televoter hadn't been clued in on Pontare's heritage, and was left wondering why he was wearing what looked like a
native American costume and seemed to have lines drawn all over his forehead in
ballpoint pen.
Every year seems to produce its own halfway decent singer who scuppers their chances with an
unwise choice of dress.
Karolina Gocheva, the biggest star in
Macedonia and then some, might have drawn a little more attention to her atmospheric, folk-inspired
Od nas zavisi if she hadn't performed in a golden bodice straight out of
Xena, Warrior Princess.
Lydia, the Spanish representative in
1999, went on stage in an ill-fitting tunic dress made - by one of her country's leading
fashion designers - out of a giant, rainbow-coloured
Gay Pride flag.
The undisputed queen of Eurovision for the foreseeable future is Israel's
Dana International, a
transsexual who attracted wide publicity in the run-up to the
1998 contest and, to nobody's surprise except the
rabbis', won with
Diva by a close margin. Three
Slovenian drag queens called
Sestre, or
The Sisters, couldn't reproduce the feat with their
air hostess shtick in 2002.
* montecarlo helpfully informs me that the Baltic Sea unfortunately does not have oil rigs. It doesn't, but I can't think what else would put down roots in the sea...