A Few Thoughts on the Eurovision 2003 Contest

I know, I'm American, and so I'm not supposed to care about the Eurovision Song Contest (aka the Grand Prix). Obviously, this year, that was the United Kingdom's attitude about the whole affair as well, considering their entry. However, it still is neat to see groups representing various countries around Europe come together for the sake of music. After all, bringing people together is one of the purposes of music.

Last year, I watched part of the German finals as well as the Grand Prix itself. It was interesting, because there's so much bias even at the national level. Seeing people I knew doing televoting, I got the sense that they were voting for Corinna May because she had been disqualified before, and maybe everybody was trying to make it up to her. Had I voted myself, I would not have voted for her. The song was terribly-simplistic, melodramatic, and had some sort of key change in there where if one didn't hit it perfectly, it sounded horribly out of tune. She didn't hit it at the Eurovision Song Contest, and it wasn't much of a surprise that Germany ended up near the end of the pack for 2002. This year, I believe the calibre of the competition was better than in 2002. This year, after watching, there were actually a couple songs that I really wanted to hear again, which prompted me to buy the album of the contest. The following are some of my thoughts.

1. Iceland, Birgitta, "Open Your Heart" - This was a nice song, great for the opener of the album, not too annoying, no glaring English errors, but nothing terribly spectacular that would make one think that it should win. However, Birgitta does remind me of Melissa Joan Hart in appearance.
   
2. Austria, Alf Poier, "Weil Der Mensch Zählt" - What was Austria thinking? Though I heard that this has become a cult hit in Austria (though this may just be publicity), the only way I can listen to it is regard it as comedy and laugh.
   
3. Ireland, Mickey Harte, "We've Got the World Tonight" - Nice song, the English makes sense, but again, nothing outstanding about it.
   
4. Turkey, Sertab Erener, "Everyway That I Can" - I guess this was Turkey's first English entry, and it paid off big; they ended up winning the contest. The song is decent, pop with a little Turkish flavour to it, (though it reminds me just a bit of No Doubt), English that made sense, and belly dancers. Where did they get all those blonde girl dancers in Turkey?
   
5. Malta, Lynn, "To Dream Again" - Nice song, English that makes sense, very forgettable.
   
6. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mija Martina Barbaric, "Could It Be" - It's kind of melodramatic, the introduction isn't to my taste, but rest of the song is catchy, the singer's got a good voice, and there's a good energy to the song.
   
7. Portugal, Rita Guerra, "Deixa-Me Sonhar..." - Nice slow song, sounds like a lot of stuff playing on the radio recently, but in Portuguese.
8. Croatia, Claudia Beni, "Vise Nisam Tvoje" - Hmm.. The beginning sounds like a Britney Spears' song, which turns into something maybe reminiscent of N*Sync and the refrain reminds me of the song "Nioj eht Yvan" from the episode of the Simpsons where Bart joins a boy band.
   
9. Cyprus, Stelios Constantas, "Feeling Alive" - Who knew that Enrique Iglesias was from Cyprus?
   
10. Germany, Lou, "Let's Get Happy" - Okay, let's start out with the fact that "Let's Get Happy" seems to go against everything in the German culture to begin with. Secondly, this song could almost have been pulled out of an episode of a 70's childrens' show or something like "Kids Incorporated". Thirdly, after having Germans tell me that my English is inferior to theirs because I'm American, and they've learned British English, I have to snicker at the fact that one of the main lines in the chorus is "Let's get happy and let's be gay..." However, what may have been most scary was seeing this number performed and all the singers/dancers having different flourescent colours of hair.
    
11. Russia, t.A.T.u., "Ne Ver', Ne Bojsia" - Of all the songs I saw performed on television, I would have to give t.A.T.u. credit for having the most professional performance. They sang in Russian, which was cool, and having heard the song a few times now, I really like one of the bass lines running through the song. Also, they were a million times better than Russia's entry last year, which was of the "boy-band" type, singing in (poor) English, and dancing around the stage in baggy white pants. Of course, the whole gimmick of t.A.T.u. seems to be scandal, including this show, where they taped one of their rehearsals in case Julia and Lena decided to 'misbehave' on stage so that they'd have something 'decent' to broadcast. Many people thought they would win, as it's not too terribly common that a group already enjoying true international success will deign to be part of the competition anymore. They came in third, but I read in the Guardian (London) that Russia is trying to make some sort of appeal, saying that Ireland's votes weren't counted fairly.
    
12. Spain, Beth, "Dime" - Nice song, but very forgettable.
    
13. Israel, Lior Narkis, "Words for Love" - Israel's entry last year was one of the brighter spots of the competition. This year it was not. I've got to give the singer credit for staying away from English the most part, but is the Hebrew language really so harsh that it sounds like you're coughing up furballs whilst singing? It seemed like a kitsch number all the way through.
    
14. Netherlands, Esther Hart, "One More Night" - This was a pretty good song, perfect English (except "You'll never rise above the one you love." What exactly is that supposed to mean?), good tune, beat, the occasional fashionable note "reach", and sounds so much like a ton of other Europop playing on the radio now.
    
15. United Kingdom, Jemini, "Cry Baby" - The UK came in dead last. They didn't earn a single point. Unfortunately, they can't even blame that on Tony Blair. I was watching this on television, and although they are singing in English, I couldn't make out the words. Having listened to the song a few times since, I've realized that they don't make any sense anyway. I would have expected this level of English proficiency from, oh, say, Ukraine. The UK was probably fifth from last or so for reporting their scores in, and by that time, the commentator was already starting to look upset at how poor the UK's showing was. As many wonderful world-famous bands that have come out of Britain as there are, why in the world couldn't they have put on a halfway decent act? Reading the Guardian, somebody commented that they thought that Britain probably couldn't be bothered with Europe, waiting for their entry into the Naftavision contest.
    
16. Ukraine, Olexandr Ponomaryov, "Hasta La Vista" - No, the song is not in Spanish, but considering the lyrics, I probably would have enjoyed it more if it had been. The introduction reminds me of "The Friendship Theme" from the movie "Beaches", but that was the best 10 notes of the song. It went from melodramatic, to super-upbeat, with the oh-so-deep refrain, "Hasta la vista, baby/Baby bye-bye". I think Russia saved them from the same plight as Great Britain.
    
17. Greece, Mando, "Never Let You Go" - Whoever this singer is, it sounds like she's trying to be Celine Dion and/or Mariah Carey. Weren't there any Greek songs that could have been entered into the contest?
    
18. Norway, Jostein Hasselgård, "I'm Not Afraid to Move On" - This is one of my favourites. I'm not even sure that all the lyrics make sense, or that the phrase "to Move On" is used in quite the assumed context, but despite this, it all seems to fit perfectly into the music. This is one of the few ballads that made it into the contest, and I believe he came in fourth, which is amazing for a slow song. I just have to say that Norwegian is such a beautiful language. ;>
    
19. France, Louisa, "Monts Et Merveilles" - France is the one country I would like to see come out with a song in English (or any language other than French). However, we know that that's not going to happen, as the French seem to be holding on to the delusion that the rest of Europe will become convinced that French is vastly superior to English. This was a nice ballad, but this was one of the few where I thought last year's entry was superior to this one's. However, I have heard that France entering women with French ballads is pretty typical of them.
    
20. Poland, Ich Troje, "Keine Grenzen/Zadnych Granic" - This was the only "message song" of the night. And it worked. Basically, it's a song about how things would be better without all the borders and wars and craziness. They sang in three languages, none of which were English. The significance of that with this song is that they sung in German, Polish, and Russian, because for so long (well, even still) there has been so much tension between these countries. With Poland being one of the countries set to be part of the EU, the song is also timely. (Hmm.. Come to think of it, though, both Russia and Germany have been historic proponents of the idea of having no borders with Poland.) There wasn't as much Russian in the song as German, but it wasn't just that they were singing a couple words in German and Russian, and letting the rest be Polish. I was amazed, that with as much as Germany seems to like Poland, Germany gave Poland its highest point award. Then again, it was probably nice for Germans to actually hear some German during the night. After all, Germany had to sing in English, and Austria... well, that could hardly be called German either. The only thing about this was that the male lead singer's voice is fairly harsh, which helped the German sound harsher (though the excess harshness is something often found in German pop music anyway), and, yes, it was obvious he was singing with a Polish accent, and for as many times as I've heard my (Russian) friends make fun of Polish accents in German, it's kind of amusing to actually hear it.
    
21. Latvia, F.L.Y., "Hello From Mars" - ?!?! What was this? Didn't they think that any English-speaking people would be listening and figure out that this doesn't make any sense? And to think that Latvia actually won last year, which was why the contest was in Riga this year. (Of course, it helped that all the Scandinavian and Baltic countries were part of the contest as well.) As we were watching the scores, my friend Lena said it was so sad that Latvia wasn't getting any votes, being the host of the contest and everything. Luckily, Estonia gave them five points, which saved them from being in the same boat as the United Kingdom.
    
22. Belgium, Urban Trad, "Sanomi" - This was a cool number. The group does some cool stuff mixing old and new styles (hence the name). Besides this, instead of trying to figure out whether to sing in Flemish or French (or English), they decided to sing in an "invented" language. I found the refrain to be a little repetitive, and the hand movements for the lead singers kind of distracting, but it's nice to know that somebody can come in second singing in a language that nobody understands. (See, there's hope for Icelandic singers yet!)
    
23. Estonia, Ruffus (formerly Claire's Birthday), "Eighties Coming Back" - This is probably my favourite of the entire night (or album). It was slated to do well in the standings coming in, but didn't do so well when it came to the voting. This is a shame, because it's a really good song. When I saw it on television, I disliked the song at first. After all, I'm not an 80's music aficiando. But with me, it's interesting because a lot of things which I dislike at first listen are the things that I come to like the best. Even during watching them on televison, I started warming up to the song, and this kid, who couldn't have been any older than me, singing about the 80's. I hate to think of the 1980's as retro (mainly because I don't want to be that old), but the song kind of brought me to a place near to the world as it was back then. This seems even stranger if you consider the fact that this was Estonia's entry, and that Estonia spent the 1980's under Soviet rule, rather than in a world of yuppies and Billy Joel. *L* I've just emailed a record store in Estonia to see if there is any way that I can get ahold of this band's album.
    
24. Romania, Nicola, "Don't Break My Heart" - This is a very techno song, but it works because the music is interesting enough, and the singer's voice is strong enough to be part of that. The entry could have been just a little bit stronger with some minor tweaking. For example, the main line is "But don't break my heart/'cause I don't want to cry". I know it's nit-picking, but had they left out the word "'cause", or changed the line to "don't make me cry", the song would have sounded even more confident with the English. I've been playing in my mind with the song, and I think it would have been interesting to have made it the kind where she's telling the guy not to break her heart, because otherwise he'll be sorry, because it would have fit with the music so well.
    
25. Sweden, Fame, "Give Me Your Love" - Okay, I know ABBA won this contest back in the seventies (with "Waterloo", how the French must have loved that!), but it's time that Sweden stopped entering them in the contest. And they were upset that Norway was making fun of them beforehand.
    
26. Slovenia, Karmen Stavec, "Nanana" - This is kind of a bubble-gum nonsense song, but it's cute anyway. Karmen Stavec was born in Berlin and has only lived in Slovenia a couple of years (she is Slovenian, however.) Germany would have been better off entering this song into the contest.