is the Great Eurovision Song Contest.
You may wonder what is the Eurovison Song Contest. Well, it´s kind of like Idol, before there was Idol. And then it´s like the olympics too, because it´s a competition between nations, although only European Nations + Israel. And unlike Idol it´s a song contest, where the song has to be written exclusively for the competition. The artist/s however can be well experienced.
It started in 1956 with 7 participating countries. This year there are 39 participating countries, but only 25 countries get to participate in tonight´s final (the rest had to leave in the two semi finals).
Please join me for a little Eurovision history. Worst thing that might happen is that exposure to European Popular Music might cause severe American patriotism even among the most liberal and open-minded here...
It´s not always the winners that make the most success afterwards. In 1958 Italy got third, but their song become the first international hit of the ESC
Volare
The French speaking countries countries tended to send ballads that often sounded terribly boring in Nordic ears, but their Yé-yé girls could have some catchy songs and be very charming - like France Gall winning for Luxembourg in 1965
Poupee de cire, poupee de son
And the winning ballad from Luxembourg in 1972, Apres toi (after you) is beautiful. Little Luxembourg has won the contest five times often with singers of foreign origin, but it is no longer competing in the esc after a serie of bad results. Vicki Leandros who is singing here is of Greek origin
Apres toi
7
Abba that won with Waterloo in 1974 should be pretty familiar to DailyKos so I´m skipping that entry here. They did however create a vogue for 2 men / 2 women groups (copycat´ing is a common phenomenea in the ESC) and in 1976 Great Britain won with this kind of innocent, happy song, even with a little surprising end.
Save all your kisses for me:
Israel started right off with a win in the ESC with a win in 1978, and when the contest was arranged in Jerusalem in 1979 they managed another win with
Hallelujah:
Germany is somewhat infamous for their ompa-ompa popular music and has in general has little success in the Esc. But in 1982 they won a great victory with a calm ballade about peace - at a time where existed strong peace movements both in Germany and other European countries that protested more nuclear weapons on European soil.
Ein bisschen Frieden
Switzerland has 4 four official languages. In 1982 their entry was in Italian, and I think this is one of my favourite entry in the Eurovision ever:
Io senza te ( Me without out):
ESC was modernized in the nineties in an attempt to make it more in sync with contemporary music styles. Great Britain with their Australian singer Gina ended number eight in 1996 , but the song is probably one of the best remembered from this timeperiod. Especially many men who were young at that time has this as their favourite ESC entry. Here is the video that was made to the song
Ooh-aah - just a little bit
This year´s final is arranged in Oslo, because Norway won last year´s competition with this song:
Fairytale by Alexander Rybak
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Tonight´s show can be watched live here