Eurosong... Like a beauty pageant but for music

This past Saturday several local friends and I got together for a BBQ "EuroVision" party, complete with voting for a winner amongst ourselves. What? Not heard of EuroVision? Have you heard of ABBA and Celine Dion? Well, winning this contest is what sent their careers skyrocketing.

For the uninitiated, EuroVision is like a beauty pageant for a song and has been a European tradition since 1956. As mentioned, this contest has boosted the careers for winners ABBA ("Waterloo" 1974) and Celine Dion ("Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" 1988). There are now 43 participating countries with only 25 making it to the final. All 43 participants get to vote, though none can vote for their own country. Each country gives sets of points to their 10 favorites, from 12, 10, 8 and on down. The song with the most points after all the voting is the winner.

At our party we also gave out points from 1-5 to our favorites on a tally sheet so wonderfully prepared by our Swedish friend (who was incidentally ecstatic that she could vote for her country this year as she was in Macedonia). The result of our vote was SO DIFFERENT from the results on the show and likely represents that 80% of the people at the party were from the US and have much different tastes than Europeans. Just for fun, here's our top 10 as compared to the actual show.

1. Denmark "All Night Long" vs. Russia "Believe"
2. Iceland "This is My Life" vs. Ukraine "Shady Lady"
3. Sweden "Hero" vs. Greece "Secret Combination"
4. Latvia "Wolves of the Sea" vs. Armenia "Qele, Qele"
5. Croatia "Romanca" vs. Norway "Hold on be Strong"
6. Russia "Believe" vs. Serbia "Oro"
7. Norway "Hold on be Strong" vs. Turkey "Deli"
8. Turkey "Deli" vs. Azerbaijan "Day After Day"
9. Portugal "Senhora Do Mar" vs. Israel "The Fire in Your Eyes"
10. Ukraine "Shady Lady" vs. Bosnia-Hercegovina "Pokusaj"

Here's the clip of our favorite (which, incidentally, we thought would be great for sports games in the US).

Here's a clip of the song that actually won (notice the gold-medalist skater and famous violinist).

Here's the link to the contest website where you can listen and vote for yourself. Simply click on the country and then play the video:
http://www.eurovision.tv/page/participants-2008

And, just for fun, here's a clip of the song that we'd love to see in a Pirates of the Carribean movie (or at least on the ride at Disneyland):

As the show tallied votes, it was fascinating how each country tended to give the most points to their allies or neighbors (or the most outlandish song/performance) rather than the best song. It got downright predictable after a while. And this is the point that has disappointed me in the past few years. It's so political, and because of this some truly great songs and singers get overlooked. Oh, what would Simon say? (Funny side note, we had a guy at our party who could imitate Simon quite well and kept us entertained by giving his "critique" after each song.)

Anyways, I thought it would be fun to share with my friends back in the US this little piece of European culture. :) Here's a couple YouTube links that show clips of the winners since 1956... years of note 1974 ABBA and 1988 Celine Dion.

Link to the first video (video embedding was disabled at YouTube).

So here's ABBA's performace of "Waterloo"...

OK. Part two embedding was also disabled on YouTube (here's the link), so here's Celine's reprise performance after winning by 1 point in the very dramatic voting of 1988: