The day of rockoning has arrived: Finnish monster-rock group Lordi won the 51st annual Eurovision Song Contest yesterday (20 May 2006), beating out contestants from thirty-six other European countries and striking down the prophets of false.
If you’ve been living in North America (or under a rock in Europe) for the past fifty years, you may not be familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest. If you are tempted to ask whether it is at all similar to American Idol, you should probably stop watching American Idol. In fact, do that anyway.
Eurovision Song Contest
Unlike the Olympics (and, unfortunately, like American Idol), Eurovision winners are ultimately decided by the audience. Viewers in thirty-eight countries (the entrant from Serbia/Montenegro dropped out of the contest but the country was still allowed to vote) had only a ten-minute window to submit their votes via telephone or SMS (cellular text-messaging). When the votes were tallied, Lordi had a total of 292 points, 44 more than first runner-up Dima, who hailed from Russia.
Whether you’ve heard of the contest or not, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with some of Eurovision’s past contestants:
- Julio Iglesias represented Spain in 1970. He finished 8th with his song, “Gwendolyne.”
- ABBA won the contest in 1974 with their song, “Waterloo.” That same year, Olivia Newton-John took 4th place with her song, “Long Live Love.”
- Despite being born in Canada, Céline Dion represented Switzerland in 1988 and won Eurovision singing “Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi”.
- American expatriates Katrina Leskanich and Vince de la Cruz form half of 1997 Eurovision-winning group Katrina & the Waves.
Finland’s first entry in Eurovision Song Contest was Laila Kinnunen in 1961. Her song, “Valoa Ikkunassa” placed 10th that year but until yesterday, Finland had yet to take home the grand prize.
Apart from being the first Finnish group to win Eurovision, Lordi holds the distinction of being a distinctly “non-Eurovision” winner.
Lordi will not rest long on their laurels, however. The group resumes their Bringing the Balls Back to Finland tour on 17 June. Alas, the tour doesn’t stop anywhere near Willoughby, Ohio.
Go KJ! Spread the word of Eurovision!
Although the best men(?!?) clearly won this year the political voting process can cause some upsets (and a lot of the fun). For example Greece and Cyprus usually award each other 12 points regardless of song quality and all tiny Balkan countries vote for each other. This year Russia came second as most of its bordering countries enjoy having a regular gas supply. The UK usually provides the superior music but since Tony and G.W. became best friends we have fared rather poorly. I mean this year we gave them a 40 year old white rapper flanked by half a dozen schoolgirls in Britney style uniforms!!! How could that have failed? (we came 29th…)
Keep spreading the word of the Arockalypse and we’ll see you in Finland to do it all again next year!
[Comment ID #2473 Will Be Quoted Here]
Wow. I want to be a fly on the wall in the meeting where the Russian ambassador tells one of his neighbor countries that their gas is being turned off because they didn’t vote for the right song in Eurovision.
I’m disappointed that Zlad once again was not able to win for Molvania.
[Comment ID #2548 Will Be Quoted Here]
Alas, I fear that Molvania will forever be thwarted in their attempts to enter Eurovision. I believe the phenomenon is called “the glass partition”.
Which reminds me…the lyrics to the Latvian entry this year ran “We are the winners of Eurovision…Vote for us”…it didn’t work. Even with the golden megaphone.
[Comment ID #2550 Will Be Quoted Here]
In the world of cartoons/comics, that sort of thing (where the character is aware that he or she is in a comic) is known as “breaking the 4th wall.”
In roleplaying games, if a character is being played as though he had some knowledge of the game mechanics, it is called “meta-gaming.”
I guess meta-music doesn’t fly with European audiences.
(By the way, I was looking at the press kit, and it appears that the meta-musicians were from Lithuania, not Latvia. The Latvians — a group called Cosmos — apparently performed without the aid of musical instruments.)
Oh yeah…they were funny too. They had a robot for no discernible reason. . .it all becomes a bit of a blur to be honest.
[Comment ID #2552 Will Be Quoted Here]
You don’t necessarily need a reason to include a robot, especially if it’s a dancing robot.