eurovision note

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i: armenia for the win
ii: norton NOT AT ALL AS BAD AS WOGAN hurrah (in fact fine given i hate him; and given he was doing a total "wogan script")
iii: ukraine = is this the hardcore continuum i heard so much about? the whacky moscow camerawork was (i assume) putin-ordered sabotage
iv: utterly baffled by the unanimous runawayness of norway
v: brit song also did better than should have but it was a slow year really
vi: new voting system good for professional craft earnestness; will deliver pbs-ification of eurovision
vii: eurovision-as-carmodian-space news... i thought very little, except maybe continued rise of small, under-regarded nations (armenia, moldova) (were they even in any previous final? moldova is the smallest and poorest country in europe, i believe, and just returned an actual old-skool communism-for-communists party to govt by free and fair election)

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure whether UK success was based on panels-of-songwriters-give-love-to-ALW factor or what has clearly been a prolonged promotional effort targeting media in other countries (Norton kept saying 'she was on TV in Belarus only last week etc.). The actual UK song I thought was very dreary - like a blanded-out version of the X-factor winner songs. I still think the almost-total-impossibility of using any UK 'folk' reference points even in costume is really interesting. Obviously there's the UK is a multi-national state issue, but even if we elide UK and England, the fact that England has thrown up so little 'trad' volkish nationalist mythmaking seems obtrusive in a situation like this. The fact the UK taste is so directly anti-naff (meaning pro-modernist/cosmopolitan/cool) and that folk elements point backwards or towards a barely-modernised peasant/rural constituency that UK pretends not to have (and in fact may not have had for longer than others) seems relevant too. Key question here = do other countries manage to have 'straight' commentary, or do France and Germany camp it up in a 'pity our mittel-europa-n country cousins' kind of way.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Daz' naughty schoolgirls = UK folk costume!

The UK entry is the only one whose chorus I can remember today. That doesn't stop it being bad, but ALW knows what he's doing.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I can't remember it at all - I am obviously ALW-proof. But TBH I can't remember any of them, but then I am feeling a bit groggy all told.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

also it would take a truly mighty chorus to dislodge Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes from my cranium.