I have a confession. I love Eurovision. I know many love it and many hate it, it’s the musical equivalent of Marmite.
However, with absolute despair I watched the contest to pick our entry this year. In fairness I hardly ever watch it because our propensity for picking absolute shite is renown.
Enter this years lambs, sorry cutting edge pop group who are going to bring back the glory to Britain with a collection of dodgy air steward/hostess costumes and implied references to oral sex and taking it up the arse.
Perhaps it’s a British thing that we don’t take European matters seriously but others do and while we continue to troop out halfwitted banal crap like this then quite frankly we deserve the pitiful amount of votes that we receive year after year.
Anyway, if you want to know what we’re up against go here. The Penguin household’s votes will be going to Finland again this year. Perhaps a few sad sods in Ireland might give us a couple, who knows, but we don’t deserve them.
“Perhaps it
Hi Moonraker. Not sure that last year’s winners could be put into the category of Finland not taking it seriously. Not sure what you know about Lordi but they were a well established band that have been going since the mid-early 90′s and although some outside interpretations of them were that they are a novelty band or something dreamed up to send off to Eurovision is incorrect. The presence of their costumes has even brought them criticism from within the rock community itself but I personally wouldn’t agree.
I know that there were some interesting discussions that went on when Finland were deciding last years entry and there was a strong belief that where as previously Finland had plumped for traditional folk or rather crappy Abbaesque clones, there was a real desire to try something different particularly of a rock variety.
Finland has been a hotbed for rock in the last few years producing some excellent music, particularly of the gothic variety. The genre has strong roots in Finland and there was a clear campaign within the rock community to send a rock band to Eurovision, that it was Lordi was probably more coincidental as they were the one rock band that were invited to take part in the preliminary competition.
That said, there were plenty of detractors, particularly on the more conservative side of Finnish society who claimed that sending a rock band to Eurovision would bring shame on the country. The contrary seems to have been the case after their emphatic win and this years competition is seeing a bit more rock music being put forward and it seems the strength of the rock supporters in Finland has ensured another entry from the genre. This time not quite as explosive as Lordi but it is a very good song.