Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Eurovision
Vicki and I stumbled onto the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest, broadcast here on SBS on Sunday night. We hadn't planned to watch it, but had seen the documentary, Finland, Zero Points the night before, and our interest was piqued.
The most watched non-sports broadcast in the world, Eurovision has been an annual rite since 1956. In a nutshell, every European country (and some that are not like Israel) may send only 1 song/group/act to perform in the contest. After all the acts are done, each country may vote for the best act- but no country may vote for themselves.
What was fascinating was the wide variety, and sometimes surreal character of the contest. No boring cookie-cutter American Idol stuff here. Finland hosted this year due to the success of monster hard rock and roll group Lordi last year. (The winning country becomes host the next year.)
And Lordi are literally "MONSTER" rock, dressed as demons that would make the meanest orcs in Lord of the Rings go crying for mummy. We especially loved the pyrotechnic effects, such as fireworks erupting from the ends of their guitars as they sang "Hard Rock, Hallelujah" to open the show.
The show continued with a variety of eclectic acts. The Boznia-Herzegovina act was ethereal, the Irish showed up with a predictable nasally out-of-tune Celtic singer backed up by drum and tin whistle (and ended up bottom of the list, where they belonged.) The Bulgarians did "The Ten Tenors" onstage, to great effect. The French were very odd and outre as predictable. The U.K. band Scooch performed a very campy "Flying the Flag" number which was fun.
In the end the voting came down to the Russians, Serbia, and Ukraine. The Russian girls did a very rude number which would have made Brittany Spears blush. Dressed in black they sang
Truly the West has had a bad influence on Russia.
The Ukraine featured a drag group who looked as if they had fallen into the mills at the aluminum wrap factory. This act would have made millions in Miami Beach. It made the Sisters number in "The Birdcage" look positively straight. They were quite popular with the crowd and consistenly high in the voting.
But even before the voting began, both Vicki and I pegged the Serbian singer, Marija Å erifovic, as the best act of the night. This only 22 year old, plain-appearing woman has a beautiful, powerful voice which communicated the emotions of her torch song so wonderfully, that we felt her pain and grief acutely, even though it was in Serbian. When we looked up the lyric, it was no surprise to find lyrics matching the longing in her song:
We held our breath during the voting, cheering for Marija to win. We were so happy for her and for Serbia.
This was 2 hours of plain fun, and I have to wonder why I've never seen it on American TV. A quick search of Google, TVGuide.com, and Yahoo.TV on U.S. sites shows no articles or schedule times. Maybe I'm wrong and it was shown on BBC-America or something- (leave a comment if you saw it on TV in America!)
But if you missed it, you can still see it due to the miracle of the Internet. You can see her amazing performance in Helsinki here. Or at least go to her website and hear Maria sing Molitva. You will enjoy it.
The most watched non-sports broadcast in the world, Eurovision has been an annual rite since 1956. In a nutshell, every European country (and some that are not like Israel) may send only 1 song/group/act to perform in the contest. After all the acts are done, each country may vote for the best act- but no country may vote for themselves.
What was fascinating was the wide variety, and sometimes surreal character of the contest. No boring cookie-cutter American Idol stuff here. Finland hosted this year due to the success of monster hard rock and roll group Lordi last year. (The winning country becomes host the next year.)
And Lordi are literally "MONSTER" rock, dressed as demons that would make the meanest orcs in Lord of the Rings go crying for mummy. We especially loved the pyrotechnic effects, such as fireworks erupting from the ends of their guitars as they sang "Hard Rock, Hallelujah" to open the show.The show continued with a variety of eclectic acts. The Boznia-Herzegovina act was ethereal, the Irish showed up with a predictable nasally out-of-tune Celtic singer backed up by drum and tin whistle (and ended up bottom of the list, where they belonged.) The Bulgarians did "The Ten Tenors" onstage, to great effect. The French were very odd and outre as predictable. The U.K. band Scooch performed a very campy "Flying the Flag" number which was fun.
In the end the voting came down to the Russians, Serbia, and Ukraine. The Russian girls did a very rude number which would have made Brittany Spears blush. Dressed in black they sang
Oh! Don't call me funny bunny
I'll blow your money money
I'll get you to my bad ass spinning for you
Oh! I'll make it easy honey
I'll take your money yummy
I've got my bitches standing up next to me
Truly the West has had a bad influence on Russia.
The Ukraine featured a drag group who looked as if they had fallen into the mills at the aluminum wrap factory. This act would have made millions in Miami Beach. It made the Sisters number in "The Birdcage" look positively straight. They were quite popular with the crowd and consistenly high in the voting.But even before the voting began, both Vicki and I pegged the Serbian singer, Marija Å erifovic, as the best act of the night. This only 22 year old, plain-appearing woman has a beautiful, powerful voice which communicated the emotions of her torch song so wonderfully, that we felt her pain and grief acutely, even though it was in Serbian. When we looked up the lyric, it was no surprise to find lyrics matching the longing in her song:
MOLITVA (PRAYER)
Music by: Vladimir Graić
Lyrics by: S.M.Mare
I'm wide awake
An empty bed drives my dreams away
Life melts like ice
Disappears in the twinkling of an eye
I'm losing my mind,
Pushing reality out of sight
Our lips are touching softly
You're the one I believe blindly
I walk around like crazy
Falling in love frightens me
Days are like wounds
Countless and hard to get through
Prayer...
It burns my sore lips like a fire
Prayer...
Thy name is something I admire
Heaven knows just as well as I do
So many times I have cried over you
Heaven knows just as well as I do
I pray and live only for you
I can't lie to God
as I kneel down and pray
You're the love of my life
That's the only thing I can say
We held our breath during the voting, cheering for Marija to win. We were so happy for her and for Serbia.
This was 2 hours of plain fun, and I have to wonder why I've never seen it on American TV. A quick search of Google, TVGuide.com, and Yahoo.TV on U.S. sites shows no articles or schedule times. Maybe I'm wrong and it was shown on BBC-America or something- (leave a comment if you saw it on TV in America!)
But if you missed it, you can still see it due to the miracle of the Internet. You can see her amazing performance in Helsinki here. Or at least go to her website and hear Maria sing Molitva. You will enjoy it.
