Monday 26 May 2008

Three of a kind #45

Ah, Eurovision Song Contest, how I love am continually baffled by thee! On Saturday night I sat down to, once again, be entertained, outraged and reduced to a helpless mess of uncontrollable laughter by Europe's premier songwriting contest. As usual, my top three bore no relation to the actual top three, which was populated by the most irritating man to grace the stage that night (with the exception of the host) and a couple of women of whom I had no recollection.
The votes from the Too Much Apple Pie delegation go to:

Jesus backing singers1. Sebastien Tellier - Divine mp3 (available for 7 days)

Sebastien Tellier - representing France - caused a bit of controversy before the show, apparently due to his video containing images of him in Christ-like poses. Personally I rather enjoyed his (mostly) female backing singers all wearing Jesus facial hair. And the song is pretty good, with lovely 'ooh-la-la' backing vocals and lead vocals which remind me of Jarvis Cocker.

2. Simon Mathew - All Night Long mp3 (available for 7 days)

Demark's entry this year was what I think of as a typical, enjoyable Eurovision song: upbeat, catchy enough to be remembered a good five minutes after the performance has finished, derivative ("Celebrate good times, come on", "Blue suede shoes"? I can't help feeling I've heard those lyrics somewhere before...) and thoroughly unpretentious.

3. Laka - Pokušaj mp3 (available for 7 days)

Finally we have the Bosnia-Herzegovinian song which can't really be done justice without seeing the performance which accompanies it. Bride backing singers, knitting? Public schoolboy outfit? A polka-dot-skirted Helena Bonham-Carter-a-like with a washing line? Fair enough...



Sadly the poncy Russian bloke supported by a poncy violinist and a poncy ice skater won the whole shebang.

Poncy Russians
The top three was rounded out by forgettable women from the Ukraine and Greece. Bosnia Herzegovina finished 10th, Denmark 15th, and France 19th out of 25. There's no justice!

7 comments:

Kippers said...

Absolutely chuffing brilliant! Thanks so much for these, Spiky. I'm awarding you 12 points, 10 to Laka, 8 to Sebastian Tellier, 7 to Simon Matthew and minus 1,000,000 to the narcissistic Russian knobheads.

That concludes the voting of the me jury! x

lito said...

Hello.

I like Laka, i think pokusaj is a funny song, and I hate the russian song and show.

Anyhow, Eurovision is not a serious competition, the spanish commentator knew the results of any country votes. Every country votes to their neighbours, not to the best song, and Russia has a lot of neighbours :-)

p.s. I prefer not commenting about the spanish song :-(((, here is the song of the moment, everybody sings the chiki chiki, I can't believe it but is true.

Cheers!

Mick said...

I'm sure you're aware, Spike, that justice and eurovision don't go together. I think you've got it about right. I really wanted Bosnia-Herzegovinia to win with that performance even though France had the better song.

Spike said...

You're right about that, lito! The British commentator accurately predicted who the votes would go to as well. Never mind - I don't think people have taken it seriously for a good few years. After all, the UK entries have been a bit of a joke!

Aye, Mick. I'm sure no-one deludes themselves that the voting is purely on the quality of the songs. And given the amount of forgettable dirges that appear in the competition, I thank the backing singers of Sebastien Tellier for entertaining performances like Bosnia-Herzegovina's!

M. Britton said...

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Not for this wonderful post (thank you for that as well, bvy the way) but for giving me links to a site that sells claire's birthday cds. I've searched for YEARS for those. oh god, i'm so happy.

Which one has 80's coming back on? i need that album.

thank you!

mineforlife said...

Bloody brilliant, well done.

Spike said...

mbritton: You'll find Eighties Coming Back on the album Future Is Now, a very enjoyable album indeed. I was pretty chuffed to find a place that sold Claire's Birthday albums as well!


Thanks, fiftypercent!