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Global Citizens

~ a blog for Tourists, Expats and Locals

Global Citizens

Tag Archives: Eurovision songfestival

E.U. avant la lettre

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by katti in Belgium, do & go

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abba, Celine Dion, Eurovision Songcontest, Eurovision songfestival, Johnny Logan, Loic Nottet

Long before (almost) all the European countries united in the European Community, now known as European Union (E.U.), the Europeans had this one yearly event that united them more then ever. The Eurovision song contest. It all began at the beginning of international broadcasting, (1956) which nowadays seems as natural as rain that falls. In those days TV was still something, and broadcasting over the boarders seemed like science fiction. Many people probably still remember the first European Eurovision Contest. For me, this contest has always existed. As far back as I can think, I was allowed to stay up late and watch. It was a big feast : it was the only night I could stay up late, and very often I could invite a friend to sleep over so we could pretend we were voting from out of our sofa.

In those days the singers had to sing in their native language, there was a big orchestra, everyone had to bring their ‘conductor’ who even got a seperate applause, and there was also a limit in people that could go on stage, which meant there was no room for dancers and complicated choreography. And it was prohibited to play the music on the radio beforehand. Whatever you saw and heard, you heard it for the first time.

But then the Iron Wall fell down and all the Eastern European countries and even Russia started to participate, and everything changed. First of all it became necessary to split up the contest in semi finals and finals, because there were just too many countries (40 this year). Ever since that day Belgium only got through the semi’s twice. Well, even before that day Belgium did not exactly have a history of winning or sending in strong candidates, usually one of the bets we made was if we would end last, or one but last, but at least we knew we were participating.

Where as the contest usually had the same typical quite boring ‘Eurovision-songcontest-style’ -say Abba, Celine Dion, Johnny Logan…- with the coming of the Eastern European countries the style has become very bombastic and theatrical. The more shocking, the more provocative, the better, it seems. Participants can now sing in whatever language they chose, which usually means English as that language sells better. The orchestra has been exchanged for recorded music, the stage is bigger and more impressive then ever, which makes the performers seem to disappear in the total extravagance.

The ‘European boarders’ do seem to have expanded over the years. Israel has been participating for years, Azerbaijan is a member, and this year even Australia will be participating.

We used to record the songs on tape, and listened to it for weeks afterwards. I remember my aunt having the full collection as a piece of pride in her cupboard. Very often we bought the winning single. But now the whole show seems too big, too commercial, too many countries I don’t even know, too much of everything, that I am not even sure if I will watch.

But one is certain, tonight I will not bet that Belgium will end up last. Loic Nottet, the 19 year old Walloon, who ended 2nd in The Voice 2014, will certainly not embarrass us.

Go Belgium Go!

50.850340 4.351710

What is Eurovision?

27 Sunday May 2012

Posted by katti in blog

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Eurovision songfestival, Why on earth

Checking my Twitter account yesterday I realised I had missed it, the Eurovision Song contest. I received numerous tweets from different papers and tv stations, the most interesting was probably the one on CNNI : “What is Eurovision?”.

This struck me as a surprise, as it seems unreal to me that some people don’t really know what it is.  Of course it is just a European Thing. Of a past era.

Well, this yearly song contest, that had started long before my time, somewhere in the fifties, was probably the only time of the year (maybe apart from Christmas and New Years) that we –kids- could stay up late. We would give points at all the contesters and then wait nervously until the end and see if our winner was indeed the winner. We would record the songs on tape, as it was also broadcasted on the radio, and listen to it over and over again. At least I would.

Although even then, the music was not considered ‘cool’, it always had this typical style which is called –to no surprise- “Songfestivalmusic”, you weren’t (as a teenager) completely lost if you admitted liking it.

here is Norway, the winner in 1985

But these were other times, when we only had like 2 tv stations a country, we would still have something called an antenna, and –lucky us, we lived in a small country- we could also receive the 2 Dutch and the 2 French TV stations, and a same amount of radio stations. No internet. No cable. No satellite TV. This songfestival was about as international we could get. This contest would bring all the European countries together, and every contestant had to sing in his own native language. For Belgium that meant we were switching between French and Flemish every year.

Back then they still had a whole orchestra and a conductor. Later, the orchestra was changed to electronic music and then everyone could change the language they could sing in. All of them (maybe except France) started to sing in English. I suppose that was the beginning of the end. The international magic was gone.

At the end of the show all the countries had to vote for a winner. It was not just about who was best, mostly the songs in English and French (which more people would understand) were in the top 5, and countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark (among others) would also give their neighbouring country the highest points. It was all very predictable.

The CNN article states that the Eurovision Song contest didn’t want to bring up a United European feeling, but it was just a kind of test of the broadcasting technology. These broadcasters were organising it, and not the governments. It are also the broadcasters who choose who will represent their country,  it used to happen randomly, now it usually is through a whole series of TV shows and televoting. In a way everybody wanted to win, but on the other hand it meant that one had to organise the contest the following year, and pay for it…

Hardly ever winning the contest brought the singer or the band fame, the winners were usually one day flies. The only exceptions are probably ABBA, Celine Dion and Julio Iglesias.

Belgium only won once, and got 2nd place once, but mostly we ended somewhere at the bottom of the list. Sandra Kim brought us that one year fame, and after that, we never heard of her again.

But in the ’90 the whole concept was overtaken by TV shows like Idol,  or other talent shows, you can see whatever band you like live on TV.  Internet and cable took over. Thanks to MTV we brought international music into our homes without any trouble. They tried to change the whole Songfestival concept  by letting the former communist countries participate. Now there are so many contestants that there are 2 semifinal nights before the actual contest. The songs of the ‘new’ participents are totally different. They don’t follow the (maybe boring) songfestival style, but have very bombastic songs and big performances. Not at all like we were used to. There is no such thing as bonding with the other contestants anymore/

The song festival brings up great memories, but to me that’s all there is to it.  And my teenage daughter just said: “The Eurovision song contest is the only thing we, Europeans, have a right to be embarrassed about…” .

I guess that says it all.

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