One of the more mind-boggling traditions on this side of the pond, is the eurovision song contest. this is an annual event where all european countries are invited to put forward an unrecorded pop song, performed by amateur bands or artists, for competetive consideration. The “best song” (and I use that term loosely) is determined by public vote.

eurovision is just one of those baffling *european* things that, not having been born here, i’ll probably never fully appreciate. although the competition has been around since 1956, its biggest claim to fame is having launched the career of supergroup abba in 1972, and they’ve been trying to match that wild success ever since. abba won with their song “waterloo” – which is, in fact, a fairly indicative benchmark of the calibre of most of the groups and songs entered. each year, a new winner is chosen, gets their 15 minutes of televised fame… and then slinks off into obscurity forever.

the whole thing is pretty laughable. the general rule of thumb for entries seems to be the cheesier the better. the “controversies” which crop up from year to year include accusations of satanist lyrics from a finnish monster metal band called lordi (one of the notable exceptions to the abba-esque rule), and not-so-veiled references to iranian nukes in this year’s israeli entry (what israel is doing in a european competition, i could make an educated guess at – but i’m not touching *that* topic with a ten foot pole…) overall, however, it’s much more in the genre of entertainment-lite-lite. this year’s entry for the u.k. is artist scooch singing “Flying the flag (for you)”. to give you a gander of *exactly what you’re missing out on*, just click below.

bear in mind, this is the *winning* british entry. a song with exactly 2 lines of lyrics, whose best gimmick is dancing flight attendants. people spent their precious time and hard-earned money to vote for this tripe.

and now you understand my sense of utter bewilderment every year when the eurovision contest is trumpeted from television and newspaper headlines. the only phrase which accurately captures the reaction of my assaulted-and-stunned musical sensibilities?

“wtf!?!?”

scissor sisters – music is the victim

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