Kevin's Watch

What is it, and how are the entrants chosen?

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5002798.stm

Eurovision has happened every year for...what...forty years? Something of that order.

Each country in Europe (though the definition of Europe sometimes seems quite loose) enters a group or other musical artist and millions of people vote for whichever they consider best (but you can't vote for your own country). Easy as pie. The country that wins then hosts the next one.

I don't know about other countries, but here we choose our entrant by having a series of "auditions" on TV. The public vote for their favourite out of a handful of contenders. I don't know who chooses the short list.

Back in the day, there used to be Eurovision entrants who were, if not "serious" musicians, at least successful. These days, it's a grim parade of no-hopers and washed up old hacks looking for a revival.

Damelon wrote:What is it

A contest where one song from each country in Europe (well, not quite - some countries apparently got kicked out in semi-finals this year) is performed on live TV and people in europe vote for their favourites. Each country then gives points to the songs with the most votes (they can't vote for themselves). The one song - and therefore one country - with the most points wins.

and how are the entrants chosen?

Each of the 37 countries has some kind of selection process to pick a song to enter, and they apparently go through other rounds before the final on TV so that only 24 songs are in the final, but I don't know anything about how it all happens. I think it changed this year because more countries were participating.


Its notoriously a night of bland pop music with very little talent on display* - but it can be entertaining to watch, and Terry Wogan's voiceover commentary can be pretty funny. This year it wasn't quite what I expected - Lordi, and the Lithuanian entry "We are the winners (of Eurovision)", are definately not the sort of crap usually on display.


(*This hasn't always been the case. Though still pretty crap music, it used to feature famous artists like Abba and Cliff Richard.)

Lordi are awesome. Seriously. Best entrant for a long time.

Lordi made me laugh... Slipknot eat your heart out.

I felt sure that Finland would win or come dead last, wish I'd had a bet on them now. All the political voting makes me laugh. What better way to influence the foreign policy of Europe's most powerful nations than to give them 'nil points' at the campest thing since Liberace's pink tent.

I wasn't entirely surprised Lordi were in Eurovision - Finland is the land of metal (Children of Bodom had a number one single there, and Nightwish were almost in Eurovision a few years back) but I was surprised they won. People who play actual music winning Eurovision?

It is pretty much against my principles, but I acctually stayed up on the ewe of the eurovision song contest only to see Lordi - there was a lot of talk of this group in the LARP-community the days before. Pretty little orcsesssss. Good for Finland to win this too, they have never even been close before.

My favourite winner so far is an irish woman with the song "I am the voice" - loved that one. Can´t remember her name though...