Simple but rarely effective, it went like this:Ģ guys + 2 girls + (>3m) blonde hair – any semblance of musical creativity = surefire winner!Īs one would expect, the competing songs are conceived to appeal to the broadest swathe of the general public as is humanly possible. Also, 1981 was the year that a group called Buck’s Fizz won the contest for Britain, thus entrenching a trend for a particular brand of wishful thinking (see photo) in what was already a festival of saccharine optimism: ABBA won the contest in 1974, and for about two decades thereafter at least a dozen countries each year chose their group according to the ABBA formula. That was the year Norway earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records by entering the only song ever to receive no points at all in the vote tally – an impressive feat since each competing country allots a total of 58 points to 10 different entrants. I had just moved to the Netherlands and happened across the show one idle Saturday night while flipping through the channels on TV (a short process, because the Netherlands had only four channels back then). The first contest took place in Switzerland in 1956, with seven countries vying for the prize, and since then it has expanded into a low-denominator cultural juggernaut with 43 participating countries (including some you didn’t know were European, like Israel) and an estimated 125 million viewers. It never is, but that hasn’t fazed them yet. For the edification of readers who are unaware of this annual kitschfest, every May the European Broadcasting Union invites each of its member countries to enter a musical act in a televised competition to pick what’s supposed to be the best song in Europe.
I am referring, of course, to the Eurovision Song Contest, the final round of which was broadcast on May 14. We won’t have to think about it for another whole year. Still, it’s a relief to have it behind us. I have to admit, it wasn’t quite as horrifying as I had feared. Azerbaijan’s Ell & Nikki schmaltzed away with the Eurovision Crystal Corncob this year, but there were plenty of acts deserving of dishonorable mention.
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