Why You Need to Watch Europe’s Most Ridiculous Show — ‘Eurovision’
As a Brit living in the United States, I can tell you that nothing illustrates the gap between European and American sensibilities quite like the popularity of Eurovision, the annual overseas singing contest that marks its 60th anniversary this Saturday. Eurovision is terrible, rollicking, God-awful fun — just the kind of thing Europeans love and Americans don’t see enough of.
While the competition show has an audience of about 170 million worldwide, it’s still little-known in the U.S. So let me tell you what you’re missing — because you can watch the finale live-streamed on the Eurovision website this Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, and you won’t be disappointed.
ABBA at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. (Photo: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)
Think of Eurovision as The Voice on steroids, where every European country not only votes but also is represented by a novelty act roughly comparable to the late ukulele player Tiny Tim. ABBA won the competition in 1974, and they’re also the best example of its Euro-kitsch vibe. But Celine Dion, Enya, Olivia Newton-John, Katrina and the Waves, Lulu, and even Las Ketchup (remember “The Ketchup Song” from summer 2002?) have all done time on the Eurovision stage at various points in their careers.
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Last year’s Eurovision winner, Conchita Wurst, right, poses with her wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s in Vienna. (Photo: Manfred Schmid/Getty Images)
This year, the contest will be hosted by Vienna, thanks to Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst’s win last year. Notable for pairing slinky frocks with a lush beard, she will sing her winning song, “Rise Like a Phoenix,” to open the show.
Australia finds itself one of the three favorites to win this season. (Never mind that it’s the wrong continent. To mix things up, Eurovision’s definition of “Europe” is somewhat elastic: Israel usually participates; Azerbaijan, which is considered part of Asia, won in 2011; and this year, a one-time invitation was extended to Australia in recognition of the contest’s popularity down under.) Italy and Sweden are also in the running. Contestants from all three submitted solid pop songs, sadly making it slightly less of a cheese-fest and more of a singing competition than in previous years.
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Eduard Romanyuta of Moldova during the first Semi-Final of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. (Photo: Nigel Treblin/WireImage)
But there will be drama. Moldova’s Eduard Romanyuta, a boy-band-reject type, will make a play for the tween heartthrob vote — always a big deal at Eurovision — with the suitably awful “I Want Your Love.” (Expect props like a sports car and a supermodel, which is really the kind of thing you want from Eurovision.) Belgium’s Loïc Nottet will up the competition by performing wet. Literally.
Bojana Stamenov of Serbia performs onstage during the first Semi-Final of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest on May 19, 2015, in Vienna, Austria. (Photo: Nigel Treblin/Getty Images)
In the plus-size-diva stakes (another common type in the Eurovision pantheon), I like Serbia’s Bojana Stamenov, who sings “Beauty Never Lies.” She’s Meatloaf, Maria Callas, and Celine Dion all stuffed into the same sequinned dress.
Fans of Daenerys Targaryen (the Mother of Dragons on Game of Thrones) may like Georgia’s representative, Nina Sublatti. What her video Warrior lacks in, well, almost everything, it makes up for in steely Amazon gladiators.
Anti Social Media of Denmark performs in Aalborg on Feb. 2, 2015. (Photo: Henning Bagger/epa/Corbis)
Denmark entered Anti Social Media, which, despite its name, is a band you’d take home to meet your mother. They’re very sweet but look a little lost — highly presentable ’60s session musicians with a jingle in search of a product. They won’t win, but they work as stage candy. And that’s what you need for a finale with 39 contestants that lasts three and a half hours. (A big block of time at the end is devoted to the show’s strange voting ritual, whereby every single country assigns points during a live presentation from its own capital. It is its own excruciating kind of performance art.
I’m a little sad that Finland’s entry, one of the most interesting and unusual bands this year, was already eliminated. PKN is a punk band whose members all have learning disabilities. (Finland’s all-time best entry was Lordi, a hard-rock cosplay act that won in 2006.)
Lordi performing “Hard Rock Hallelujah” in 2006. (Video: YouTube)
This is Eurovision. It is essentially irony incarnate, which has never been a popular form of entertainment on this side of the Atlantic (let alone on Memorial Day weekend). But why not take a wonderfully strange glimpse into the electro-dance, folk-pop festival that most of the rest of the world loves? Some of it won’t translate, literally. But the very worst that can happen is you come away newly thankful for Taylor Swift.
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