This is Not ‘Rolling Stone’!

Pseudo-Originality

On Sunday night various thoughts echoed in my head. I had regrettably spent 3 hours watching the finals to the Eurovision Song Contest and when it came time for each of the 47 countries to vote for their “favourites” a common theme seemed to be emerging. After the first few countries had released their preferences I quickly came to one simple conclusion: Eurovision has become less about the ’search for the most original song’ and more about the political relationships between neighbouring European countries.

The Contest has long been perceived as political in some sense, where judges—and now televoters—allocate points based on their nation’s political relationship to the other countries, rather than on the “musical value” of the songs (wikipedia online). An analysis of voting patterns does indeed show that certain countries tend to favour certain other countries with which they are politically aligned with the most obvious example being between Greece and Cyprus, which have awarded each other the maximal 12 points every single time since televoting was introduced in 1998.

Apart from the political aspects of the voting system and of the Eurovision Song Contest, I also noticed flaws in the musical content. To me it seemed that the original intent of the Contest had been completely reversed and it had become less of a celebration of musical creativity and more a colourful, glitter contest where the same song is just a simple pop-song – an accumulation of previous songs only remixed and regurgitated by pretty, tone-deaf representatives. As I discussed in some of my previous posts, Eurovision is a prime example of how emphasis is put on the show elements in order to guise the often disastrous performances by each of the contestants. If ‘authenticity’ and ‘creativity’ are used as the primary marking criteria then what of the cheesy, semi-mimed performances and the fact that ALL Eurovision songs are not written by the performer? There is little encouragement for a contestant to be ‘authentic’ which is also shown by observing the physical performances of the contestants. In this case, the Contest appears to have become more ‘Westernised’ with many non-English speaking countries adopting Western elements both musically and visually. Musically, the song structures are terribly simple. There is a standard progression between verse and chorus which includes a deafening amount of repetition. Visually, the performances are a complete emulation of a standard MTV video, including back-up dancers, show elements and dancing contestants. This year Germany looked EXACTLY like an older version of the Spice Girls complete with dance moves that looked terribly familiar to those performed by the Spice Girls in their “Stop” video. Stereotypes have engulfed the way the Contest is presented with all of its representatives embodying certain traits that reinforce certain discourses. For example, the Finnish entry this year (Terasbetoni) appeared onstage as swaggering, muscled males with bare chests and long hair encapsulating and reinforcing the stereotypes surrounding masculinity.

While these examples highlight some of the more negative aspects of the show there are some contestants who do attempt to break the Western trend by singing in their own language and dancing in a traditional style. However while there has been an attempt to demonstrate some elements of “creativity” I think that the way Eurovision is presented today has allowed it to be viewed as a joke – as something you watch if nothing else is on or if you’re looking for a good laugh.

Below are two videos – the entrants for Greece and Finland for Eurovision 2008. In the first video note the ways the contestant appears like so many previous pop artists regularly seen on American television or on MTV (Britney Spears keeps coming into mind). The second video (and even the first as well) highlights the ways stereotype have formed the core of the Contest and it is regularly emphasised by the contestants.

Lilen Pautasso

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