The Memes of Production: A cultural studies weblog

Azerbaijan: AySel & Arash – Always

Croatia: Igor Cukrov featuring Andrea – Liepa Tena

Ukraine: Svetlana Loboda – Be My Valentine!

Lithuania: Sasha Son – Love

Albania: Kejsi Tola – Carry Me In Your Dreams

Moldova: Nelly Ciobanu – Hora Din Moldova

Denmark: Brinck – Believe Again

Estonia: Urban Symphony – Rändajad

Norway: Alexander Rybak – Fairytale

Greece: Sakis Rouvas – This Is Our Night

Turkey: Hadise – Düm Tek Tek

Sweden: Malena Ernman – La Voix

Israel: Noa & Mira Awad – There Must Be Another Way

Portugal: Flor-de-lis – Todas As Ruas Do Amor

Malta: Chiara – What If We

Finland: Waldo’s People – Lose Control

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Regina – Bistra Voda

Romania: Elena – The Balkan Girls

Armenia: Inga & Anush – Jan Jan

Iceland: Yohanna – Is It True

OK, here are the final entries in this year’s Eurovision: the “big four” (so called because they pretty much bankroll the event and therefore gain automatic entry to the final) and the host, Russia.

Eurovision will be shown over three nights on the 12th, 14th, and 16th May, but at different times around the world. In Australia it will be shown on SBS on the 15th, 16th, and 17th May, so beware of spoilers (must remember to unfollow the Eurovision Twitter feed). I have it on good authority that the two semifinals will be live blogged at Circulating Library, and I expect that there will be a fair bit of Twitter action as well. For the final I suspect that we’ll all be a bit too, um, tired and emotional to blog coherently.

Update (because my slightly ambiguous title seems to be attracting a lot of people looking the final results)

Full details, as always, on Wikipedia

[more]

Sorry, took longer to get back to this than I planned. Semifinal two is looking better than number one (unless I just getting inured to it all), although there is still a lot of rubbish. Of course, wouldn’t be Eurovision without it…

Serbia and Estonia are doing it for me, especially Estonia: and not just because she’s gorgeous. I can see Serbia and The Netherlands getting the biggest laughs of the night: Serbia because it is genuinely humorous, and the other because it is so clichéd it has to be a parody. Except that, as far as I can see, it’s not…

I’ll come back with the big four in the next day or so.

[more]

So Eurovision 2009 is nearly on us, and all the entries are now available on the website. With a record 42 entries there will again be two semifinals with the top ten placed entries in each semifinal joining the “big four” in the final.

Here are the entrants for semifinal one (in performance order), with my totally ill-informed opinion of each, based on a single (and frequently distracted) listening. I’m hoping that semifinal two will produce some gems, because all we’ve got here is the dross.

I’ll do semifinal two when I can bring myself to listen to more of this stuff…

[more]

In a follow up to my post about the Georgian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, it has just been announced that the Georgian broadcaster will be required to change the lyrics of the song, or choose another one:

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has officially informed Georgian public broadcaster GPB that the lyrics of their song for the 54th Eurovision Song Contest We Don’t Wanna Put In do not comply with the rules of the competition. The EBU Reference Group of the Eurovision Song Contest has now offered GPB the opportunity to either re-write the lyrics of the song, or to select another song for the contest.

The rules state that “No lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature shall be permitted during the Eurovision Song Contest”.

Read the news here.

I wonder where that rule was in 2007 when the Israeli entry, Push the Button was widely interpreted as being about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Update 12 March 2009: Georgia has withdrawn from the 2009 contest in protest over the decision.

The first political scandal of Eurovision 2009 has erupted over the Georgian entry, We Don’t Wanna Put In, by Stephane & 3G. The song is a predictable blend of Euro-pop and 70s disco, with the standard choreography to distract the viewer from how ordinary the song is—classic Eurovision, in other words. But considering the hostilities between Georgia and Eurovision host country Russia which started in July 2008 in Ossetia, the song’s title can only be read as a play on the name of the Russian Prime Minister. Watch it here.

The announcement of the Georgian entry—chosen through a “Pop Idol” like television competition—brought many complaints on the Eurovision forums about the political nature of the selection:

For obvious reasons, this entry has to withdraw. It is unacceptable to take advantge of the ESC to give political messages. Go to the ESC for fun, not to create conflicts.

[more]

A few years ago the station ID spots for Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown featured one of the DJs pointing out how various pieces of ephemera had kept classic songs out of key spots, such as Denis Leary’s Asshole beating Radiohead’s Creep into first place in 1993, or Blink-182 coming in the top 20 in the 1998 Hottest 100 of all time, out polling classics like New Order’s Blue Monday, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, and The Beatles’ A Day in the Life. The tag line for these spots was “Democracy doesn’t work”.

Well it seems that the Eurovision organisers have discovered this as well.

[more]

OK, it’s time. In the tradition of Terry Wogan and Des Mangan, here are my descriptions of all the entries in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

I’m not going to try and predict a winner, because my hit rate has been appalling, but my personal favourite is undoubtedly Bulgaria, who might even take the mantle from Ruslana (Ukraine, 2004).

Some initial observations…

In what I hope will be a regular feature, I bring news from the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.

Among the national entries already selected, is a Danish drag queen called (imaginatively) DQ.

The ultimate dark – or pink – horse of this year’s Danish national selection, DQ alias Peter ANDERSEN, surprised everyone by winning tonight’s exciting voting procedure. The Danish drag queen received the largest applause of the evening, and bookmakers’ favourites, Jacob ANDERSEN, James SAMPSON and Stig ROSSEN were beaten by the all-in-pink drag queen. DQ’s victory is rather remarkable, as the entry reached the final with a wild card.

Seems to me that Lordi have a lot to answer for…