BLURRED VISION
By Petya Sabinova

Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
May 19 2006

One look at a map of the Balkans, with the list of Eurovision
finalists in one hand, shows a big void right where Bulgaria is. For
the second year in a row the country fails to reach the longed finals
and this time we’re the only “losers” on the peninsula. It’s even
worse, because Armenia made it with their first ever entry in the
contest. All aspiring stars in Bulgaria should have watched the show
on Thursday and taken notes if they want a chance next year. For it
is evident that a wailing ballad only does it for countries that have
established a name for themselves – like Ireland. Not that our song
was bad, not at all, it just wasn’t right. What we need is something
like Lithuania (maybe with sexier guys), or Finland, well, perhaps
not so scary, but you get the point. We need to either go mainstream
like Armenia and Ukraine did, or surprise everyone with one hell of
an original show. So far our vision of the contest has been blurred by
either the local scandals marring it, or the tears of pain that Azis’
bawling brings. And unless someone in Bulgaria can produce an upbeat,
interesting song that teenagers would love to listen to over and over
again in the disco, then the third time won’t be good luck.