BUT HOW DID THEY SOUND?

TIME
May 15 2007

A Review Of This Year’s Eurovision Performances

After all the pre-event furor surrounding politicized drag queens
and nuclear annihilation, it was a surprisingly straight-forward
performance that secured victory for Serbia in the 52nd Annual
Eurovision Song Contest held in Helsinki, Finland on Saturday night.

The soaring ballad Molitva (Prayers), performed by Marija Serifovic,
bucked many of the latest Eurovision trends to secure the country’s
first win. The Serbian entry was one of only a handful of songs
not to be performed in English and, unlike the majority of other
entrants, Serifovic made little use of stage accessories, apart
from a gang of glamorous backing singers who caressed her at regular
intervals. Ukraine’s hotly-tipped entry, Vera Serdyuchka, resplendent
in a space-age silver outfit and supported by male dancers dressed
in Bacofoil shorts, took a well-deserved second place. But it was
another disappointing night for Eurovision’s old stalwarts, with
Ireland , Britain and France occupying the bottom three spots out of
a record 24 countries. The night was particularly bitter for Ireland,
Eurovision’s most successful nation, who only escaped the humiliation
of "nul points" thanks to a vote from unlikely allies Albania.

Besides the triumph of Serbian sobriety, this year’s Eurovision
offered up plenty of other surprises – notably the elimination of
much-fancied Israel and Switzerland in Thursday night’s qualifying
round. Teapacks, the seven-piece rock band representing Israel, had
garnered extensive media attention for their multi-lingual song Push
the Button; an anti-war track with clear references to Iran’s nuclear
program. Prior to their semi-final collapse, Switzerland had been a
leading favorite for the overall title with the sublimely ridiculous
Vampires Are Alive; a gothic version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller
complete with a somewhat incongruous use of the word "hence" in its
opening verse.

The night’s events also proved beyond doubt that petty factionalism is
alive and well in today’s Europe. Indeed, the more Eurovision grows,
the more numerous and complex the public’s voting alliances seem
to become. As expected, Cyprus awarded the maximum twelve points
to Sarbel – a Greek Ricky Martin who, for reasons unexplained,
performed his catchy track Yassou Maria in an ill-advised grey
tracksuit. The Scandinavian countries also rewarded each other with
neighborly generosity. At certain points, the voting took on the feel
of a musical Peace and Reconciliation Commission, with love-fests
developing between formerly warring nations. The Balkan states of
Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia all voted for each other
like the best of friends. Yet the audience’s biggest gasp of the
night came when Turkey awarded a full twelve points to Armenia.

Hosting the Eurovision Song Contest is not only about treating your
fellow Europeans to a musical (and political) extravaganza. For a small
country such as Finland, it’s a rare opportunity to inform over 100
million potential tourists and investors of all the attractions your
over-looked nation has to offer. In Eurovision, where advertising
is strictly prohibited, these marketing moments take the form of
short video clips inserted between each song. The Finnish clips were
especially bizarre. In a series of increasingly abstract vignettes,
the most frequent inclusions were snow, computer nerds, Santa
Claus and groups of teenage goths. Overall though, Helsinki put on
a good show and, at several points in the evening’s entertainment,
Finnish tongues were firmly in cheek. Their roaming reporter, Finnish
comedienne Krisse Salminen, was an inspired touch of Euro-trash.

Reminiscent of Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s camp, fashion correspondent,
Salminen enlightened viewers with post-show interviews of the
contestants, most of whom were already making full use of the backstage
hospitality. An inebriated member of the Swedish party struggled when
asked, in broken English, why tonight was, like, totally going to be
the moment in his life.

Even if music seems an increasingly irrelevant detail of what is fast
becoming the Eurovision Voting Contest, Eurovision is still in fine
health. An estimated 110 million viewers tuned on Saturday night –
the highest TV ratings in the contest’s history. And long may it be
so. After all, how many other events can juxtapose Georgian warriors
dancing to a techno record with leather-clad Bulgarian drummers while
keeping a (mostly) straight face?