The Most Amazing Night In The History of Forever

God, Eurovision was so cool. I mean, it was the same ol' tacky glitter-and-fireworks show as always and there was tonnes of shite music, but it wouldn't be Eurovision without glitter and fireworks and tonnes of shite music.

The biggest victim of shiteness was probably Ireland, which entered possibly the worst song I've ever heard in the history of music. ...okay, maybe not that far, but god, talk about awful. It was called "You Can't Stop The Spring".,It really is as bad as the title suggests. You can view it here if you really want to subject yourself to that sort of torture.

The Bosnia and Herzegovina entry was also a frightful bore. So to was Lithuania's entry over here. Still, anything was better than Lithuania's 2006 entry "We Are The Winners".

But, there were some legitimately good ones out there. My definitely favourite was "The Worrying Kind" by Sweden's entrant The Ark. The Ark are actually a moderately-well known group on the indie/pop scene. If you own the Shortbus soundtrack then you'll certainly be familiar with them. The Ark are pretty great and "The Worrying Kind" was just so fun. It sounds sort of like Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" for a while there, but who cares? That song is delightful. As far as Eurovision goes it's more in the "Waterloo" actually-a-good-song camp than the "Flying The Flag (For You)" campy-camp-camp camp. I've thrown the clip of the performance at the end of the entry. Ola Salo (the lead guy) is such a character. He was a significant part of my #1 single of 2006 as well in the form of "Dream On" by Christian Falk with Robyn and Salo. Also, Swedish pop is pretty much the best music in the world right now.

After Sweden, my favourite was definitely "Visionary Dream" by Sopho, which you can view here. If this were a regular everyday song, and not a Eurovision song, it'd probably be quite popular on the dancefloors. Especially with an even more high octane remix.

There was, of course, the Ukranian drag queen Verka Serduchka (pictures below). She came second with her song "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" and it was really quite bonkers and hilarious. Zeiben! (or whatever). Take a look here. Your eyes may not forgive you but your feet will! I quite enjoyed Hungary's Magdi Rúzsa singing Unsubstantial Blues, which was some retro-tinged jazz torch song. It belongs in a Wim Wenders movie, really. Serebro from Russia were also sort of fun, too.


In between the good (THE ARK) and the bad (ugh, Ireland) there was the typical mediocre slash amazingly ridiculous stuff that Eurovision is known for. Countries like Turkey (belly dancing, big surprise!!!), Belarus ("sexy" man with unbuttoned shirt, bigger surprise!!!), Spain (omg, a boy band!), Germany (Justin Timberlake?), United Kingdom (Scooch = Steps in airline outfits, right?) and all the rest. I mean, they're fun to watch and to have a few laughs at so I'm not complaining. If the entire show was legitimately decent music then where would the fun be? As it stands, Eurovsion is about as good a reflection of music as the Grammies, perhaps moreso. That Spanish boy group was quite ridiculous though, weren't they?


I was a bit disappointed when Scooch (the UK entrant, above) finally scored points towards the end of voting. I was really hoping they'd get "nul points" like Jemini did 4 years ago. They were on nul points for so long and then, I think, Ireland gave them a score. Gross. Still, they came 23rd out of 24 (Ireland did worse with 5 points I believe), and I bet the English people wish they really had chosen Cyndi. Oh Terry Wogan, we know you were only trying your hardest to save the UK from inevitable embarassment. We still have Terry Wogan though. Terry Wogan = The Chief.


As for the winner of the night? It was the Serbian entry Marija Šerifović, which you can view here. The track, "A Prayer", was definitely in my top ten for the night, but unlike previous years (except last year, I hated Finland's entry that won) it wasn't in my top five. Still, good on Europe for picking a torch ballad by a lesbian who sort of looks like Hiro from Heroes (I know, right!?)

All in all, it was a fun night and the Finnish production was tops. Until 2008...

Watch The Ark!!