Don’t Play That Eurovision Song Again

Friday, May 14, 2004

posted in Music

So it’s Eurovision tomorrow night, and whilst I was out drinking with other webloggers (much fun had) on Wednesday, I missed the semi-final! Noo!

The BBC do, as ever, have the best online coverage of the event, and this year they’ve done a great big scorecard to rate the songs by.

Ben and I decided to create our own rating system for each country’s song. Naturally, it is deliberately obtuse, and you’ll need a separate piece of paper to put each country’s score on. But we think it’s great. Here it is:

Eurovision Song Contest 2004 (Istanbul 15/05/04) – An Alternative Scoresheet

MUSICAL CONTENT

bonus key change (1 point for each)
terry wogan’s favourite (minus 5 points) / joint second favourite (minus ten points)
bum notes (half a point for each)
rubbish whiny ballady string section (2 points)
sax solo (3 points) / played by a hairy homegrown answer to Kenny G (5 points)

LYRIC BINGO
score half a point for every occurence of:

each word that’s there only to get the Europhile vote: ‘unite’, ‘europe’, ‘freedom’, ‘Anschluss’, ‘Hasselhoff’
each word that’s been lifted straight from the dictionary of old-school Rock ‘n’ Roll cliches: ‘amore’, ‘radio’, ‘high’, ‘electric’, ‘baby’.

FURTHER FUN WITH LYRICS

badly translated lyrics (e.g. ‘our country’s turbulent river / conceived by our lofty mountains / kisses and embraces our golden shore / which unfortunately is radioactive’) (1 point per tear-inducing line)
use of rap (5 points) / in native language (7.5 points)
verse is in german, but chorus is in english (minus 2 points)

LOOK AT US WE’RE CRAZY AUSTRIANS

selfconscious novelty value (up to 5 points, e.g. Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids = 1; Love City Groove = 5)
deliberate selection of unusual singer (e.g. dwarf, bald, transsexual) (2 points)
conductor with moustache (1 point) / female vocalist with moustache (2 points) / from estonia (3 points)
strange stompy dance (2 points, unless irish, in which case -100 points)

OVERBLOWN HISTRIONICS

on stage costume change (2 points for each)
visible pants (5 points)
crowd surfing / scenery climbing shenanigans (50 points)
gratuitous use of semi-clad dancers / ukranian contortionists (half a point)
pvc / leather / rubber trousers (2 points per pair; 4 points if red, pink or white)

TOKEN BOW TO NATIONALISM

use of obscure national instrument (2 points)
gratuitous soft porn interpretation of national costume (5 points)
use of hilarious minority language e.g. welsh, manx, flemish, esperanto, la gomeran whistle (1 point for each) (hint: 888 for translated subtitles)

FACIAL EXPRESSION

absurdly expensive dentistry (1 point) / were you in a punch up last night? (2 points)
ear-to-ear grin that just won’t slip, not even for a microsecond (1 point)
lipstick applied with a shovel (1 point) / on a man (2 points)
constipated eyebrow-creasing ‘celine dion multiplied by gareth gates’ expression (half point for each)

Bon Soir ___________________ (your name), may we have your votes please?

“Hello Istanbul. This year, I will be awarding douze points to ________________” (country with most points)

[This is a Ben Supper & Simon Pearson production]