Shaking Off

The following is an unproven hypothesis that I nevertheless consider to be very likely.  Either that or it was serendipity.

Georgia’s entry to Eurovision 2009 was the most genius diplomatic manœuvre I have ever seen.  Faced with a militarily humiliating (but diplomatically empowering) defeat at Russian hands, Georgia was not too keen to be attending any contests hosted by Russia.  Adding to that is the possibility that should Georgia perform especially poorly on Russian soil would be to add insult to injury.

But at the same time, Georgia wants to take the high road and not look like they’re chickening out.  Enter “We Don’t Wanna Put In”: a song whose political connotations (i.e. “We don’t want a Putin”) are obvious enough to ensure disqualification, but yet subtle enough for Georgia to claim Russian interference.

As for the song itself, it’s not bad but it sounds a lot like “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps.

* * *

Speaking of the Eurovision Song Contest, this year was quite a disappointment.  I found the overall quality of the songs to be much lower.  But I did enjoy the winner, Lena:

I mean, isn’t she just ridiculously adorable?  Especially with that fucked up faux‐English accent that mysteriously disappears whenever she’s speaking German.

But most importantly, thanks to Lena’s victory, her grandfather, a former West German diplomat, now has his own Wikipedia page.

So there’s plenty of good Christmas music out there but what about good Christmas music.  Here are seven great songs.  They’ve been selected using one just criterion: I actually listened to them between February and November of this past year.  Thus they qualify as being more than mere novelties.

Song: “Fairytale Of New York”
Artist: The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl
Comment: Probably the best of the bunch.  It’s much more than just a Christmas song which means prevents it from losing relevance year round.

Song: “Gaudete”
Artist: Steeleye Span
Comment: As far as I can tell, the only Latin language song to ever become a hit single.  “Sadeness” was half in French and Chant was an album, not a single.  It works outside the Christmas season because I can’t understand the words.

Song: “Oi to the World!”
Artist: The Vandals
Comment: A humorous tale about Haji, a turban-clad punk, and Trevor, an ostensibly racist skinhead, who, following a bloody fight, make up and enjoy Christmas.  Lyrics about God coming down on Christmas day would be presumably ironic if not for the fact that the song was written by Joe Escalante, who, along with Johnny Ramone, represents the entire conservative punk rock community.

Song: “Christmas Time Is Here (vocal)”
Artist: Vince Guaraldi Trio
Comment: A Charlie Brown Christmas is still my favourite Christmas special and I’m a big fan of Vince Guaraldi’s music so what’s not to like?

Song: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
Artist: Darlene Love
Comment: A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector is a spotty album at times but this song is a stone cold classic.  Darlene Love has much better pipes than Ronnie Spector for whom it was written.  It’s a shame Spector didn’t produce more material for her.

Song: “Father Christmas”
Artist: The Kinks
Comment: Ray Davies can write guitar riffs like no other.

Song: “Jesus Christ”
Artist: Big Star
Comment: This song has always perplexed me.  The odd title and great tune don’t seem congruent with Alex Chilton’s disaffected voice.  Chilton has gone on record stating that he’s not religious so it’s anyone’s guess.  Just one of the many oddities from the shambolic masterpiece that is Third/Sister Lovers.

Song: “White Christmas”
Artist: Bing Crosby
Comment: This one’s kinda obvious.

Catharina Hagen was born and raised in East Berlin.  A child prodigy in a variety of disciplines she ultimately chose to persue a music career and adopted the stage name Nina Hagen.  In 1974, at age 18, she released her first album, Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen, with her band Automobil.  It’s an album full of crazy pop music with fun, brassy arrangements.

Complications led the Hagen family to defect in 1976.  Nina promptly got herself hooked up with a major label who sent her to London to be educated in the ways of Western music.  Upon her return Hagen formed a new band that was named after herself and transformed into Germany’s answer to Debbie Harry (with some Lydia Lunch aesthetics thrown in for good measure).  The Nina Hagen Band released their first album in 1978.  It was completely absent of any crazy/fun pop music and instead filled with second rate New Wave, the kind of which was sweeping the free world at the time.  The rest, they say, is history.  Today her early work is largely forgotten and she’s known only as Germany’s priestess of punk (which I believe in German is “das Deutschepunkenrockenpriestess“).

Nina Hagen is an anomaly.  West Germany gave us krautrock and for the most part delivered far superior music.  But it does illustrate that, when the wall fell 20 years ago and GDR culture was completely overrun by “Western decadence”–something was lost.  Some former East Germans feel what’s known as ostalgie (”eastalgia,” more or less), a nostalgia for those positive elements of life behind the Iron Curtain.

Chancellor Angela Merkel noted yesterday that the reunification process still isn’t complete.  Economic disparities are still very real.  It makes you wonder: if Germany has had such a hard time with it, is there a hope in hell for countries like Korea or China?

Eurovision was so awesome. I’m totally going to watch it every year now. Although, from what I gather, not all host countries take the contest as serious as Russia did so in effect, this might have been the “Beijing” of Eurovisions in that future countries won’t be laying down so much cash when hosting the contest

Politically motived voting remains, as always, an issue. Cyprus gave Greece douze points and Moldova and Romania likewise swapped their twelve. And it goes without saying that the non-Greek Balkan nations all scratched either others’s backs.

Alexander Rybak of Norway was a deserving winner. In the past Norway has had the dubious honour of coming in last place 10 times, four of which they got nul points. This year they got a record-breaking 387 points, including a record-breaking 16 sets of douze points and a record-breaking 169-point lead over second place. So, all in all, pretty successful.

The great thing about Rybak’s win is his song and his choreography were relatively simple. If I have one criticism of the contest as a whole, it’s the excessive stage productions that take the attention away from the music:

France Gall, 1965 (winner): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5aeeSmkPwQ
Svetlana Loboda, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q6eKK3NcR8

A few screen caps:

The French singer was unfortunately given not one, but two black eyes before going on stage.

Beware of Greeks riding giant staplers.

Rarely seen in the wild, this is the critically endangered German jazz cowboy, or die Deutschejazzenkowboy.

Based on her “hat,” Albania was apparently the setting for The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Those backward Muslim countries are SO repressive to their women.

I sat and pondered for some time over how I could turn this into a Russian reversal but I’ve got nothing. It’s just a picture of an oddly emotional Русский singer.

Easily my favourite Russian word. Evar.

Wohoo!

[Ed.—With the proper promotion I think Brinck, the entrant from Denmark, could definitely break through the North American market. He's the only one whose style I think is suitable. But, in reality, with the exception of a handful of musicans (e.g. ABBA) mainland Europeans never hit the U.S. charts.]

Yesterday was the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest. The final will take place tomorrow. It was overall a pretty good bunch, although neither Ireland nor Cyprus, both of whom I thought had really strong numbers, made the cut. Europeans have weird tastes.

The Latvian singer was jumping around the stage more or less in this position for the entire number. Although I have to give them props for resisting the temptation to sing in English. I can’t speak Russian but I thought I heard the word “kulak” so maybe the song was about the plight of wealthy farmers.

The lead singer/violinist from Norway is the frontrunner in the Eurovision Moustache Contest.

Before each song a transliterated Russian word was displayed along with its translation. I was completely stumped by this one before I checked the meaning in English.

Medved! MEDVED! That’s like…

Preved Medved! Speaking of John Lurie, the first Lounge Lizards album is so awesome.

Really, no Russian party would be complete without bears.

So I have this stereotype in my head of Serbs as being assholes which is, admittedly based more or less entirely on Gavrilo Princip and Slobadan Milošević, the only two Serbs I can name off the top of my head. After seeing this act though, I don’t know what to think.

The Hungarian singer having his clothes torn off. You could say they’re “Hungary for love!” Eh, eh? No? Oh well.

The Slovenian singer was behind this curtain for two thirds of the performance. When she finally emerged I disappointed and surprised at the fact that she was neither naked nor hideous, respectively.

Of the 25 countries competing in the final, 13 of them have never won, including Azerbaijan, a country nobody’s heard of (it’s one of the few Asian CIS members whose name doesn’t end in “-stan”). I hope their chief export is hot women like AySel (who’s only 20!!). If Azerbaijan does when it’ll be only the second or third time the winner isn’t pasty white.

Kids, this is what happens to you when you grow up in a godless country: green men molest you.

Roman centurions in hamster wheels are a common sight in the Ukrainian countryside.

“By the way, I’d like to tell you about the things you need to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. You need wide screen TV, you need laptop and you need a toaster. You need TV to watch, laptop to get the exclusive [unintelligle] access backstage to exclusive materials and the chance to get in toach with the fans of Eurovision, so go eurovision.tv and toaster… for making toast!” - Dmitriy Sheplev, Greenroom Reporter

He redeemed himself, however, with some good comments in the following press conference. Which was boring for the most part except when some asshole from the Netherlands asked the Moldovan party whether he would have to bring his own tent next year if Moldova won the contest (Moldova, of course, being one of the least developed countries in Europe). I didn’t catch her answer, which was in Moldovan (which is IDENTICAL to Romanian, but don’t tell that to a Moldovan).

Also during the press conference, they had multiple cameras going and this shot came on the screen and inexplicably lingered there for several seconds.

I’ve been stung by Cupid’s arrow. It’s official, I am going to marry this mascot woman. [Ed.—It seems her name is Ksenia Sukhinova and she's actually a year younger than I am. Oh and she was Miss World 2008.]

HELLO! WE ARE RUSSIAN! ISN’T ZAT GREAT!

The obnoxious and unfunny hosts. I lol’d once though, when he described Israel’s entry as “the most political[ly] correct song” in the contest (the song is in English, Hebrew and Arabic and is performed as a duet between an Israeli Jew and an Israeli Arab).

And so begins Eurovision, or as she put it, “the most exciting European song battle of the year.” Which would suggest that “song battles” are a common occurrence in Europe.

The chameleon: she appears wearing a different hat and shirt for each upcoming performance. This is Belgium.

White City/Dome of the Rock/Menorah hats are very popular in Israel this time of year.

What more can I say that isn’t already painfully obvious, really? Oh, and the band’s name is also their website URL: gipsy.cz

I would mock them but there’s a chance this might be traditional Armenian religious garb.

What contest is complete without an angry Belgian Elvis? His song was, fittingly enough, entitled “Copycat.” I actually liked it but he didn’t qualify for the final.

Icelandic girl next store. God I love that country.

In trying to convince you to buy the CD and DVD he namedrops ABBA and Celine Dion, who are two of the only Eurovision winners (out of about fifty) who have gone on to have internationally successful careers. In Dion’s case it was almost a decade after her win so the connection is tenuous at best.  He also came up with this dynamite utterance: “We’re waiting for you, because without you we can’t wait.”

Legendary Russian musicians: Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, t.A.T.u.
(At least Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality was legit.)

She’s such a tease.

So despite all my mocking and sarcasm I actually really enjoyed watching it. The Second Semi-Final is on right now, I’ll probably watch the replay later tonight: www.eurovision.tv