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The Big Story:
The Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s most watched cultural event, gets to its customary glitzy end on a high note of controversy.
This year’s contest, in Malmo, Sweden, has been hit by rows over Israel’s participation while it continues the war on Gaza.
In the run-up to the nearly 70-year-old, glittery pop contest, there have been calls for Israel to be banned, like Russia since 2022 for invading Ukraine.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises Eurovision, has said Palestinian flags won’t be allowed and the contest will only have the flags of the 37 participating countries.
Malmo, whose residents are from 186 countries including Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iran, is braced for pro-Palestinian rallies. Its police chief says "it's obvious that the world's insecurity has also affected Eurovision".
Happier mood music revolves around the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s international breakthrough at Eurovision 1974 with the hit song Waterloo.
Since 2023, the whole world has a vote in Eurovision with viewers even in non-participating countries able to pick a winner, right here: https://www.esc.vote/
Try a taste of one of this year’s entries: Europapa by Joost Klein (pronounced Yost Klane) of the Netherlands.
The Backstory:
Eurovision, generally known for wacky performances such as singing Russian babushkas and a Finnish heavy metal band dressed as monsters, attracts at least 160 million viewers.
The world’s most watched non-sports event, it is surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup.
It is not restricted to the European continent, has no direct connection with the European Union and a country can participate if its national broadcaster is a member of the EBU.
Israel made its Eurovision debut in 1973 as the contest’s first non-European country. Other non-European participants include Cyprus, Armenia, Morocco and Australia.
Eurovision’s "big five" – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK – are the EBU’s major funders and automatically qualify for every grand final.
Songs in English (or partly in English) have won 34 times.
This Week, Those Books:
A hilarious look at decades of Eurovision’s “silly costumes, terrible lyrics”.
A solemn study of how a song contest changed to keep pace with the politics of its times.
The Good, the Bad and the Wurst: The 100 Craziest Moments from the Eurovision Song Contest
By: Geoff Tibballs
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Year: 2016
This book is almost as entertaining as a Eurovision final. It celebrates Eurovision as “about much more than the music”, which Geoff Tibballs adds, “is just as well”. Paying homage to its “over-the-top extravaganza, a feast of lamé, latex and leather”, Tibballs quotes a BBC presenter: “It’s Eurovision – time to send the brain away for the weekend”. He meditates on decades of “silly costumes, terrible lyrics, and performers as diverse as Celine Dion and Dustin the Turkey”.
This is a superb re-telling of the Eurovision story. The high notes of joy and woe are almost as good as fiction.
Choice quote:
“We watch the Eurovision as adults for much the same reason that as children we used to insist on touching a park bench with the sign ‘Wet paint’ hanging from it. We know we shouldn’t but we just can’t help ourselves.”
Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest
By: Dean Vuletic
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2018
The author, considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on Eurovision, designed “the world’s first university course” on it. Here, he charts the contest’s evolution, taking it through the Cold War years, a changing Europe and its shifting institutional architecture. Making clear at the outset that he is a Eurovision enthusiast, Dean Vuletic dismisses criticism of its “cultural kitschiness” as “unfair”. He points out that Eurovision has launched popular superstars (ABBA, Celine Dion and Olivia Newton-John to name just three), showcased “popular music genres”, featured “politically and socially critical” songs, “refashioned national identities” and promoted international cooperation. This has helped Eurovison grow from its original seven countries to the whole European continent and much beyond. Now, it’s a three-night spectacular with a worldwide footprint.
Choice quotes:
“As the journalist Jean Coucrand put it in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir (The Evening) in 1979: ‘If the Eurovision Song Contest does not deal with politics, politics deals with it’.”
“As it has never adopted political criteria for its membership, the EBU’s remit has always been greater than that of other postwar European organizations.”