Congratulations to our new #Eurovision champions Måneskin! ???
? Listen to their winner 'Zitti E Buoni' and all of this year's songs over and over and over again: https://t.co/gQD1RJgYyY pic.twitter.com/FWbyDKm1FM
— Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) May 22, 2021
Can’t say ‘Shut Up and Be Quiet‘ would’ve been my personal pick, but of course I’m not the target audience…
Haven’t listened to every song yet — probably won’t, TBH — but my fave so far is the Netherlands’:
(Performer Jeangu Macrooy was born in Suriname, formerly ‘Dutch Guiana’.)
Ukraine’s SHUM is also great, and not just because SHUM is right in my wheelhouse:
A really touching speech by Graham Norton here, on how much effort has gone into making tonight possible.
"A year ago this venue was a hospital and tonight it's bringing us all together." #Eurovision pic.twitter.com/HlPOY38uCC
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) May 22, 2021
Just a Quick Note About Why Rudy Giuliani Offered What He Claims Are Hunter Biden’s Hard Drives To the FBI
frosty
I like that the bass player is a girl. Following in the footsteps of Carol Kane, Tina Weymouth, Kathy Valentine, Micheal Steele.
Bummer. I missed the coveted 2nd by *that much*.
opiejeanne
I’m really disappointed that Fire Saga didn’t win.
opiejeanne
@frosty: Waving at you from 2nd.
NotMax
Trivia: After one of the Anglo-Dutch wars, the Dutch got to keep the formerly English Surinam and in turn the English gained control of the formerly Dutch New Amsterdam.
An historically lopsided trade-off.
R-Jud
Ukraine was ROBBED. Lithuania’s was also classic Eurovision.
I watched with The Child, who wasn’t impressed.
NotMax
When, if ever, was Eurovison not a punch line?
eclare
@frosty: You had me confused, Carol Kane is an actress. I think you’re referring to Carol Kaye. And don’t forget Meshell Ndegeocello.
John Revolta
Huh. The lyrics made more sense to me in the original Italian. And I don’t speak Italian.
Morzer
Eurovision causes less destruction than a war – and that is all there is to be said for it.
bjacques
Speaking of war, I can’t forgive Norway for their pre-emptive Whamageddon decapitation strike last night.
I was hoping Switzerland would win because the guy looked and sounded like the late Billy Mackenzie from early ’80s band The Associates, who I’ve been bingeing on since identifying them last month as the source of an occasional earworm from 39 years ago. Or France, for a lovely straight-up chanson. But fair play to Italy.
I failed to get a decent photo of Germant’s Dancing Hand Lady’s index finger flopping over so it looked like she was flipping the bird.
sab
@NotMax: You had better hope that Steve in Atl doesn’t see your “an historically” reference. Those youngsters can get so excited.
Tony Jay
On my scorecard the Italians were up there, and not just because I instantly developed a completely inappropriate crush on the edible Ms De Angelis. My kind of music, performed with energy and gusto by a gang of kids who were clearly having a great time dressing up in 70s glam.
I wouldn’t have cried if Lithuania’s banana-suited disco effort had won, or the French lady with her very French slice of Frenchy Frenchness. Of course Iceland’s kooky nerdgasm deserved to triumph after being robbed by fate last year, but it was not to be.
Can’t believe Switzerland did so well with that wet plop of a dirge. So glad it was pipped at the post.
Special mentions go to whoever designed the Giant Hand costume for the German act that ‘totally accidentally’ kept on presenting a middle finger to the world, and to the UK entrant who manfully struggled through his act knowing full well that nobody was going to throw a single bone to the Shit Man of Europe.
eclare
@Tony Jay: I liked the Italian entry, to me it had flavors of Green Day.
bjacques
@Tony Jay: Estonia were Baltic Devo. Half the fun of Eurovision is guessing which musical genres were spliced together for bands dressed inappropriately for any of them. I swear I heard the Pan Pipes of Joujouka in one of them. Albania?
Latveria were robbed again and Dr. Doom swears we will all pay dearly for it.
sab
@Tony Jay: We Americans don’t get to see the full Eurovision offering, which I think is sad.
America is a big country, but pretty much homogenic. We have slightly different accents and slightly different regional food, but we are mostly one big country with the same language and mostly the same everywhere. Nothing like Europe. I would like to see more.
Cleveland Ohio Catholic churches have all these ethnic churches, which follow the customes and languages of where their founders came from.
Irish churches. Ukrainian churches. Lithuanian churches. Hungarian churches. German churches. Black churches.
They all have their own customs and masses, and also their own endowments. Horrible Bishop Lennon came in intending to steal those to pay off Bostons priest scandals. He failed.
Meanwhile in the midwest, life goes on. I know people from Ukranian Catholic churches (4th genereation Americans) who didn’t learn English until they went to kindergarten. Families whole life was wrapped up in their church. But that is weird and very urban. Everywhere else people mix and intermarry and confuse their kids with the mixed background.
Us v Europe is weird on ethnic identity. I like to see both sides. Our melting pot seems to work. Yours is interesting to follow.
Tony Jay
@eclare:
Aye. Take one part Green Day, add a pinch of Extreme and a dash of Suzi Quatro, marinade overnight in a bowl filled to the brim with cliche by the producers of the Pitch Perfect franchise and you’re off to the races. No one knows what melange will work, but sometimes it just does.
In the movie Jack Black will play the teacher who always had faith in them with Eva Green as the manager of the cheating Swiss entrant. 8-)
Tony Jay
@bjacques:
Doom personally wrote the Azerbaijani entry and will make those fools on the professional juries regret their insolence in rejecting his homage to Ariana Grande and female empowerment!
Nina
I really loved Finland’s entry when I first heard it but it doesn’t have legs, and they didn’t change their staging one iota between UMK, the semis, and the finals. Other bands outworked them.
I am bizarrely fond of Germany’s entry, their initial video was adorable. Deserved way more than 3 points.
Tony Jay
@sab:
One major mark against Eurovision, especially since the turn of the millennium, was the noticeable trend towards toning down the regional peculiarities of each entrant in favour of a bland, Euro-Poppy sameness that would do well with the Ibiza dance floor crowd.
It wasn’t so prevalent this time around, but even so how many sexy females singing in English wearing the same spangly silver leotard were there this year? And where were the kooks? The closest we got to Eurobonkers was Lithuania, maybe Ukraine, and whatever the hell was going on with Portugal’s ‘Grandad in a Hat’.
I like the change in the voting system. Fucking Switzerland would have won if it had been up to the ‘professionals’. Thank God for the public vote.
At least the hoary old tradition of the UK picking a crap song, getting sabotaged by the sound guys and absolutely scorned by the wider European audience is a strong as ever. Long may it remain so. We deserve no better treatment while we continue voting for xenophobic scum.
Tony Jay
@Nina: Finland were the Gothy Linkin Park tribute act, yeah? I didn’t mind them, but they were no Lordi.
I think the German entry fell just the wrong side of the ‘trying to hard to be clever’ line. Was it a wacky song about rejecting hate or was it a knowing piss-take of feely, huggy Euroblather about everyone loving everyone else?
bjacques
@Tony Jay:
Oh, for the days of Eurovision ultras brawling in the streets of the host city and the many bars showing the semifinals (never mind) the final on TV. When Bucks Fizz and Katrina And The Waves took home the silverware for Britain in 1981 and 1997, respectively, the whole country was a sea of St. George flags and their songs blared from every white van from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Bliss it was, in that Dawn to be alive, but to be young was very Heaven!
Britain this year can take solace in Ireland’s disastrous attempt so soon after their victories (for the benefit of the rest of y’all)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RLtgbAoy27Q
By the way, thanks for the Monkey Dust reference. I’d vaguely heard of it before, and bingeing on that successfully consumed an entire working day. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock does sort of look like Ivan Dobsky
Rob
I just watched (parts of) Måneskin’s official video and last night’s performance, and read a little bit about them. Rock on, kids!
Tony Jay
@bjacques:
Those were the days. Sixteen pints of strong lager and off down to the local Aldi to bawl “Four Eurovisions and Two World Wars” at the puzzled manager because someone mentioned it’s owned by Germans.
The whisper about Ireland deliberately sabotaging themselves because hosting Eurovision was bankrupting them should be true even if it’s not.
Monkey Dust was so ahead of its time. No one would dare commission something that brutally dark these days, but by the gods it was as funny as it was occasionally heartbreaking. The last scene of the ‘Useless Divorced Dad’ saga… devastating.
And I’m stealing the Hancock = Dobsky reference for the next time I temporarily sneak past the Guardian banhammer drones.
Minstrel Michael
I firmly believe that, here in the 21st century, all popular music is created by algorithms. It’s gotten to the point where kids go to Berklee explicitly to engineer themselves into hardware that can run those algorithms.
And a shoutout to trendsetters ABBA, who entered public consciousness with their 1974 Eurovision win, “Waterloo.”
wvng
@opiejeanne: Fire Saga never wins, and always does.
Calouste
@NotMax:
The Dutch also got to keep the island of Run, in what is now Indonesia, which was then the only source of nutmeg in the world. Which was worth a heck of a lot more than the few furs that New Amsterdam produced at that point. Also, the Dutch held onto those possessions for a long time after the English had already lost New York.
frosty
@eclare: Yes, Carol Kaye. Late night commenting isn’t always accurate.
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: Curses upon you for failing to mention Kim Deal.