Europe has given us many wonderful things, but it’s fair to say that pop music is not one of them (unless you are a Falco fan – Simon, I’m looking at you), writes Sarah Newton.
So why does the country that produced The Beatles, Bowie, Elton John, Queen – let’s face it I could go on and on – continually fail to make an impact at the Eurovision Song Contest?
The answer is multi-layered, and voting to leave Europe probably didn’t help, but the reality is that the contest no longer rewards musical excellence or industry influence.
If we sent Beyonce to Eurovision she’d probably come 17th. But if someone from Moldova enters dressed as a singing astronaut riding a disco-unicorn? That’s a top-five finish, defo.
Don’t get me wrong, I used to be a fan. I was nine years old when Bucks Fizz won Eurovision and the first single I ever bought was One Step Further, by Bardo (for those who don’t remember this musical masterpiece, they were the UK’s entry the following year and came 7th).
Excitement and little flags
While these were more innocent times, there was still a genuine sense of excitement around the contest. Families gathered around the telly, waving little flags. Yes, it was cheesy, but it was innocently cheesy. There was a kind of wide-eyed optimism behind it all.
Acts were more focused on winning audiences over with catchy hooks than with pyrotechnics and avant-garde interpretive dance. Sure, the staging was a bit dodgy, and some of the acts wouldn’t have made it past a pub open mic night but it was still about the music.
Fast forward to today, and it’s all become so bloated, so self-aware, so desperate to go viral that any trace of sincerity has vanished. Everyone’s in on the joke now, which is precisely what makes it less fun.
You can’t ironically enjoy something that’s already parodying itself.
Heart replaced by hashtags
The charm has been replaced by calculated spectacle. The heart has been replaced by hashtags. And the show is no longer a cross-generational TV event but a surreal blend of latex and lasers which you wouldn’t be able to watch with your gran because a man screaming in Esperanto while dancers in bondage gear interpret the plight of the honeybee is not what I’d call family viewing.
It also lasts for approximately 159 hours, so by the time the 24th act takes to the stage in a light-up cape singing about world peace on a trampoline, complete with naked pole dancers and a random bloke playing the flute dressed as a giant teddy bear, I’ve completely lost the will to live.
Is it a gimmick or genuine?
It’s camper than Christmas – and for many people that’s the point – but surely camp stopped being funny decades ago, unless you’re still a fan of Kenneth Williams and John Inman?
I know it’s one of the few shows that promotes LGBTQ+ representation, inclusivity and progressive messaging. While this is commendable in principle, surely it’s not really inclusive when it’s just used as a gimmick rather than a genuine expression of values?
And although I’m not a hugely competitive person, I just don’t see the point in entering a competition which is virtually impossible to win because, although Eurovision should surely be apolitical, voting patterns definitely suggest otherwise.
Regional bloc voting and political alliances dictate the scoreboard. Countries award points not based on musical merit but on geography, history or diplomatic relations.
The scoreboard looks less like a reflection of talent and more like a map of post-war alliances. Greece gives Cyprus 12 points. The Nordics vote for each other.
The UK? Well, we’re lucky to scrape together five points and a polite shrug from Ireland.
I don’t need to give up an evening – especially one that feels more like a month – to see that the whole continent hates the UK (apart from the year when Russia invaded Ukraine and we, rightly, pitched in with support).
Colourful escapism with lots of sequins
Of course, Eurovision still has its place as a colourful night of entertainment and for many, that’s exactly the point. It’s escapism, a chance to celebrate the absurd and the outrageous in equal measure. And if that’s what you’re after, then Eurovision delivers in sequinned spades.
It’s essentially Europe’s most glitter-drenched popularity contest. So, if that’s what you are after, knock yourself out. Throw a themed party. Dress up like Lordi. Lip-sync to whatever Sweden’s serving up this year.
But let’s stop pretending it’s something it absolutely is not: an innocent celebration of international unity where the power of music unites us all.
And don’t even get me started on why Australia is in it!
I remember Victory in Europe Day. It was many years ago and brought unbridled joy, and some dancing the streets, sending a wave of euphoria sweeping through the nation from Cornwall to Kircaldy, writes Simon Burch.
No, not that one. It was on April 28 1997, the last time United Kingdom won the Eurovision Contest, thanks to Katrina and the Waves and her uplifting anthem Love Shine a Light.
It didn’t matter that she was American, in the same way that it didn’t matter that the UK entry the year before, Gina G, was Australian.
Victory was wearing a Union flag and we dined out on it, in the same way that we did in 1981, thanks to Bucks Fizz and Making Your Mind Up, five years after Brotherhood of Man swept the board with Save Your Kisses for Me.
That’s three wins in my lifetime, which, admittedly, isn’t a lot, but only because post-2000 the wheels have properly fallen off the UK Eurovision experience and we’re now the whipping boys of the whole shebang for reasons I’m not sure anybody really knows.
Splendid, despite the losses
For sure, this has sucked some of the joy out of it. It’s left people old enough to remember the dance to Save Your Kisses For Me and recall when the Bucks Fizz boys pulled off the girls’ long skirts – Sarah, I’m looking at you – feeling grumpy and disengaged.
And they carp on about the amount of licence money the BBC ploughs into the contest only for us to fall flat on our faces, complaining, presumably, that we’re aren’t getting enough Boom Bang-a-Bang for our buck.
But they shouldn’t moan, because if you are willing to look beyond the fact that UK has become to Eurovision what Derby County has become to the Premier League, Eurovision is still really rather splendid.
And millions of people agree with me, judging by the Eurovision parties that take place every year and the hundreds of Brits who spend a fortune on flights and accommodation to attend the event itself, only for the evening to end in humiliation.
I think what keep us all engaged is the same thing that makes Christmas so special; the nostalgic feeling, fuelled by our early experiences, that everything is going to be fun.
So when we crash and burn, it feels not like business as usual (which it is) but an aberration.
And it’s that self-delusion which keeps us tuning in every year, as if it’s still 1997 and we have a good chance of winning.
Can Remember Monday win?
I think there is nothing wrong with that, so I’ll be watching on Saturday, hoping our act – a girl group called Remember Monday – will do what we haven’t done for 28 years and win.
But in my heart I know we will probably come last. And Remember Monday will be Forgotten Tuesday, except to those who write the list ever-growing list of the UK’s no-hopers who went to Europe and came back with their tails between their legs.
And I’ll walk into work on Monday morning and Sarah will say “See? I told you we wouldn’t win.”
However, ever the optimist, I will have taken something out of the experience. I may not have sipped from the cup of victory, but I will have enjoyed the spectacle and claimed the moral high ground by saying it’s taking part that counts and have demonstrated that British ability to be a jolly good sport.
Forget, forgive and enjoy
Because forget the ignominy of being the country that gave the world The Beatles but can’t win a poxy song contest.
Forget the fact that Ireland won’t have given us 12 points – which they really should, because they win all our horse races, we drink their Guinness and the Royal Navy protect their waters, for God’s sake.
Forget the fact that Greece will have given their douze points to Cyprus – again – and forget the fact that we will have been beaten by Finland, the same Finland who always leaves you wondering what their judges were smoking when they chose their entry.
No. Celebrate instead how we are the Kings of Europe when it comes to putting on a brave face and soldiering on in the face of adversity.
Celebrate that we haven’t all gone into a huff and taken our ball home across the Channel.
Celebrate the songs, the joy, the costumes and the voting, and how everyone came together, despite our differences, and threw a musical party that was watched all over the world.
And celebrate that at least we’re not France, who last won the contest in 1977 and so, quite incredibly, have an even worse record in Europe than we do.
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