People and Countries for 2005

In order for the drinking game to work, and to maximise the fun that you're likely to get out of the night, everyone coming along must choose a country. This choice can be based upon any criteria, possible suggestions include: ethnic extraction, sport allegiance, language familiarity and high opinion of performer/song (for this last: research will be involved. Check out the links section for resources).

Special note: only the semi-final countries are available for allocation. This is because the party is on a Friday night (Sunday would have been a bit hard). And yes, that means that the "winner" on Friday won't win the whole competition. But hopefully everyone will be motivated to vigorously support their adopted country in the final on Sunday (if it makes it through that is).

Current Allocation

Each song has been rated according to merit (this year it's according to Shaun), with  being the best and A the worst. I have put a Comments column in the table, which I have used to record a brief verbal snapshot of the song. Feel free to take this into account when choosing.

Order Country Song Rating Allocated To Comment
1 Austria Global Kryner - "Y así" ABB   The first line sounds to me like "You knew a girl that came from Cooma". Enough said! (Genre: Oompah music)
2 Lithuania Laura & The Lovers - "Little By Little" AB   You gotta lova a Chariots of Fire intro! A likeable enough song (Genre: Ear candy)
3 Portugal 2B - "Amar" A  Michael I'm not sure if this is a product of Portguese Idol, but it sounds like it (Genre: Ibiza anthemic)
4 Moldova Zdob si Zdub - "Boonika Bate Toba" ABB   At least it's a bit different - Moldova's answer to Green Day (Genre: Ska-panpipe fusion)
5 Latvia Walters & Kazha - "The War Is Not Over" A Jon I think they're talking about the war on good music. They seem to be winning (Genre: Accoustic activist)
6 Monaco Lise Darly - "Tout de moi" AB Mick I always think French sounds quite good. Slow though (Genre: Flighty ingenue)
7 Israel Shiri Maimon - "Hasheket Shenish'ar" AB Simon A slow one, but quite melodic (Genre: Ear candy)
8 Belarus Angelica Agurbash - "Love me tonight" ABBA   Sang like the lyrics were learnt phonetically. I like it though (Genre: East does West)
9 Netherlands Glennis Grace - "My impossible dream" A   A bad throw-back to another era (Genre: diva power ballad)
10 Iceland Selma - "If I Had Your Love" ABB Dan Some good bits, and a nice riff, but a bit repetitive (Genre: nothing but the hook)
11 Belgium Nuno Resende – "The Big Night“ A   Just plain bad - more French soul searching (Genre: philosophy purpetrated in music)
12 Estonia Suntribe - "Let's get loud" ABBA Kelly There's a lot to like about Baltic pop - a strong entry (Genre: well-crafted pop)
Order Country Language Rating Allocated To Comment
13 Norway Wig Wam - "In My Dreams" ABBA Zoe I love this song - Bon Jovi eat your heart out (Genre: denim and long hair)
14 Romania Luminita Anghel & Sistem - "Let me try" A   More bloody pan-pipes. A big crescendo that never really delivers (Genre: iron curtin electronica)
15 Hungary NOX - "Forogj világ" ABB   Gypsy fiddles this time. Nice and melodic though (Genre: proudly ethnic)
16 Finland Geir Rönning - "Why" AB   A slow one - has "one guy and a piano" written all over it (Genre: Nokia polyphonic)
17 FYR Macedonia Martin Vucic - "Ti si son" AB   Techno - as the Balkans seem to quite often be (Genre: inoffensively stereotypical)
18 Andorra Marian van der Wal - "La mirada interior" ABB Siobhan I don't know why, but I quite like this syrupy pop (Genre: Bilingual pan-European)
19 Switzerland Vanilla Ninja - "Cool Vibes" ABBA Shaun I'm really keen on this one - this year I think we can go all the way! (Genre: power ring-ins)
20 Croatia Boris Novkovic feat. Lado members - "Vukovi umiru sami" AB   Very traditional - which makes a refreshing change from the europop (Genre: Balkan lullaby)
21 Bulgaria Kaffe - "Lorraine" A   A very American sound, which seems to go down well with the youngsters today (Genre: white boy RnB)
22 Ireland Donna and Joe - "Love" A Steve This song asks the question: "do you wanna fall in love?" Not with this song I don't! (Genre: An Irish win-avoidance strategy)
23 Slovenia Omar Naber - "Stop" ABB Kirsty A real orchestral performance - almost an ABBA (Genre: EU membership marketing)
24 Denmark Jacob Sveistrup - "Tænder på dig" ABBA Mel Danish reggae - it'll stick in your head (Genre: Mary-i-iffic).
25 Poland Ivan & Delfin - "Czarna dziewczyna" A   What were they thinking? It's all bad - not just because of the piano accordian (Genre: Poland's answer to Zorba)

Apologies: Dave and Sarah, Mandy and Rich, Sophie, Jude, Anais, Kate, Paulina, Nick, Vanessa, Helen

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Choosing Wisely

Probly the most helpful starting document is the ESC Singers and Songs PDF file produced by the EBU. There's a lot of interesting reading, including the names of the artists and the songs that they will be performing.

Next stop should probly be some thinking out the geography and language of the song. When it comes to picking a winner, things are much more complicated than they seem. My best guess is a formula that looks something like this:

Probility of winning = (A x Performance) + (B x Song Quality) + (C x Political Factors)

Where:

  • Performance is influenced by crowd reaction, attractiveness and attire of performers, and energy of performance;
  • Song Quality is influenced by language, mass-appeal and catchiness; and
  • Political Factors is influenced by historical friendships and emnities, presence of geographical neighbours in the contest, and language and cultural similarities.

My best guess is something like A = 0.5, B = 0.2 and C = 0.3 (but feel free to disagree).

All this having been said: the best thing to do is find a song or performer that (for whatever reason) you like. Or just take pot luck. There is definitely something to be said for finding out on the night that your country is the one with the transvestite wearing yellow leather.

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Potential 2005 Highlights

As always there are lots of potentially controversial issues. Off the top of my head:

Russia So, the KGB have just finished poisoning the Ukranian President. Will it poison their Eurovision relationship? Look for a frosty reception for the Russian performance on the night.
Hosts This year's hosts are Ruslana (this time without her wild dancers), DJ Pasha (apparently, to steal a phrase, world famous in the Ukraine) and Volodymyr Klyschko (who desperately needs to buy a vowel). Expect wackiness and lots of breathtakingly bad comedy.
Switzerland Well, Switzerland decided this year that the local artists were just not doing it for them. So the Swiss entrant in 2005 is Vanilla Ninja, an Estonian girl band. Yep, that's right, Estonian. If this poaching strategy works, expect a football transfer-esque market to spring up in time for next year (when I'm confident the contest will be in Zurich!).
Politics

The two biggest political issues hanging around the ESC this year are probably the EU referendum (the only people likely to vote for it are Tony Blair and Jacque Chirac) and the recent upheaval in the former Soviet states (the "[insert name here] Revolution" revolutions).

So, is Moldova next? A good performance in the ESC might get some EU support before Vladimir Putin manages to find Moldova on the map.

If, in the course of your research, you find out anything interesting out this year's Eurovision, let me know and I will add it to my list. And I take as given things like poor fashion, ethnic mismatches between peformers and countries, blatant musical rip-offs and strangely somber Eastern Europeans.

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©2003 Tipson Family.
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