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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
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.
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.