So Clau and I hosted a little party to watch the Eurovision 2010 contest. About 20 or so people showed up, almost entirely women and gay men - there was one other straight man there and he discretely slipped out about halfway through. The liquor we had purchased for the event was gone in about an hour and we resorted to drinking most everything else in the apartment. Thankfully the ladies weren't into single malt or we might have had a very expensive night indeed.
Before moving here, I had no idea the Eurovision contest existed, but it's apparently quite a big deal, at least amongst women and gays. The voting period (SMS only IIRC) lasts 10 minutes. 10 minutes!!! The way the votes worked was pretty interesting, but too complex to be worth explaining - suffice it to say that they're constantly tweaking the balance between the judges in each country and the general public.
Anyway, Germany won by a landslide, so it was a pretty happy crowd. I woke up with a fierce hangover the next day but it was totally worth it. If possible, I'll be watching this every year from now on.
The obligatory YouTube links - the ones from BBC don't have the full performances but you get the idea, and they're the best sound you'll find on the net.
The winner - this song has been playing non-stop on MTV for the last couple of months, but the Germans don't seem to be sick of it yet. Admittedly it's pretty catchy, but it gets old after 50 or so listens:
Yes, she is in fact imitating a cockney accent. And she is German - from Hannover, which is the German equivalent of Liverpool. I've included the actual music video because the contest performance was pretty crap (although it still won).
"Most awesome mind-blowingly sterotypically Euro" award goes to Moldovia. Epic sax man FTW.
My top picks were Turkey and Romania, which came in at #2 and #3, respectively. I don't feel particularly good about myself for mirroring Europe's choices. I thought Turkey had the best song, plus of course major bonus points for the senseless robo-hottie. Sorry about the disabled embedding but it's by far the best full recording of the thing.
Romania's entry - I actually find this kinda catchy, plus I have a weakness for hot eastern European girls in form-fitting outfits (but really, who doesn't?). The live performance was, sadly, pretty tame; of course that's all relative - from those last 2 clips you can tell that the bar for Euro theatrics was set pretty high.
The "instant gay club hit" songs - Albania and Iceland.
And many others that just sorta sucked. You can see all the live performances at http://www.youtube.com/user/EurovisionESCTV if you want, but trust me these are the highlights.
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