Eurovision 2011: Bex's highly informed opinions of it.

I'm not the hugest fan of the usual cheese that Eurovision peddles, but I can't help myself but love it. The light hearted family fun feel of it never ceases to perk me up. Sure, I can only handle it once a year and I never bother keeping up with the run ups, but that once a year I await with the greatest of anticipation. This year, held in Dusseldorf, Germany, wasn't quite as breathtaking or eyecatching in its stunts or acts as former years, although that might well be the cynicism of my age creeping up on me more than anything else. At any rate, I enjoyed it no less than other years and am already planning for a Eurovision fancy dress party next year!

The night kicked off in style with a rockabillyesque version of "Satellite" by last years winner, Lena, who was back to represent Germany again this year. This was followed by the first entry, Finland, who I'm sad to say wasn't quite as sparkly as the opening act.

Don't get me wrong, it was a nice enough little song, certainly better than some of what was to follow. The singer was so sweet you could wrap him up and sell him as toffee. Or pack him up as a doll, Ken's little brother or perhaps Action Man's weedy secretary. Either way I'm afraid Finald, who ultimately came 21 out of 25 was a bit of a shrinking violet and so far removed from their jaw dropping winning entry from 2006 (Who would be Lordi, as if you would forget that!). He just got all washed out by the rest of the glitz, glam and spectacle of Eurovision.

The show picked up with the second song however, an entry by the typically eccentric Bosnia & Herzegovina. Their show piece this time round? A random, trumpet wielding hobo (though I don't recall him actually putting the trumpet to his lips...if anyone recalls this do let me know!) who could well have been Ali G dragged up from a ditch after a week long bender who seemed to, well...run around and leap elegantly from one end of the stage to another like a...graceful Bosnian deer...

Ahem.

Denmark continued in a happy bouncy but unremarkable fasion, and Lithuania was fourth on stage, and was the first country to showcase what I like to call the "Eurodiva". The Eurodiva, if you have never watched Eurovision, appears every year. Her song is heartfelt and soulful. Towards the end she begins to scream somewhat. She is clothed in what is supposed to be an elegant gown and usually appears on stage on her own or with an instrumentalist or a troupe of crazy dancers of some description. In typically elegant Eurodiva style, Lithuania appeared with a grand piano. There were various Eurodiva's tonight, and there was nothing specifically special about Lithuania's diva except that she happened to be the first on stage.

Fifth was Hungary, who at first had the potential to be the second Eurodiva but her song was much too cheesetastic pop and her blue lame dress much too short to be classy. Perhaps Eurotramp would be the best way to desribe Hungary's offering, and the rest of Europe seemed to agree...she came 22nd in the end, even lower than Finland's pretty wallflower boy.

Sixth I had more of an interest in because sith on stage was Ireland, represented by Jedward. Now, it's us in the United Kingdom who are really responsible for Jedward. It was us (well I say us, it wasn't me personally I must press you to understand) who launched them to fame via the X Factor. They already have a relatively impressive (I suppose) fan base here in the UK and were always going to recieve our 12 points. Their performance was typically flamboyant. They wore matching sparkly red suits with the most humongous foam shoulder pads that made them look very tense and stiff throughout their eccentric dance routine which mostly involved them jumping up and down like a pair of angry leprechauns...and I'm not even being racist towards the Irish when I say this...their costumes paired with their trademark hair do and random leaping up and down (I don't know whether or not it was actually intended but this dancing and leaping up and down was not in sync with one another, or with the music) made them look like a pair of angry creatures from fairy land. Rumplestiltskin comes to mind, actually. As for the song itself, I have to admit it's now stuck in my head, but I don't recall actually hearing them singing it. The backing singers were very good though! A memorable performance, certainly, however.

Seventh onto the stage was Sweden, who looked at one point like they were going to win it (alas, they did not). The song was another catchy one, about being popular. Not my particular cup of tea, and the performance which involved him standing at one point in a glass cube (no idea why but this is Eurovision at the end of the day, why do any of them do anything?). This entry was the male opposite of the Eurodiva; the Eurohunk. Nice looking fella strapping around on stage and giving you the eye through the camera. Once again, he was not the only Eurohunk on stage this evening, but probably the most memorable.

Next came Estonia's entry, one Getter Jaani, whose bone structure and overuse of makeup and tan made her look about thirty dressing to be thirteen in a hot pink baby doll dress the likes of which wouldn't go amiss in the lolita fashion stores of Japan. As a matter of fact, she's 18 years old and is a prime example of why you should stay out of the sun to prevent premature ageing, and why sometimes less is more when it comes to makeup. Still the song (which is what we really watch Eurovision for, right?) was pretty decent, catchy Euro-stock.

Greece was next. Oh dear sweet Jesus. What gets me is that this song ended up coming seventh place (proving the Eurovision political voting machine is still as healthy as ever) despite being absoloutely dreadful. It was slow and dirge like. The rapper...well..couldnt rap...and the singer was sub par. I seem to recall Greece using this same formula of Eurohunk singing what is supposed to be an epic, soul stirring anthem in previous years, and being shit then as well, but this year was by far the shittest. Come on Greece, let's see some actual talent next year.

Greece was followed by Russia who won using the formula at which Greece fails miserably a couple of years ago, but if I can be honest I can't remember anything about their entry. I may well have been cooking my pizza at this point, which tells you all you need to know about it. They were followed by France, who were tipped by bookies to be the favourite to win (followed by Jedward). The song was certainly not your usual cheesy pop and was rather operatic in sound. Still despite the pretty boy with his pretty hair blasting his lungs out best he could there was something not quite right about it, something a little bit off as if he was slightly out of tune or out of time with the backing track...I can't put my finger on it...still after the hype of hearing that France was gunning to win this year, I was sorely dissapointed.

Italy on the other hand was very much a delightful song. I've never heard jazz sung in Italian before. If you were to ask me, I'd say France's entry should have been Italian and Italy's entry should have been French. Either way, a definite thumbs up from me and Ben here, we were toe tapping all the way through except on a couple of notes where he felt the need to immitate nails on a chalk board using his vocal chords. I'm glad I'm not his vocal chords tonight.

They were followed by Switzerland, another Eurodiva type act whose song would have won me over had it not been for the fact that whoever had written her song for her had run out of words half way through and just filled the space with "Na na na na na na na na na na na". After Switzerland came our entry, good old UK. Sadly I havent much to say on them because the band has been around since I was in school and were as bland and boring then as they were tonight. It came as a huge suprise to me when they were briefly leading on the score boards, but apparently they're known to a few of our European neighbours.

Then came Moldova, and my first thought upon seeing them was "GARDEN GNOMES!". Their particular brand of Eurovision was as wacky and fun as you expect, and they were even joined halfway by a Garden Fairy on a Unicycle. As for the music, it was upbeat and cheery. Ben describes it as "Gnome Ska" although to my ears any ska influence was only slight. Either way, I loved it!

Germany was up after Moldova with a repeat performance by their winning songstress from last year, Lena. This song was not quite as cheerful and toe-tapping as Satellite and I think she may have hired giant silver sperm people to be her dancers, but it was ok. It was average, despite Ben jumping up saying "I would" as soon as she came on stage. I don't know....

Germany was followed by more "average" and unremarkable acts from Romania, Austria, Azerbaijan and Slovenia. I don't really recall the Slovenian entry but Romania was of the Eurohunk Band variety, Austria was a Eurodiva and Azerbaijan was a Eurodiva/Eurohunk ballad. Iceland followed with another bland but nice song. There was a touching story behind it which endeared me to it even more; it was originally written by a fellow who, of course, intended to enter it for Eurovision but before he could perform it for Iceland's selection people he went and popped his clogs. A band of his friends got together and played it on his behalf just so it would be heard and Iceland decided after all that they should go on to represent them which I think is lovely. I don't know what kind of a guy this person was, whether he was a dick or a saintly sort but I hope wherever his soul resides now he's got a little smile.

After Iceland came Spain who have historically done very poorly. They ended up coming 23rd but I thought this particular act was worth much more than that. Spain was followed by Ukraine, another Eurodiva with another generic Eurodiva song, but she was accompanied by a sand artist...if you didn't watch it it's hard to describe but basically instead of a pre reorded animation baking the singer, the sand artist made pictures with sandon a back lit work bench on the stage and a camera feed of this hooked up to the screen behind...it was certainly different and very endearing! But like I said...generic song was generic.

The last two acts were worth the wait, but I think by this point people were getting tired and the audience wrestless and as such they didn't get half the pop they should have. The penultimate was Serbia with a real 60's feel pop tune (and by sixties feel I mean the clothes, hair, makeup and set were done up like this too!) which once again I personally would have given a higher place than the 14th place that it got. The final was Georgia who was a bit of  a Linkin Park/Evanescence cross. This appealed to the teenager in me, and I think I'm probably the only person other than her who actually really liked her dress...Ben also liked it, but I think that's more because it wasn't heesy pop. He's still a bit of a musical elitist underneath it all (Which he will no doubt adamantly deny but hey :p)

While the votes were counted and verified, Dusseldorf really let itself down. Usually at this point in the show, there is some kind of stage act. This has been circus and acrobatic type acts or massively choreographed dance troupes. Yes there have been music acts, but always accompanying the visual spectacle. This time it was all about the singer. I couldn't tell you anything about him, and his backing dancers were pretty generic. It could have come straight out of the contest itself and was a bit of a let down (I always anticipate this part of the show!)

Anyhow the results were then called in. As usual, for some reason some presenters feel the need to hog a bit of limelight. Poland's presenter demanded people "guess" who they gave their 12 points to and there was an awkwards silence for about 10 seconds or so before the German presenter insisted she hand it over or so. However, the point giving was still rather exciting because unlike recent years, there was no clear run away leader, and for a little while the UK was top of the leader board!

In the end it wasn't to be for our bland performance. Azerbaijan won (to a comment from Graham Norton that they are one of the countries who can actually afford to host it, still being relatively oil rich...ouch...) despite there equally forgettable contribution. I suppose the rest of Europe disagreed with me. We voted for Moldova (for the Gnome tastic performance) who came 12th, Georgia (because Ben wanted to) who came 9th and Iceland (because their dead man story endeared them to me) who came 20th.

Our bland Blue boys ended up 11th all together, which is a massive improvement on our recent positions, whilst our pointy haired Irish cousins came 8th. France, hotly tipped to be number one came 15th (I sure hope he didn't listen to all the hype that had surrounded him up till that point) and last years winners pipped the UK by only one place, comming 10th.

So that was the Eurovision Song Contest of 2011 anyhow if you didn't see it yourself, and I just can't wait till next years!

Music

In my last post I mistakenly said it was day 16...nope, indeed today is 16, and the task for today is my views on mainstream music.

I think I've written before about how I used to be quite "elitist" as a teen when it came to my music, and I think an awful lot of young folk can follow this pattern. It used to be that one of the first things I'd ask someone I first met; what kind of music are you into?

It made a certain kind of sense. My friends and I all shared similar taste in music so when I met new people I'd use this as a kind of litmus test. It did mean that I shunned some people or even made fun of them for liking this music group or that who happened to be "mainstream". I think my views really began to change though after our sixth form college's "battle of the bands".

About a month later, one of the guys who'd been fronting a POD tribute missed his bus and ended up on ours. I was telling him I'd enjoyed his contribution, and thought it was a shame they missed out on the first place (which had been won by someone doing a very loud but pretty mediocre Slipknot tribute...indeed I think all of the finalists were tributes) as they'd played well, and with passion. He then unleashed a huge tirade about the criticism some of the audience had given him later...how POD were too "mainstream" and if they'd not chosen something so "popular" they'd probably have won.

I often wondered at that. Every man and his dog would wander around college wearing Slipknot hoodies back in the day. I suspect some still do now. You didn't get much POD merchendise floating around, but I guess it's the sound of the band which, to many, dictates how popular or in the mainstream they are percieved. As it goes, yes, I suppose when you think about it POD's "Alive" appeals to many where Slipknot would scare. Screaming angry music about hate and depression and all those other wonderful things that Slipknot make music about aren't to everyone's taste. They scratch a specific itch. An itch I'll fully admit I like to be scratched, but not one that everyone can stomach for one reason or another. Either way, perhaps it was just POD's relatively easy, commercial feel that made "Alive" a relative success and a likeable tune. And the lovely, elitist teens that we were back in the day felt this commercial likability made it somehow the lesser tune, and placed the crowning title upon someone who was arguably less talented because of our prejudice.

Well, the benefit of hindsight makes me look at it that way. At the time I was just gutted for the poor guy, and a little self concious. I liked POD, I loved their sound and they were on pretty much all my playlists at the time. Was I too mainstream? Kinda sad that I was thinking this, I know. I tried not to think much on it. There was a very strong "alternative" culture in our college (another college around the corner called us "the goth college" which was flattering to some and shameful to others) and despite some of the claims that this was a more all embracing way of life which would include anyone and everyone and not judge them, actually we were probably the most judgmental pricks on the face of the earth, especially when it came to each other.

These days I think if it's popular, it's popular for a reason. Back in those days I would have happily taken the piss out of Lady Gaga's desperate pleas for attention, or throttled myself to admit I would ever have someone like Taylor Swift on my playlist. Florence and the Machine would have just been "too pop for me!".

I'm glad I've grown up and out of this mentality. It really was very immature. I still love my metal and my rock, then my not so rock, a bit of pop, 80's cheese, and even my hippy pan pipe music (well, I always like that, I just hid it!). I love a whole load of things, and I feel that being open to anything makes for a more rounded person all in all. There's honestly nothing wrong with the mainstream. If I like it, I embrace it, and if I don't then I leave it be.

A little musical fantasy

"I think I'm going to do a blog entry about the perfect F1 compilation album"

It's coming up to the beginning of the motorsport season, and my husband is frothing at the mouth for it. He's only really been following it properly for a couple of years, but Ben is like a star; when he finds something to fuel his interests, it burns hot and bright. There's no escaping it. You know all about it.

This isn't a bad thing at all, infact I often envy this quality of his. I'm a pretty apathetic person on the whole. There are certain things that catch my interests and ignite my passions, but if Ben is a star, I'm an oven set to medium heat. Nothing is gonna get burned in there, but it'll get cooked. And tasty. However, from the minute the BBC starts plugging the Bahrain GP (though of course this year it's had to be scrapped, and our thoughts are with those caught up in the violence and protests currently sweeping not only Bahrain, but all throughout the middle east and north Africa) Ben is there, chomping at the bit. His blog suddenly sparks to life again and it's full of videoes of spectacular crashes, overtakes and wins. I swear, if he as emotional at the birth of our children as he gets when watching the videos of Jenson Button taking the F1 world championship in 2009, I will begin to worry for his mental health. He is very much emotionally invested in this.

And I think I take this well enough. I've learned to block out most of his ranting about obscure racing series that I neither know anything nor care anything about (don't worry, he does know that I do this, he just gets over excited and, try as I might, I cannot get as excited as he does about these things. He does it with me too, so we're pretty equal) and hone in on all the juicy F1 jewels he comes out with (which I am interested in and do get excited about).

Still, there are some things I cannot escape. When he told me last night he wanted to make a fantasy F1 compilation album for his blog I first though 'yeah, another pretty blog project, that'll be an interesting read'. And then he asked what I thought. I gave a couple of suggestions (which he has included, cause I'm awesome and he knows it) and we argued over a number of his suggestions (none of mine, though :D).

Then he turned around and said, "I think you should do this on your blog too, a competing version".

Now, it's not the kind of thing I'd normally do and I've been grumbling over it. However, he set a challenge, and he wrote it so right here and, as apathetic as I may be towards it, we have a bit of an unwritten rule between us. Of course, it is no longer unwritten as of now...once the challenge is set, unless it is physically ridiculous, it must be taken.

So anyway. The rules, as set by Ben (he asked me for my input and I rather apathetically told him that it's his challenge so he has to make them) is that we're allowed duplicate entries (he claims on his blog that this is because Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' is none negotiable. Whilst he has a point, it's also because he wanted to steal my ideas, my ideas being 'Bulls on Parade' and 'Nobody does it better' just so you know) and that it has to be 13 songs long.

Now I'm struggling to figure what links a song to F1. Is it because the BBC happened to link it in on their F1 Forum pieces, is it what the teams play in their garages when they've won, is it just a song that is an awesome driving song? I've thought, not too long or hard mind you (sorry Ben!) and this is what I've come up with.

1 -Fleetwood Mac - The Chain



There is no compromise. This is THE definitive F1 track. There are facebook groups that spring up each year trying to get it to number one for either the beginning or end of the F1 season. If you are an F1 fan, you probably have this tucked away on your playlist somewhere.

2 - Rage Against The Machine - Bulls on Parade



What the hell does this have to do with F1 racing? Well, to me and Ben it's a bit of an unofficial Red Bull Racing theme tune ever since the beeb linked it in after Vettel won the 2010 world championship. And whilst I've never driven in my life, I can see myself cruising down the motorway with this on full blast. I dunno. Maybe that's just me.

3 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang



Oh come on. Like I need to explain this! Gotta love Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

4 - The Allman Brothers Band - Jessica



Not perhaps the most original tune for a song relating to driving, nor is it perhaps immediately obvious as to why I've included it on an F1 playlist. Still, we've been watching Top Gear for years and it was the publicity that Top Gear gave to F1 that really got me personally thinking about it in the first place. If it weren't for Top Gear, Ben would have a hard time talking about anything remotely racing related at all, so he owes them a debt of thanks that he can at least talk to me about F1!

5 - DJ Visage - Formula '98



Otherwise known as "The Schumacher Song" this is an awesomely cheesy dance tune dedicated to he who is arguably, love or hate him, the king of F1. Schumacher, we saulte you!

6 - Cardigans - My Favourite Game



This was on one of the Grand Turismo games of years gone by. It's a general all round epic driving tune if you ask me, and a great racing song.

Ok, if I can be honest with you I'm starting to struggle.

7 - Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better



So I'm putting this now. In a perfect world, it would be at the end. But anyway. This was used in a montage of all the british F1 champions when Button won the championship and I think it's a pretty sexy song. It's classy and sparkly and everything that F1 is.

From here on in things might get silly. Not that Chitty Bang Bang was silly. That was perfectly justified.

8 - Abba - Money Money Money



Lets face it. F1 is a rich man's sport. It's glamorous and epic. And done in Monaco. And they mention Monaco in this song.

And I love ABBA and needed an excuse to get them in somewhere.

9 - Boston - More than a Feeling



Another epic and favourite song of mine that is probably included on every "Driving Songs" album ever made, but also linked back to F1 thanks to the almighty influence of the beeb.

Seriously Ben, why 13? I know perfectly decent albums that are only ten tunes long?

Well, since Ben stole my idea's I'm going to resort to stealing his.

10 - Queen - We Are The Champions



Honestly, is there anything in particular that links this to F1 other than, once again, a Button era karaoke moment? It could arguably be linked to anything in which a champion is crowned, not just this particular one sport. Still, it's a cool song. And I is stealing Ben's shit. Haaah.

But I think I'm going to leave it there. I'm afraid I've not got the stamina for this and I have laundry that needs to be hung and a bathroom floor begging to be scrubbed (not to mention the fact that it's coming up to three o clock and I've not had lunch yet).

Ben, inevitably, you have won this one. But like I said. I'm more of a medium heat oven, baby. Yeah.

Day Eleven

So the "construction work" is going well. I finally decided on a theme and made a suitable interim background and banner.

I know it's not the usual kind of thing I'd go for but I've been looking at some of my cousin's photographs (he participates in a hobby called "Urban Exploration" other wise known as "dicking around in derelict buildings") and was inspired by the way rust kinda dribbles down walls. Haha, what a thing to be inspired by ^_^;; I wanted to keep everything purple because, well, I like purple and it ties in with my old theme nicely still, but the rust still looks better when it's all...rusty.

Of course I can't really tell if the banner lines up properly on other people's monitors so I hope it looks as good on your screen as it does on mine ^_^

There are some other adustments I mean to make in the future however so I'm afraid it's gonna have to remain as "undergoing maintenance" for now. Perhaps I'll work some more towards it tomorrow, but it's just a few finishing touches.

Anyhow, now for the meat of it, we reach day eleven where I must put my media player on shuffle and tell you ten songs that pop up. I'm sure you'll be thrilled to delve into my music collection ;)

1 - The Corrs - What Can I Do? - I've been having a bit of a month of nostalgia. A lot of my CD's from years gone by (I have upgraded to actually buying mp3's of late, a real leap forward lol) have been sitting around on my bookshelf for a while and I was looking at them and thinking ooh...I remember that...so I've ripped a whole load of them onto my laptop. The Corrs album "Talk on Corners" was one of the first albums I ever bought. Brings back a lot of happy childhood memories :)

2 - Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah - I love this song. Not too fussed about the versionby that crazy Xfactor bird (can't remember her name, which just goes to say an awful lot about the Xfactor really...) and I love Leonard Cohen's original, but there's something so sad and weepy about this one. Probably because all I think of is poor Shrek feeling lonesome and dejected....

3 - The Moldy Peaches - I Think I'm In Love - First introduced to me by Ben. Make of that what you like.

4 - A Perfect Circle - Pet - One of my all time favourite bands ever, though I prefer "Mer de Noms" to "Thirteenth Step". Can't remember how I got 'into' them. It was sometime in college though, and they've stayed with me ever since.

5 - Disturbed - Remember - Not quite so far back as to tug at "childhood" memories, but another tune from another album I've just rediscovered. This was, incidently, one of the first songs I ever heard by Disturbed and it's one of those that always finds its way onto my mp3 player

6 - Nirvana - You Know You're Right - More nostalgia. I was never really into Nirvana the way some people of my generation are, but I got their greatest hits album for Christmas off an uncle when it was released and I listened to it pretty much none stop for the next month. It was then relegates to the "scratches a very specific itch" pile. I put it back onto the computer along with Disturbed and The Corrs (amongst others) recently and enjoy it as much as ever.

7 - Daft Punk - Outlands - From the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, if you haven't seen Tron: Legacy I would highly recommend you give it a go when it comes round to DVD, even if it didn't seem like your kind of film, it's highly entertaining and the music is pretty epic!

8 - Enigma - The Voice and the Snake - Ah, Enigma, one of my all time favourite bands. Conjuring images of hippies with joss sticks and panpipes...my dad used to listen to them constantly in the car when I was small and they're now pretty much engrained upon my very soul. They're not everyone's cup of tea, but if you're going to listen to them it's well worth picking up one of their albums (their most famous I'd say are their first two, MCMXC AD and The Cross of Changes from whence various tunes have been pluked and then plonked haphazardly into various TV programmes and adverts) and then just sitting and listening to it the whole way through as opposed to picking out any old song. Their music works a lot better this way.

9 - Muse - Resistance - Like many of my generation, Muse was there through my teen years and is still around now making epic music as always. The Resistance is one of the albums I've currently got on repeat while I do the housework each day...it always manages to get me moving lol

10 - Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better - Pure classic. That is all.