Why I like The Eurovision Song Contest

Music has been a great passion in my life - and there are two pillars that support this.

My main interest is in serious music - from my early 20s I was deeply into 20th Century classical music, principally from England and Russia - the two main composers being Ralph Vaughan Williams and Dmitri Shostakovich. I also have a long time interested in serious electronica - my main protagonist of this is John Foxx, whose music opened up links to the Surrealist movement especially painters like Dali, Ernst, Magritte and Delvaux, the written works of J.G. Ballard.

The other pillar is light / easy-listening music.


In the 90s I attended a semester of a film studies course affiliated to Cambridge University. One of the lecturer's theories was that big hollywood blockbuster movies can be considered art. The fulfilment of expectations - the man meeting a beautiful woman, losing the woman due to misunderstanding and regaining the woman at the end - with car chases, gun battles and and evil opponent as a sideshow - this fulfilment is what gives pleasure and joy to the observer, and thus this can be considered art. Not all hollywood blockbusters can do this successfully, but every now and then a popcorn movie attains a level of art.. not high art to be sure, but still art.

I make this connection to music too. Classical and serious electronica can be considered high art, if not always good art. But the simple catchy melody of a schlager / eurosong, the lyrics about simple forms of love, the verse-chorus-middle section-reprise-climax structure, the key changes and the three minute time limit give the listener pleasure due to expectations being fulfilled.

Hence I consider the best schlager in all its forms to be art, not hight art to be sure, but still art.

The cliché boundary - as the point of a eurosong is to fulfil one's expectations, clichés are part of the game. We need clichés to be taken to the edge of acceptability, and to be used in inventive and surprising ways. However, eurosongs all too often go over the edge. As I write this, Ukraine has decided to enter I Love You which is way way too far with the cliché usage.


There exist, in my opinion, a number of different audiences for Eurosong - each with a different set of favourites.

A. The public watching the show on the night plus the juries

B. Eurosong fans - predominantly gay

C. The general public

Evidently the most important group is A, as this group determines who proceeds from the first rounds to the eventual ESC winner. This group is often quite hard to judge - the type of music liked by this group will be diverse, there will be voting for one's neighbour country, or for songs in one's own language. Many of this group only hear the songs once before voting, possibly twice. This gives quite a different perspective to group B.

Group B is where I come from - this is quite a different world to group A, since the Bs follow the competition from the earliest stages, listen to the songs many times before the semis start - discuss endlessly on forums and on facebook, meet for club meetings and discos. The style of music popular with B can be very different to A, and the voting results are often quite mystifying.

Group C generally laughs at Eurosong, especially the British and the Italians. The Italians have no excuse as they invented the concept, and looking at the final of San Remo this year, their songs are just as schlagery and clichéd as Eurosong. And for sure the voting is just as corrupt, if not more so... We can generally ignore group C for being ignorant. Though there are some that are ready to be turned to the truth and light...

So Eurovision Song Contest - art for the masses or not?