On A Eurovision Mission?
Well, it’s that time of year again.. for the second time at least…A joke in the UK, huge in France, and even bigger in Eastern Europe - The Eurovision song contest is a chance for small, often ignored nations, to show themselves to the world through culture…or cheesy pop. Whatever your take on it, there is no doubting that last year, Armenia’s first entry - was a respectable victory by all accounts - for a first entry we ended up 8th out of over 40 countries in the world. Not bad.
Last year’s entry was selected internally by the Armenian Public Television, who are responsible for organising Eurovision. This year, the company has decided to “democratize” the selection of our song - albeit with a uniquely Armenian slant…
20 entries have now been submitted, ranging from Hayko, a well known singer, - to R.P, a new, but very unique act. The first two rounds of selections will basically take 4 selections from a jury ( yes, a jury ), and 2 selections from a public SMS vote. Leaving a total of 6 acts.
The FINAL vote goes to the public? How wrong you are, dear Armenian! Of course the public are not entrusted with this act, only the “professional” jury is allowed to do this….
OK, so here goes.. If the jury wants Hayko to represent Armenia ( as part of a pre meditated plan ) then it’s simple - they vote Hayko through in the first round of finals, no matter who the public vote for, they can simply vote Hayko through at the end, as they get the last word.
What a joke. Do the organisers of this “selection” really distrust the Armenian public so much that they would not allow them to select their own entry? The fact is , rumours have been spinning for a while that the entrant has already been decided, the election is just to show the EBU that we are “democratic”.
Sound familiar?
On a lighter note, here are some lyrical gems I found from skimming through lyrics to the songs. Any idea what they mean? Comments welcome .
:) my queries are in brackets…:)
“I’ll Prove I am Stronger” Anush Manukyan
…..
I never fall down.
I’am not any longer
your Saturday fun,
( Saturday fun? what? you can’t have fun on a Saturday, its the sabbath! )
your blossoming rose,
has just faded for you.
You falt I suppose ( of course, you falt - that common expression!)
say what you can do. ……. (huh?) :P
“So I will go..” Arsen Adonts
….
Me I get to another show
Live in me now < ( live in where?)
Me I choose to express my love in another time (did no one check the grammar?)……. (ok then?) :)
Of course this is just tongue in cheek, fun poking.
The lyrics are killing!!! Almost as much fun as that strange Martik Manukyan guy… great job commenting on them too Harmick!
Comment by Observer — 2/17/2007 @ 2:21 pm
The lyrics are not at all killing they seem to be ideal for Eurovision song context and besides as a POP song they are the very reality.
I loved the selection procedure Armenian Public Television adopted. It is amazing how profoundly understood and perpetuated the election system in Armenia. Seems they are exercising for upcoming elections to gain organisational experience
Comment by Grigor — 2/17/2007 @ 3:00 pm
You know how often locals have asked me, “How good is your English?” Meanwhile, they know I was born and raised in Canada, and yet they are surprised when I tell them my English is better than my Armenian.
We all know how stubborn Armenians are. I have come across English song lyrics on many occasions in this country, and they are usually HORRIBLE. Yet when I try to be helpful and make an effort to correct obvious mistakes, they get offended.
This election event will prove once again how corruption plays a big part in every single sphere in this country.
One of my projects is in this list of 20 candidates. We submitted the song with only one goal, and that was to get some advertising for the forthcoming official release of the song. Without a doubt our song will not be chosen to go to Eurovision. The artist has no real connections to the state music school, or Do-Re-Mi, the other music school with deep ties with the government.
I keep saying to myself, “We’re not ready to win at Eurovision. ‘Hamalir’ is under construction, and we don’t have enough hotels (or rather inexpensive hotels) to accommodate thousands of Eurovision fans.” Verdict … send someone who will definitely not win … I won’t say who that is.
Comment by Der Hova — 2/18/2007 @ 1:43 am
By the way Harmick, they received 120 submissions, out of which 20 were chosen to compete next week.
Comment by Der Hova — 2/18/2007 @ 12:50 pm
Der Hova, we cannot afford winning Eurovision economically. Armenian Economy (which is under question if we have or not) will pay for many years after to cover the expenses. Even if Hamalir construction would be done, let us be honest and say we cannot host Eurovision at this building as it was designed and build under quite different standards, and it is technically not ready. I hope after reconstruction many things will be changed.
I wonder how Armenian government is prioritising things to focus its budget. Livings in the centre of Yerevan things are quite different. I do not find it ethically correct to fight for winning Eurovision of the country has regions like Amasia.
WFP (World Food Programme) is having projects in Armenia and we think of winning Eurovision?
Comment by Grigor — 2/18/2007 @ 3:49 pm
The process for the selection of the song is flawed but really not unusual. There are as many ways of selecting national entrants as there are countries taking part. (Btw Harmick there weren’t 52 competitors last year!).
Armenia is relatively new at this and I would not be surprised to see different selection methods tried out every year. The chosen song did very well last year despite the extremely poor lyrics.
I would ideally favour us to send a quality song in Armenian. The way it is chosen does not matter as long as a singer/songwriter/song are chosen on merit.
For example 3 highly respected artists were invited to submit songs for Greece this year (one of them is Georgian, the second Cypriot/Lebanese/British and the third Greek) and the public will select one of the three.
It would be ideal if for example Sirusho, Shushan Petrossian and Nune were invited to submit songs and the public to vote for the one to represent them.
At the end of the day I don’t think it is that important to win. It is far more important to put Armenia on the map with a song that will appeal to people and also will have something to say about our culture/s.
I know people laugh at the ESC but as someone who has not missed one since 1975 I think it is great fun with fantastic kitsch value. I am glad we are finally taking part.
Finally one question: where did you guys (Harmick) get hold of the lyrics this year? Not on the armtv website?
Comment by Vasken in London — 2/18/2007 @ 6:56 pm
Vasken, not Shushan Petrosyan. She is a serious intellectual woman, she has nothing to do on that stage:)
Comment by Grigor — 2/19/2007 @ 12:17 am
Sorry, apologies for inaccuracy of post- didn’t check my facts on this one. I have changed it, while I try to find exact number of participants last year.
As for the lyrics, check out or snazzy (albeit, typically uninteractive state television style) eurovision website… www.eurovision.am , taking a stab here, but its a nicer site than Georgia’s. Will be interesting to see how they approach this though.
Comment by Harmick — 2/19/2007 @ 4:07 am
She’ll be great Grigor… there is nothing wrong in sending a decent artist and a song with depth. Admittedly there have been very few of those in recent years but they do very well.
Comment by Vasken in London — 2/22/2007 @ 12:14 am