I posted about the ESC in the Friday Fun thread, and then started thinking about it more deeply in the sense of "Can it even be explained?", so I jotted down 9 different aspects of it.
In 2023 there were 37 countries sending an artist or a band performing one song, with the assorted light show and/or pyrotechnics. Apart from the Big Five – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and UK, which automatically participate – and the last year’s winning country, i.e., the host country, most of the other nations will have to first pass a semifinal, organized on the Tuesday and Thursday of the ESC week, to participate on the Grand Final, which is on Saturday. The results of the semifinals and the Grand Final are decided by a combination of televoting and juries, using a complicated scoring mechanism partly explained below.
ESC has gone on for 67 years now, starting from a contest for a few West European Nations and suddenly exploding in size when the Wall fell, Yugoslavia and Soviet Union crumbled to pieces and suddenly tens of Eastern European nations poured in. It is this Eastern explosion that fully set the stage for how Eurovision evolved, as these nations brought in a lot of new interesting political interrelations and a new sense of showmanship and extravaganza, quickly embraced by the Eurovision community.
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Notes -
Ten. Ireland used to be an ESC juggernaut in the 90's, winning contest after contest. There was no "host can't win" rule back then, so they had to send Father Ted as their next act to decisively lose.
Eleven. Russia had a really big inferiority complex about their ESC results, especially after sending the local equivalent of Frank Sinatra or Celine Dion in 1997 and coming in 15th. For eight years I had to listen to the presenters complain about not getting a win, even with all the "dooz pwuh" we could count on from Russian speakers and Russian diaspora in other countries, until somehow we got a win in 2008 and everyone finally could relax and enjoy the show.
Lol that was absolute the same with Turkey. Many big stars trying to mimic the European pop music of the time and just getting absolutely trashed. Led to a lot of resentment and inferiority complex and accusations of unfairness even though the Turkish diaspora was giving us many undeserved votes. Then we joined literally with a belly dancing show and won. The inferiority complex chilled out afterwards. Until all the LGBT stuff started and we quietly withdrew to avoid broadcasting that on public TV..
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Yeah, that's one of the reasons why ESC songs tend to be mediocre - of course it's even more pronounced if you are Russia, but even being the biggest artist in Finland and not even getting through the semifinal, which is what happened in 2004, is going to be embarrassing. (Though the same artist later got caught for child porn, so losing the Eurovision currently ranks quite low on the list of things for which he is remembered anyway.)
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