geopolitical lessons
The votes of the festival constantly refer us to the past and to the present. If we don't know why Greece and Cyprus vote for each other with 12 points, the explanation will have to go back to the Second World War. Likewise, it is possible to follow intra-European migratory movements since the 1960s to today by the dances of affinities between, for example, Germany-Spain-Switzerland or Romania-Spain. Pure sociology.
This year the contest celebrates its 61st edition and celebrates it in Stockholm with the introduction of a new voting system with which they assure the intrigue and the emotion will be maintained until the end. Don't worry, it won't lengthen (even more) the duration of the gala. will stay in 3 and a half hours.
Jokes aside, until 2015 the presenters of the gala connected by videoconference with the spokesperson of the different countries. this communicated the scores that were awarded to the rest of the participants from their country (from 1 to 12, except 9 and 11 points) . and that were obtained from the votes of a professional jury and the spectators (50% each).
From now on, these two votes will be presented separately. First they will be announced scores awarded by the jury, via spokesperson . After, televoting points from all countries (collected through calls, sms and the Festival app) will be added giving rise to a single score for each song. Those responsible for announcing this second part of the data will be the presenters of the gala, which will start with the one who has received the least points.
Petra Mede and Mans Zelmerlöw (last year's winner) will be the presenters of the gala and who will debut this voting system.
SWEDEN IS MODERN, IT IS ETERNAL AND IT DOES EVERYTHING WELL
In addition, this year they are the hosts and, therefore, they play at home. Maintaining a difficult balance, Norwegians manage to take the festival more seriously than a general election, without falling into ridicule. To begin with **they choose their representative in the Melodifestivalen**, which has more musical merits by itself than most of the editions of the Eurovision itself.
His penultimate win, Loreen's with Euphoria in 2012, was also the last real musical success that the festival has given , but as a sample of Swedish talent with no expiration date, nothing like her first triumph with Waterloo, the definitive hit that changed the history of the festival, gave the starting signal for Abba to invade the world and the echoes of it in pop culture are more than powerful to this day.
Sweden's last victory came in 2015, when Mans Zelmerlow He defended the Heroes theme accompanied on stage by a series of graphics and a set of lights that supported his choreography.
**SWITZERLAND IS A POLYGLOT (SURPRISE)**
And, just as his bank welcomes money from everywhere regardless of where it comes from, his songs for the festival choose from the best in the world and may have been composed by a Turk and sung by a Canadian. Or what is the same, Celine Dion winning with Ne partez pas sans moi.
YOU SHOULD NEVER UNDERVALUATE GERMANY
This is a valid maxim for politics, economics and televoting . After a few years of victories for the countries of the East and when another victory for one of the countries of the perennial core of Eurovision seemed impossible, Lena took the cat to the water with Satellite. And as for extra-eurovision history, it's Germany, what can we say.
YUGOSLAVIA AND THE BALKAN SENTENCE
The countries of Yugoslavia may have disintegrated in a bloody civil war, but there is still a certain Balkan feeling as a result of the common history that is manifested, for example, when voting at this festival, when they seem to continue to live in the harmony of the times of Titus. He brought victory to Marija Šerifović with Molitva.
THE MOST PLAYFUL ISRAEL
Israel (apart from the more than debatable fact of being in Europe) is much more than difficult conflicts to disentangle. The playful and frivolous side represented by cities like Tel Aviv and for the most bakaladera and operatic music it had its incarnation in Dana Internacional, the first transsexual winner of Eurovision who prevailed over the threats of attacks by pirates inside and outside her country.
UNITED KINGDOM RESPECTS TRADITIONS
The BBC is an expert, among other things, in rescuing old glories for the enjoyment of Eurofans with good memories: Katrina and the waves, Bonnie Tyler, Engelbert Humperdinck, even the boyband Blue received the Eurovision call when they were no longer exactly in the best moment of their careers. As Guayominí is part of the hard core of countries that will always be in Eurovision until the end of time, p You can afford to show off your insular eccentricity.
ITALIANS ENJOY LIFE
In addition to being true to its roots and a bit chaotic. They come and go when they feel like it from the Big 5 and in their songs they usually follow the trail of their biggest eurovision success, a tribute to life and a symbol of the Italian canzone par excellence : Nel blu dipinto di blu or, as we all know it, Volare (oooh) .
SPAIN BOYCOTTS ITSELF
It gave Israel the points by snatching victory from itself in 1979, it is protesting (festival commentators clamored for the Berlin Wall to be raised again when Eastern countries voted for themselves), there is little democratic tradition (it left of electing the candidate by popular vote when the sovereign people decided to send Chiquilicuatre), organizational capacity is minimal (see the chaotic rules to elect the candidate in recent years through a strange alliance of jury, popular vote and decision of unknown superiors), there are senseless cainite fights, little respect for difference (When Serrat wanted to sing La la la in Catalan he was immediately relieved from on high for Massiel to sing it). To all this must be added the harmful mixture of pride and complexes that each year triggered absurd controversies about including phrases in English in the chosen song and that this year it was blown up by attending the festival, for the first time, with a song in English: Say Yay! of Barei . Even the RAE ruled on the matter, describing it as "inferiority complex and papanatismo" .
But there is also a lot of humor, even if it is garrulous, in bad taste and often involuntary, like **at the moment when Forocoches elevated John Cobra to the horror of Anne Igartiburu**.
ROMANIA IS PROUD OF THE MYTH OF DRACULA
Anyone who has traveled to the country knows that such a tourist attraction cannot go untapped, and the festival could not remain oblivious to one of the most charismatic villains/heroes (depending on who tells the story) ever. Cezar with It's my life pulled vampire, baroque and mamarracha aesthetics in one of those performances that alone explain the stratospheric audiences of the event.
* This article was originally published on May 9, 2014.