UK Eurovision 2007 – “Making Your Mind Up” time

[If you’re coming here looking for blogging for the actual Eurovision 2007 contest, go here to my Twitter page.] 

Eurovision is always a seriously guilty pleasure. There’s so many things wrong with it: the format, the style, the idea, the songs. And yet because of its capability to surprise and, often, the very fact it is so terrible, it’s compulsively watchable.

The UK, however, has been entering terrible songs into Eurovision for as long as I can remember, and not terrible in a fun way either. Partially it’s because we don’t take it seriously – many countries in Europe enter major names and popular songwriters, whereas we enter people no-one’s ever heard of. If Robbie Williams was to enter, he’d probably win; he’s certainly very popular in much of Europe, but instead we enter Daz Sampson and Jemini.

At least we get a choice, but generally it isn’t a very good one. I haven’t heard any of the entrants this year, although at the very least I have heard of some of them. This is therefore going to be a very interesting evening, liveblogged after the break.

Update: It’s 9:28. It’s time for the results! Will it be anything good?

Second update: No.

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Preamble: Good evening, all, and welcome to the BBC’s attempt at juicing up the Eurovision nominations, named after that inexplicable Buck’s Fizz winner “Making Your Mind Up” (I don’t know why they won, but it sure wasn’t for the music.) Before this, they used to have a stale and safe phone-in programme hidden on BBC2; now, they’ve got a stale Fame Academy type phone-in programme on prime-time BBC1. However, it’s hosted by Terry Wogan and that makes up for everything.

(19:31) Interesting digital distortion on the Telewest feed right now. Hmm.

(19:32) Oh, no, Fearne Cotton.

(19:33) “Cock-eyed optimist Daz”… ha! He was ruddy awful. Nice to see we’re bringing Lordi in…

(19:35) The acts are: Liz McClarnon (ex-Atomic Kitten), Brian Harvey (ex-East 17), Big Brovaz (crap hip-hop band, oh joy), Cindy (who?), Scooch (crap dance band), Justin Hawkins (ex-The Darkness). Hmm.

(19:39) Song 1: Liz McClarnon, “(Don’t It Make You) Happy!”

Liz used to be in Atomic Kitten, who were terrible.

The song sounds like she’s mining that Joss Stone thing. Oh dear. Still, at least it’s got a riff. As per usual for BBC shows recently, crap sound.

(19:43) Fearne: “Lovely Liz”! Oh, dear. At last, however, a decent judge: John Barrowman, responsible for The Greatest Movie Line Ever.

(19:45) Song 2: Brian Harvey, “I Can”

East 17 were like Take That without the tunes. He’s got a varied personal history, and haven’t heard from him for a while. Hmm.

Oh, Christ, it sounds like Westlife. It’s generic balladry and that’s the last thing we need to enter – Eurovision is always stuffed full of them and it’s flamboyance performed well combined with a decent tune that wins. This won’t work.

(19:50) “Beautiful mate.” “Bad lad to bal-lad.” Barrowman gets it, though: so of course he’s being booed from the audience.

(19:52) Song 3: Big Brovaz, “Big Bro Thang”

CREDIBILITY BACK? Big Brovaz have no credibility whatsoever. They’re a dreadful pop-R&B abomination who sang some terrible songs. And they just compared themselves to ABBA… ABBA had tunes!

It’s not actually a terrible song, the production is at least strong – however, the band are seriously annoying, the lyrics are trite, the dance routine isn’t very good and I can see it getting very annoying very quickly. And I loathe bling.

(19:57) Hip-hop will never work at Eurovision. Accept it.

As an aside: “Richter scale”, Fearne? And the future, Mel?

(19:59) A preview of our competition. Hmm. Israel sounds, hmm. Switzerland’s taken inspiration from Lordi and that’s the sort of thing that could be big in the places that like goth: Germany and the Nordics especially. The rest: meh.

(20:03) Song 4: Cyndi, “I’ll Leave My Heart”

Those inspirations of the Dion/Houston-type are not encouraging. And she’s French.

Despite this, it’s a very competent Dion-a-like. Not my kind of thing, but I know it is some people’s. It’s not what I think we should be entering, but it’s not dreadful yet.

(20:08) Wogan seems to like it. Barrowman says she can sing, so I believe him.

(20:10) Song 5: Scooch, “Flying The Flag (For You)”

They’re dreadful and always were. Popjustice really slated this one, and they should know. This is worrying.

Oh, dear God, they’ve gone for the pilot look. And it sounds like the 90s never left us. It’s terrible.

And they’ve gone for humour as well, and if you remember LT United last year… no.

Is it done yet?

(20:14) “How camp was that?” It wasn’t camp, Fearne, it was crap. This wasn’t pop, Scooch, it was diabolical.

(20:16) Song 6: (Justin) Hawkins and (Beverlei) Brown, “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To”

This is interesting – they’ve just compared themselves to 60s Eurovision acts. And this is the only one that’s actually written by the act this time.

That Hawkins is providing the high voice here acts as a partial bit of amusement, and he’s definitely a good performer – I know a bunch of women who idolise him. It’s not a great song, but I think it’s the best choice. Justin is nicely self-deprecating, too.

Disco works and always has, and Barrowman is definitely right here.

(20:23) They’re doing a sing-off? That’s just wrong. Votes close at 21:00.

Unfortunately you’re not allowed to vote by e-mail this year – you have to pay. Fools. I won’t pay, no matter how much of it goes to charity. If you are paying, do not vote for Scooch.

(20:27) This is a nice idea, though: bringing in 41 European nationalities to see who they like the most. It’s a nice type of naff. The Ukranian has gone for Big Brovaz; the Polish guy has gone for Scooch. At least he’s probably not representative of the country… we can only hope.

(20:29) Of this straw poll – runner-up Cyndi, winner Big Brovaz. Hmm.

(20:30) Barrowman: “I’m not surprised at the vote… pop song or Eurovision song?” He definitely gets it. The question is, will the audience?

Well, that’s it for now. What will the result be? We’ll find out at 21:30 when I start editing this article again. In the meantime, let the debate begin…

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The Results: Well, as long as it isn’t Scooch…

And this new two-round results structure just isn’t fair – it’s just a new way of making more telephone money. And considering recent events, was that really a good idea?

(21:33) Oh, good, we’re getting Lordi soon. Wonder if they’ve got that wing get-up again?

(21:34) Apparently there’s time “to make a difference”. So we’re getting a summary of the six entries. Liz Kitten’s still inoffensive, Brian Harvey’s still boring and ballady, Big Brovaz are still unnecessary, Cyndi’s still the new Celine Dion, Scooch are still shit, and Justin and Brown are still the only one with a chance.

(21:37) Brian Harvey’s the first to go. Not a surprise really – it just didn’t work. Second: Liz.

(21:38) First through: Cyndi. Big Brovaz are out.

(21:39) Second through: Scooch. Justin is out. British public, what on earth are you on?

(21:41) Much as I’m loathe to say it: when the lines open, vote Cyndi (25p per number.) It’s boring, but at least it isn’t awful. Man, I really don’t like to say that about this sort of song, but Scooch’s song is simply toxic.

(21:47) Scooch are back on. Time to switch off – I’ll tell you when it’s safe.

It really is terrible, isn’t it? Bad metaphor. Bad generic song. It’s like the Vengaboys never stopped selling.

(21:50) “Cyndi and Scooch have sung for the very last time.” We can only hope that for Scooch it is the last time. Anyway, Lordi!

(21:51) Ah, Lordi are doing KISS-style product expansion. Exactly what a novelty band needs – it worked for Simmons anyway.

(21:52) The sound’s terrible for Lordi – mixed really badly. Shame, because Lordi represents the kind of song we should be putting into Eurovision – something with a tune and a sense of fun, something which neither of the remaining finalists have – although Cyndi oddly has more of it than Scooch do. Lines closed, btw.

(21:55) Wogan is smiling. There’s a good reason for that – it is the best thing we’ve seen this evening. Any, results coming up.

(21:56) “The public have spoken…” and the winner is – Cyndi…….

(21:57) ….oh wait, it isn’t. Wogan screwed up. It’s Scooch.

Wonderful. Nul points, here we come. We deserve it too.

(21:58) And now we’re getting it for a third time. And it’s just as diabolical. We’ve had a heavy metal band – now we have a band that, if he existed, Beelzebub would be proud of. As if Europe needed any more reason to hate us.

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Well, it’s over. And, unbelievably, the worst song won. The only thing that it would be appropriate to say here is as follows: they’re not flying the flag for me, that’s for sure. Hope you all had a better night than I did. Enjoy.