Eurovision - why do we bother?

Ooooo . . . good point. Did watch that one on baseball that he did and I'm sure a couple of others. Ken Burns with his Beatle haircut has caused me to wonder if he and Rodney Bingenheimer have ever met.

As does the PBS channel here in the UK

@Radium Girl didn't know there was a PBS channel over there.

@wadcorp did you check it out?

@Alec Didn’t even check to see if it was available on my service.

.

@wadcorp it was pretty entertaining. Haven't checked it out for a while. People always remind me.

Reading the EBU Wikipedia entry and this stands out immediately . . .

The classic opening ident that preceded all Eurovision network transmissions until 1993. The logotypes of both the sending and receiving companies were shown in the middle. This sample shows the old logo of the BBC.

Didn't know about it.

Reminds me of this CD . . .

This . . .

Associate members from the United States include ABC, CBS, NBC, CPB, NPR, APM and the only individual station, Chicago-based classical music radio WFMT

Interesting the inclusion of NPR, which broadcasts BBC, but so does PBS and I believe CNN might as well.

@Perfect Monster I'm with you on that.

Probably because Clown Promoter In-Chief a.k.a. Rupert Murdoch

has always hated the BBC. He's been promoting BozzoPooh & the

Muppets for a long time here in the UK.

Now that he's fled the USA from the complete Covid-19 mess his other

clown, Donald Trump created, he has new designs on the UK media market.

[He's been holed up about 6 miles from where I'm typing this for the last 15 months

with his latest squeeze]

@Alec Yeah, it's all the BBC's fault.

Nothing to do with the affair Charles was having, dysfunctional Sax-Coberg family, marginal mental stability of Diana herself...

I call the boom-boom-ping style Kasbah dance pop. It seemed to become popular when Ukraine won a few years back.

Germany were scheiße, apart from the bizarre brass break - the rest of it was like one of those offensively chipper advert soundtracks. Ukelele: check. Cheery whistle: check.

Iceland and Lithuania were enjoyable, quirky electro-pop.

Finland were pretty good, albeit in a bargain basement Linkin Park way.

Italy were OK, but they should get a new singer.

😅 That’s funny that checklist for the chipper advert. I hate the abuse of the ukulele in ads and the very stew-pid whistling. The beat or something in it, in the German entry, reminded me of ‘Karma Chameleon’ by Culture Club. What was the message, though? I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help but sense the “sorry” was in reference to WW2. Are you familiar with Frankie Grande? The front man was very Frankie. Yes, scheiße, but funny scheiße. What’s up with bizarre brass breaks, like the one you noticed in the German entry and the one I noticed and liked in the UK entry? Is there an origin story there as well?

Ukraine 🇺🇦 was great 👍 like Le Mystère des voix bulgares 👍😮

I found that song excruciating to listen to. Of course, I felt the same way about the 'bulgares'.

We really enjoyed The Roop. That was at least kitchy and fun. True Eurovision material.

On the whole, I thought that this was one of the worst Eurovisions in years. Not the staging or presenters but the songs. At least we had Graham's commentary to liven it up.