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Eurovision going down the drain | ||
Tags: European Languages | Music | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4426 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 1 of 40 09 May 2014 at 2:22pm | IP Logged |
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Today I am in the mood for a rant:
OK, the Eurovision song contest has never been known for its musical quality, but at least it used to have a value for us language lovers as it was an opportunity to listen to songs in a variety of languages. I remember back in the old days, before internet and Youtube, when participants had to sing in an official language of their country - I really enjoyed those opportunities to listening to Polish, Russian, Maltese and Hebrew. However, the language requirement is not there any longer, and the overall influence of English in pop music is such that out of the 26 countries that will take part in the final tomorrow, only three sing in their own language, namely France (you would expect that), Italy and Montenegro, three others mix English and their native language, Poland, Slovenia and Spain, and the 20 others, just English. So regardless of their musical quality or lack thereof, I hope France, Italy and Montenegro will be the top three (in any order), and I'll forget about the rest. (OK, maybe I'll make an exception for the UK, although it would be great if some year they could send someone singing in Welsh.) 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Penelope Diglot Senior Member Greece Joined 3656 days ago 110 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, French Studies: Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 40 09 May 2014 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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Actually I was thinking the same thing. They should make a rule that countries should use their language, end of story. Otherwise what's the point?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 40 09 May 2014 at 4:09pm | IP Logged |
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The point is that Eurovision goes down the drain in more ways. The Czech Republic participated once and nevermore for these reasons:
1)even the musicians weren't interested due to the overall low quality so it wasn't much of a contest and honor to go; 2)the public wasn't interested because there are already enough sources of mediocre popmusic; 3)it has become "a requirement" to use English in order to succeed, therefore how is the czech representant being a czech representant? The views on use of English in "our" popmusic vary among the people but quite a common opinion is "we don't expect our musicians to become famous all over the world anyways so why should they need to lick everyone else's a...s by giving up their native language" 4) the Eurovision is (no longer?) representing various styles popular in the individual countries. Quite the opposite. You need to send in something in the Eurovision style. So, when no other genres and styles than mediocre pop (my apologies to the few exceptions) are represented, when there are no differences between the countries' representing artists, what does the language even matter? I consider myself to be quite a language enthusiast but I wouldn't be so thrilled even to hear 26 languages on the same musical background. Have a tour on youtube and you'll see quite easily that some anglophone styles just don't work well in some languages or rather that far from all the artists make the "globalpop" work in their language and cultural/musical background. (an example I found out: Italian 80's are something people laugh about but everyone knows a few songs and most people enjoy them once in a while in the radio (even though few admit it), Spanish 80's are just a copy of the anglophone style without their own flavour and of worse quality in my opinion). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5696 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 40 09 May 2014 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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But they could still send a quality song with some of their home country's musical vibe, if they wanted to. But that happens so very rarely.
Eurovision is just painful to watch these days, but I do anyway in case I come across someone I like. I've found some of my favourite artists through ESC but again, it happens so rarely... Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4426 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 5 of 40 09 May 2014 at 4:47pm | IP Logged |
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Cavesa, I agree with everything you say, but if countries were obliged to use their own languages instead of English, maybe there would be more variation in style as well? I am not saying it necessarily would happen, but at least I remember that countries like Greece and Cyprus used to send some contributions that were quite different from Anglo-pop with clear "ethnic" elements (if I am allowed to use that word).
Anyway, my rant was really that at least I used to have the language thing as an excuse for watching Eurosong, but no I won't even have that, so I really don't care any more. I will watch on Saturday though, it has become sort of a family tradition and my 10-year old son and 13-year old daughter love it (and it seems that the target audience is moving towards that age range...) Edited by Ogrim on 09 May 2014 at 4:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3886 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 6 of 40 09 May 2014 at 4:58pm | IP Logged |
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I haven't actually watched the Eurovision Song Contest since 1995 or 1996, as I can't stand the Eurovision style, but I've heard this very complaint more or less every year since at least 2000 (when it seemed half of Sweden were upset that Roger Pontare sang in English). Fourteen years is a long time to be going down the drain without people losing interest (heck in Sweden it's gotten disturbingly popular in recent years).
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5428 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French | Message 7 of 40 09 May 2014 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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I personally think the contest has risen in quality in the last two years since Sweden
won with Euphoria. Countries seem to be trying to produce something that sounds current and putting effort into the presentation. Yes, most of the contestants are singing in English this year but I have faith that it can change. It only takes one country to produce something good in their own language and place in the top 5 to show other countries that it is also possible to end at the top of the leader board with a non- English song. Just like how Sweden showed that the public wanted a song that was forward-thinking. Although I may be swayed by the fact that 'my country', the Netherlands, went from never reaching the final to being a potential top-5 country in the space of two years. Miracles can happen as Romania would have us believe this year. (Disclaimer: I am a huge Eurovision fan) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 40 09 May 2014 at 6:13pm | IP Logged |
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I know that at one point Ireland won the competition four times in a row. I doubt any of those songs was in Irish.
I wish there was a Eurovision-like contest made specifically to promote diversity and language learning. Maybe only among minority languages like Welsh and Catalan, or only for people singing in a L2 that's not English. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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