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I was surprised by how like British pop mos5t of it sounded, I suppose that, having not seen Eurovision before I thought the clogs and folk dancing quotient would be higher. Is Europop now identitcal to British pop, or was this a cynical exercise in appealing for votes?
I'm not sure which British pop you're thinking of here - examples? - but I think it's more that a lot of pop music we hear in the UK is influenced either by music from Europe and/or from the same places (North and South America, essentially) that are in turn also influencing Eurovision. So for example there were a few songs which had that boshing Euro-trance-pop sound, but also you could see a Shakira influence all over the place, as was the case last year.
What was interesting and heartening this year was that several of the most unusual entries - Lordi, the Lithuanian lunatics, even the Texan Germans - were also the best. And if Iceland's Silvia Night (a cross between Alan Partridge and Princess Superstar, if you can imagine that - no really) had qualified, there would have been one more. Traditionally there is always at least one weird 'novelty' entry that is jaw-droppingly awful, as anyone who saw 'Grandma Bangs The Drums' (Moldova, I believe?) last year will testify.
I think in general perhaps a higher proportion of the entries these days tend to resemble contemporary actual pop music that gets in the charts - they're more polished, in a way - but I don't think that's cynical, and when the alternative is what Ireland and Israel had to offer, I certainly don't think it's a bad thing... |
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