Okay, I'm an American and I just want to say that I've always enjoyed Eurovision a lot since we don't have anything like that here. I think it's amazing and wonderful to see all the people of Europe come together and have a chance to have a cultural exchange with contemporary pop music from whichever nations.

I'm very big on culture and language but what annoys me and makes me sad at the same time about Eurovision is that it seems to just be about who can make the "best" English pop song. It seems like countries are ashamed of their own language and will only send a representative who will sing in English. On rare occasions you will see a singer sing in his/her native tongue and those are my FAVOURITE performances.

It's so sad that for what the contest is all about, this doesn't happen more often.

I'm a German language learner and love Germany but I have to admit that it seems that Germans seem to hate their own language (in my experience with meeting young Germans). Last year, I can't believe they had an American Latino sing an American swing song in English to represent Germany. What the hell? This year Lena won and I don't like her at all. She sings well and is young but I HATE how she tries so damn hard to sound like a British chav girl when she is GERMAN and NOT BRITISH. That's not even an accent she would have when speaking her English anyway (regardless if she was taught American or British English). Plus, her song was written by an American and Dane so the whole accent thing is so constructed.

Being so disappointed, I switch over to my other two favourite countries, Denmark and Norway, and am also disappointed. Denmark had some cheesy 90's sounding English language song (rip off of The Police?) when ironically in Denmark there has been an AMAZING revival of the Danish language in new music. What the hell? They pick this track out of everything?
Norway rarely releases music in their own language so I wasn't surprised that it was another cheesy ballad. Scandinavia writes cheesy English songs for US and UK rather than using their beautiful old language in their own music.

The one performance that made me smile however was Holland. This was a huge surprise as Dutch people generally don't like their language in music either. I thought it was so funny and smart to play on the whole Dutch carnival theme. This performance was unique, fun, and catchy with the organs. Great to actually hear the language too which seems to be dying as English is taking over as the de facto English language of Holland.

/end rant

Welcome to the forum
You have a point although I don't mind the use of english language personally, maybe because I am old enough to remember the language rule and how much it had helped the Uk and Ireland to score well year after year. Like it or not, English is an international language and people (and juries) are more likely to vote for something they understand. This year, out of the top 10 only Greece sang in our native language...and that was after 12 years.
Then, there's the argument that not all languages are equally familiar to people..for example, compare French to...Finnish.
So I suppose the main question is: does a country want to score well/win or just take part in a music festival? In my country's case, I was thrilled that we used our own language and I hope we'll keep sending songs in Greek.

PS I don't like Satellite much either, it's an anonymous pop song sang in a fake accent and does nothing for me.

I'm glad you support me in the fact that I love native languages being used in the Euro music festival. It's stupid that a song would be given lower points because a judge doesn't understand it? I understand that English is the de facto universal language in Europe but that doesn't mean it should have a "god like" status that it's been given (not just in this competition but in every aspect of life).

I mean, maybe I'm taking English for granted as native speaker but I think not. Most native English speakers WANT everything to be in English and that really annoys me. A lot of Germans I meet are surprised that I speak German and I have to remind them over and over to stop switching to English because they don't want to even speak it with me.

I hope Greece continues to send more Greek language singers to EuroVision in the future. It took them more than a decade to do it once? Sad. What separates one country from the next if they sing the same genre of music in the same language and style?

Germany sucks in Eurovision and I've been disappointed in them too many times (the team that decides for Germany I should say). I'm looking forward to Germany's Bundesvision Song Contest though which is a sort of spin off that Stefan Raab did after his boredom with EuroVision's "cultural" festival. Bundesvision song contest happens once a year and is structured pretty much the same way like Eurovision. Each state in Germany will send a singer/band to perform and one of the rules is that the song has to be at least partly in German. For this reason I LOVE this annual celebration since it really brings out German spirit and great German language pop music.

Here's the winner (Berlin) from 2009. He did a pretty damn good job and this performance is amazing with a full string orchestra in ape costumes and a southern American drum roll band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkc6tz7dbEY

amazing social realistic lyrics he wrote about life in the urban city. compare that to the totally constructed Lena.

I don't mean to rip on Lena so much... she sings good but if I were her, I would feel bad about being used as a puppet just to make money for her label.

OH, another one of us. Hello.

Yes, I'd like to see more languages at Eurovision too. :/

But you know maybe the reason why the Germans speak English to you is because they want to practice their English just like you want to practice your Deutsch.

Moooooooliiiiiiitvaaaa, kao žar na mojim usnama je
Moooooooliiiiiiitvaaaa, mesto reči samo ime tvoje
Nebo zna *NEBO ZNA*, kao ja *KAO JA*
Koliko puta sam ponovila
To nebo zna, baš kao ja
Da je ime tvoje moja jedina...
Molitvaaaaaaaa...

When I'm walkin' down ze street zey say HEY SEXY.

Damn right they do.

I am so happy that Croatia and Slovakia sang in their native language. During their interviews, they expressed how annoying it is in Eurovision nowadays that more countries use English for benefit reasons..

Go them

I guess my annoyance is more with the countries I like:
Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

The Germanic languages are so beautiful (in my opinion) and I find that the Nordic ones have the least exposure out of all.

Hmm...true, but I think Denmark has the biggest problem in using their own language when it comes to music. It's a very harsh and tough pronounciation in the Danish language and it just doesn't sound very good in music (it's like swallowing, especially rap). I am a neighbour to the Danes and I know that they almost think the same about their own language, although they of course are proud like all people. It's basically the same with Hungary/Czech Republic and Finland, they have very harsh and difficult-sounding languages.

Norway..hmm, we sent a Norwegian song in 2006 with folk elements, but it didn't work very much.

We, the Portuguese, have been singing in Portuguese since the beginning, in over 40 years
We never won any single year, and yet we keep going with our language, like a bunch of beasts never giving up on trying to destroy the bigass wall by banging our heads against it.

Some of our songs are bad, and most of them suck, admittedly, in fact, I think that we should have won one single year in all the years we've been in

But the fact remains that we're the more honorful country of the Eurovision ;D

Anyways, I agree with you, this is not a fight of bands, its a fight of countries, the culture and language should be represented, IMO

SGRaaize,

"JÁ FUI AO BRASIL, PRAIA E MISSAU, ANGOLA, MOÇAMBIQUE, GOA E MACAU, AH, FUI ATÉ TIMOR
JÁ FUI UM CONQUISTADOR"

Just for the record...

Bissau é a capital e maior cidade da Guiné-Bissau...não "Missau"

I am aware, 'twas a typo
Fix'd

By the way....LOVED Conquistador...tho I don't think 1989 is the only year they should have won. I include 1994 (Chamar a Música), 1996 (O Meu Coração Não Tem Cor) and 2008 (Senhora do Mar). And even tho it might not be a winning song, the 1982 entry (Bem Bom) holds a special place in my heart, as that was the song my boyfriend showed me that got me interested in Eurovision.

*claps* thank you Portugal!!

I just had a chance to watch the full Finals airing (rather than Youtube short clips). I'm shocked at how bad the song for Norway was. I mean, really, Norway? You guys are the host country and you selected a bad Josh Groban copy cat? He's cute and all but I don't prefer looks over talent.



To the person who said that Danish is a bad sounding language, I completely disagree. Thanks to the resurgence of good Danish pop music, I have had a chance to hear a lot of songs (Nephew and Thomas Holm for example...). What's nice is that Denmark almost always has at least one Danish language song in their top ten singles charts. The same cannot be said for Norway and Sweden. I have a really hard time finding any music in those languages that aren't aimed at old people.

BTW, why the hell is the singer for Cyprus a Welsh singer? It's not even a band... it's a solo guy. Can anything pass for "representation" now?

and the song for Bosnia was fucking bad. Sounds like some b-track to a 90s rock single from some obscure band.

I agree with some of your points, I'd like to see more native languages in Eurovision, but I also respect that a country can choose to sing in whatever language they want. Sometimes an entry just sounds better in English, sometimes English can kill a song, but it's up to them.

And have you heard Lena talk? She talks in that accent, that's the way she talks, it's the way she sings. And what makes you keep saying she's so constructed and fake? She sang quirky pop songs throughout the show and now she's singing songs not written by her, but in a similar style? It seems to me you have a bit of a german fetish and you're ripping on a singer continually because you're upset that people from the same country don't have the same perspective as you do.

The Welsh singer singing for Cyprus was because some Cypriot songwriters wanted someone to sing a song they wrote and they couldn't find anyone quite right for the song until they found Jon on myspace and then they worked with him on it and asked if he wanted to enter the NF, and the rest is history.

You might be new to Eurovision and all, and welcome to the forum but to me you're coming across as a bit of a twat who calls everything who does things differently to how you think they're done stupid. In short, you're coming across very American.

Because the composer of the song (Cypriot) had offered it to Cypriot singers and even Greek singers, too and they didn't want it. He found Jon on the internet.

LMAO Liam, that made me giggle

Very American. Hahahaha. I must be a freakin' disgrace then! (Need to think of something mean to say to save my reputation)...just kidding. Come to chatroom Freakazoid. Or are you here just for forums? That's for other sites It ain't called escCHATfor nothing.

Can anything pass for representation you ask...it all depends on the broadcaster. Some want the song writers and the singers to be from that country or have some roots from there, some allow foreign songwriters to only CO-write a song, some don't care where the singer is from and let the public choose who they want in the preselection, the list goes on and on.

Oh and about Germany 2009, it was an internal selection after the No Angels flop so blame the broadcaster.And couldn't you just say "Last year, I can't believe they had an AMERICAN sing an American swing song in English to represent Germany."?;D