From Eurovision with Pop

So, the Eurovision Song Contest is over for another year. I would have written my post-Eurovision report on Sunday but chez Robbing The Dead there were internet problems. Five days without the internet! Can you imagine?

For me, the show itself was amazing, one of the best in fact. But the voting was boring, since it was obvious from the outset that Finaland was going to win. I was quite happy they won though, as Hard Rock Hallelujah is a great pop song. But how did our friends from the former Soviet Union fare?

Thursday's semi-final caused an uproar after the favourite, Belgium, failed to qualify. As expected, Belarus' didn't do very well, they came second from last, despite giving a very energetic performance. Polina looked horrible in nasty red hotpants and plunging necklined top, but danced very nicely. Her vocal performance was great, but her pronunciation of the English lyrics was so bad she could have been singing in Belarussian for all we knew. The whole thing was a bit like Belarus itself - a dated mess (don't worry, home internet access has been banned in Belarus so I won't be offending anyone).



Estonia also failed to qualify. They were represented by Sandra Oxenryd (a Swede) with the brilliant Through my Window. Sandra looked a little uncomfortable during the performance, but overall it sounded and looked great. I voted for it, so was a bit miffed that it didn't make it through to the final.



Armenia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia also competed in the semi, and all qualified for Saturday's final. Armenia, represented by Andre, did surprisingly well. Although the song, Without Your Love, was nice but nothing special, the performance was quite amazing, making use of a coffee table type thing and lots of black ribbon. I found the lighting of the stage and background to be a bit headache-enducing though. Despite being broadcast from midnight until the early hours of the morning, a huge number of Armenians watched their first Eurovision Song Contest, and during the semi-final they even cast more votes than the United Kingdom. Armenia finished 8th with 129 points.



Ukraine turned out to be the dark horse of the competition. In my post "From Eastern Europe with Rubbish Eurovision Entries" I described Tina Karol's Show Me Your Love as being boring. Perhaps that is still true, but the performance couldn't have been further from boring. Tina looked amazing in a short white dress andspangleyy Ukrainian styled boots. Her dancers were kitted out in red Cossack outfits, black boots and tambourines(!). Tina was instantly likeable, and gave the cutest little thumbs up to the camera during the performance. Ukraine came 7th with 146 points.



Moldova had automatically qualified for the final and, as expected, they were dire. Arsenium is quite bummable, but still managed to look like a greasy sleaze. Natalia Gordienko, she's the one who is going to give Arsenium her 'choco', kept walking around behind a screen and emerging in a new outfit. At one point she appeared in a skimpy bikini thing that left nothing to the imagination. Whilst all this is going on there is a black man (I don't know where he came from - they don't have black people in Moldova yet), riding around the stage on a scooter. Throw the dreadful song into the mix and you get a classic car crash Eurovision. They finished 20th (out of 24 countries) with 22 points.



Lithuania were represented by the vile LT United with the piece of shit We are the Winners. I don't even want to talk about it. And the UK gave them 10 points! It makes me ashamed to be British.



Latvia automatically qualified to the final. They entered a shit accapella song and came 16th with 30 points.



However it was Russia that fared the best, finishing at a very respectable 2nd place with 248 points, 44 points behind the winners Finland. Dima Bilan makes weird facial expressions when he performs, and generally looks a bit odd. He always looks like he is performing to a song that is much more uptempo than the one he is actually singing. The girl climbing out of the piano was a bit odd, I didn't really see the point of it, but Eurovision is all about gimmicks nowadays. I really wish Russia had won, as I am going to be in Moscow next May and could have gone to the show; although I suppose Helsinki isn't that far.

I'll give you my choco

Firstly I'd like to draw your attention to the minor adjustments I've made to the site. The defunct menu in the top right corner has gone and been replaced by buttons above the banner. I have added links to the new RusskiPop podcast, which is currently just six songs; the next installment will have me talking in it - be warned, I am from Essex. I am extremely excited about the imminent Eurovision song contest (it's only 5 days until the semi-final!), and will be writing about it again next week. But back to the music:

Who would have thought that the biggest hit in the world of 2004 would be by a boy band from Moldova, the poorest country in Europe. Moldova, also known by its Russian name Moldavia, is sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, and was part of the former until the USSR annexed the territory after World War II. It remained part of the Soviet Union until 1991 when it gained its independence. The official language is Moldovan, which is a dialect of Romanian; however there is a very large Russian speaking minority.

The song in question, was O-Zone's Dragostea Din Tei, accompanied by it's brilliantly rubbish video. Despite being in Romanian, the song reached the top 5 in the UK and was a number 1 hit in most European countries. The song didn't fare well stateside, although it became well known thanks to that fat "Numa numa guy".

At the height of their international success the group split and the guys announced plans to pursue solo careers, however so far the only project to emerge is that of Arsenie, who has renamed himself Arsenium (which is latin for bumming). His debut song was the amazing Love Me, Love Me, which featured the famous Russian folk song Kalinka. I can't stress how good this song is: it's an English song, sampling a Russian folk song, he has a dodgy accent, and it features lyrics such as "every night I whisper from my heart, do you own the words of love". Also it sounds a bit like Gwen Stefani's What You Waiting For?

Download Arsenium's 'Love Me, Love Me (Kalinka)'

Arsenium is representing Moldova at this year's Eurovision Song Contest, held next week in Athens. The song, which he will be performing with some blonde piece, is called Loca, and is in Spanglish. It's watery shit but quite catchy. The lyrics are a bit odd "Hey loca, give me your boca" (Boca is Spanish for mouth). What he wants her mouth for, we can only imagine. Then the blonde piece, she's called Nataliya Gordienko, sings "I'll give you my choco". Well! I know this is Eurovision, but I hardly think this tart offering to let some man do up her up her choco is appropriate content for a song. She could at least have been subtle and called it 'Ninanajna'.

Feed me!

Since everyone is talking about podcasts at the moment I thought I'd make one for RusskiPop. The feed is located at:

http://www.robbingthedead.co.uk/feed

To play the podcast you need to cut & paste that link into your podcast playing thing. On iTunes, click Advanced then Subscribe to Podcast... then enter the link, then OK it. iTunes should then download the first installment to your computer.

It is just six songs at the moment, I won't tell you what they are now - it'll be a surprise. I am going to submit the link to the iTunes podcast directory, so a direct link should be available soon.

S.O.S.

Waiting for a Russian pop song to be released in the UK is like waiting for a bus. You wait for ages then two come along at once! The 12th of June sees the release and flop of t.A.T.u.'s Gommenasia (see last entry). However, the week before, another RusskiPop song is set to be unleashed on the UK. At the end of last year I posted a song by the Russian group A'Studio called Uletayu. Remember? No? Anyway they're not releasing that song. The new single is called SOS and was originally released in Russia in 2001 as a slightly dull acoustic song. Since then it has been remixed and revamped into its current Euro dance form and will be out in shops up and down the country on the 5th of June. Between it's first re-release in 2004, A'Studio's front lady Polina has left the group and been replaced. Since the single features Polina's vocals, it is being released as "SOS by A-Studio featuring Polina". The group, originally from Kazakhstan, first hit the Soviet music scene in 1988, back in the days of Perestroika. They are a bit old now.

Watch the video