You've had a couple of weeks now to digest the disappointment of Scooch's, ahem, less than impressive performance at Eurovision, so the prospect of looking back over the events of that night should be a bit less painful than they might have been. It's with good timing, then, that Stylus have put up their Eurovision Article. Including contributions both from ourselves and people who actually know what they're talking about, it always proves to be one of the funniest and most insightful pieces of music journalism on the web and provides a true flavour of the highs and lows of the Eurovision experience. This year is no exception. Enjoy.

Labels: eurovision, Stylus

Hmm, well that could have gone a bit better really. Still, at least Malta didn't think we were insufferably awful. If only someone - anyone - else had agreed with them. Ah well, there's always next year.

Labels: eurovision, Scooch

Scooch are, of course, representing us at Eurovision tonight, and the best of luck to them. Frankly, they're going to need it. But let's not forget those who have gone before them and returned beaten, bruised, humiliated and a footnote in the history of Eurovision trivia. Here's last year's entrant Daz Sampson doing Teenage Life, a song which we still think is ace, even if the rest of Europe doesn't agree. It's worth pointing out that in real life hiding behind blackboards while schoolgirls dance in front of it is likely to get you arrested.

Labels: Daz Sampson, eurovision, YouTube

It is, of course, Eurovision on Saturday, and we're sure Terry Wogan is already dusting down his book of Lazy European Stereotypes in preparation for his big moment. Let's hope that, unlike during Making Your Mind Up he can actually follow proceedings this time around. Unlike what he seemed to believe on the night, flying the flag for us are Scooch who'll be doing their best to do the UK proud. Or at the very least try not to embarrass as too much. With such a weight of expectation on their shoulders it's going to be a busy week for the boys and girls ageing men and women in the band, but what exactly is in store for them? Let's take a look:

Monday

It's time for that age old Eurovision tradition: the awkward photoshoot with Terry. As in recent years Britain's acts have performed in a manner which is only impressive as we watch with dread to see exactly how far down the rankings we can get, Terry is even more reluctant than normal this year to get involved, fearing that the stench of failure might cling to him more strongly than the old person smell of cabbage which tends to linger whenever he's in the room, initially refusing to even appear in the same photo. Fed up by this act of petulance, the PR girl politely but firmly points out that he should count himself lucky as there was a good chance he'd currently be required to be photographed with Justin Hawkins from the Darkness. Suitably chastened, he meekly allows himself to be photographed with Scooch, although he refuses point blank to put his arms out and pretend to be an aeroplane.

Tuesday

To help themselves get in the mood for the big event, Scooch decide to have a Finnish day before they travel to Helsinki. They plan on eating Finnish food, drinking Finnish drinks and doing Finnish things. Unfortunately this plan comes grinding to a halt when they realise they don't have any idea what traditional Finnish things are. Natalie brings along some crispy pancakes but is disappointed when someone points out that they're Findus, not Finnish.

Wednesday

It's time to go to Finland! And Scooch are all excited and keen to make their departure a big event. Alas, they turn up dressed in their stewardess/captain costumes that they'll be wearing for the performance and are promptly arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, charged with impersonating flight attendants in a bid to cause misery and pain on a European wide scale. They are only released after the judge listens to their CD a number of times, although even then he's not entirely convinced their aims are entirely benign.

Thursday

Helsinki! And in between rehearsals - which the other entrants are in no way watching and sniggering at - Russ is chuffed when an excited Finn comes running up to him to ask for his autograph. "See! They love us here!", he exclaims, the sheer joy of his emotion obvious in his voice, "We're so going to win this!". The others decide not to ruin his mood by telling him that the kid is currently labouring under the delusion he's just got one of Lordi's autograph. It would be more than he needed to know.

Friday

It's the day before the main event and, while undoubtedly platinum selling megastars in their home country, Scooch are painfully aware that their profile is somewhat lacking on a more international basis. To counteract this, today is largely spent attempting to press the flesh of the international media in a bid to boost awareness of the band's existence. Unfortunately they, once again, choose to do this in their flight attendant uniforms, which fails to increase Scooch's profile, but does leave the assembled media with a greater awareness of the benefits of flying business class with British Airways.

Saturday

Eurovision night itself! The nerves get to Russ and he, getting confused about what show he's appearing on, flashes back to his time on Boys Will Be Girls and begins dressing up in Caroline's outfit by mistake, getting into something of a tizzy about the five o'clock shadow on his face. The problem resolved, the band go out on stage, perform their little hearts out and generally do Britain proud. They go to the green room, sit back, relax, and await the voting with hope in their hearts and the feeling of satisfaction of a job well done, knowing that this, this, has to be their night.

Sunday

Leaving Finland with their tail between their legs, they take the plane back to Britain, doing their best to ignore the desultory headlines in the Sunday papers and the tomatoes of failure which are likely to be hurled at them as they attempt to make a quick and undignified exit from Heathrow. Poor Scooch.

Labels: eurovision, Music Week, Scooch

It says a lot, perhaps, about the state of Eurovision in Britain that, while we were more than prepared to spend our valuable time and money flying over to Stockholm to watch the Swedes chose their entrant, when it comes to finding out who our own entrant is, we can't even be bothered staying in to watch it, instead we went out instead and have only just got round to watching our video of the event. Still, we did pay the price for our lack of interest as Saturday night was, of course, St Patrick's night, which meant that every single place we went to was falling over itself to play Irish music, which seemed to consist entirely of a Westlife track, followed by a Boyzone track, followed by a Ronan track, with occasional bursts of The Irish Rover for a bit of colour and variety. Still, they did play Sham Rock's Tell Me Ma, so every cloud, and all that. Even if we were green - arf - enough to hope for a bit of B*Witched at some point.

So, anyway, Making Your Mind Up - Yes, they're still calling it that, despite the fact it would have seemed a dated title even a year after Bucks Fizz - was this year hosted by Terry Wogan, a man who seems to hate his job more and more with each passing year, and Fearne Cotton, who is ever lovely and who we are unlikely to ever have a bad word to say about and who was, of course, wearing a lovely dress. After some pointless banter between the hosts which served mainly to undermine the whole point of the contest and some digs at the less than impressive performances we've managed to muster in the preceding ten years - including blaming us, the British public, for voting for them in the first place, happily ignoring the fact that we can only choose from what's laid before us - Fearne voiced a VT piece on how to win at Eurovision, an interesting statistical study which was somewhat marred by the fact that all the footage was from last year's show which, if that's the only evidence availiable, can only lead to the conclusion that to win you must be Lordi. It's hardly conclusive.

On with the show and first up is the ex-Kitten, though not, alas, in the "Tied in a sack with some bricks" way, Liz McLarnon who, in her intro segment, was at pains to point out that she was a Scouser. This, presumably, because she uses 'having a home town' as a substitute for actually having a personality. We can only assume that her stylist was also trying to make up for her lack of substance and charisma as the first think that came to our mind when she walked out on stage was "Dear God, what does she look like?", with noodles for hair and a roll of unpleasant looking material wrapped around her instead of a dress, she was rocking a look that was at best 'interesting' and at worst 'Liz McLarnon looking as lovely as she could manage'. The song itself was identical to the retro sixties-esque forgetableness that she was trying to foist upon an uninterested public last time she tried to launch her solo career, but did feature some handclaps, for which it can have a point.

Voicing their opinions on the acts, for no discernable reason other than that they were availiable, were John Barrowman and Mel Giedroyc. John politely suggested that he wasn't sure whether it was a Eurovision song or not, while Mel claimed she was "Gina G with funk". Well, there was certainly the aroma of something unpleasant on the stage.

Next up was the in no way suicidal Brian Harvey, who is worried that the British public aren't getting to see the real him. "I think people would be surprised if they knew the real me". We know we would be, mainly at how small our social circle must have shrunk if we're so desperate for company we'd be prepared to hang out with Brian for the evening. His refusal to admit that he's suffered from depression is suffering from male pattern baldness has resulted in him sporting a hairstyle that makes him look like he has the world's largest forehead. His tune was a dull and pointless R&B ballad which featured him declaring at one point "I know I am someone!", which surprises us as we were pretty sure he was a nobody. His voice was cracking all over the shop as well which, if we were charitable, we'd put it down to him being a bit emotional but, as we're sure you'll have realised by now, we're not, so we'll put it down to it being a bad performance by a washed up popstar who should really let his dreams of stardom die and let the blessed waves of obscurity wash over him. The panel found it hard to find much positive to say about him as well: "Brian Harvey in a suit. Amazing", was the best Mel could think of.

Third on the bill was Big Brovaz, who Fearne described as "The credible faces of British R&B", though surely to be credible you have to at least be noticable. Big Brovaz themselves reckoned that they were the "Black Abba", and promptly launched into a track which, while admittedly being half decent, sounded like the sort of thing that could have easily been a leftover track from sessions at around the time they actually sold records and, indeed, probably was. The performance featured some drunk ballet dancers - whether intentionally or not wasn't made clear, but we know that if we were expected to share a stage with the Big Brovaz, we'd need a lot of dutch courage first. It was certainly entertaining, but waterloo it wasn't. "Awesome", was both Mel and John's considered opinion on the track.

After the excitement of hearing a track which bordered on being half decent, the audience clearly needed something to calm them down a bit, which is why Cyndi was wheeled on. Cyndi is French, but she's keen to prove that she's down with the Brits. To this end, her VT featured her pouring a pint in a village pub, which isn't a very British thing to do. Normally it's Australians who pour the pints in our experience. Her song played the ballad card to full effect, coming on like a cross between You Raise Me Up and The Bonny, Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond, although at least the latter is out of copyright, thus avoiding any nasty lawsuits. "It reminds me of my roots in Scotland, for some reason", opined John, presumably out of politeness given the obviousness of the steal.

The penultimate act were Scooch, who were playing up their pop credentials to the hilt, even to the extent that their intro VT featured them getting involved in some Monkees-esque japes which was all 'hilarious', in the 'teeth-grindingly embarassing' sense of the word. Dressed as stewards and air-hostesses, the boys and girls of Scooch pushed the airline theme as far as it could go, giving us an innuendo laden slice of pure popness which owes more than a passing debt to The Vengaboys - it doesn't really matter which one, they're all pretty much the same - and a dance routine that owes an even bigger debt to kids in the playground pretending to be aeroplanes.

Finally we have Hawkins and Brown, not a pair of solicitors, but a pair of, well, we'll leave that to your imagination. Justin was ready to take on anyone who felt that he shouldn't be there: "To all those who are surprised I'm taking part in Eurovision I say 'poppycock'". Although most people weren't surprised that he was taking part in Eurovision, merely surprised that anyone would even ask him to do anything with music ever again in his life. Their performance lacked balls, which was fair enough in Beverli's case and, well, given his singing voice, was fair enough in Justin's as well. Their backing singers were dressed as Chelsea pensioners and Beefeaters, and it was all a bit embarassing really, though it would clearly be a lot better if it didn't have Justin's awkward falsetto wailing all over the top of it. "You need the right amount of sexual chemistry", reckoned Mel, causing a million viewers all over the country to picture Hawkins and Brown having sex and promptly vomiting all over themselves.

After an entirely unrepresentative panel consisting of all the countries in Eurovision chose their favourite - Big Brovaz, apparently - the phonelines opened and it was time for us to choose our favourite. Despite the fact that finding a winner should simply be a matter of picking the act who got the most votes, the BBC decide to complicate matters by operating a sing-off between the top two acts in a bid to make more money from the phone vote increase the tension. Of course, to get to the top two, first you have to get rid of the bottom four and first to go is Brian Harvey, who looked crestfallen when he was told the news. Let's hope there weren't any potatoes in the green room. Next was Liz McLarnon who pretty much looked like a girl who'd expected to fail and wasn't too bothered by the result. Fourth place went to Big Brovaz, while third went to Hawkins and Brown. Justin took the news like a gentleman and promptly threw a hissy fit and stormed off the set, leaving Scooch and Cyndi to fight it out for victory. They both performed again before Lordi turned up to run through Hard Rock Hallelujah one more time and give the BBC enough time to take some phonecalls.

Terry and Fearne then got the two potential winners together to announce the result. After the usual tension building cause we've come to expect, thus reducing any possible tension that might exist, the pair simultaneously announced the winner. "Skindi!", apparently, as due to some sort of cock up Fearne and Terry managed to each announce a different act as the winner. Scooch, standing next to Terry, only heard Cyndi's name, so began clapping her and being the gracious losers, so looked incredibly confused and taken aback when Fearne took charge from Terry, who clearly didn't have a clue what was going on, and announced them as the winners. They performed again and everyone seemed happy and celebratory, except, presumably, for the show's producer in the gallery, who was about to have the unenviable job of kicking Terry's arse.

So, hooray for Scooch then. We weren't too keen on the song first time we heard it, and we still don't think it's a brilliant example of the pop genre, but with the dance routine it works, it's fun, and it'll be memorable enough in the highlights package so we should hopefully do reasonably well this year. Personally though, we feel that if we wanted to do well then Cyndi should have been our choice. Not because it was the best song there - it wasn't - or because we think it's a good song - trust us, we don't - but it would have ticked a lot of the right boxes and got us enough votes to put in a reasonable showing. Mind you, given the way we treat the whole affair, it's probably better we don't win. We really don't deserve it any more.

Labels: Big Brovaz, Brian Harvey, Cyndi, eurovision, Hawkins and Brown, Liz McLarnon, Scooch

So! We're back from Stockholm now, and the Melodifestivalen final was all kinds of aceness, although there's something quite surreal about watching a show in a language you don't understand. Indeed, the only word of Swedish we managed to pick up on the trip was "Tack", which means "Thank You", which, in a desperate bid to try and appear all cosmopolitan and multi-cultural, we were using at every available opportunity, thanking all and sundry for their services, no matter how minor, or whether it was even appropriate to do so. Still, despite the language barrier we still managed to have a rough idea what was going on, and our tactic of "Clapping when everyone else does" ensured we wouldn't look like a disoriented hamster should any of the ever present cameras happen to catch site of us.

The show was hosted by Kristian Luuk, who we reckon should get Kate Thornton's job now that she's no longer doing the whole X Factor thing. Not only did he get more laughs, but he seemed to make a much better fist of the whole presenting thing. Indeed, he could come over, do the whole show in his native Swedish and still be a better host than Miss Thornton. Mind you, they could stick a plank of wood on stage and it would still be a better host than Kate, so perhaps Leona will have some sort of career after all.

As for the songs themselves, well, it's safe to say that both Andreas Johnson and Sebastian were robbed, with both their tracks - A Little Bit of Love and When The Night Comes Calling respectively - being mighty pop tunes of the sort which the UK would need to sweat night and day to come up with but which the Swedes seem to toss out as effortlessly as Westlife toss out another album full of godawful ballads. Which is not to say that the winner, The Ark with The Worrying Kind, is not itself an ace little glam rock-esque slice of tunage - it is - but it's just a little bit less ace than our own favourites. To be honest, we found the whole voting system a bit confusing, and not just because of our lack of Swedish, but we were pleased to see that Tommy Nilsson, a man who looks like your uncle who's labouring under the delusion that he's cool, received no points whatsoever for his dull ballad, Jag Tror På Människan, which we're reliably informed translates as I Believe in Mankind. The title tells you all you need to know about it, really.

Hmm, maybe we should have taken notes so that we could have written a better piece about it. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and that's all that matters. We did take some photos though, and as you'll be able to see, we got the sort of view that our power and influence in the world of pop truly deserves. If you suffer from vertigo you may wish to look away now:-


The warm up before the show began


Sanna's performance. We think. It's a bit hard to tell


The same performance from a different angle, i.e. we held the camera up a bit and didn't zoom quite so much. We're so professional.


The Ark, performing after being told they were victorious. Look at their excited happy faces! You may need to get quite close to your monitor to see this. We find getting close enough so that your nose presses against the screen provides the best view, though if you're Ashlee Simpson, you're not going to have much luck, nose job or no nose job.

Labels: eurovision, melodifestivalen

We're off to Stockholm tomorrow for Melodifestivalen. How exciting! We've been spending most of the last few weeks earnestly practicing our Swedish in preparation, though as our definition of "earnestly" begins and ends with "watching a few Muppet Show episodes", we're currently holding firm to the belief that the language is mainly based around variations on the word 'Bork'. To celebrate us buggering off on holiday, here's ten entirely true and in no way made up facts about Swedish Pop:-

1. ABBA famously took their name from the initials of the band members. It runs Attractive, Beard, Beard, Attractive, referring to the members, Agnetha, Björn, Anni-Frid and Benny respectively.
   
2. Roxette's It Must Have Been Love was written after Per and Marie had a heated argument about which band released the Forever Changes album.
   
3. Despite hitting number one, most copies of Europe's The Final Countdown, most copies of the single were returned to the point of purchase, with angry consumers demanding to know why there was such a glaring misspelling in the song's name.
   
4. Despite what they claim, The Cardigans weren't the first band on the moon. That was The Police, who were walking on the moon in 1979, a full 17 years before Nina and the blokes in the background made their fraudulent claim.
   
5. In reality, Crying at the Discotheque is unlikely to be soundtracked by the pop genius of Alcazar, but instead with the concerned and pitying murmurings of other people in the nightclub before this is drowned out by the angry voice of the bouncer demanding you leave as you're putting the other punters off their drinks.
   
6. Ace of Base saw The Sign. Unfortunately for them the sign said "Warning: Career stops abruptly. End of nineties imminent".
   
7. The Hives garnered many compliments for all wearing exactly the same clothes. For some reason this is seen as being incredibly cool if you're in an indie band, but if you're in Steps it seems to lose a certain kudos.
   
8. Max Martin makes remarkable pop music for someone whose name sounds like a brand of dog food.
   
9. A*Teens were forced to split up in 2004 after someone realised that A*Adults was a name which wouldn't look very good on a t-shirt.
   
10. The Dancing DJs' remix of Roxette's Fading Like a Flower was sorely underrated.

Labels: 10 Things, eurovision, Sweden, Swedish Pop

After our less than impressive performance at last year's Eurovision Song Contest, the powers that be have decided that it's time for a change. Having picked two fantastically ace songs in the shape of Javine's Touch My Fire and Daz Sampson's massively underrated Teenage Life for the previous two years, it's clear that having good tunes just isn't going to cut it, which is why the BBC have clearly decided that to go entirely in the opposite direction and produce a shortlist of acts which makes the line up for the Brits look halfway appealing. They are:

• Justin Hawkins and Beverlie Brown. As always, never trust anyone who can't spell their own name correctly. Anyway, this is Justin from high pitched irritants The Darkness who, despite having been through rehab, a process which is designed to make you confront unpleasant truths about yourself, is still labouring under the delusion that what the British public really want is more of him squealing away like a pig in a bacon slicer. We're happy to pay for a bacon slicer if he really wants to prove that point. He's presumably been selected as he's the pop star who most resembles one of last year's winners Lordi's trolls.
  
• Liz McLarnon. Liz clearly has a remarkable sense of self belief as it must take a certain kind of mental block to look at the complete disinterest that the public showed in your attempt at launching a solo career and decide that "Yes! I'm so important that the whole of Europe must discover what I have to offer". Having said that, Liz might do quite well out of the whole thing. She was in Atomic Kitten, after all, so she's no stranger to undeserved success.
  
• Big Brovaz. Who started off well with their debut single before promptly being washed down the plughole of pointlessness with a series of insipid and embarrassing tunes, the nadir of which was probably Favourite Things, which managed the impressive task of making you see the original song in a comparatively favourable light. It's probably worth pointing out here that hip hop never does well in Eurovision, although to be fair, putting Big Brovaz in that particular genre is pushing it somewhat.
  
• Scooch. The Happy Shopper Steps are back! Except by all accounts - well, Popjustice's at any rate - their song's a bit crap. Oh well. The last time Scooch had anything to do with the media, it was Russ appearing on E4's awful Boys Will be Girls, in which he demonstrated how much of a fame hungry whore he was by agreeing to be the least convincing transvestite since Jenny Frost stepped on the scene as a member of a girl band for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
  
• Brian Harvey. Brian was last seen definitely not trying to kill himself in a number of inventive ways. We dread to think what failure on this sort of stage will do to his in no way precarious mental state.
  
• Cyndi. Our final entrant and the only one who hasn't conclusively failed at this pop lark in the past. Given the rest of the sorry bunch who are wanting to represent us, we can only hope that she injects a bit of youthful spirit, energy, excitement and invigoration. Otherwise we're all screwed and might as well save a few quid on flights and simply not bother showing up at all.

Labels: eurovision