If the noise of someone driving a tank down a street paved with cats sounds like music to your ears, be sure tune in to Eurovision this weekend, for what is sure to be a real treat for the senses. Witness the coming together of such artists as Alyona Lanskaya, Ivad Von Glooberchev and Roberto Bellarosaâsingers who are able to make caterwauling to a backing track seem easy. Marvel at our own hopeful, Bonnie Tyler, who wonât win, not simply because the song is awful, but also because Europe hates us. Then have a drink and fall asleep before the winner has been announced.
But before all of this, here are some of the very best entries this yearâs completion has to offerâby which I mean the very worst this yearâs completion has to offer.
It looks as if itâs still the 1990s in Latvia, home of the androgynous pop trio PeR, whose music would likely have won the competition, if we were still living in the decade of Sugar Ray and Zig and Zag. âHere we go!â? the band sing repeatedly throughout their energetic entry, never stopping for so much as a breath and looking incandescent in their glittery suits. But in spite of their enthusiasm, their cheery song soon begins to grate, until it becomes less âHere We Goâ? and more âPlease, Just goâ?.
âIâm the man on the moonâcall me Andy Kauffman!â? raps the lead singer, as if driven to rap badly by an unmaskable disdain for all urban music. âSaga-ho! Saga-woo!â? he continues, giving his faux-hawk-wearing band mate the special gesture to unleash PeRâs secret weapon: a blistering keytar lick with facial spasms to boot. Certainly, itâs a fair effort from the boys in PeR, but I doubt itâll be enough to win the competition.
Our next hopeful may stand more of a chance. With his unashamedly suggestive eyebrow jolts, Andrius Pojavis of Lithuania apparently aims to win Eurovision by seducing music itself, courting it gently before defecating on its chest. At least this is what one can only deduce from his frankly terrifying rehearsal performance of his song Somethingânot to be confused with the Beatles song of the same name.
âIâm in your head! Iâm in your heart!â? he sings during the number, staring into the camera with all the psychotic intensity of a man who eats hearts for breakfast and heads for lunch. Still, you canât argue that the passion isnât there, as it quite clearly is. The problem is Andrius displays the wild passion of a drunk grasping his erect penis on the bus rather than the passion of a possible Eurovision winner.
Cezar of Romania is the most inspirational artist to appear on Eurovision this year: a man who has silenced his critics by actually finding a song thatâs more ludicrous than his voice. In spite of his peanut-sized testicles and piercing vocal pitch, which is only audible to bats and certain breeds of dogs, heâs hoping to score big with Itâs My Life: a song that regrettably shares its name with the song that it is so blatantly ripping offâi.e. the one by Dr. Alban rather than Bon Jovi or Talk Talk.
But you canât accuse Cezar of plagiarism. Looking like a seal struggling to free itself from a bin bag, the man is obviously an original.
Cascada is likely the only Eurovision hopeful that most Brits will actually have heard of, largely due to her music being a staple of ringtone adverts and a sort of unofficial soundtrack to British drinking culture. Itâs the sound of boob tube-wearing drunks puking into the gutter outside Oceana. Itâs music that the producers of Hollyoaks might play if Tony were to gas himself with hose. Itâs the sound of a headache in a clothes shop: a gaudy, overcompressed mess that makes ones ears feel as if theyâre being operated on with a bit of rusty coat hanger.
All of which is why Cascada, with her inappropriately titled song Glorious, is unfortunately bound to win the competition. Still, on the bright side, at least itâs not this, which remains to this day the worst thing ever to happen to Israel:
