Starting with today! Today was one of my favorite days of the year...the final of the Eurovision Song Contest! For those that don't know Eurovision is a song contest held annually in Europe. Countries all over Europe chose a song and compete to see who has the best song. This year the contest was held in the "land of fire" in Baku, Azerbaijan. This year marked the 57th contest with 42 participating countries.
Before I continue, I love anything where countries come together for some friendly competition. The Olympics. The World Cup. Pan-American games (though unfortunately I haven't ever gotten as into them as I would like.) Eurovision is no exception. For the past two years I have been a huge fan of the Eurovision Song Contest and have made sure to watch at least the final, (if not the two semifinals as well)
This year's contest was fantastic! The final had so many great songs! There were a few songs in the final that I wished were not, because some didn't make it that should have (such as Finland, Switzerland, and maybe Belarus.) But overall there were a lot of great songs! Some of my favorites were Iceland, Cyprus, Serbia, Spain, Italy, and Turkey.
Stockholm 2013
Yupp that's right Sweden won this year's contest with the song Euphoria and Loreen. The song was in my Top 10 and I really expected it to win and even though it wasn't one of my "favorites" I was glad it won, and even wanted it to win. The song is so good and very catchy! Her performance was a bit strange, but to me it is a "song" contest. She has a good voice but many performers can't sing very well but this year there were quite a lot that could sing.
Just like any international competition, there are going to be politics. First off you can't vote for your own country, so often times people will vote for their neighbors. It happens get over it. But they're not only voting for their neighbors because different countries win every year. It is pretty entertaining though to see people's comments about the contest and the winner. Quite a few are ridiculous. Complaining about how people vote for their neighbors, and today I saw several that said the only reason Sweden won is because they are rich. Which is kinda ridiculous if you ask me. The point of Eurovision is to share good music (not that there aren't bad songs).
One reason I like Eurovision so much is that it gives me a chance to hear different music from all over Europe. I love listening to foreign music, especially music in other languages. A lot of people don't get why you'd want to listen to a song if you can't understand the words but I'm on of those people who loves just listening to people talk in a language I don't understand. Thanks to Eurovision I now know of artist that I would have never heard of from places all over Europe. It's a great way to find artist you like and then get to hear some of their other music and hear songs from similar artist. I just love it. I have been introduced to artist such as Alexander Rybak, Getter Jaani, Lena, Urban Symphony, A Friend in London, and many more.
That was longer than I intended, but get me talking about Eurovision and I just won't stop.
Just like any international competition, there are going to be politics. First off you can't vote for your own country, so often times people will vote for their neighbors. It happens get over it. But they're not only voting for their neighbors because different countries win every year. It is pretty entertaining though to see people's comments about the contest and the winner. Quite a few are ridiculous. Complaining about how people vote for their neighbors, and today I saw several that said the only reason Sweden won is because they are rich. Which is kinda ridiculous if you ask me. The point of Eurovision is to share good music (not that there aren't bad songs).
One reason I like Eurovision so much is that it gives me a chance to hear different music from all over Europe. I love listening to foreign music, especially music in other languages. A lot of people don't get why you'd want to listen to a song if you can't understand the words but I'm on of those people who loves just listening to people talk in a language I don't understand. Thanks to Eurovision I now know of artist that I would have never heard of from places all over Europe. It's a great way to find artist you like and then get to hear some of their other music and hear songs from similar artist. I just love it. I have been introduced to artist such as Alexander Rybak, Getter Jaani, Lena, Urban Symphony, A Friend in London, and many more.
That was longer than I intended, but get me talking about Eurovision and I just won't stop.
