It is a great mystery to me why people can seriously say that they find the Song Festival stupid. Conversely, quite a few people think I'm a total nerd for liking it, but let me explain to you why the Song Festival is the most fun ever and why you should be watching on Thursday (second semi-final) and Saturday (final).
Let me start by saying that it doesn't matter to me at all for my enjoyment that the Netherlands is already out. Super unfortunate, of course, but it's not about winning (we never do anyway), it's about all the acts in themselves. Why the Song Festival is so much fun is actually quite simple: it's one big guilty pleasure. Pure schadenfreude, total amazement at the ridiculously low level of the songs, the idiocy with which countries think they can win, and all the over-the-top glitters and misplaced glamour. Everyone who my pieces about Peter Jan Rens or Dave Roelvink found interesting must understand me. Everyone who secretly enjoys watching troop programs like Roy Donders, Achter Gesloten Deuren, 5 Extreem, and Love At First Kiss knows what I'm talking about. Watching a train wreck is just delightful.
And in the case of the Song Festival, it's highlight after highlight. Finland, for example, decided to send a group of mentally disabled people this year. A group of old men who made completely incomprehensible and unbearable noises for a minute and a half. Which was really nothing compared to their entry in 2006, when they sent a rock band dressed as monsters onto the stage (watch it here again, you don't know what you're seeing). And mind you, with this song they WON the festival. Won! Hahahahaha I still laugh about it. In recent years, we've seen giants, dwarfs, hand puppets, acrobats, women with beards, monsters – really everything passes in review.
Roughly speaking, the entries can be divided into a few options. You have the Beautiful Subtle Songs (least chance of winning), the Over The Top Carnival Attractions (good chance), the Attractive Sexy Singers With Wind Machines (always does well), the Songs With A Message (it's often quite political, like the song from Armenia that sang about “don't deny” in light of the genocide), and finally the Catchy Songs That Are Secretly Quite Nice (big contenders).
The carnival attractions are by far my favorite, they make the whole party. You should never take all this seriously, the participants already do that for you and it only makes it even more fun. And as a final push in the right direction, I now present to you my favorite entries from the past years. Ridiculous, insane, idiotic, and totally silly; it's all of that. Enjoy my friends. Enjoy.
1. 2007, Ukraine. This is one of my ultimate favorites. Silver little martians mixing a traditional folk song with party café house and singing in German. For unclear reasons.
2. 2008, Ireland. A turkey in a shopping cart is rolled onto the stage and then the beat kicks in combined with screeching howls. Oh, and there are dancers with feathered costumes and the turkey turns out to be a DJ. Or something.
3. 2008, Azerbaijan. It starts with a man in white who hits incomprehensibly high notes, then there's a man in black doing some sort of rock ballad, and later in the song, blood is poured over women, there's a kind of slaughter ritual, and everything seems completely random and has no connection to each other.
4. 2012, Russia. The land of dictatorship decided to show itself from its most peaceful side and sent a group of elderly women in traditional dress onto the stage. Rarely have you heard such off-key singing, rarely has a ‘choreography’ gone so hopelessly wrong, and rarely has the whole thing been so hard to digest. Oh Russia, bunch of crazies.
