A well-deserved victory
The dust has barely settled on this year’s Eurovision and already the voices of dissent are starting to make themselves heard – the ones complaining that the whole thing is political, that everybody simply votes for their neighbours and that it’s about time the whole thing was scrapped. But this year, for every naysayer there have been just as many who have said that Finland thoroughly deserved their win, that Lordi’s victory will open the door for a much wider range of musical styles to make their mark in future contests. And that’s very true. Once you cast aside the novelty value of the costumes and masks, the fact remains that a band who actually played their own instruments and performed their own songs managed to buck the trend of scantily-clad ladies winning Eurovision with elaborate choreography, that we’ve seen for the past four years.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter of course. We’ve enjoyed the recent run of winners – Sertab was especially good in 2003 and we loved Ruslana’s shouty stomping show in 2004. But what Lordi proved last night was that it is possible for other types of music to make their mark, and while their image may seem gimmicky to some, in reality there was very little gimmick to their performance – they simply did what they’ve done at live shows all across the continent, and it worked spectacularly well.
But more importantly, this is one victory which, try as the cynics might, they can’t possibly blame on political voting. When the words ‘Finland have won the Eurovision Song Contest’ were spoken last night, one member of Team Eurovision was heard to remark, “Well, that’s something I never thought I’d hear.” Because as we’ve mentioned so many times before, Finland had, up until this year, one of the worst track records in Eurovision. They first took part in the contest in 1961, but over the past 45 years the highest they’d ever finished was sixth (and that was in 1973). Recently, their fortunes had been even more dismal, constantly slipping out of the contest in the relegation era of the 90s, and failing to make it out of the semi-final for the past two years despite their best efforts.
Yet despite their lack of success they’ve always carried on plugging away, sending a song almost every year and never flouncing off in a huff and refusing to take part in the face of poor results (unlike some countries we could mention) or crying foul and blaming politics when the voting didn’t go their way. Instead they’ve just carried on trying to do better, most likely in the hope that they would, eventually, win the contest. And now it’s happened, you can’t help thinking how much they deserve it. While some countries may try to be different and innovative in an effort to succeed in the contest, Finland nailed it this year. After over four decades of poor results, they had nothing to lose by sending Lordi to Athens – had they flopped once again, at least they could say they made an impression – but as we all know now, it was a gamble that paid off quite brilliantly.
As for political voting – well, there were obvious neighbourly votes being exchanged last night (Moldova and Romania for example), but accusing Finland of winning through that method would simply be futile. Over the years, while other Scandinavian countries may have exchanged top marks, or former Soviet states voted for each other (and let’s not forget Finland’s close proximity to Russia, Estonia and the like), they’ve always neglected Finland, either throwing a small handful of points their way or, in many cases, ignoring them completely. This time around, though, only two nations (Albania and Monaco) failed to give them any points at all, and the fact that even Greece (in the absence of Cyprus) gave them top marks (instead of plumping for the more obvious likes of Romania or Turkey) further underlines the fact that this was one contest that was won on merit, rather than anything else.
Lordi have said themselves that they hope this opens the door for other styles of music at future Eurovisions, and certainly we’re looking forward to seeing whether the 2007 contest is stuffed to the gills with little Lordi clones, hopping around the stage in giant platforms and latex. But apart from the possibilities it brings, we’re also hoping that Finland’s victory, after all this time, inspires some of the other older participants who are still chasing their first win, to buck up their ideas and come up with something really exciting and innovative next year.
Portugal, for example, have been in the contest since 1964 but are still awaiting that first victory (and in fact they haven’t even troubled the top ten since 1996), and their recent entries have suggested they may even have given up trying to win. Perhaps this might spur them on to pick a stronger song next year, and follow in Finland’s footsteps. Similarly, Malta and Iceland have yet to win, despite coming close on several occasions – and while they do both have a tendency to enter good songs (not that they had much in the way of success this year), maybe this will inspire them to try just a little bit harder and really deliver the goods in future years.
For now Finland have proved that a victory is possible, even if it’s a long time coming – and that you don’t necessarily have to be from Eastern Europe or the Balkans to score a victory in Eurovision these days. When Daz Sampson started shouting about how it was “time for a change” and it had “been a long time”, who could have thought how prophetic his words would be? Obviously he was referring to the UK’s recent track record at Eurovision, yet somehow those words seem strangely true of Finland. So whatever your opinion of this year’s winner, let’s give the Finns their dues and look forward to Helsinki 2007. Because we’re already excited by the prospect.