Eurovision Song Contest 2010

On Saturday 30Th of May 2010 Most of Europe will come together in Oslo Norway to take part the annual musical extravaganza called The Eurovision Song contest.

The contest which began in Lugano, Switzerland, on 24 May 1956 is televised around the world and has boasted over 600 million viewers on the live programme

The Idea of the Eurovision Song Contest is that each participating country submits a song and someone to perform it.

Each country gets to vote on their favourite songs giving them from 12 points down to 1. Countries are not allowed to vote for their own entry.

The winning song is the one with the most points after each country has voted.

The country of the winning song wins the right to host the next contest, Norway won in 2009 and host the competition this year.

The Eurovision song contest has had some notable winners over the years and some very famous performers have entered,

In 1974 the world was introduced to ABBA probably the most famous winners of all time they won Eurovision that year with the song Waterloo and that led them on to world wide fame and fortune.

Other notable entrants include Olivia Newton John in 1974, Cliff Richard in 1968 came 2nd and in 1973 came 13th, Michael Ball came 2nd in 1992 Celine Dione won it for Switzerland in 1988, Matt Monro entered in 1964 but could only scrape 17th place.

WINNING COUNTRIES FROM 1964 TO THE PRESENT DAY

1956 Switzerland 1957 Netherlands 1958 France 1959 Netherlands 1960 France 1961 Luxembourg 1962 France 1963 Denmark 1964 Italy 1965 Luxembourg 1966 Austria 1967 United Kingdom 1968 Spain 1969 (Tied 4 ways) France Netherlands Spain United Kingdom 1970 Ireland 1971 Monaco 1972 Luxembourg 1973 Luxembourg 1974 Sweden 1975 Netherlands 1976 United Kingdom 1977 France 1978 Israel 1979 Israel 1980 Ireland 1981 United Kingdom 1982 Germany 1983 Luxembourg 1984 Sweden 1985 Norway 1986 Belgium 1987 Ireland 1988 Switzerland 1989 Yugoslavia 1990 Italy 1991 Sweden 1992 Ireland 1993 Ireland 1994 Ireland 1995 Norway 1996 Ireland 1997 United Kingdom 1998 Israel 1999 Sweden 2000 Denmark 2001 Estonia 2002 Latvia 2003 Turkey 2004 Ukraine 2005 Greece 2006 Finland 2007 Serbia 2008 Russia 2009 Norway 2010 Germany.

If you were to go out into the streets of Britain today and ask people about their thoughts on the Eurovision Song Contest, chances are that you would have a difficult time trying to find anyone who really cares about it.

10 years ago though you would find a population rooting for their song suppotive of the competition and looking forward to watching the live event.

POLITICS

Changes to the competition over the past few years have seen more and more eastern european entries taking part and the voting system has become corrupted by tactical voting neighboring countries vote for each other leaving western Europe out of the running.

Britian and the population of Britain have given up hope of ever winning the competition again and for the past few years have been sending second rate entries to the contest knowing that the Eastern block countries will be predictable and keep the voting between themselves.

Britains entry for 2010 is poor and weak and will be lucky to get any votes from the other countries.

My Personal Opinion

I love Eurovision and I believe that Britain can win again but not in 2010, British music has been topping the European charts since the sixties and is respected all over the world.

We need to forget about the politics and tactical voting and get back to what the contest is all about.

There are so many great song writers and artists in Britain today that could see their careers take of by one great song.

Instead of the UK giving up and sending in a token entrant like we have been doing for the past few years we need to utilise the talent that is out there and come up with the great songs like we used to in the past.

Give Europe a song that would make them look foolish to vote against and bring us back our Eurovision glory.

UPDATE 29/MAY/2010

The contest for 2010 is over and as i thought Britains song was placed last, with only 10 points well done Germany you had the passion and it proved that a great song can beat the politics of the competition.