RE: Eurovision 2023
The UK is one of the core five countries, which were the nuclei of the contest.
There's a lot I could say, also related to my views about current music more broadly, and what I've yet to post about Ken Bruce's leaving Radio 2..
However, suffice to say.. the contest was started several years before the music industry became a major part of cultural and economic life, globally, which was very much inaugurated with 'Beatlemania'.
At the time it began, it had overlapping motivations with the creation of the EEC, European Economic Community, i.e. manage competition among European nation-states, especially dealing with Germany's being the leading European economy, which was a major cause of both world wars, and facing the threat of USA being the emerging superpower, alongside and against the Soviet Union and its bloc.
In terms of music, it was also very much USA that was dominant at the time, and a lot of quite idiotic ideas were around, more widely, about "protecting" European cultures from its influence, such as the Communist Party of Great Britain campaigning against comics.
Also, French radio instituted a quota, to minimise how much non-French music could be aired.
Hence, the music entered was mostly what would later when the music industry expanded massively, be considered 'middle of the road' (M.O.R.): variations on classic, pre-rock'n'roll, popular song, tinged with local European folk elements.
Nonetheless, for the contest to not remain merely a 'light entertainment' sideshow, it had to break out of its bubble, and come to terms with music that was actually exciting people more widely.
More than any UK entry, it was ABBA that did that, with a song that was both Eurovision enough, and related to broader musical currents.
Re: idiotic ideas about "protecting" national European cultures, if you see the BBC Four documentary, 'The Joy of ABBA', you'll see the joyless, boneheaded response of Swedish 'counter-cultural' leftists to ABBA and Eurovision! SMH
Since then, the balancing act of being both traditionally Eurovision, and addressing wider music audiences, has been managed very variably, by all concerned.
However, in the 21st century when so much 'pop' music is similar, namely based on a historical pick'n'mix, mostly using relatively cheap, accessible technology, for example, the much-hyped, and over-rated 'k-pop', doesn't necessarily have much distinctively 'k': Korean about it, and is very much like Euro-American music generally, what's identifiably Eurovision is in doubt.
Hence, Australia is not only participating, but has mostly finished in the top ten, and the introduction of semi-finals has meant that mainstays such as Ireland, haven't always reached the final, and cultural identity politics, around sexuality, that crosses national borders, has increasingly filled the vacuum where a lot of the traditional Eurovision was.
The hourglass is half-emptying..
"From one who is not permitted to find fault, [says the peasant representative] praise also is valueless; in absence of expression it is like a Chinese picture in which shade is lacking. [CW, Vol. 1, P. 1801 Marx cites this spokesman from the lower classes because his emphasis on opposites is pure dialectics: extremes can paint a picture, whereas compromise can only paint in grey." https://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/critl...ewrite.htm
https://mobile.twitter.com/seducedx6/with_replies
I should add (24/12/2023) that I am still more extensively shadowbanned than I've ever been, despite paying for a blue tick for several months, see my pinned thread, profile and header pics
https://twitter.com/midriffique/status/1...5463673857
https://en.internationalism.org/content/...ationalism
http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-...-the-class
29/10/2024: because of my being locked out of my original account, I'm using seducedx6_live on Twitter/'x', see the pinned thread there.
I'm using a friend's account, midriffique, a tweet from which is already linked above, with whom I did do three-way tag team tweeting, whilst he's taking a longterm break from social media.
"An airbag saved my life".. https://x.com/airbag_generate/with_replies
(This post was last modified: 14-05-2023 16:06 by seducedx6.)
|