Eurovision

A few words about the Eurovision Song Contest. My favourite entry this year, as you probably know by now, was from Belgium. My unofficial club mix of Love Kills is doing very well and I am glad that many of you share my opinion that it was simply a great song and that it deserved an extended club mix. http://youtu.be/GBHvLCdPj0o I thought the Danish winner was much weaker, but – hey: Europe has spoken 🙂 The one thing that I find unbelievable is that nobody complains about the Big Five; the countries who are in the finals, no matter what, simply because they are the biggest financial sponsors of the festival (Spain, France, UK, Germany, Italy). Any contest where you can buy a place in the finals is not a fair one. Engelbert Humperdinck received just 12 points last year, yet the UK performed during the final, effectively taking the place of one of the countries that didn’t make it throuhg the semi-finals. If you compare it to any other sports competition or talent show it becomes apparent just how absurd this construction is. Imagine if at Wimbledon a country sent a  tennis player, along with a large bag of money, and the organisers said: oh: that’s a lot of money – don’t you worry about those semi-finals; we’ll see you for the big match in three weeks time. It’s ludicrous! And the argument: “well, without those sponsors, there wouldn’t be a festival” that I sometimes hear, is irrelevant. If you can’t organise a  contest where all participants get the same chance, without bribes (what else do you call getting a guaranteed place in the finals, in exchange for money?), than the contest shouldn’t take place. As long as the Big Five principle is in place, Eurovision will never have a fair winner.

About Matt

Matt Pop is a producer and remixer from The Netherlands, known for his mixes for RuPaul, Almighty, Andy Bell, Peter Wilson, Nicki French, Hazell Dean, Cilla Black, Erasure, Bucks Fizz, Lonnie Gordon, Pierre Pascual and many others. He also has quite a reputation for doing unauthorised bootlegs that prove popular with fans and often also the original artists themselves. The many unofficial Matt Pop ABBA mixes have gained him a loyal follwing amongst fans of the Swedish Fab Four. His style is uplifting, vocal, melodic and electronic.