Yesterday was the day of the 51st Eurovision Song Contest. It is one
of the most watched television programs in the world that pits pop
groups from all over Europe and the Middle East against one another,
with the winner decided by popular vote by more than 600 million
viewers.
Yesterday was also a pivotal day for Europe for two reasons. Firstly, the country almost infamous for its inability to produce a decent entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, Finland, swept to victory. Secondly, the winning entry was a heavy-metal number, performed by a cast of monsters accompanied by pyrotechnics, more at home in a Lord of the Rings movie than the institutionalised, mostly turgid euro-pop contest. Yesterday was thus a triumph of humour, great entertainment free from political quagmire and a rebellion against the predictable, boring pop-entries that have become to signify what the Eurovision Song Contest means to the average European.
What is amusing in all this is that Lordi's rise to victory in the contest was by no means simple or straight-forward. As you know, individual countries have to organise a contest to select their entry. Finland have for two years not had an entry at all, either because the Eurovision Song Contest has become by all standards very formulaic and nobody could be bothered to be creative within the bounds given, or because we simply had had enough of the political vote that meant we nearly always ended up with very few points, or sadly because the entries we did produce did indeed feature some Finnish folk singer that had zero entertainment value and was thus voted out in the European semifinals.
So come the national semifinals, Lordi - the band with eight-foot retractable latex Satan wings, who sing hits like
"Chainsaw Buffet" and blow up slabs of smoking meat on stage, did expect a reaction when they beat a crooner
of love ballads to represent Finland at the Eurovision song contest in
Athens, the competition that was the springboard for Abba and Celine
Dion. But the heavy-metal monster band did not imagine a national identity crisis.
First,
Finnish religious leaders warned that the Freddy Krueger look-alikes
could inspire Satanic worship. Then critics called for President Tarja
Halonen to use her constitutional powers to veto the band and nominate
a traditional Finnish folk singer instead. Rumors even circulated that
Lordi members were agents sent by President Vladimir V. Putin to destabilize Finland before a Russian coup — an explanation for their refusal to take off their freakish masks in public. The
fury also spread in Greece, winner of last year's Eurovision and
therefore the host of this year's contest, where an anti-Lordi movement
called Hellenes urged the Finnish government "to say 'no' to this evil
group."
The lead singer, Lordi — a former film student who
goes by his real name, Tomi Putaansuu, when not wielding a
blood-spurting electric chain saw — is philosophical about the uproar.
The
affair, Mr. Putaansuu says, has exposed the insecurity of a young
country whose peculiar language is spoken by only six million people
worldwide and whose sense of identity has been dented by being part of
the Swedish kingdom and the Russian empire until gaining independence
in 1917. Most Finns, he adds, would rather be known for Santa Claus
than heavily made-up monster mutants.
"In Finland, we have no
Eiffel Tower, few real famous artists, it is freezing cold and we
suffer from low self-esteem," said Mr. Putaansuu, who, as Lordi, has
horns protruding from his forehead and sports long black fingernails.
As
he stuck out his tongue menacingly, his red demon eyes glaring, Lordi
was surrounded by Kita, an alien-man-beast predator who plays
flame-spitting drums inside a cage; Awa, a blood-splattered ghost who
howls backup vocals; Ox, a zombie bull who plays bass; and Amen, a
mummy in a rubber loincloth who plays guitar.
Dragging on a
cigarette, Mr. Putaansuu added, "Finns nearly choked on their cereal
when they realized we were the face Finland would be showing to the
world." NY Times Article
It is not the first time the contest, which began in
1956, has spawned discontent. Last year's Ukrainian entry song was
rewritten after being deemed too political by government officials in
Kiev because it celebrated the Orange Revolution. When Dana
International, an Israeli transsexual, won in 1998 with her hit song
"Diva," rabbis accused her of flouting the values of the Jewish state.
But
not everyone in this Nordic country of five million views the monster
squad as un-Finnish. On the eve of the vote, fans in
ghoulish monster outfits held Lordi parties from Helsinki to Lapland
and sent text messages urging everyone from grandmothers to young metal
heads to "Change the face of Finland!" Lordi won the right to go to
Athens with its Kiss-inspired anthem "Hard Rock Hallelujah" and its
lyrics, "Wings on my back/I got horns on my head/my fangs are sharp/and
my eyes are red."
Under
their masks, the band members are quintessential Finns. Awa, the ghost,
is a soft-spoken blond who wears glasses and studied classical music.
Even Mr. Putaansuu, who wears a black leather jacket when not sporting
serpent lapels, says his music is closer to gospel than Satan. After
all, one of the band's hit songs is "The Devil Is a Loser."
"Even
if we lose the contest, we have already won," Mr. Putaansuu said. "Many
Finns would rather have sent someone boring and acceptable than to be
represented by freaks like us."
This entire event makes me think of those moments in history when music got pitted between generations - the young generation championing a musical movement, which was derided by the older generation as 'degenerating, foul, akin to devil-worship (this is not a new accusation by the way!) and completely un-musical'. The last time this happened was with the advent of Punk rock, before that it was the Beatles, who with their unkempt hair and ballads were clearly putting 'ideas' in the minds of the youth, and even before them, Elvis, the king of crooners, caused controversy with his suspect dancing on stage with was commonly deemed as 'pornographic' and 'un-suitable for young ladies'.
Where we are now, the 21st century - a melting pot of trends, fashion, musical genres, culture, you name it - everything today exists in parallel and very few musical phenomenons have the power to rise above this noise and truly create controversy anymore. Think about it for a second, if Lordi had merely turned up to sing 'Hard Rock Hallelujah', looking like any average heavy metal band, I don't think they would have cut the mustard.
Lithuania tried to be tongue-in-cheek by turning up with a song simply titled 'We are the winners' and promptly spent their 3 minutes shouting in a football-anthem style that people should vote for them. Inspired, but not good enough. The fact that Lordi turned up, not only with a heavy-metal entry (in itself a revolution as I believe there has never been such a thing performed at the Eurovision Song Contest), but also having gone all the 9 yards by kitting themselves out in full monster-makeup and dress just made the entry rise beyond anything ever seen.
Why I can't in all honesty get all threatened or worried about this, is because it is so tongue-in-cheek and fun - they sing about 'the day of Rockening' for goodness sake. It is truly an experience to watch them perform and I can't get over how cool the make-up is - the guys look fantastic! To me this is a triumph of humour, challenging the norms of what a song is and what a performance or a band is - it blends cinematic visuals with real-life and brings the fan-movies (where movie buffs take Star Wars or any other movie and use the characters, clever editing and select new scenes to take the mickey of the story-line or invent new ones) to a live performance and ultimately - as we all voted : to be the coolest Eurovision Song Contest victory I have ever seen! Rock on!
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