Marija Serifovic’s song really doesn’t do it for me. I don’t like that quasy pop genre, lyrics, her voice, looks, anything really. But apparently I’m in minority (what else is new?).
BBC claims we have good chances of success (via Yahti), Reluctant Dragon says that her semifinals performance was one of the best in recent years, Ms Piglet says thank god for Serbia in her semifinals review, as well as dozen other bloggers in theirs – some of the comments: must have a good chance, Love, love, love it!, La chanson est très belle, I think I am in love with that woman, etc etc.
Here’s the video of the last night’s performance, you be the judge. I think it needs a bit more touching and a little less clothing on the lesbian squadron to make it more stereotypical and hence more eurovision-friendly:
Well, ok, i must admit I missed the semifinals, and I had to do some research before posting this so you can’t really tell i have absolutely no idea what i’m talking about – even though knowing too much about Eurovision could do some serious damage to your mental health. I tell ya, the Eurovision crazy bubble will have to pop one of these years – Transvestites, gay people, emo boys, rock bands, ethno/world music groups and opera singers – all these categories I have nothing against, but only if they do it properly. Instead, i bet that eurovision transvestites make real transvestites feel embarresed, the eurovision gays look like a parody of real gays, eurosong emos probably caused several suicides by real emos, EV rock bands are already an oxymoron, Eurovision ethno should be punishable by law and opera eurosingers… well, I don’t know exactly what to say about them, but they are really, really weird (sorry Slovenia). It just feels like every year we have more and more things done wrong it almost hurts and at one point it will simply stop being funny simply because it’s too funny.
The great battle will take place between the two transvestites, one from Ukraina and one from Sweden. The Ukrainan one really looks like he is mocking the lifestyle, he can’t sing and the Borat/Zlad humour style in the song is getting really old by now, plus it’s an obvious ripoff of the world famous sexy robot:
The Swede is on the other hand, he’s no Rickard Engfors either, of course, but at least he’s trying:
Ok, as for the downright weird stuff, I believe the Slovenian psycho opera singer has no competition in this cathegory:
And now for the good stuff – best chicks. Be warned, both songs suck, so you may as well mute the volume. Moldova quasi rock chick:
and Macedonian quasi pop chick:
Now if i would have to pick a favorite, it would be a Serbian-born singer (at least that’s what Bob Rock says)... singing for Hungary. Great looks, nice voice and good song:
Rest of the entries are really not interesting in any way.
So who’s gonna win, i ask you? The blogosphere says so, the bookies say so… I still can’t figure out why, but it all points to one thing – next year we are going to organize this trashy festival. It wouldn’t be the first time I’m wrong about something, and it certainly won’t be the last, but you are free to congratulate us in the comments if we win.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Verka Serdyuchka may be getting old, but he/she was around way before Borat
Engfors tried to do Eurovision for Sweden himself a few years back. They didn’t pick him…
Well I tipped our entry to do well this year – although its too late to go to the betting shop now.
On the Hungarian entry. Yes I have met this girl as shes comes from Mali Idjos in Vojvodina. I hope she does well.
Further I’ve been told about a Eurovision party this evening. Maybe I will go and if so I’ll take my camera with me.
Apart from my patriotic duty of supporting Marija (even though I wanted to se S. Trkulja in her place) I support also Germany and Hungary. However, this festival is always full of suprises and somehow my favorites don’t fit in the collective taste of Europe. Something tells me that the 1st place will go to Ukraine.
Well, I hope you all made the right bet, since it was Marija that won.
At first I thought that Eurovision win was one of the perks of forming a government according to EU’s taste… then I saw the semi-finals preview and realized that , holy shit, this year we actually were the best. Touchy-feely effects that I did not get on the side, Molitva was the only half-decent song in language other than English. I somehow fail to see the point of Eurovision if we have an Andorra song sounding like that of a Brit pop band, and Turkey’s own Ricky Martin. Not to mention the Austrian guy that looks like Phil Anselmo but sings like his sister or worse, his mom. I would make it a rule that songs must be in country’s own language, and that the music has to be representative of it’s traditional sound. No Andorran Salsas and such. And who the hell dug Death Metal out of the grave?????
Well, all the typically cheesy Eurovision songs apart, I think the other Serbian singer (for Hungary) had the better song, but, yes, it was in English, and I agree with your point that the entries should be in their native languages.
Yes, Hungary definitely had a better singer , better music and alltogether a better song, but it sounded like something from a jazz/blues bar in downtown Toronto , so it’s out as far as I’m concerned.
I’m glad she won and although I didnt watch all of it it was a far better song that almost all of the others. I mean did you guys see Ukraines entry? Go figure. And it came second.
Perhaps there arent such thing as ‘neutrals’ who watch Eurovision but I suspect if there are they would be delighted that Maria won.
Maybe there is an element (from a Serbian perspective) of taking any victory we can get on the world stage. And why begrudge this bit of happiness to people when there is so much to be unhappy about. Then again dont think its so different from any other country.
All said and done next years event in the Belgrade Arena will be a chance to promote the country a little more. Every little helps.
Marija’s victory last night is another good reason to be proud that I’m a Serb. It was great to see that apart from the “solidarity points” from ex-YU, her song has got many points from “neutral” countries (12 from Finland and Norway) which means that this song was of European taste, but also that the crowd in the arena in Helsinki was cheering for our song. And the fact that the next festival will be organized in belgrade will have more effect than million advertisements on CNN. I’m very grateful to Marija that she has shown another Serbia to Europe.
There you go – I suck at predicting the winner by myself, but I am good at reading signs. I didn’t win any money though, because i only bet on political stuff. Hope somebody took the advice.
I still don’t like the song, but congratulations to Marija anyway, i guess it really was one of the best competing this year at ESC.
Now I am interested to see what economic benefits this brings to Serbia, and how to use this in best possible way (read: how to sell this sucker). If i find anything interesting in this area (for example the estimate how much money Finland earned) i will post it here.
And hopefully this time next year I will be blogging about this directly from Arena.
Oh, and this is great, I have to share it with you:
At the moment of victory, the Serbian assembly is on and Nenad Canak comes to the stage:
Oh, and one more thing – blog stats have gone crazy with significant amout of visitors coming at this post about Eurovison asking Is Marija Serifovic lesbian?
My answers:
1. I have no idea.
2. Who cares?
If anybody knows the answer and cares to share the info, than by all means, please do – indulge the curious masses.
Well on the L question I’ve seen a couple of interviews with her. The answer seems to be that she believes that is her business but if she is pushed to answer she hinted that she might be – but again that this is her business and she isnt prepared to answer directly at the moment.
Unlike a lot of these western female stars who use these kind of ambiguous answers to titilate the (mainly male) audience I think she is being true to herself.
If anybody is wondering as far as I remember she first made her name in one of those shows on TV where she won a competition. It was on the BK channel if I remember rightly (although I personally cant stand those kind of shows). She was promised a promotion campaign by BK management after she won but they didnt honour the promise. However, Marija has refused to go away.
Further she has a bit of a reputation as an outsider. She said that a lot of the other ‘stars’ (turbo, plastic women mainly) didnt congratulate her after she won and was selected to represent Serbia at Eurovision.
Bringing two subjects together (big brother and eurovision) I wonder how that Goga Sekulic would have reacted if they had allowed participants to watch Eurovision. My guess is that she would have difficultly in hiding her jealousy. Another missed opportunity for those lacking ideas in the BB production team. After all BB and Eurovision are quite natural partner subjects right?
Bganon, it was not her who won in ‘Idol’ on BK
Well done Serbia – a fine win and a victory for excellent songwriting and performance. We dined on Finnish food last night here in our part of the UK. What should I be serving up for our Eurovision 2008 Serbian dinner? Any ideas??? Talk about advance planning eh!!!
“Unlike a lot of these western female stars who use these kind of ambiguous answers to titilate the (mainly male) audience I think she is being true to herself.”
That is quite refreshing. I really could care less if she is straight, bi, lesbian, transgendered, drag king etc. But, that she seem true to her ownself is a very refreshing quality. Not to mention, it is also refeshing that at least per your quote, she doesn’t seem to be using being gay as a cheap stage gimick.
anyways, congrats to her!
I’m sure she’ll be hitting the Serbian talkshow/entertainment show circuit (perhaps she’ll even make a cameo apperance on the VIP Big Brother show?)
I’m glad Marija won with a regular good song, but I think much of Eurovision’s appeal is due to the trashy over-the-top perormances and cheesy songs. I hope this will never change. It’s simply too much fun.
I think it’s great Belgrade will get to host the event in 2008. It’s a wonderful oporunity for the city. I hope it will be a good show
marija serifovic was definitely not the best, maybe one of the several. which is basically the cool thing about eurovision 2007 – lots of good songs! hungary, georgia, bulgaria, belgium, france were equally deserving. at least “molitva” was much better than turkey, moldova & ukraine… Anyway, belgrade’s gonna host the contest next year – thumbs up & hard work is needed to reach the level of the previous shows :>
I’m from Sweden,and I think that Marija was gread!
Congratulations to Serbia
))
Well..I was so disappointed when,Martin Stenmarck who represented Sweden at Eurovision 2005 finished at 19 place…?!
He was so,so,so good,the best!His song “Las Vegas” was gread!
He should be a winner of Eurovision 2005!!!!
And Martin is one of biggest Swedish artists!!!!
Hanna from Stockholm,Sweden
GREECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!