133 Metaverse === [00:00:00] Ben: Hello, and welcome to the EuroWhat? Episode number 133 for the week of October 25th, 2021. I'm Ben Smith. And I'm joined today by Mike McComb. Hey Mike. [00:00:39] Mike: Hello. [00:00:40] Ben: We are a pair of Americans trying to make sense of the Eurovision Song Contest. And this week we'll be talking about Eurovision in your Eurovision songs. Mike, I heard that you like Eurovision songs. [00:00:49] Mike: Yeah, I'm a little bit of a fan. [00:00:51] Ben: Okay, cool. So, uh, I put some Eurovision in your Eurovision songs so that you can Eurovision while you Eurovision.[00:01:00] [00:01:00] Mike: That is very handy and convenient. [00:01:01] Ben: Also, we also, we installed five flat screen TVs and a sewing machine for some reason. [00:01:06] Mike: All right. So the Swiss army knife approach. I'm going to use the weird little can opener attachment thingy to pop open the can of news that we have this week. A lot of stuff came in. [00:01:16] News --- [00:01:16] Mike: I think the biggest item is we have the official country count for next year's contest. There are going to be 41 countries competing. The 39 that competed in 2021 are all coming back. Montenegro is coming back. They last competed in 2019, as did Armenia, they will be returning for this year as well. Happy to see those two return. [00:01:38] Ben: Yes, the internet still wants Kazakhstan to come. And I think Kazakhstan also wants to participate because they do Junior Eurovision, but apparently there's a country code issue. [00:01:47] Mike: Yeah, I was reading that, I think it was ESC Xtra that had that article. And that is a very interesting predicament. It feels like that's one of a few hurdles that they need to overcome, but if they can get the tech [00:02:00] issues settled, it'd be nice to have another new country in the next couple of years. So with 41 countries competing the way that that's going to shake out, there are just the five auto qualifiers, since Italy will be the host country next year. So that leaves 36 countries to compete in the semi-finals. So that'll be 18 in each semi-final. [00:02:20] Ben: And then looking at everybody, getting their selection details in order surprise, it's more selections. We need television, we need television so badly, but that doesn't really matter for the Czech Republic who is going to continue with their online selection that seems to be working so well for them. [00:02:36] Mike: Yes, they're doing a couple of tweaks this year. Instead of the "film a music video in an Airbnb" challenge that they had a couple of years ago, they're going to do live on tape style performances for all of their finalists. So you'll get a chance to see what it is that they would probably present at Eurovision, or at least in a circumstance where they would have to do [00:03:00] a live on tape presentation. That'll be nicely higher production value. [00:03:04] I liked that we're adapting that from what we did this year, we're learning, [00:03:07] Mike: Yeah, they're hoping to roll out that process in December. Selection Season's getting started early this year. [00:03:13] Ben: Uh huh, Estonia's entries are around the corner. The deadline closed and we will be hearing them because they're doing quarterfinals this year. Next month. [00:03:22] Mike: I don't know if I'm ready yet. I'm still, yeah. [00:03:27] Ben: Serbia, speaking of nations trying to figure out what they're doing, might not be doing Beovizija this year. [00:03:32] Mike: Yeah, this one was interesting. So the production company that produces Beovizija, they weren't able to reach a agreement with RTS, the broadcaster in Serbia. So the show may be moving to a different network that's not a member of the EBU. Serbia is going to have to figure something out. They may switch to an internal selection. They may scramble to put together a new type of selection show. It's an interesting [00:04:00] circumstance, but I'm sure Serbia will figure it out. They, they seem to have as much success with internal selections as they do with process selections. [00:04:08] Ben: Indeed, who knows coming this spring "A Song for Hurricane." [00:04:11] Mike: Yes. Malta is planning on bringing back the Malta Eurovision Song Contest. That was their selection format before they did X Factor in 2019 and 2020. And yeah, it's just kind of going back to exactly what they were doing before. They're going to have a semi-final with 22 songs in it, and they're going to do a massive cut down to 16 songs in the final. So I'm not sure why it's a two-step process, but [00:04:38] Ben: Why is two things? If you're only going to get rid of six, just have all 22 songs in the final. [00:04:43] Mike: Yeah, that just seems kind of mean to the six songs that don't make it. I don't know. So. [00:04:49] Ben: My prediction for Malta is that the online grocery jingle is finally going to get its due The UK Eurovision Twitter account has arisen in the fall. And they're excited about what they're doing in [00:05:00] October. Not like February. Which has been very funny to watch Twitter go through the full "we're going to do it this year" to, "no one likes us, we're gonna place last, we could send Adele and no one would vote for her" spiral in like the course of two days. [00:05:12] Mike: I have to wonder if maybe that was accelerated because Adele dropped that single not too long ago. And so it's like, well, they could technically send Adele with that song this year, but I hope that's not their strategy. [00:05:24] Ben: No. So BMG is not going to be running things again after a couple of years. But it sound like they're not going too far a field from what the general idea of that was because now it's TaP music, it's a management company behind Dua Lipa, Ellie Golding, others. They will be in charge of choosing the song and act. They sound very excited to do this. They realize what kind of platform Eurovision is. The whole "management company behind" makes me feel like when you see a movie it's like "from the producers of Us and Get Out," it's like, okay. But like, just because they throw the money [00:06:00] at things doesn't mean they necessarily have a taste level, but I think when you have music insiders doing some of the selection, hopefully we're on the right track. [00:06:10] Mike: Yeah. I think that was kind of what they were going with with the BMG deal. Even though James Newman wasn't a Dua Lipa or Ellie Golding level name, he's a songwriter and he has chops. So I think that there was intention behind that pick. And I think that that's something that the UK sometimes lacks. [00:06:30] Ben: Has needed is intention and purpose behind what they're choosing. And also they woke up the account and we're using clips of Gina G, which any time the UK talks about what they're doing, I'm just like, just send MNEK, just have MNEK write the song and perform the song, send something fun. [00:06:47] Mike: Although, could Gina G be planning a comeback? [00:06:49] I would not be mad about them just being like fine. we are combining the BMG strategy with that whole period where we just sent artists that were familiar, but hadn't really released anything [00:07:00] in a while. And we were sending Gina G with a new song. [00:07:02] Mike: The last selection season news that we have are some updates about Melfest. Number one, the live shows are coming back and they're doing the tour format. They had to take a break last year for some reason. Tickets for that will be going on sale next month. But the big change is that the Andra Chansen round is going to get an overhaul. Rather than it being the four duels where the winner of each duel we'll move on to the final it's working as its own semi-final. So in the four normal heats, there'll be seven acts competing. Two will go direct to final, two will go to Andra Chansen. So that will lead to eight contestants in Andra Chansen. They'll all perform their songs again. Four of those eight will move on to the final. You get rid of the kind of arbitrary division between acts and it will [00:08:00] be the top four vote getters that will move on to the final and possibly onto Eurovision [00:08:06] Ben: What you're saying is that's time for "Rena Rama Ding Dong" to... [00:08:09] Mike: ...Claim their rightful space? [00:08:11] Ben: Rightful space in the final. Would they have won? Who knows? That was the tough part about the duels is that there was always one duel where it's like, well, these two are left. [00:08:20] Mike: One article that I was reading said that part of the intention behind Andra Chansen originally was that, okay, your first performance didn't quite work. So reinvent your performance the second time around and then see if that is what gets you into the final. But most people would just do the exact same performance anyway, because Sweden is very precise in how they produce Melfest. So it's not really a second chance in the sense of, oh, let me try something different. It was a second chance of being like, oh, I'm just going to do the exact same thing. I'm just now against one opponent instead of six. [00:08:55] Ben: Also because it's the first post Christer Melfest, it will be interesting to see what else is [00:09:00] getting tweaked in the background. [00:09:01] Mike: I don't know if there's going to be any bigger changes than that, but that seems like a pretty significant one to at least get your feet wet in shaking things up. [00:09:10] I feel like if we were getting any other big changes, we would know. [00:09:13] Mike: Yeah. The people who are entering to compete would probably like to know what they're getting themselves into. [00:09:18] Ben: In other kind of Eurovision in the wild, just, just how things are blowing up: "Think About Things" is finally appearing in a Just Dance game. [00:09:26] I am surprised it took this long. I thought that it would have been in the 2021 edition, but it will be in the 2022 edition. There's a preview video up on the Just Dance YouTube page. It's kind of cute. It's like a Christmas elf theme to the performance but the choreography is not the official "Think About Things" dance, which I think is kind of funny. [00:09:50] Ben: But they gave you the choreography, Just Dance. [00:09:52] Choreography copyright is such a gnarly area [00:09:57] Ben: Oh, true. [00:09:58] Mike: Yeah, I think they were just trying [00:10:00] to avoid that. And Just Dance has a particular move set that maybe the choreography just didn't match up into a way that would register. I don't know. I've only played one version. It's the one that has "Toy" on it. And toy is actually surprisingly hard song to dance, uh, to do the Just Dance dance too. So the chicken flapping is, uh, quite exhausting. So. [00:10:23] Eurovision Again: 2012 --- [00:10:23] Ben: Flapping alone. Let's take a brief detour into Eurovision Again, which finally played 2012 much to the delight of everybody on the internet. [00:10:33] Mike: And probably to the delight of the Eurovision Again accounts so that people will stop saying please play 2012. [00:10:39] Ben: Yes, please. We've told you multiple times all records of the contest were lost. We only know that Jedward won because of the radio. For the first few acts of that one, I was like, oh wow. 2012 was kind of a wild year. And then we got into a real good groove of very strong entries. Euphoria as just sort of entered the collective conscious as the one we remember but [00:11:00] there were a lot of other very good songs that year. [00:11:02] Mike: That is the last one where it was a random draw to determine the running order. I think it really exemplified why they got rid of that and had where you draw, which half you're in rather than your exact spot, because it is a very slow start to the show. It really does not pick up until the Russian grannies are performing, and I think they were in slot six. Now that's a good half hour into the show before the energy really starts to pick up. [00:11:30] Ben: It was a fun trip down memory lane. For me, that was like the first year I had a Eurovision party in Boston. Also, it's been a while since we've had a set of postcards that are just one nation promoting itself and Azerbaijan loves that one tower with the flames. [00:11:46] Mike: Yeah, it is a good visual. [00:11:49] Ben: It was in like 17 of the postcards. [00:11:51] Mike: True. It was interesting to go back to that one because I was guest on a podcast back at the end of 2019, where I was asked to [00:12:00] rank the five best Eurovision finals from the 2010s and 2012 did not make my list because a lot of it just kind of fell out of my brain. Like almost instantly in some of the cases. The interval act in particular, I have zero recollection about this. Even now, as we're talking about it, I'm struggling to remember how that song even went. Like the only thing that I remember about the guy is that he was involved in a lot of shady stuff and is the son-in-law of the president of Azerbaijan. [00:12:31] Ben: Oh, yeah, no, like, I, I cannot tell you how that song went. I can tell you that I watched Twitter light up with everybody screenshotting the Wikipedia pages. When you have a full section on your Wikipedia page, that's just relationship with Donald Trump. it's gonna, it's never good. [00:12:47] Mike: It had some flavor. That's like, Ooh, this is, Hmm. No, thank you. So, [00:12:51] Ben: like, Nope. This this is aged like milk. [00:12:55] Mike: But it was a fun show. And as usual Twitter was on their game. It was nice to go [00:13:00] back to one where I was following the Contest at this point. And this would have been the second year that I was doing coverage of the contest and, but not really as part of the Eurovision community at that point. Cause it was still like kind of trying to find all of the corners on Twitter. Like I don't even know if we had met yet. [00:13:21] Ben: Yeah, I don't think, I don't think we had. And I think Eurovision was still a very much a thing that you had to seek out as an American. I'm not sure if it was streaming on YouTube at that point. It might've still been the Octoshape plugin. [00:13:33] Mike: Oh, it was definitely the Octoshape plugin. [00:13:35] Ben: It was definitely the Octoshape plugin. [00:13:36] Mike: Yeah. [00:13:37] Ben: So like you had to make an effort for it. Twitter was a thing, but tweeting in the way that we tweet now, when we watch a thing, it was not a thing. [00:13:44] Mike: It was fun to have a more communal experience around the contest. [00:13:49] Ben: Yes. [00:13:50] Mike: Particularly with Euphoria and acknowledging how culture shifting it was for Eurovision. Like my takeaway from it was that this contest was Eurovision [00:14:00] exiting a very awkward adolescent phase. [00:14:04] Ben: Yeah. I was actually very happy with 2012 because it ties in nicely with what I wanted to talk about. You can start to see in 2012, Eurovision getting a little less self serious. And speaking of self serious, Måneskin is having another banner week in the United States. They will be performing on the Tonight Show on the 26th of October. That's a big deal for a band. I'm not sure if they're going to get an SNL nod, like if they keep going up the chart, I could see them getting booked on SNL. [00:14:32] Mike: Oh, that would be interesting. They have just the one song right now, although it's doing well. Last I checked, it was up to 15 and still climbing. So who knows, but I don't know. Maybe Mammamia would be their second performance. [00:14:48] Ben: As I was just about to suggest. Yeah. It's like the first song is definitely going to be them covering Beggin' that's the one that's doing all of the radio business, but the second song would definitely be Mammamia and Mammamia is a grower. I keep [00:15:00] listening to it a lot. It's fun. And there's a very meta moment where they're kind of joking about. Did you guys do cocaine at Eurovision? [00:15:07] Mike: Yeah. I was wondering about that was this a song that they already had in the bank and that, that came up or is that a specific reference to it? I'd like to read it as a specific reference. [00:15:16] When Eurovision Goes Meta --- [00:15:16] Ben: Would also like to read it as a specific reference. Given that meta moment in that song, it seems like a nice time to bring out this idea. I keep collecting these. And it's just time to be like, hello, let's look at this collection Eurovision songs that get kind of meta. I have one example that's not from the 2000s and then a bunch of examples that are from the 2000s. I would not be surprised if there are things that are happening in between there. It's just that there is a lot of Eurovision to go through. Please do not yell at me online. Please just give me, oh, Hey, there's also this thing from the 90s. [00:15:46] Mike: It's people adding to your collection, [00:15:48] Ben: Is it is. I want this be a collective thing. If I miss anything, please help us out. Because I think that this is a very fun thing that Eurovision occasionally tries to do to varying levels of success, as we will see. [00:15:59] [00:16:00] But there is a whole suite of Eurovision songs that seem to be very aware that they are in Eurovision. Starting in 1980, you have Eurovision by Telex. We saw this one during Eurovision Again, it did not place very well. I believe it placed last, even though Telex went on to have some level of minor notoriety. Pitchfork earlier this year covered a compilation of their greatest hits which included this song. It is very much a song about Eurovision, "Berlin. Why don't you fall in love with us? Write our name on the wall. Roma. Can you hear us? What is the rate of Italian Lira? It's the old world's party tonight." And again, it kind of fell flat in 1980. And if you look at how it does in the 2000s, it also kind of falls flat, [00:17:00] except when it doesn't. [00:17:01] Mike: It's definitely of that 80s synthesizer style. Like it is a very particular aesthetic. [00:17:08] Ben: Yes. It's either going to be your flavor of song or it's not. [00:17:12] I don't know what was happening in the water in 2006, but we had two entries, one that does surprisingly well, one that kind of falls with a thud and is thought of kindly afterwards that are also very meta. You have missing the mark Sylvia Night's "Congratulations." That song is very aware that it is happening at Eurovision. [00:17:34] Mike: That one seems like it's much more arch or like that Iceland was in a [00:18:00] mood and was writing a very sternly worded letter. So. [00:18:03] Ben: huh? Yeah, because Iceland loves Eurovision And I think the reason that these fail when they fail is that they're kind of going too far over the line. I mean, there is a line, like if you don't go far enough, you fail. If you go too far over the line, you also fail. So it's very much a high degree of difficulty. Congratulations does not make the final. And it is a very interesting relic. [00:18:24] Mike: Oh, I completely agree. . [00:18:25] Ben: I get what Iceland is trying to do, and I'm not sure it's working, even for me, a large Iceland stan. [00:18:31] Mike: As someone who is a booing stan, it's a fascinating relic. There aren't a ton of Eurovision entries that are actively booed and that one was one of them. And [00:18:42] Ben: That one was actively booed and we did not have the anti-booing technology. [00:18:45] Mike: No, no. So there's a lot of story going on with that one. [00:18:50] Ben: We are the winners from Lithuania that year does very well. I was rewatching the 2006 HD remaster with a friend and they were astonished at how well it did in the scores. [00:18:59] [00:19:00] It's very catchy. And I liked that Pabandom is Naujo has reclaimed it. This shouldn't work. It's the same tone of walking in with all of the swagger and, but yeah, no, we're the winners vote for the winners. [00:19:10] Mike: But it is also like papers that you've write in high school or college where it's just like, well, what is an essay? Three to five pages, of defining every word of the prompt without actually addressing what the prompt is asking. So. [00:19:26] Ben: You have learned one fact and you will be repeating it. In this sort of weird mid 2000 space, Eurovision is not quite ready to laugh at itself, especially when it is from a turkey puppet. Irelande Douze Pointe happens two years later and I do like that. the Internet is like they had seven people on stage. [00:19:42] Mike: Yeah. The one guy was not [00:19:46] Ben: He was [00:19:47] Mike: stage [00:19:47] Ben: basket. His feet never touched the floor. It's fine. [00:19:50] Mike: In this age of Taskmaster, that is an argument that I would have in the studio. So. [00:19:57] Ben: Oh, I would also yell at Greg about them. Like my feet did [00:20:00] not touch the floor. [00:20:00] That one, I think has the same problem as Congratulations in that it goes a little too arch and it has not aged well. [00:20:08] Mike: Oh, I, Hmm. [00:20:10] Ben: Hm. It's interesting. In the Midwestern way. [00:20:13] Mike: I like that song. I don't want to say without irony, but I wouldn't say my like of it is an ironic like of I think there is a lot of good stuff that is happening in that track, but I can understand why this wouldn't click with people or like you have to be in just the right mood to be fully receptive to it. [00:20:33] Ben: The jokes it's going for are a humor that is not going to translate worldwide. [00:20:38] Mike: Right. [00:20:39] Similar to "Flying the Flag (for You)." This is like a very specific style of joke that works very well here that I don't think it exports well. [00:20:49] Mike: Yeah. Maybe a little too idiomatic in the English. [00:20:53] Ben: One that I think is a little less meta, like it's not about being a Eurovision song, but it's, it's still very much, we know what you [00:21:00] think of us and here is our response: Lithuania's "Eastern European Funk." Apparently Lithuania likes getting meta because they have done this twice. My thesis here was does going meta work? No. Uh, and now just like another thing that I don't think works. Acapella things. Cause there have been a few attempts at acapella, either for a verse or for the entire song where again, high degree of difficulty that I think just does not always translate, especially in a Eurovision setting. [00:21:48] Although that was right around the time that the acapella glee club aesthetic was trying to take over. I remember at the time, being disappointed that Lithuanian didn't get through because I do still enjoy that [00:22:00] [00:22:00] Ben: I still enjoy that song and the whole number that they have to go along with. It just does such a good job of, of building in the instrumentation and hitting all of the ha we're doing a Eurovision song winks at the audience in a way that's softer than either Irlande Douze Pointe or Congratulations. [00:22:16] Mike: It's also pulling on iconography that people have a positive affinity toward like the Buck's Fizz. [00:22:22] Ben: The Bucks Fizz reveal of the shorts. Yeah. The last time we see it before Euphoria happens is also in 2012 also does not succeed Latvia's entry Beautiful song and Beautiful Song is [00:23:00] interesting because when I listened to it, I'm like, oh, they wrote a very good melody and just left the temporary lyrics in. [00:23:05] Mike: The thing is the version that was at Eurovision was like the third version of that song. [00:23:11] Ben: And like at any point, someone can be like, should we write actual words for this? I'm pretty sure it's apocryphal story of Paul McCartney writing Yesterday as scrambled eggs. And filling in roughly what the lyrics should be. But then it eventually becomes Yesterday and Latvia doesn't do that with this song. Rewatching that one was a fun trip because I'm like, oh, this is just the real Housewives of Riga in staging. [00:23:34] Mike: Oh, I remember I disliked this entry, so, so much I was very anti Latvia the [00:23:41] Ben: Uh, they, they have grown so much over the last decade. It's been, it's been great to see. [00:23:47] Mike: Yeah. It's the Samanta Tina, Marcus Riva influence. I think so. [00:23:51] Ben: Yes. [00:23:53] Mike: And Aminata, she, she really turned it [00:23:55] Ben: Also really Aminata. So Congratulations goes too far. [00:24:00] Irelande Douze Pointe goes too far. Beautiful Song. Doesn't go far enough. It's just kind of a toothless. [00:24:05] Mike: Yes. And it's not a very beautiful song either. Like it just kind of drones. So [00:24:10] Ben: to title your song, beautiful song, it needs to be a beautiful song. We're talking about transitional period, it's maybe not until around 2012, 2013, that Eurovision is ready to start laughing at itself. 2013 happens. And then I think Petra Mede hosting starts sort of the, the interstitial bits getting funny because you have an actual comedian performing them. They did a bunch of inserting her into past Eurovision footage and you start to see the inevitable history bit, get kind of kooky and get kind of tongue in cheek again, but just ha what if we counted the number of "las" in "La La La" as like a fun statistic. It's the contest realizing, oh, we can be funny about ourselves. One other area that feels sort of meta adjacent that I also wanted to talk about his songs, trying to win over the audience by naming every European capital that they can in the course of three minutes. This hasn't happened recently. [00:24:59] Uh, or at [00:25:00] least not as much as I could find again, please send me examples. But like the one that I always think of as a massive naming, a bunch of places in search of a song is the Netherlands from 2010, Ik ben Verliefd. [00:25:12] Mike: How does that song keep popping up in these conversations? It's like, oh, it was such a, nothing of an entry. [00:25:19] Ben: The reason it keeps popping up is because I find the whole process behind the Netherlands entry in 2010. Fascinating. Please allow me to go on a detour because I have prepared one. [00:25:30] Mike: Excellent. [00:25:31] If you look at the lyrics is just listing a bunch of places. I have this song stuck in my head. I don't remember it was, was it when we were in Lisbon? Was it when we were in Paris? Was it when we were in Oslo? Was it when we were in Trinidad, which is not a participating nation in Eurovision, why are you throwing that one out there? Was it in Berlin? Was it in Leningrad? Uh, and again, it's a big, nothing of a song. So this is just vamping for time. [00:25:52] The Dutch strategy that year was that they hired the composer of the Smurf song. And he wrote this song and they loved it so [00:26:00] much that they had five different performers perform this song in five different styles. The audience has a vote kind of, but it's equal to a single juror and there are four other jurors. [00:26:12] Mike: Okay. So 20% influence. [00:26:15] Ben: 20% stake of who is going to sing Ik ben Veliefd, (Sha-la-lie) at Eurovision in Oslo. And there's a tie. It's not really clear why Sieneke is selected. She received two votes and then she was selected by the composer. They were going to flip a coin and then found out that it was against the rules. That's how they were going to decide the tie. And then somebody had to say, no, you can't do that. [00:26:40] Mike: Oh, no. Okay. [00:26:41] Ben: It was the first song since 1998 to be performed in Dutch. [00:26:46] Mike: Oh, wow. Okay. [00:26:47] Ben: At the time, an enormous majority of the Dutch press and fans did not have high hopes for this song. It was not beloved, but it did name so many countries in Dutch, a language that we all know and love now, but did not in 2010. This strategy [00:27:00] actually pops up in the nineties. The other one that I just find interesting, and again, it's just very much. Um, writing about what you know, and what you knew at the time was that the Berlin wall had come down the 1990 Eurovision, which we watched in Eurovision Again last year, there's a lot of very meta thinking about the state of Europe and things opening up. I think about it in the sort of the same space as Wind of Change, both the podcast and the song. Europe was opening up. It was thinking about what does it mean to be post-Soviet Union. Ireland, of course, is naming a bunch of cities in Somewhere in Europe. Brandenburg Tor. Is directly speaking to the fall of the Berlin wall. Uh, Switzerland has an entry and the, of course the winner that year is Insieme. [00:27:42] Mike: Allora. [00:27:43] Ben: Yeah, allora bringing us back to Italy. This is all of Europe. Let's talk about all the places. Maybe people from those places will vote for us. Those were like two threads of metaness at Eurovision that I find intriguing. The other one is just when people try things with their staging that doesn't quite work. Cause [00:28:00] like had a few times where people have tried to stop the song. Douwe Bob stopping his song for six seconds in the middle of Slow Down in 2016 was a choice. [00:28:09] Mike: Yeah, well, he had to stretch, I guess. So, [00:28:12] Ben: Yeah. I mean he had six seconds to sit, but then you also have Hvala Ne just completely derailing its performance in 2018 for a fake power failure that we have talked about on this program. [00:28:24] Mike: Yeah. I still do not look fondly on that particular moment of the semi-final. [00:28:29] Ben: You should not panic your audience. [00:28:31] Mike: No, no. [00:28:34] Ben: Uh, but then the one that's more interesting is when people have had to change their song because of going slightly too meta and acknowledging a world outside of Eurovision. One where I'm surprised they didn't have to make a change is Germany's entry from 2006, No No Never's performance is clearly riffing on the Grand Ole Opry, which has the radio stations ID on the mics. And instead of that, they've just got the band's URL, which you were allowed to do in [00:29:00] 2006, and then they realized, wait a minute, that's outside promotion. [00:29:03] The main one I think of what that, a song that grows eerily prescient year by year, The Social Network Song by Valentina Monetta. [00:29:09] Mike: Yeah. [00:29:11] Ben: Remember how so many years ago we were like, this is the weirdest thing ever now. We're just like, it was ahead of its time. Should you go meta at Eurovision? Probably not. Unless you are an interstitial. [00:29:21] [00:29:21] Mike: Yeah. I mean, We are the Winners that is still Lithuania's best scoring performance, even with this years entry, which I think everybody was expecting it to do better than we are the winners. So like, I don't know. It's kind of a bummer in a way. [00:29:36] It's a high degree of difficulty. You have to really thread the needle on not being so tongue-in-cheek as to sort of turn mean, but you also, can't just be kind of toothless and not actually doing anything with that metaness. [00:29:50] I think it goes into kind of what we've said before about successful entries is that there's like has to be an idiosyncratic [00:30:00] aura about the song or it's just like, it is very particular to this songwriter or telling a very specific story. And I have to wonder if going meta kind of prevents that from happening because the whole thing about being meta is that there is a level of remove. [00:30:17] Mike: How can you have it be a personal story about yourself? If you are already putting this artificial barrier between you and the story that you're trying to tell. [00:30:26] Ben: Breaking the fourth wall is very tricky when you're supposed to have four walls. [00:30:30] Mike: Right. 1990, not withstanding. So [00:30:33] Ben: not withstanding. That was, that was a weird year for everybody. Any questions? [00:30:38] Mike: I don't think so. I'll, I'll be curious to see if folks reach out to us on Twitter @eurowhat, uh, with other things to add to this collection, because. I mean, there are over 1500 songs. We didn't get to all of them. And also there are a lot of songs that we've already talked before. Like I think, That's How You Write a Song. We've spent most of our first season [00:31:00] talking about that particular [00:31:02] Ben: Norway? No. [00:31:03] Mike: Also the selection season stuff. I'm sure there is a ton of stuff in there that we could be diving into that fits this category. [00:31:12] Ben: Oh, yeah. Like I, Yeah. [00:31:13] There are huge swaths of Eurovision history that I did not have the time to go through and watch every entry to be like, okay, yes. this one is winking directly at the camera. Ha. And that's going to do it for this episode of the Eurowhat? Thanks for listening. The podcast is hosted by Ben Smith. That's me. and Mike McComb. [00:31:29] Mike: That's me. You can follow the Eurowhat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcast app of your choice. If you'd like to support the show, we're also on Patreon at patreon.com/eurowhat [00:31:41] Ben: Show notes are in the description of this episode and on our website at eurowhat.com. If you'd like to contact us, we're @eurowhat on Twitter, or you can email eurowhatpodcast@gmail.com. [00:31:50] Mike: Next time on the Eurowhat: Belarus will not be one of the 41 countries in Turin next year. So we're taking a look at the fraught relationship between Belarus and [00:32:00] Eurovision.