131 Viña del Mar === [00:00:00] Ben: Oh no, Enrique Iglesias, what have you done? [00:00:22] Mike: Hello, and welcome to the EuroWhat? Episode 131 for the week of September 27th, 2021. I'm Mike McComb, and I'm joined today by Ben Smith. Hey Ben. [00:00:32] Ben: Hey, Mike. [00:00:34] Mike: We are a pair of Americans trying to make sense of the Eurovision song contest. And this week we'll be talking about the Viña del Mar International Song Festival. How's it going, Ben? [00:00:43] Ben: It's pretty good. There's a chill in the air. Fall is here. We still don't know where we're going to be next year. [00:00:49] Mike: Who knows, maybe that will be outdated by the time this episode goes live. I don't think that's going to be the case... [00:00:55] Ben: Yeah. I don't think it's going to be the case, but that was my goal in stating it. Just trying to induce the news. [00:01:00] Mike: Yeah. Host city when? [Pause] Good. We got that out of the way. [00:01:04] Ben: #HostCityWhen. [00:01:07] Eurovision Again: 1968 --- [00:01:07] Mike: In the meantime, since our last episode, we have another edition of Eurovision. Again, this time going back to 1968. [00:01:15] Ben: Yes. Yeah, that one was a lot of fun. And like I've started rewatching the Eurovision Again with a friend of mine who is less Eurovision aware. And it's just great because what they pick up is often different from what I pick up. [00:01:27] Mike: Oh really? Like what? [00:01:28] Ben: I had somehow not realized how much Austin Powers is based on Cliff Richard. [00:01:34] Mike: Yeah. [00:01:36] Ben: Like it just is Cliff Richard in 1968. [00:01:39] Mike: Yeah. I was surprised by that as well. And that the backing singers had the same aesthetic as the Fembots. Everything about that was just like, "huh? I feel like I've seen this before, but where?" [00:01:53] Ben: Where? Watching with my friend, they pointed out that apparently in 1968, all of the male singers had to be Tom Jones. Just everybody has big Tom Jones vibes. And then, I was delighted by the Internet's excitement over Yugoslavia's entry because I also found it delightful that we had the Ren fair. [00:02:10] Mike: Yeah. [00:02:12] Ben: Happening for a brief minute. And admittedly, I've had that song stuck in my head since Eurovision Again. It does the folk music thing I like Eurovision to do where it feels like a weirdly timeless folk song. [00:02:22] Mike: I get that. Yeah. And it also felt like it was something that would not necessarily be at Eurovision today, but like 10 years ago, when countries were still doing the very, very folk entries, I think that one would have fit in. [00:02:37] Ben: Yeah. So yeah, like it felt very Finland, whenever they sent the two accordionists. [00:02:42] Mike: Spain ended up winning Eurovision A gain, just like they did at real Eurovision, which was kind of funny because my husband was dipping in and out as I was watching and it took the drama out a little bit since we had just done the 1969 contest a couple of months ago, it was like, oh wait, I already know who wins. [00:03:00] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When that happens, it's always a little disappointing because you're like, I know that Spain is going to do it. But in terms of the Eurovision Again results, it was surprisingly close. And like they had tweeted that the Yugoslavia entry was in the lead up until the last five minutes of voting. [00:03:14] Mike: Oh, wow. [00:03:14] Ben: And if you look at the voting, the top three are all multiples of 12. So it is a handful of people getting in at the last minute and having different 12 points. [00:03:24] Mike: Congratulations, Spain, UK, and Yugoslavia. [00:03:27] Ben: Come back, Yugoslavia. [00:03:29] Belgium Selects --- [00:03:29] Mike: All right. And then, in terms of like Eurovision, 2022 news, we have our first artist. I can't believe this is happening in September, but the process has begun. [00:03:40] Ben: Yes, it is time. [00:03:41] Mike: Yes. Belgium has announced that Jeremie Makiese is going to be representing Belgium. Jeremie is 20 years old and won the most recent edition of the Voice of Belgium. His family is Congolese and both of his parents are musicians. Has a pretty strong music background. He was studying geology, but is currently pursuing work in. Either sports or music, winning the Voice seems to be moving in one specific direction. And on the Voice, his coach was Beverly Jo Scott, who's an American singer songwriter who also coached Loic Nottet, who did "Rhythm Inside" in 2015. And she co-wrote that song as well. He has some pretty strong, successful mentorship in his back pocket. [00:04:27] Ben: Not a bad Belgian entry, there. [00:04:28] Mike: Yeah, no word yet on when a song is coming out, what style he's going to do, any of that, but yeah, we have the first of many artists announcements coming in the next couple of months, so get hype. [00:04:42] Ben: Yeah. And then just looking at our current country count, we are up to 33. And everybody is getting their plans in order. And as we noted last time, I think, everybody's doing a selection because we need TV and those are easy to spin up in TV. So Ireland is bringing back a national selection via the Late Late Show. Denmark has announced that Melodi Grand Prix will have eight competing songs to be revealed in February with the final in March, which seems par for the course with them. And then, the littlest nation in Eurovision is having what appears to be the littlest Sanremo. San Marino is doing Una Voce per San Marino. And when I say it's the littlest Sanremo, it's not actually that little. [00:05:21] Mike: No, not at all. [00:05:22] Ben: San Marino is basically just having their own Sanremo. There's going to be established versus emerging acts. Preliminaries will be happening in December and January. Those will be filmed for a special that will be out at some later date with the final happening February 19th, with 18 acts competing. [00:05:39] Mike: Yeah, I'm excited to see how this process plays out. Particularly the established versus emerging acts aspect. San Marino wants this, which I really appreciate. [00:05:50] I feel like this is like when, the second that the Netherlands was hosting, Belgium, the next door neighbor, was like, we are sending Hooverphonic. We were putting on a good show because the neighbors are hosting. San Marino, it's like it's the neighbors, but if the neighbors surrounded your nation. [00:06:05] Mike: Yeah. [00:06:06] Ben: It's if your house was in their backyard. [00:06:07] Mike: Yes. Yeah. [00:06:09] Ben: Although, my question is, are the robots from a few years ago an emerging act or an established artist? [00:06:15] Mike: Ooh, I would probably put them in emerging since they were more of a backing role than front and center. So I don't know, like The Mamas to John Lundvik. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. if those robots enter, I think they're going to end up winning, especially if it is, if it's a, like anybody can vote type situation. [00:06:33] Ben: Yeah. If we're going to 1 in 360 situation again. [00:06:37] Mike: Yeah. more details on that, looking forward to our robot overlords. [00:06:40] Ben: Yes. [00:06:41] What is the Viña del Mar Festival? --- [00:06:41] Mike: So yeah, I guess it's been quiet on the news front. But that makes sense for this time of year. Looking around at other music festivals that get their gears turning at this point, reminds me of a tweet that we received a few months back, it read: "So I just found out about this yearly Latin American song festival Viña del Mar. Any resemblance or links with Eurovision that you know of?" Ben, I think we were both kind of investigating the suite at the same time when we received it. [00:07:09] Ben: Where the reaction was just like, "what is the Viña del Mar?" [00:07:12] Mike: I was not familiar with it really at all. I'm pretty sure that was the first time that I had heard of it. And yeah, but what was your process once this was brought to your attention? [00:07:24] Ben: Once this was brought to my attention I did what I do with so many things that come to my attention, I looked up its Wikipedia page. There I saw the name Hera Bjork and was like, "what?" [00:07:31] That was pretty much my experience as well. And, at least to answer the tweet, yes, there is a Eurovision connection and noticing a couple of other names that were just like, oh, I think this person was at Eurovision. So yeah, I'll put this on our cork board of episode ideas and, spent the last couple of weeks just looking into this festival and it's really fascinating and fun. Let's get started on this. First a little bit of background. Viña del Mar is the fourth largest city in Chile, and it's a huge beach resort and casino town on the Pacific coast. So it has a town profile very similar to Sanremo, Sochi, Jurmala Latvia, from our New Wave episode. So like really the perfect music festival tourism environment. [00:08:18] Ben: Connecting the dots, if you have a seaside beach town, you also have a music festival in that beach town. [00:08:24] Mike: Yup. Yup. the first festival was held in 1960 and it was a project that was proposed by then mayor, Gustavo Lorca and the city's department of tourism and a student group from the School of Fine Arts. The goal was to have contestants perform songs to promote Viña del Mar as a tourist location. The first edition was extremely popular and the next addition added a second contest that had a separate emphasis on folk music. [00:08:56] Ben: Okay. I see where this is going. This is Eurovision-y. [00:08:59] One of the first really interesting things about the contest is the venue that it's held in. It's called Quinta Vergara. And it's an amphitheater that was modeled on the Hollywood Bowl. And it was constructed in 1964 specifically for this event, just to demonstrate how popular this event was so quickly. Now, Viña del Mar is nestled at the base of hills and the location of this venue allows people to camp out on the hillsides and like climb into trees to hear and see what's happening on stage. So even if you aren't in the actual audience section of the venue, the acoustics of the venue allows you to be part of the festival experience, which I think is pretty nifty. And yeah, the acoustics of the venue... we'll have to get back to that because that's going to play a role in another aspect of the contest that is a little unexpected. [00:09:57] Ben: Putting a pin in that now. [00:09:59] Mike: The contest continued to grow in popularity every year. along with dedicated venue in 1964, the festival was broadcast on local and regional TV for the rest of the 1960s. The contest initially only allowed Chilean composers to submit songs, but international performers started to trickle in. For example, Massiel who won Eurovision in 1968 for Spain, speaking of Eurovision Again, she performed at the 1967 edition. And so starting in 1968, non-Chilean songwriters were allowed to submit their compositions. And going through the list of performers at this time, there's a lot of crossover with folks who competed at Spain's Benidorm festival, Julio Iglesias, in particular, and Italy's Sanremo. Yeah, there's a lot of cross-pollination that is happening among the music festivals that are popping up again as we get ready for 2022. By the early 1970s, Viña del Mar was a national broadcasting event. The thing is when you start to talk about Chile in the 1970s, politics can't really help but creep in. In 1970 Salvador Allende was elected president in what was a really divisive election. Allende was a Marxist, which didn't really jibe with American foreign policy at that point. And domestically in Chile, the economy struggled and there was just a lot of civil unrest during that time. And this played out in the festival in 1973. There was a group Quilapayun, that was competing in the folk music side of the competition. And I'm really fighting the urge to call them ethnojazz band Quilapayun, but, suffice to say they were very political and they were very active supporters of Allende and his policies. And the vibe in Chile at that point was really polarized and elections were approaching. Sounds similar to what politics has been like the last several years, which is, a little uncomfortable, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. Quilapayun's setlist was very pro popular unity, which was, UN days party. And the audience was not having it. There were fights that were breaking out. Things were thrown on stage. Like it was a really bad scene and the TV broadcast didn't even air the incident. But the radio broadcast, which was live, did have the altercation and yeah, it, the festival continued like it, it didn't stop because of this. Pablo Neruda ended up taking second place in the folk category cause he submitted a song, and this may shock you, but that song was also controversial. So yeah, 1973 was rather spicy. [00:12:46] Ben: Uh, huh. [00:12:47] Mike: yeah. Yeah. Although it was slightly less controversial on the international pop side of the competition. Second place went to Romuald, who competed at Eurovision three times. He represented both Monaco and Luxembourg. We saw during Eurovision Again in 1969 and 1974, two of his performances and at Viña del Mar he represented France with the song "Laise-moi le temps" which Paul Anka adapted into "Let Me Try Again" for Frank Sinatra. So yeah, this is a festival that does have some clout afterwards. September of 1973, there was a military coup in Chile and Augusto Pinochet rose to power. As you might expect, the folk category at the festival went on hiatus for several years and the festival was leveraged into international broadcasting, partly as a play to show that things are fine in Chile? Not really, but you know, [00:13:46] Ben: Television as a medium is good for that. [00:13:48] Mike: As far as I can tell it, doesn't get as dark as the way that Festivali i Këngës did, with the festival becoming a full-on propaganda machine for the dominant regime. But, yeah, if anybody is doing doctoral work on music festivals in the context of dictatorships, if you could shoot us an email, I would love to have a conversation about that because it keeps coming up. And I think it's a really fascinating topic. But anyway, as this was all happening, technology was continuing to advance. 1974 was the first international broadcast of the contest. 1975 was the first time the contest was recorded in color. Incidentally, the 1975 edition was won by Elpida, who would go on to represent Greece at Eurovision in 1979 with the song "Sokrati." I don't know if you remember that one from when we watched the 1979 one, but yeah. Yeah, that was a really fun performance. She also represented Cyprus in 1986 with the song "Tora Zo." That one didn't go over as well. In 1978, the competition was broadcast in color for the first time. And the 1979 edition was won by Braulio Garcia from Spain. who also represented Spain at the 1976 Eurovision song contest. Another contest that we have watched through Eurovision Again. So yeah, this whole research project has just been, oh yeah, that person. [00:15:11] Ben: There was a healthy ecosystem between the various song festivals in the seventies. [00:15:16] Mike: 1981 was the first broadcast of the contest in Mexico and the United States. And this was also the beginning of what is considered Viña del Mar's golden age. Tropical and dance music were starting to become part of the repertoire and the caliber of guest talent that they were getting to come to the festival was really astronomical. This is the era of arena tours and music superstars. So it follows that the wattage of the event would be quite bright. At this point, the competition had three components. There was the international pop contest, the folk contest, which had come back, and a comedian contest. The field for each contest was not particularly large, it's usually five to six contestants in each category. But then it's also supplemented with all of these guests performers. So it is a very full week and yeah, so that's the background of the contest, but that's not really what I wanted to focus on today. [00:16:16] El Monstruo --- [00:16:16] it's pretty standard in its structure for the most part. I had mentioned the acoustics of the venue earlier. One of the quirks of Quinta Vergara's set up is that the stage has amazing stage-to-audience sound but the audience-to-stage sound path is equally good, which means applause for a great performance can be thunderous. But if there's any discontent at a subpar performance, it can be devastating. My understanding is that expressing dissatisfaction at a performance with booing and hissing and cat calls is part of Chilean culture and the venue just magnifies any of those sort of sounds. So you could be in the back of the arena and whoever is on stage could potentially hear the derision, if there is any, so I don't know, a little nerve wracking. [00:17:15] Ben: I was going to ask if El monster had any similarities to the Green Monster at Fenway Park. And it sounds like no, but it also does sound like it does have similarities to Durgin-Park in Boston, which is a whole restaurant where the whole point is they're mean to you. And I don't understand. [00:17:30] Mike: Jeez. [00:17:31] Ben: It may have been a casualty of the pandemic, and I do not understand the point of it. [00:17:35] Mike: Yeah. the closest similarity that I can think of is Showtime at the Apollo. If the audience is not loving the performance, the performer will get yanked off stage, but, yeah, I don't even know if that audience has a name. That is one of the claims to fame for El Monstruo, which is that it is an audience that has a name. [00:17:54] Ben: Given it a name. [00:17:55] Mike: The lesson here is that you better be on your game if you are on the Viña del Mar stage. And this applies not only to the contestants, but to guest performers and sometimes even the event hosts. The thing is if you're able to tame the monster, as it's known, that is a major seal of approval in Latin American entertainment media, and can be a huge career boost. I mean, sure, winning the overall festival also looks good on your LinkedIn profile, but getting the endorsement from a significant sample of the general population, that's much more tangible. The venue can hold 15,000 people,so if they like you, that's probably a good sign of how the general public is going to receive your work. If an act does survive, they ended up getting an award, regardless of how they score in the overall competition. There was a documentary that I found that's currently available on Amazon Prime called Monstruo, which follows comedian Fabrizio Copano, and it's in the month leading up to his performance at the 2017 festival. That was an interesting approach to it, since it was getting into the mechanics of how do you refine a comedy set when you know that you are going into potentially hostile territory. [00:19:13] Ben: Just a room full of hecklers. [00:19:15] From what I gather, people aren't attending these shows for the sole purpose of heckling. Like they are, they're going. Cause it's oh, I like this artist. I want to see them in concert. And there's just this added bonus? Benefit? I don't know of oh, if they're doing a terrible job, I get to let them know. [00:19:31] Ben: It's just like an also I get to shout at someone I think is doing a terrible job. [00:19:35] Mike: Yeah, it was a really interesting look at this like very particular dynamic that I have not noticed in most other forms of entertainment. So yeah, El Monstruo is one of the only audiences in the world to be named while also having a level of cultural impact. There's a list of performers on Wikipedia who did not survive the monster. [00:19:56] Xuxa vs El Monstruo --- [00:19:56] Mike: And there are a couple that I wanted to highlight because I just find this morbidly fascinating. In the year 2000, there were two performers who did not survive: Xuxa and Enrique Iglesias. So Ben, to get things started, what do you know about Xuxa? [00:20:12] Ben: I don't know anything about Xuxa. [00:20:14] Mike: Really? Oh, okay. it's about to get weird. [00:20:18] Ben: Okay. Okay. I assume that this was going to be, oh, yes, of course. What do you know about Enrique Iglesias? I'm like, I know I was watching TRL in 2003. I know a lot about Enrique Iglesias. [00:20:27] Mike: From the late 80s to the early 2000s, Xuxa was one of the most successful children's entertainment multi hyphenates in the world. She was a recording artist, a TV presenter, a theme park executive, all in multilingual contexts. She's Brazilian, so, like, Brazilian Portuguese, but then also working around South America and really the Spanish-speaking world. She began hosting a daily Brazilian kids TV show in 1986 that also featured her singing. The show was a huge hit and the albums generated from the show sold millions of copies. She was Brazil's biggest star and was having an impact globally, thanks to international distribution, particularly in the Spanish speaking world, in 1993, Xuxa hosted a US-based version of her show, which... okay. This is where we're going to get a little interactive. I'm going to send you a video link and we should watch this clip together, just so that you can... yeah. [00:21:30] Ben: Oh good. Yeah, because I'm just like, I grew up on PBS and essentially whatever the pre VeggieTales VHS available Christian programming was. If it was not PBS or Gerbert, I'm a cultural blank. let's see if this sparks anything. [Xuxa intro plays] Okay. We just have a crowd screaming for Xuxa. [00:22:07] Oh, this is good. Like early nineties TV graphics. I love this. And again, the crowd goes wild. There's a Panda. And Xuxa is here. She's going down a staircase. We have breakdancing breaking out in the crowd. Okay. Yeah, this is just like your standard children's television program from the nineties. [00:23:22] Tickle games? I have watched the video. [00:23:35] Mike: Any questions? [00:23:38] Ben: This feels like something that Trash Night would find and cut down into a three-minute super cut of just like the real weird stuff. [00:23:45] Mike: Yeah, the video is like three and a half minutes and that is the start of every episode. [00:23:50] Ben: Yeah. Like it, it made me think of, so one internet video I have watched too many times for no good reason is the opening of the Donny and Marie show where for some reason they are performing Steely Dan's "Reeling in the Years." Cause it just has that vibe of we're opening up the variety show and you're just, there's just like here's tonight's guest stars. And you're like, why is this Ruth Buzzi on this show? Why do you have an entire pack of ice skaters on your show? And there's just a lot of frantic nineties energy. The two animal sidekicks are making me think of some other late eighties, early nineties children's television program that I can't quite place. That was probably on PBS. [00:24:28] Mike: Zoobilee Zoo? [00:24:30] Ben: Yes. It's real Zoobilee Zoo energy. [00:24:33] Mike: I would have been about 10 years old when this came out. And at the time I think I was probably a little too old for it, but I think this may have been what sparked my interest in television studies. Cause it's like, what is this? WHY is this? [00:24:50] Ben: Why is this? Yes, it's just, that's the other, like that specific slice of children's television is so interesting too. [00:24:56] Mike: Yeah, because it's so well-intentioned, but it comes across as patronizing and I don't know, like a lot of ideas, but none of them getting edited. [00:25:07] Ben: Yes, we have taken all of them and we are doing all of them, regardless of whether they work within the context of one another. [00:25:14] As you probably heard in the clip, not a very strong English speaker, which is a kind of bold choice for children's programming because children's programming is usually like overly enunciated and like very clearly communicated. So there's that. I think one of the things that I find most relatable about Xuxa is she has zero patience for American children. [00:25:38] Ben: Yeah. And like the production values Like it reminds me of again, like I've since like growing up not watching a bunch of this, I've now watched a bunch of it in the context of being someone far too old for it, who just finds all of the weird stuff very funny. There's like a public access TV show, I'm not sure if it's still going. And I think it's in your neck of the woods called Chica Gogo, that like most famously, OK GO did a, did one of their early videos by performing on Chica Gogo. This is one step above that in production values, but only one step above. [00:26:06] Mike: The part where she said play circus games, the thing that I think you heard her as tickle games. Yeah. yeah, that, that is called Gloop Time, which, it's just like... [00:26:15] Ben: They called it Gloop Time? That's a great name. [00:26:18] Mike: Yeah, like usually these sort of pass the balloon, run the egg across the stage type things, but there's like all of this slime, but it's not like delightful Nickelodeon slime. It's just I don't [00:26:28] Ben: It's just, off-brand cornstarch mixed with whatever you mix the corn starch with to make the slime. Just like borderline Bozo the Clown games? [00:26:34] Mike: Yes. Yes. And the children are baffled or oftentimes bored. And then there are like all of these semi educational components because that's what you have to do on American television. And like sometimes they had guest stars. There was this one... I have watched more episodes of this than I should have as an adult... But, there's one where Cheech Marin is doing a song from his Cheech the Bus Driver album. Did you know that Cheech Marin has an album called Cheech the Bus Driver? [00:27:06] Ben: I am somehow not surprised. [00:27:07] Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And it's just this interminable performance, and you can tell that none of the kids are having fun and there's like 150 kids in this studio. So there's so much going on on this. And this is I think this is why I have such an aversion to Junior Eurovision, because I think in my mind, I picture it being something like this but probably a better version of whatever this is, but I don't want this replaced, like I want this terrible version. [00:27:38] Ben: Yeah. I don't want the nice version. I want this version. That's crappy. [00:27:41] Mike: Yeah. Yeah. This is just getting deep into like my psyche and fascination with misguided children's programming. See also the Oogieloves Movie. [00:27:51] I got very excited looking at various episodes because of course they had the American gladiators on Xuxa. That immediately places what time this was. But also somehow Jeff Dunham was on there. [00:28:02] Yeah, that one is probably the most surprising on the guest list. All right. so even though the show was a flop, it did expand the global distribution potential for Xuxa's brand, since this was at least in English and that just gives you more options of where you can send this out for syndication. So through the rest of the 90s, Xuxa's empire continued to expand into more shows and amusement parks. Though she wasn't really at the peak of her powers anymore in February 2000, she was still a pretty big get for Viña del Mar. She was appearing as a guest, she wasn't competing, and had about a half hour set on the stage. Video of her set is on the festival's YouTube channel, but there was a noticeable gap after her first song, like it would fade to black, you hear a little bit of audio and then fade up again into another performance. And so I think they may have cut out what actually happened. a lot of Xuxa's performances, at least in this set, and I'm guessing probably in her overall repertoire rely on audience participation and a lot of call and response. [00:29:13] Ben: Oh, no, El Monstruo. [00:29:14] Mike: Yeah. There's also a lot of dancing and movement. And you can tell from the audio that the backing track is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. You may have actually experienced that while watching this clip. I don't think she's giving a full vocal on the theme song. Anyway, the same thing, at least in my estimation, was what was happening on the Viña del Mar stage. The audience may have also picked up on this and I suspect the incident happened during the second song of her set. And that was what was cut out of the video. According to the written reports that I could find of what happened in the call response portion of her song "Ilarie" the audience changed the response to a local slang term that doubles as an obscenity, but Xuxa didn't know this and thought the audience was playing her game instead of the other way around. Later in the video around the 14 minute mark, and I'll have a link to this in the show notes, you can feel that there's been a shift in the performance/audience relationship, and something just feels off. Xuxa finishes her set and goes backstage, and someone tells her what happened. the hosts bring her back on stage, for like interview portion and to give her her award for surviving the monster and she's in tears. She gives another performance of "Ilarie" and brings her daughter on stage. Not as a human shield, but I'm sure there may have been some sort of just be like, please don't make mommy cry. [00:30:50] Ben: As a protective measure. Like you wouldn't do this in front of my child. [00:30:54] Mike: And, yeah. And the Monster gives enough approval that Xuxa receives a Silver Seagull. The Silver Seagull is the award that's given out at the festival. She accepted the award, but eventually returns it after the festival. And she doesn't actively work in Chile until this year. So like for 20 years, she's just like pass. [00:31:16] Ben: No, thank you. They know what they did. [00:31:20] Enrique Iglesias and Paolo Meneguzzi vs El Monstruo --- [00:31:20] Mike: Yeah. yeah, it's a tough watch, just to see that happen, but you don't actually get to see the Monster in action. but fortunately that wasn't the Monster's only meal in 2000. As I mentioned, Enrique Iglesias was also a guest performer at this festival. His father Julio, has a very long history with the festival. Julio Iglesias won Benidorm in 1968. And he represented Spain at Eurovision in 1970. He appeared at Viña del mar five times and yeah, like just was a superstar at that point. His last appearance was in 1981, which is like right in the golden age of the festival. Enrique has also at this point, established a relationship. Performed at the festival in 1999 and his performance in 2000 went really well. And he was given a Silver Seagull. After he received his award, he did the kind of broey thing where he took it, he ran up the catwalk, said something along the lines of "woo." And then threw his trophy into the audience. The way that he describes it, as a kind of a show of appreciation. As he's throwing it, you could hear the hosts screaming "NOOOOOOOOO! No, no, no, no, no!" The TV audience could get that he was being celebratory about this and not like rejecting the trophy, but somebody who is sitting in the nosebleed seats, they're not going to pick up on that nuance. They're just going to see oh, they gave him the trophy. Oh, he's throwing it away? So that's not great. Also the award, hits a woman and she needed some medical attention. [00:33:01] Ben: Oh no, Enrique Iglesias, what have you done? [00:33:04] Mike: Yeah. Yeah. She was brought on stage for an apology hug, but by this point, the audience was not having it. And, Enrique has not been invited back to the festival. So, yikes. [00:33:15] Ben: Yep. [00:33:16] Mike: As for the rest of 2000, the winner on the international competition side was Peabo Bryson, with the song, "Laissez-moi le temps." One of the other participants in the field, representing Italy, was Paolo Meneguzzi. uh, He won Viña del Mar in 1996. And this was his fourth appearance at the festival a second time as a contestant, the other two times he was a guest performer. So again, somebody who has a really good relationship with the program. Now, Paolo is from the Italian part of Switzerland. And he's competed at Sanremo a few times, in the mid-00. And in 2008, he was selected to represent Switzerland at Eurovision with the song "Era Stupendo." He finished 13th in the second semi-final so we did not get to see him perform when Eurovision Again did the 2008 contest. In 2009, he was invited back to Viña del Mar as a juror for the music competition. Many of the jurors that they bring to the show they also serve as guest performers during the week, because they do have a week of programming to fill. That year, one of the headliners for the festival was the band Simply Red, which I did not expect to have come up again, [00:34:25] Ben: On this podcast. [00:34:26] Mike: Yeah. and it should be noted that Simply Red kicked off their farewell tour in 2009. So this is another big get for the festival and the audience was really into it. I guess Simply Red are simply amazing in Chile. Their set went extremely well, but there were some sound issues at the very end, but the audience was loving it and they wanted more. Then it was Paolo's turn onstage and the sound issues were continuing, but the biggest issue was Paolo was not Simply Red. And the audience wanted Simply Red. And so Paolo was not able to get through his set because the audience was like, No. Simply Red. Please. More that, now. [00:35:14] Ben: If you don't know El Monstruo by now. [00:35:16] Mike: Yeah. Paolo could not win over the Monster and that was just because the Monster didn't offer the chance to be won over. So unfortunately that was Paolo's last time at the festival and he hasn't really been recording much since. Yeah, he's released a best-of album in 2011 and a Spanish album in 2012 and a couple of Spanish language singles in 2016. But that market just dried up because even though he didn't do anything actively to enrage the audience, the audience just did not give that seal of approval. ] [00:35:52] Ben: He continued to commit the sin of not being Simply Red. [00:35:56] Mike: Yeah. So along with giving a solid performance, a participant at Viña del Mar just needs to maintain the approval of the Monster throughout their time on stage. Talent and graciousness and having a strong agents to make sure you get a good place in the lineup, but not so good that you're immediately following the mega headliner. Yeah, that's all key to surviving the Monster and establishing a strong foothold in the Latin American market. Following her win in 2013, Hera Bjork said in interviews that she was going to shift her focus to the Latin American music market. And you know what good for her? The popularity of Viña del Mar has leveled off since the 1990s. And there has been some audience decline since 2000 due to expanding entertainment options. Kind of like how every non-sports live event has seen drop-off like Emmys, Oscars, like all award shows, all of that is seen audience drop-off just because there's so many other things that are happening. But the festival is still able to draw in A-list talent and still has the power to make or break careers. The 2020 edition was the last edition that was. 2021's edition was canceled due to the pandemic. And they announced shortly after our episode dropped last time that the 2022 edition has been canceled due to the pandemic. So I'm really excited about the 2023, especially after doing all this research and just seeing all of these really fun connections. And I just want to see the Monster in action. [00:37:26] Ben: Yes. [00:37:29] Mike: I love my booing. I think the only by-product of this is that Xuxa's theme song is going to be stuck in my head for the next couple of weeks. Cause that is a bop. [00:37:41] Ben: Yeah. I'm going to do a deep dive on this whole Xuxa thing now. [00:37:45] Mike: I can send you clip. [00:37:47] Ben: Excellent. [00:37:48] Mike: There's a lot to dive into. That's going to do it for this episode of the EuroWhat? Thanks for listening. The EuroWhat? Podcast is hosted by Mike McComb, that's me, and Ben Smith. [00:37:59] Ben: That's me. You can follow the EuroWhat on Overcast, Stitcher, or the podcast app of your choice. If you'd like to support the show, we're also on Patreon patreon.com/eurowhat [00:38:08] Mike: 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. [00:38:21] Ben: Next time on the Eurowhat, we'll be looking at Eurovisions history on the Billboard charts.