Nul points!
Britain is facing Eurovision humiliation again. Maybe it’s time to take Oasis’ advice and bring in the big guns, reckons NME’s Martin Horsfield
It’s a chilly February evening in 1994 and Oasis are holding court in London’s Columbia Hotel. Fortified by nothing stronger than gin’n’tonic (Liam) and Jack’n’Coke (Noel), they’re telling me how they plan to enter the Eurovision Song Contest.
“We’ve written a song that would piss it, easy!” brags Noel, preposterously (Oasis, it should be noted, are still on their first single at this point). “We’d show ‘em, it’s not about cunts like Sonia and Michael Ball, it’s about people like our kid here.”
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Fast-forward 11 years and what’s changed? This year’s British Eurovision hopefuls were Pop Idol also-ran Andy Scott-Lee, Gina G, an Australian who by some kink in the rules has been allowed to represent us before and Tricolore, possibly the only kids in the country to have watched G4 and thought, “Hmm, neat idea.”
Edging past Jordan – who was impressed enough by Peter Andre’s “Insania’ to have his baby – was eventual winner Javine, who fulfilled a deep need in the British public’s psyche to atone for voting her off Popstars: The Rivals.
Oasis, in the meantime, have sold 30 million albums, a good few – it’s safe to assume – in mainland Europe. Now fair enough, the song that Noel was talking up was All Around The World”, a lame effort which eventually showed up on ‘Be Here Now”, but Wonderwall? Don’t Look BackIn Anger? ‘Digsy’s Dinner’? They’d have pissed it easy, wouldn’t they?
Of course, it’s unthinkable that Liam and Noel would gamble their popularity by risking coming second in this annual jamboree of naffness but it’s not unprecedented. Cliff Richard had sold over 20 million records before entering the competition with “Congratulations”. And the fact that he was robbed and finished behind a bunch of Spaniards singing ‘La La La’ didn’t harm him, either. He’s now sold 260 million.
Frankly, it’s not a level playing field. The rest of Europe takes Eurovision seriously enough to field heavyweights like Tatu while in Britain – where we’re actually pretty good at this pop lark - we enter singers who wouldn’t look out of place on Margate pier. Recently we’ve taken to pretending not to care. A progressively more pissed Terry Wogan gently mocks the whole farrago while those who bother tuning in at home hold parties celebrating its very rubbishness.
It’s time to get serious or face humiliation on an annual basis. Liam, Noel, Carl, Pete, Borrell: your country needs you.
First published in NME, 19 May 2005
