The Common Linnets Win UK Chart Race

The Netherlands : The Common Linnets

Conchita Wurst may have won the 59th Eurovision Song Contest, but there was a reversal of fortunes when the UK Top 40 was revealed yesterday. Runners-up The Common Linnets from The Netherlands calmly stormed into the Top 10 at Number 9, leaving Austria's entry something of a damp squib at Number 17.

The midweek chart update promised a different outcome, with three Eurovision songs figuring in the Top 10. However, sales began to decline later in the week and Molly's Children of the Universe suffered along with Rise Like A Phoenix. The good news, though, is that the Contest has produced thirteen chart entries on this week's Top 100:

• 9 Calm After The Storm 
• 17 Rise Like A Phoenix 
• 23 Children Of The Universe 
• 40 Undo 
• 46 Cliche Love Song 
• 70 No Prejudice 
• 73 Rainmaker 
• 82 Coming Home 
• 85 Hunter Of Stars 
• 88 Not Alone 
• 89 Moustache 
• 93 Something Better 
• 97 Silent Storm

The fact now is that The Common Linnets have become the highest placed non-winners on the British charts for many years - not including previous UK entries. Of course, this assumes that one of the other Eurovision tracks cannot better its current placing.

From memory, this is the first time that this has happened in exactly forty years. When ABBA took the Eurovision crown in 1974, it was also among four of the songs from that year's Contest that were popular enough with the British public to register within the Top 20.

Naturally, ABBA reigned supreme at Number 1 with Waterloo and the UK's Long Live Love managed a Number 11 peak, but more impressively, the songs that finished second and third both figured in the Top 10. Italy's Gigliola Cinquetti took the English language version of Si (Go) to Number 8 and, ironically, the Dutch entry called I See A Star by Mouth and MacNeal also reached a high position of Number 8.



It seems that Eurovision 2014 has turned out to be a more impressive year than I first thought it would be. 

Image by Albin Olsson (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Eurovision 2014: The Final Review

Winner: Austria: Conchita Wurst: Rise Like A Phoenix

I was hoping that Rise Like A Phoenix would not win this year's Eurovision Song Contest. That hope had nothing to do with beards, drag acts or equality, but more to do with a desire to see the Contest progress musically.

With Eurovision, my passion for change has always been an uphill struggle. After all, apart from its reputation for disposable plastic pop, it has now become even more of a tele-visual (and social media) event than ever before: its 21st-century incarnation seemingly relying more heavily than ever on catching one's eye as well as one's ear. The songs are still important of course, because well, it is a song contest. The problem for me is that it has become - this year particularly - a triumph of presentation above everything else.

For instance, if the UK telephone vote is the British barometer of quality music, then we would be celebrating the Polish version of Carry On Eurovision as the winner. Admittedly, there's a large Polish expatriate population here, but all the performance really needed was to have Sid James and Kenneth Williams lasciviously ogling those mildly lewd and very buxom Slavic girls. Oh yes, a triumph for progress!

Equally, it was not the song that won the title for Austria. Strip away the drag act, and particularly the beard, and all you have left is a composition that would not have been out of place on a Shirley Bassey album 45 years ago. The most daring thing about the whole package was the "bearded lady" headline and that is what most of the world's press concentrated on. Outside of the tabloid histrionics all that remains is an average ballad, hyped on stage by a stimulating light display.

Lest anyone forget, David Bowie and others were experimenting with sexual identity through popular music around the time Dame Shirley was recording Diamonds Are Forever. It's no wonder I have the feeling that Conchita has set Eurovision back four decades, rather than add credibility to the whole event and contribute to it advancing musically.

There was a glimmer of hope on Saturday, though. The Netherlands have decided to try harder after years out in the Eurovision wilderness. Anouk and her Birds led the way in 2013, while those other songbirds The Common Linnets rose like a phoenix out of Dutch despair and very nearly captured Eurovision glory after 39 years.



Thankfully, their runners-up position was due to a reliability on musical substance rather than glittering visuals. While the song Calm After the Storm is not necessarily cutting edge, it does reflect a professional attempt to present something that you might hear outside of the bubble of the Contest. For Eurovision, that's more powerful than any kind of "message" that an individual might want to send to other parts of the world.

That's the kind of progress this competition needs. While equality in all spheres of life is desirable, The Eurovision Song Contest should be about the music. Both Anouk and The Common Linnets have proved that this can be done without the flashy gimmicks.

The Slavic Girls may have titillated British viewers to spend money on votes, but as I write, the Polish entry is nowhere to be seen on the real-time iTunes charts. Conchita Wurst is struggling to make her point at Number 18, but there is a small victory for music as Calm After the Storm currently ranks at Number 5.

Forty years ago, ABBA managed to top the charts across Europe and in the process changed perceptions and attitudes. For a while, Eurovision was cool and a musical career was a possibility because of it. The Swedes demonstrated there was a life after the Contest. While The Common Linnets may not make such an impressive impact, I believe that this will not be the last that we'll hear from them.

I suspect a different outcome for Conchita. As much as I enjoy indulging in my passion for music from my youth, I wish that Ms. Wurst had not dragged me and Eurovision back into the past. She has only helped to strengthen the argument among naysayers that it continues to be irrelevant and banal. For that, I cannot thank her.

Winners: Composer and Artistic Award: The Common Linnets

Photos courtesy of EBU Eurovision

Eurovision 2014: Austria: Rise Like A Phoenix

Conchita Wurst

We've known the controversial choice by the Austrian broadcaster ORF to send Conchita Wurst to the Eurovision stage in Copenhagen since last Autumn. However, today the song that this colourful character will sing has been revealed.

It's called Rise Like A Phoenix and is said to be a commentary on Tom Neuwirth's path to his drag persona, Conchita.

It's yet another ballad to feature in this ballad-laden year, but probably among the best of them. Very melodramatic, with the essence of a Bond movie theme, it's however very difficult to take the whole production seriously when one is watching a bearded "woman" perform it.

There has already been disagreement about Austria's choice of representative and now with the announcement of this song to a wider audience, it will only polarize the argument further. Russia's and Belarus' respective broadcasters have hitherto received petitions to edit Wurst out of the broadcast, but that action would contravene EBU rules.

Looking at the wider reaction, my belief is that the average Eurovision viewer is unlikely to vote this through, however good the song may be. It may qualify from its semi-final as, in general, the semis tend to have more "serious" Eurovision fans among its audience. Should it make the final, I think the song will find it tough to attract votes. Alternatively, it could "do" a Dana International and walk away with the whole thing.

Here's the video. What do you think?

  

Image (adapted) by Manfred Werner (Tsui) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons