Eurovision Part 2 - a display of Europe's "finest" and European languages

The 1st semi-final of Eurovision is coming up next Tuesday and I am getting really excited. The songs this year are so many absolutely amazing and great to listen to. But they also offer a display of the craziness that goes on here. Where else would you find a display of such random and nonsensical music but precisely in Eurovision. It seems that every year the European nations go on a competition to see who can show the strangest performances and have the weirdest song. And every single year the countries try to outdo each other. The most recent trend is electric-pop and crazy techno music along with a weird dance performance thanks to "Euphoria" that won last year.

This year Romania pulled out all the stops and decided to have an opera/techno inspired song inspired with some weird dance moves. But the singer has an incredible voice

We also got this gem from Finland which is a glee-inspired pop song about gay marriage. I've been told by one relative that the song sounds like a Bratz pop song and I have to agree.

Norway decided to go for electric-pop this year... Not a very wise decision if you ask me but the singer is good.

And Denmark decided to go for a Sweden 2012 inspired performance with the whole shebang, floating dress, weird dance moves and they even put the tin flute in to go Irish. I am eerily reminded of Sweden 2012 every time I watch the performance. But the singer has an incredible voice and great energy.

And who can forget last year's Russian Babushkas. Only in Eurovision do you find something like this

And this song  from Finland won Eurovision in 2005. Yet again, displaying Europe's finest, or should I say, the Nordic cool?

But another trend this year which I love is the fact that 50% of the songs are sung in the native language of the country they represent. Europe is an entire content with incredibly many and varied languages. In recent years, most people have sung in English as that is the language most likely to be understood by the majority of the watchers. Except, only 2 countries in Europe have English as a native language. and English isn't spoken as widely in Europe as people generally think. Knowledge of English isn't always desired and is even resisted in many areas (I´ll explain that later when I delve into the culture of subtitles, dubbing and just how much we love our languages). And it's not always the case that the performers know English properly. So instead of singing in a language they are not comfortable with they use their native one. And that lends depth to the performance and makes the singer so much better.
Plus, doing this is a beautiful display of one of Europe's assets, the incredible linguistic variety that exists here. It is one of the things I love about it. And I personally love the songs which are performed in languages I do not understand. I am a linguistic nerd to say the least and linguistic variety is something to be treasured and used. And people here are very proud of their national tongue and want to keep it and show it to others. So singing in one's native language is a strong example of national pride.

Iceland is going for a song in Icelandic this year. It is a minority language spoken by a very small people so very few will understand it. But the song is nice

Israel has an amazing song in Hebrew. It really is a beautiful language.

Estonia had an amazing song last year called "Kuula" which means listen and it was one of the most popular songs. I love it

Serbia one in 2007 with an incredible song in Serbian. I do not understand the lyrics one bit but the song was very popular here and everyone loved it. It was a song that was strong without understanding the language.

And Serbia's song last year was nothing short of amazing. I can listen to it endlessly. And it was in Serbian!

Eurovision is a strange animal and many more things. But it displays also passion and love for music and as I've said before. For a continent as divided and complicated as Europe is but still very much for cooperation, it is wonderful that we are able to share and participate in it and show not only our national pride but also cheer for others. It brings people together all around the world.