Dear Team JDub: Adam Lambert is not my Moses. I haven’t watched American Idol once since season two. I don’t even know what night of the week it’s on. The show just doesn’t hold a candle to the annual Eurovision Song Competition. Eurovision, whose final round occurs this Saturday night in Moscow, is a living graveyard of international kitch that’s hard to take your eyes off of. For the pop-Zionists among you, Israel has had a lot of ups & downs in recent Eurovision history. And my gut tells me we’re looking at another down year.
Despite Israel’s duet having advanced to the final, and my not having listened to any other country’s Eurovision entry this year, I’m going on the record with a prediction: Israel will not finish in the top ten in 2009. And just in case you thought this blog didn’t matter: if Israel miraculously exceeds my Eurovision expectations, my next post will feature a laughably inferior Eurovision song entry–recorded by yours truly–for you to mock me with. Read on to find out why you won’t be hearing me sing.
Once upon a time, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) left the decision of national Eurovision entry in the hands of the voters. This produced beautiful results in 2005 when Shiri Maimon finished 4th with 154 points. The following year, however, voters’ choice Eddie Butler fell flat with a 4 point, second-to-last performance, effectively making him the first and likely last Black Hebrew Israelite to take the Eurovision stage for Israel. 2007 marked the year that the IBA said to the Israelites, “we choose the artist, you choose the song,” thereby reviving an unsuccessful selection process that produced disheartening results in 2004; the artist had a falsetto so impressive that it made audiences uncomfortable and indirectly sparked a lawsuit against the Israeli version of Shrek 2).
Incidentally, the IBA’s decision in 2007 didn’t turn out any better. After selecting prolific folk-punk group Teapacks to represent Israel, the audience’s pick was almost banned by Eurovision organizers for being too political (a potential decision that I strongly disagreed with), and mysteriously suffered a technical glitch during the semi-final performance (another potential decision that I strongly disagree with).
While the IBA didn’t change it’s “we choose first” rule last year, it made the clever move of choosing Boaz Mauda, an Israeli Idol winner admired for his timid stage presence and able to pull off the shiny-silver-vest-sans-shirt
ensemble. Ergo, a solid 9th place finish for Israel.
This year’s selection leaves me pessimistic about Israel’s chances in the song competition. While Achinoam Nini is incredibly popular, talented and widely recognized by Jewish and Israeli audiences, and even taking into account the selection (however calculated) of a talented Arab-Israeli counterpart in Mira Awad, poor finishes by Teapacks and David D’or have shown us that name recognition isn’t good enough for a win.
So, what have we learned today, kids? Simple: Let the people choose a song and the artist who will represent them. Would someone finally make good on the talk of bringing Eurovision to the U.S.?