Kuva072, originally uploaded by Aamunen

Yesterday Helsinki hosted the Eurovision Song Contest, because the Finnish group Lordi won last year’s event.

The Serbian entry won, in what may be a reflection of power in Europe slipping away from the West.

Eurovision music is generally dreadful, it is a lowest common denominator pop appealed to attract votes. Pop is music for the young, who are vastly outnumbered by pensioners among those voting. Pop for pensioners is not cutting edge. People often point to Sweden’s ABBA as an example of the importance of the event. ABBA’s “Waterloo”, and to a lesser extent Johnny Logan and “What’s Another Year”. are probably the only Eurovision songs that ever really made it as hits. The exceptions that prove the rule.

The fact that ABBA never made it in the States, where rock was invented, may indicate the shallowness of the product to an aware audience. (The group’s recent emergence as gay icons is something completely different.)

I’m told by British friends that the reason the British entries, which ought to be the best pop in Europe, don’t dominate the contest is because few people in Britain take it seriously, and few serious British artists take part. In Sweden recording mogul Bert Karlsson has designed his business model around the contest. His machine produces so many entries that they can’t help but dominate the Swedish finals, and generally produce the finalist that goes on to the European contest. In 1999 Sweden’s Charlotte Nilsson won the Eurovision, but when she broke off with Bert Karlsson she was essentially frozen out of the 2000 contest, violating the tradition for the previous year’s winner to take part.

Many people think that countries vote for neighboring countries, which makes sense. Swedes like to support the Danes and Norwegians, and the Spanish and Portuguese, Dutch and Belgians, probably feel the same. If nothing else the music may be more accessible. In the days when you had to sing in your native language, rather than English, it also made sense for the French to vote for a song in French from Switzerland or Luxembourg, or the Germans to vote for the Austrian entry.

The rapid growth of Eurovision to include countries to the east, like Ukraine (winners in 2005) seems to be leading to a shift in the voting. No longer will France or Germany have the same power. This may presage coming shifts within the European Union as the new countries start asserting themselves. So far only Poland really seems to have taken a strong role, but western European countries may someday rue the hasty addition of so many new countries, some with fragile democracies and weak democratic traditions.

On the other hand, the Eurovision entries also seem to be breaking out of the mold of dreadful schlager pop and moving into the exploration of other musical forms. That kind of enrichment might also be good for euro-politics.

The winning song