Music chief calls for Germany to leave Eurovision
NewsThey are licking their wounds in the Heimat after Germany came miserably last in voting for Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest, narrowly behind the UK.
Professor Christian Höppner, General Secretary of the German Music Council, has issued the following summons to the German public broadcaster, ARD: ‘The German Music Council advises ARD to suspend its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. There is no need for a second-class show in which the artistic quality only plays a subordinate role and which has largely moved away from the original idea of the music competition. The ARD should use savings not only in this respect, but also with regard to other entertainment-focused offers and use them for needs-based financing of cultural programs, the strengthening of regional cultural reporting and cooperation with regional cultural actors* as well as securing the radio orchestra.’
ARD, however, says No: ‘Germany is such a diverse, exciting and innovative music market, so there is absolutely no reason not to compete again.’
Better luck next time.
Totally disagree. Germany just needs a good band with a good song. Fire all of the idiots in the Rundfunk with their focus groups and formulas for winning and just pick a decent young artist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of_asBNSzjo
Höppner is totally right.
It’s a question of how using public funding is justified for this cheap shit, which has gotten worse and worse over the years. Let it be a commercially run, and funded, event. No problem.
But don’t throw public ARD money down that dump anymore.
As I understand it the Big Five countries qualify automatically for the final including Germany and the UK. Their tv channels receive a share of the royalties for broadcasting rights of countries all over the world that show the contest even if unable to compete. Apparently this is quite lucrative and that is why despite sometimes years of appalling results and calls to withdraw from the competition these countries still continue to compete.
From a UK perspective there are also jobs available for technical staff – sound engineers , stage managers and assistants – not just in a year when the UK hosts the contest , but most years because British trained tv / theatre professionals are highly respected and follow the contest around Europe.
…or alternatively stop running it as a nation contest, remove al connections to nations competing against each other. That always promotes the worst in mankind.
Let it be what it originally was meant to be: a song contest. Participants and winners are individuals, not nations. One humanity. Stop promoting the hatred.
“Nationalism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
Aside from a few great things like Nena’s 99 Luftballons, I sometimes get the impression that Germany prides itself on how bad its pop music is, as if it were defiance against a hegemonistic pop-music-industrial-complex. Nena:
https://www.google.com/search?q=nina+10%2C000+balloons&pws=0&gl=us&gws_rd=cr#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c824171e,vid:oIO5lfJ9dhs
ESC is cheap fodder for the decadent masses of the western world and their followers.
Germans are always bad losers even if there’s nothing to lose.
What’s the German for ‘schadenfreude’?
Maybe Max Reger would have done better job…
I always preferred Max Greger much to Max Reger….
Of course, Höppner is right. The Eurovision Song Contest is little more than a third-rate campfest where political strategic voting dominates and the quality of the music, such as it is, comes a very poor second.
It’s also a contest that nobody really wants to win as the ‘reward’ of hosting the next year’s event is ruinously expensive; Ireland worked this out some years ago when they had four victories in the 1990s and then conspired to fail to qualify for the finals on eleven occasions.
I’m not sure that Germany, like Great Britain a founding member of the EBU, can refuse to take part in this nonsense, but given a choice then they certainly should.
Not even a Hans Sachs figure could have helped the Germans compete in ESC. They are still distracted and bruised by the Americans destroying their pipeline.
The only thing worse than coming in last at Eurovision is drawing attention to it by complaining about it.
Real musicians should be calling for the end of pre-recorded instrumental and backing tracks at Eurovision.
Get back to truly live music-making on stage as it is meant to be.
Your comment has all upvotes and no downvotes, and I entirely agree too.
I think Eurovision would be a better song contest if there were real live musicians, including the accompanying instrumentals, as opposed to backing tracks.
Might be more difficult to stage, though.
Sore losers by the sound of it.
Not a problem, since in today’s Eurovision contest, everybody is a loser.
Race to the bottom. After everyone is at the bottom, they now have contests there.
I don’t think that Germany should withdraw from the contest, but should have a rethink about what constitutes a good song. I suspect that the great German classic composers of the past would be turning in their graves, if they heard some of the stuff being churned out by their nation in the last couple of years.
The same, to an extent, applies to us in the UK. Sam Ryder (last year) an exception. I’m not saying that our song was terrible but it was decidedly mediocre, with the accompaniment a little too loud for the singer as well.
Funny how nearly every stupid song was in the minor key, and in marching time!
Das Land der Musik – after Italy shows some (offended) integrity after all! 😉
P.S: Italy should in this case do the same, when its general musical tastes and formula have fallen to sanremo’esque low points.