May 4, 2006 at 2:55AM Brian Kennedy makes me ashamed to be Irish
As we edge closer to the celebration of mediocrity that is the Eurovision Song Contest, one’s mind tends to turn to how one’s country is going to embarrass itself this year. Well, it appears Ireland’s got a bit of a whopper this year.
I lost interest in the whole affair some time just before puberty, so I don’t really take all that much heed of it anymore. But TCAL posted up a video of our entry, so I thought I’d take a look.
I wish I hadn’t.
Bad as most entries usually are, at least some of them are brilliantly bad, knowingly bad. But this is just so earnest, and yet so banal and trite, even those words fail to describe how awful it is. And that’s just the song. The video’s even worse.
In it, Brian prances around Dublin surrounded by a bunch of tools who look as if they’ve escaped from a special-needs school in Donnybrook miming along, making luvvy-luvvy looks and swigging back stout in a nightclub. All very ‘Oirish’ and yet so ‘modern’. But this scuther gets worse: Brian ditches his groupies and goes prancing around in the countryside. Still, I’ll give it this much: at least it had no lupracháns.
Twenty Major sums it up quite well too too. Now, go berate RTÉ and complain to them about how they could ever put this awful shite forward to represent your country. I can only imagine that they want us to lose and lose badly.
1 On May 12, 2006 at 10:07, Michael Rea wrote:
True, my ears doth bleed whenst I listen to Brian and his “cry for love”. Tell you what though, for every cloud there is a silver lining. Or in this case, a blood dripped silver lining. Check out Finlands entry at http://eurovision.lordi.org. The Scandenavian countries are really going back to basics with their entries. I loved WigWam last year - original stadium rocking at its finest!
C’mon Finland!
2 On May 12, 2006 at 13:00, Keith wrote:
“Cry for help” is more like it. I think he should lay the felching for a start.
Yeah, I heard about Lordi on TCAL and I am definitely, definitely going to bother voting this year for them just to shove it up RTÉ’s arse for inflicting more of this godawful shite on us yet again.
Up Finland!
3 On May 27, 2006 at 17:44, jennifer wrote:
I’m English but if I was Irish I’d be ashamed at the sort of comments made about Brian Kennedy and his song. If you don’t like him or his song there’s no need to be quite so offensive about it. You’re right about Eurovision though, it should have died the death years ago. If only because it’s not about songs anymore but about who can dress up in the silliest costume. You couldn’t even hear the Finnish song for the racket. OK I’m a Brian Kennedy fan but his music is a lot easier on the ears.
4 On May 27, 2006 at 18:08, Keith wrote:
The song itself offends me. It epitomises all that’s wrong with the Eurovision and how songs for it are chosen in this country. It’s bland and unoriginal, and not entirely dissimilar to the kind of rubbish we’ve been entering since... well... forever! And I’ve a perfect right to criticise what I see as poor work. Ok, so the feltching comment as going a bit far, but I stand by my criticisms of the song and the video for it.
Now, the reason I wanted Lordi to win was that they were completely different from anything else in there--they challenged the status quo and didn’t take themselves too seriously. Sure, it’s not the best song ever, but it was a damned sight better than anything else on offer, and the show they put on was a decent bit of fun rather than the usual choice of either T&A or bland ballads.
I’m afraid he just doesn’t do it for me in any shape or form. But like a lot of things in the world I’m not a fan of, just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean I think nobody else should like them either. None of us can claim perfect taste, after all.
(For the record, unlike Mick who posted above, I prefer twee indie like Sambassadeur, alt-country like Gemma Hayes, stoner ambience like Boards of Canada, and so on. Not exactly hardcore, am I?![[smile]](/images/smilies/smile.gif)
)
5 On May 27, 2006 at 18:16, Keith wrote:
For the sake of example, here’s the playlist for my iPod. Pretty much all over the place, and aside from a bunch of Squarepusher’s more melodic pieces and a few other tracks, there’s nothing too extreme. And there’s even some mainstream pop in there too!
6 On May 30, 2006 at 19:05, Petra wrote:
I’m a swedish girl that didn’t like our contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest this year, I think Finland did a great and needed performance (live, that is, not on the radio) but I simply loved Brian Kennedy’s song, I loved everything about it. It proved that music to its chord is simple and beautiful. I think Ireland can be proud of your contribution. The video is another story, not so great, hm...
7 On May 31, 2006 at 11:09, Keith wrote:
Yup, the video was the most embarrassing element of the whole thing. Just thinking about it makes me cringe.
On the song, there’s a very thin like between simplicity and blandness. For me, the song crosses that line. Maybe I just don’t appreciate it, but I still think we could a lot better than entering that song.
8 On September 16, 2006 at 23:47, mary wrote:
Brian Kennedy has a great voice, he was probably the only one in the Eurovision Song Contest that could actually sing. I really loved the song and i think he did our Country proud considering how badly we have done every other year!
9 On January 5, 2007 at 2:57, Anne Marie wrote:
I am extremely offended! I think Brian is an extremely talented singer and songwriter. I think he was the only person in the Eurovision who could actually sing and i am proud of him for that. Plus the fact that he was willing to take it on! He did our country proud and if there was any justice he would have won, then you would eat your words!!! But Eurovision is not about singing anymore it is about forming alliances and that has been proven year on year so there!!