Orcs and Elves compete in Song Contest

[Nogrod]

I can't say that I like the kind of music Lordi plays - or their particular way of doing it. But if one looks at the history of the Eurovision song contest, especially the last 10-20 years, that surely was refreshing!

I guess most of the votes for Lordi came from people who normally don't bother to vote for the contest because it's all so trimmed and clean "Euro-pop" that no-one with any real interest in music will ever consent to even listen...


But this Scandinavia - Tolkien - Monster-Heavy / Elven folkmusic -thing I think is an obvious one. I at least - as a Scandinavian - can see the connection pretty well. I couldn't see these kinds of things coming out from Guatemala or Myanmar (or Monaco, France or Austria).

With this I think it quite understandable, why Tolkien's books are so highly appreciated in the Scandinavian countries (they are appreciated elsewhere too, surely ). After all, he picked a lot from our lore & languages to build up his world.

And I can't see the pick being a random-one, when the Finninsh band Värttinä was called up to make the music to the Toronto-musical. There are the same stories, the same sentiments I think Tolkien himself was after. (And I'm not trying say this is exclusively Scandinavian - but still something very essential to it)

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Personally, I thought the most Orcish entry was the British one, which was so cringeworthy I couldn't bring myself to watch; at least 80's hair metal has the necessary Eurovision kitsch factor, so I was quite pleased an act like that won it.

It always surprises me that for a country that can produce such great artists and bands we always end up with such dreadful Eurovision entries. But it's Eurovision I suppose so quality is most definately not assured.

I didn't hear the British entry but it sounded pretty dreadful from the reports. Still, at least they picked up a few points, which is progress. Remember the duo that couldn't even sing in tune ...

Did the Elvish entry "tra-la-lally"? That could explain why they didn't do so well ...

[davem]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Did the Elvish entry "tra-la-lally"? That could explain why they didn't do so well ...

See the link in my post (no 4) to watch any of the entries.

[Thinlómien]

Go Lordi!

Well, I'm just glad that Finland won though the song was horrible. Like most of the others.

But the norwegian song, I don't know if the words were anything Elvish... I could see from the subtitles that they were mostly like: "Come on, admit it, you want me, I smell so good..." And I'm not sure if that's very elf-like...

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I was very happy for our Finnish Downer contingent last night...despite having been in the contest almost from the beginning, Finland have never been given douze pointes before, let alone won.

Thanks! You know what they say, 40th time lucky...

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I'm quite amused at the prospect of Scandinavian countries being inspired in future to maybe put some of their black or death metal bands forward for Eurovision.

Well, Nightwish was one candidate for representing us years ago, but they got turned down...


According to the official Eurovision site, Norway's song was "Elve's Dance" in English, but Lommy is right, the lyrics didn't say anything about elves. Still, it's no wonder that they came up with a song title like that since forest spirits, elves and trolls are such a big part of Scandinavian mythology - often combined with the magic of Midsummer's Eve, like in Norway's song, I assume. Lordi, on the other hand, has got his influences mostly from historical/ horror stories. For example, the band's guitarist is supposed to be a mummy from ancient Egypt and Mr. Lordi is a reincarnation of Jenghis Khan and Freddy Krueger. But they do look rather orcish.

Lordi faced quite much criticizing beforehand from accusations of Satanism (the accusations were unfounded, though) to disgracing Finland in the eyes of the Europeans, and as a Swedish newspaper put it, a competition between Beauty and the Beast ended in the latter winning.

I think it's nice that in the middle of basic pop songs some countries have something more traditional or natural to them. Norway's Elves were sweet singing in Norwegian and all, but our Orcs were the alternative option in the contest which was bound to gather at least a few votes from their fans. Even though we don't have such characters in our folklore as in the band Lordi, hard rock/ metal as a music genre is what Finnish bands do best and for once we chose a representative accordingly.

[Lalaith]

I had some vague memories of scandal and horror surrounding the black metal scene in Scandinavia (that sentence looked like an exercise in using "sc" as often as possible, didn't it....) and this thread inspired me to remind myself.
Put "black metal" into Wikipedia, the whole story is quite bizarre and quite horrible. There is also the inevitable Tolkien/Orc connection, too...one of the main men of the movement, who burnt down a bunch of stave churches in Norway, called himself "Count Grishnakh"....
Metal is extraordinarily byzantine with all these sub-genres and whatnot. I had no idea, I thought it was just a bunch of sweaty blokes with guitars...

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by dancing spawn of ungoliant

as a Swedish newspaper put it, a competition between Beauty and the Beast ended in the latter winning.

And as that Swedish newspaper referred to the fight between Lordi and Carola (from Sweden), one Finnish columnist turned that upsidedown today: it was a competition between the Beauty and the Beast right, but it was the Beauty that won...

[Roa_Aoife]

I checked out the link in davem's post. That was worse than the American Idol preliminaries.

Okay, may not worse, but still....

I like heavy metal, and that was just bad.

And one guy looks more like a klingon than an orc.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

It always surprises me that for a country that can produce such great artists and bands we always end up with such dreadful Eurovision entries. But it's Eurovision I suppose so quality is most definately not assured.

I know, Britain ought to be able to win it every year but for some reason the Pop Idol - The Rejects contestants are chosen! The Elven thing reminded me of one of these dance tracks with female vocalists with the house beat removed, to be honest (and, um...not dissimilar to an Irish winner a few years back). Some tra-la-la-lallying would have been an improvement!

My favourite Eurovision entry was the entirely fictitious entry by Father Ted Crilly and Father Dougal Maguire, My Lovely Horse.