Bangaranga

There is also an element of synchronicity because this energetic and infectious summer hit has in its name a Jamaican expression for rebellion, fuss, loud discussion, although for the purposes of the competition the author and singer said that it is an internal rebellion in a positive sense. This meaning certainly helped Bulgaria become the host and slightly shift the focus of the geopolitical conflicts that have characterized the Eurovision Song Contest in recent years.

Namely, you know that five countries (Spain, Iceland, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia) boycotted the competition this year in protest of Israel's participation and the terrible crimes committed by the Israeli army in Gaza against Palestinian civilians. Some of the public service stations broadcast documentaries about crimes or genocide in Gaza. No matter how hard the organizers in Vienna tried to ignore it, it was really impossible to avoid this unpleasant topic. Of course, the questioning of Israel's participation necessarily leads to the question of excluding Russia from the competition, which is increasingly difficult to justify with arguments of participation in aggression.

That's probably why in Vienna they tried to turn the Eurovision Song Contest into a jubilee celebration - 70 years of competition under the slogan "united by music". Unfortunately, even in the controlled conditions of the hall, it turned out that the crowd was quite vocal when Israel took the lead thanks to crowd votes. In previous years, some countries raised the question of the regularity of voting precisely because of the mysterious dominance of Israel, which the audience around the world loves indescribably and votes for songs from this country like crazy. Thus, Israel finished second, and Romania, another country from our neighborhood, took third place. They are followed by Australia, which had a notable performance and, after it, Italy in the classic "Sanremo edition" with a singer in a white suit.

History repeated itself regarding the placement of Great Britain, Belgium and Germany, which did not win a single point from the audience, with the fact that the British (YouTuber with the song Mama, Look, there's no computer.!) exactly, the very last one. Of course, this does not prevent the British from still passionately following this competition.

It's the same with us. "Lavina" finished in 17th place, and the ethnic group "Lelek" from Croatia in 15th. Here we come to a new series of controversies related to the traditional "fraternal voting" or the exchange of points between neighbors and friends. The Scandinavians honor each other with 12 points, the Greeks and Cypriots do the same, but, for example, there was no such exchange between Moldova and Romania. Since the jury from Moldova did not give 12 points to the Romanian hard rock group and the song with a symbolic name It's choking me.!, followed by mass demonstrations and the resignation of the director of the Public Service of Moldova. Since the unification of these two countries is even mentioned, in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, then it is not right when the jury is out on, let's say, Poland. The level of this musical geopolitics was seen both in us and in our neighbors. First, President Vučić recently addressed the citizens of Montenegro in a strange and pathetic tone, ending his elegy with the phrase "I'm sorry that we loved you more than you loved us." Everything is happening before the anniversary of the referendum and 20 years of independence, or the secession of Montenegro, it depends on what you call it. I don't even want to talk about the Croats who, according to Minister Glišić, want to rob us of the glory of Christ and the Orthodox faith through the students, because they are, again in Vučić's words, "a logistical and media platform for the destruction of Serbia." How they were just pre-fried and smeared, because it was the Croats and Montenegrins who gave us 12 points each. If you look at the voting structure of both the jury and the audience, jbt, it turns out that they don't hate us, but really, really like us.

We were not fooled - although the audience awarded "Lelek" with 12 points, the jury of RTS gave 12 points to the Greeks in order to cancel our EES system this summer. Eucharist!

In the end, if we look at the structure of the songs, the motif of "self-support" or "empowerment" appeared most often, from the Swedish woman's symbolic and stylized covid mask, through the struggle with anxiety, to liberation from internal bonds. It seems that despite everything, Europe is currently a space where a high degree of artistic, sexual and religious freedom has been achieved, so they do not appear as inspiration for artists. The war is in Ukraine and Gaza, somewhere on the edges of this zone, although a kind of uncertainty is omnipresent. There is a dichotomy between the taste of the jury and the audience, hence the unusually large number of songs flirting with classical music or opera (that really pissed me off), or songs from the europop sound category that seem like a VI product. As for whining, we had "Lelek" from Croatia and Ukraine, where the idea of ​​a nation-victim is implicitly introduced. And the enemies can be Turks, Russians or someone else.

With a couple of technical gaffes, an uninventive script and a host couple whose names sound like pseudonyms of porn stars from the eighties (Swarovski/Orlovski), the rest of the broadcast was reduced to more or less toxic comments by Duška Vučinić, whose energy level drastically decreased when it became clear that "Lavina" would not achieve incredible success. Irony then turns into sarcasm, so we can think that we have been offended. The "extraction" of the guys from "Lavina" who later complained about the level of professionalism of the Eurovision Song Contest producers did not sound convincing to me either. No one is to blame, no excuses needed, great performance. And the students on Saturday – BANGARANGA!