Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia Eurovision Success

The Daily Telegraph Blog reports that the third of the three South Caucasus republics, Georgia, is through to the final of this year’s final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Is that good news? Well, it depends on whether you consider the cheesiest international song contest out there to be worth entering in the first place.

Of course, it’s encouraging to see Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia succeed in the same competition although unlike last year, the Georgian entry is hardly inspiring and unlikely to do much better than pass the semi-final stage. A pity if only because last year’s entry was fantastic — too good for Eurovision, in fact.

This year, however, Georgia seems to be trying to pluck at the heart strings by entering Diana Gurtskaya, a blind refugee from Abkhazia, singing the song “Peace Will Come.” As Eurovision Song Contest 2008 pointed out, pretentious is not the word and personally speaking, I was expecting much better considering last year’s entry.

Of course, that depends whether you consider sending a blind woman to perform an anthem in which she is basically saying “if I can see this why can’t you” to be naïve, and many would say that it is actually about as studied as you can get. The mere fact that the song is a peace anthem though is what makes it naïve: as well-meant as these things possibly are, they frequently come across as disingenuous, especially in a contest where people don’t necessarily want a song with a message. Eurovision may be designed to bring people together, but no one wants the credo shoved down their throats, and in that sense what you are saying is bound to fall on deaf ears. That may even be in spite of the fact that the message is pertinent to the situation in the country it is representing, as with Peace Will Come and the instability plaguing Georgia. In this day and age people are cynical enough without Eurovision force-feeding them moral virtue. Wrong audience.

Still, it’s Eurovision and Georgia got through despite pundits not really liking the song or the artist. Politically incorrect it may be, but Deadline described the song such: “She’s blind. Since this, however, isn’t Paravision 2008, she won’t get brownie points for it, sorry.” Bevismusson didn’t really notice the song much and was more appalled by Gurtskaya’s attire.

Being blind is no excuse for wearing that outfit which just makes her look like a squat marquetry cabinet that’s been attacked by a goth designer. Bit of a plodder of a song but it could do quite well.

Still, at least we know that Georgia’s excellent entry last year wasn’t “good enough” for Eurovision, that pending a miracle on Saturday Sirusho can’t sing live, and that Azerbaijan’s Elnur & Samir are the only ones in the South Caucasus to provide real quality if over-the-top entertainment this year.