Thank of you.
Clodet Mooradian
Good-day

The participation fee itself is not so high and appears to vary depending on the country. Here’s the details as it pertains to Georgia not entering last year.

Talk of delaying entry for twelve months has been put down to financial concerns. A recent meeting of the Eurovision Song Contest reference Group set the basic costs of entering the 51st show. A small broadcaster like Georgian TV, making its debut at the contest, would face a bill of just 50,000 euros. General manager of GTVR Vano Tarhnishvili told a press conference that this participation fee in itself is not a problem. His concerns lay with ensuring that the broadcaster could provide its participants with the back up and support needed to compete on an equal footing with those from well-funded state TV stations.

“The true costs of taking part can add up to more than 500,000 euros,” he announced, “Only with that sort of money available, can we produce a CD, shoot a professional video and arrange promotional tours for our representatives.” A search for possible sponsors is underway, though if the money cannot be found by the end of October, GTVR will hold off their debut at the contest for another year.

Unfortunately, the Armenian singer Hayko’s musical selection and presentation, gently put, was dull and uninteresting. I cannot help but think of all the exquisite Armenian songs and music we have. Why not share them with the world?

As a country which’d participate for the first time, Armenian did everything to enter the final. But now with Andre winning a ticket to the final, we thought just follow the rest – to make fun, sending there someone who needs fame and promotion and who is also closely linked to the people responsible for organizing it here. Why not? “Akhperutyune masnakcelua Evravideniayin”. If only that “akhberutyun” had a bit of talent to be in the best 10. But who knows, now I’m getting more and more assured that one doesn’t need to be talented as to appear there. So won’t get surprised if Hayko wins. Be it even Emin Davidov, it’s all politics, countries grant high points to the countries they are closely related strategically.

I have known about Hayko going to Eurovision about a month before this. My sources were trustful. And all the show staged with audience voting was just for promoting the kids there. Only links-relatives-friends-acquaintances matter here.

But the issue here is not Hayko or his crappy music. It’s the failure of the Armenian movers and shakers to play by the rules. The rules are that the contestant has to be chosen by the audience. In this case, the input from the audience was zero.

Anyway, long and short of it is that Hayko is pretty much the stuff Eurovisions are made of. It’s why most music lovers steer clear of it in the first place.

On a brighter note [for Armenia, but not music lovers that is], Eurovision is usually so shitty that Hayko might well have what it takes to win.

Hayko is more than Eurovision deserves…

2. Fantasy Land

Ah, a full-blown retro-disco track. This is rather well done and genuinely sounds like it could have fallen out of the “Boogie Nights” soundtrack. That said, it reminds me of Lithuania’s 2001 entry “You’ve Got Style” and I can already picture the backing group in “hysterical” costumes. It sounds great as a studio track, but it’s the sort of entry that is just begging to be sung off key when performed live. I like it, but I wouldn’t send it to Eurovision.

Still, I really liked “My Story” which to be honest was probably too good for Eurovision and not really the kind of thing that your typical Eurovision viewer would listen to. Apart from Abba and Céline Dion, noteworthy musical acts rarely come from Eurovision.

1. My Story

I saw a comment somewhere that this sounded like Madonna’s “Ray of Light”, and that’s spot on. I would imagine that every country east of Slovenia would lap this up. But when it transforms from a fairly standard turbo folk entry to a full-on club track, about a minute in, it becomes an entry that should have appeal across Europe. In places the change between the different moods of the song are a little jarring, but I will reserve judgement until I see it performed. I really hope this is chosen; it should do well for Georgia.

[…]

On the whole, this is an impressive debut national final. The more established countries (and I’m really thinking of Germany at this point) should take note and pull their finger out. There are songs here that are more than the match of the “best” that any of the Big 4 have sent to the contest in the past 3 / 4 years.

Anyway, am including both videos below, and the MP3s can be downloaded at the following addresses.

My Story
http://www.eurovision-georgia.ge/sopo_mp3/My%20story.wma

Fantasy Land
http://www.eurovision-georgia.ge/sopo_mp3/Fantasy%20Land.wma

I still like the one sung in Georgian, however, although it probably isn’t a good idea to enter a song sung in anything other than English.

On Adjarian Motives
http://www.eurovision-georgia.ge/sopo_mp3/on%20adjarian%20motives.wma

The official Georgian Eurovision site is at http://www.eurovision-georgia.ge while Armenia’s is at http://www.eurovision.am.

Life Around Me
Life in Armenia
Blogrel

I merely put all the posts together.

Still, didn’t take you for a Hayko fan. The mind boggles. Maybe you like cheesy crooners, huh?

Only watched four of the five videos so far, but I like the one in what I assume is Georgian which I’m including below. The other three were in English. There’s more on the promo campaign behind Khalvashi here.