Four years ago, America was hit with the massively sucessful American Idol. However, the original version of the show was called Pop Idol in the UK in 1999, where Simon Cowell first came to the public eye by being a cruel, but honest, judge. Before that show, in 1998, there was a really disasterously lame show called "popstars", where a boy or girl band was to be formed by the top five contestants. It was here that Nigel Lithgoe (known only in the british tabloids as "Nasty Nick") became the original judge from hell and lead him to develope and produce the programme which would later be known as pop/american idol. He's some wealthy guy now I'd say.

However, while all of the shows mentioned above may seem like new ideas, they're not. In Europe, there has been a song contest called the "eurovision song contest" which has been in operation since 1956.

The Eurovision Song Contest grew out of an Italian competition, the San Remo Song Festival, meant to foster European unity after World War II. The name "Eurovision" originates from the name given to a network of communication channels—founded in the 1950s—that links state TV stations across Europe. In an effort to scare up programming to justify the network, members thought up the Song Contest and the first was held in Switzerland in 1956. Ireland has won an incredible seven times, twice with entries performed by Johnny Logan - the only artist to have won Eurovision more than once. He won in 1980 and 1987 and he wrote the 1992 winning song, which was performed by Linda Martin. Unsurprisingly, Ireland's record is better than any other country - France, Luxembourg and the UK are the next best, with five victories each, none of which are likely to challenge Ireland's tally just yet. Amazingly, Ireland won four contests in five years during the mid 1990s, with songs performed by Linda Martin (92), Niamh Kavanagh (93), Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan (94), and most recently with Eimear Quinn and 'The Voice' (96). While all secured easy victories at the time, none of the 1990s winners are particularly memorable. Rather, Dana's 'All kinds of everything' from 1970, and Johnny Logan's two songs from 1980 and 1987, 'What's another year' and 'Hold me now', are probably Ireland's best known winners. The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the most-watched single events, with at least 300 million TV viewers in Europe.

A lot of famous singers started from eurovision. For example, a young songwriting team, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, wrote one of the songs for Britain’s national Eurovision Contest in 1966, while Celine Dion and ABBA got their big breaks by winning Eurovision. Eurovision's biggest success was in 1994 when the competition was held in Millstreet, Cork, Ireland. The success was surprisingly not from a song entered in the competition itself, but rather from an interlude act that was performed while the votes were being counted. The then unknown interlude act was simply introduced as Riverdance......

Below are videos of the Eurovision live event and the offical studio recordings of the songs.

System Requirements:
Video: Windows Media Player
Audio: Real Player
Click here to download Real Player


Irish Eurovision Song Contest Winners:

1970 Dana: All Kinds of Everything

(Video) (Audio)

1980 Johnny Logan: What’s Another Year

(Video) (Audio)

1987 Johnny Logan: Hold Me Now

(Video) (Audio)

1992 Linda Martin: Why Me?

(Video) (Audio)

1993 Niamh Kavanagh: In Your Eyes

(Video) (Audio)

1994 Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan: Rock and Roll Kids

(Video) (Audio)

1996 Eimear Quinn: The Voice

(Video) (Audio)


Other Notable Songs were:

1990 Liam Reilly: Somewhere in Europe (2nd)

(Video) (Audio)

1997 Marc Roberts: Mysterious Woman (2nd)

(Video) (Audio)

2003 Mickey Harte: We've Got The World Tonight

(Video) (Audio)

1988 Celine Dion: Swiss entry
(Video)

If you want to see the rest of Irelands Eurovison Songs, click here.

Getting back to whether eurovision or American idol is better, the eurovision in recent years has strayed from its original purpose to find the best song and is now becoming more a commericalised stage show than a music competition. This is due to the opening up of the voting system to televoting and the inclusion of a substantial amount of former soviet states. (all of which seem to vote for each other even if the song is rubbish). Due to a combination of the eastern block of Europe having more supporting voting power and preferring more ethnic/theatrical music, rather than popular music, the result is that Ireland and other western European states have not even come close in the last few years in winning the competition. So with that in mind, I would have to say american idol, despite it being over commercialised and being glorified karaoke, is the both the better show to watch and results in better music being produced. I wish eurovision would return to its roots and concentrate more on songs that the almost circus like theatrics that have developed over the last 5 years.

In order to try and adapt to the new direction that the eurovision has taken, Ireland started up its own American Idol type show, called "You're a Star". While this years season doesnt seem to be as good as previous years, its still a good watch nevertheless.
To watch all previous episodes of the show click here
Another good site covering the show can be found here

Anyways, we dont need eurovision to make us a famous music country, we already produced U2!!

Let me know if any of the links dont work.

# posted by Noel Burke @ 10:03 PM