AS a sometime D.J you would expect my music taste to be fairly cool. However I have a guilty secret, one so bad that it attracts even more condemnation than my choice of daily newspaper.
What is this terrible thing of which you dare not utter, I hear you cry.
Ok, I’ll admit it but please don’t think any worse of me, for it only happens but once a year.
Ok, deep breath, here we go.......I LOVE EUROVISION.
And so it came to pass that it was through this medium on 7th March that Eurovision fans found out who would be performing our entry this year. BONNIE TYLER TO REPRESENT UK IN EUROVISION squawked thousands of tweets and on-line newspaper headlines.
It didn’t take long for the jokes to start coming on twitter such as ‘ I got a Bonnie Tyler Sat- Nav. for Xmas , it’s rubbish, it tells you to turn around but every now and then it falls apart ‘ or ‘ I’m livid to find out Bonnie Tyler is not a handsome Scottish decorator’.
Miss Tyler’s name is one that conjures up the epitome of 80s soft rock ballads when the mullet was king and hairspray was the drug of choice. I’m pretty sure the last time she was in the spotlight was back at the start of the new millennium when she was the evening entertainment at Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones wedding reception. So quite why she’s been chosen to represent the best of what the United Kingdom has to offer I’m not sure.
In general our own little island never seems to get it quite right anymore. If we try to be trendy and with it something more traditional wins and when we go for old and classic something up to date and of the moment is the one that gets its moment of glory. You only have to look at poor old Engelbert Humperdink last year scraping in at second to last while Sweden’s Lorenna took the top spot with club hit ‘Euphoria ‘.
We didn’t always do so bad, winning twice in the 60s, once in the 70s ,80s and the 90’s, even getting decent chart places with some of the songs regardless of what position they came. Lately though the choice of song or performer doesn’t seem to have the same magic as those from other countries .Maybe the BBC sees it as something as a little bit of a nuisance sibling that it has to keep giving airtime to because they’re related but doesn’t really care too much about . But I think they could be missing a trick.
A lot of the recent year’s winners are songs that have already been at no.1 in their own countries before they come to the competition so why don’t we ever use that mentality. The argument I suppose is that most people who would be a great choice for this plan are the ones who wouldn’t want to touch the opportunity with a bargepole for fear of jeopardising their cool factor. Which then leaves us with those from the x factor /voice style camp but that wouldn’t be so bad either at least some of those are well known all around the globe and much as I despise the man Simon Cowell hasn’t got where he is today without being able to pick a winning formula when he sees it.
Anyway, let’s get back to Bonnie, I’ve thought long and hard about the theory on the calling up of this lady from the valleys and I’ve come up with this. Our last two winning songs ‘Making your mind up ‘ by Bucks Fizz = 80s school disco classic .‘ Then there was 1997’s Love shine a light ‘by Katrina and the waves who also had the massive 80s hit ‘Walking on Sunshine ‘. And who was the singer of that other rocktastic hit of the 80s ‘ total eclipse of the heart ‘ why none other than miss bonnie herself so I’m thinking the Eurovision boffins finally think they have hit on a formula that might just work , that 80s might just be their lucky number
We will have to wait and see on the conclusion to that particular experiment but until then we’ll have to take bonnie at her word and ‘believe in me ‘.
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