Does anyone else follow it? I've only just started after last year when Lordi won (yup I LOVED Hardrock Hallilujah lol) This year Finland had a great singer as well as Iceland but niether of them made it to the semi finals, unfortunatly all the bands who did make it to the semis suck in my opinion. Thank god Poland didn't make it, I have nothing wrong with the country but their song was horrible!

Sounds interesting... is this like a metal reality show?

I wish. From what I have been able to dig up about it, its a contest where bands from Europe could submit bands or singers who made original songs and they get judged on a points system and the country with the most points wins. It was a shock that a metal band won last year, this year the closest band to metal was Iceland's entry, it was kind of like Power metal. I guess the contest has been going on for about 50 years.
I guess american idol is doing a new thing where they are looking for bands, it would be really cool if metal dominated in it.

Huh... that is interesting! I hadn't heard of this.

All the years I've been in Sweden, I've watched it sacredly. It's a show of complete kitsch, bad taste in clothes, voices and songs. Every year, each country that chooses to do so submits a song to compete with.

Here in Sweden it's a big thing with quarter finals, semi-finals and a final, while in other countries a jury group simply chooses an artist and song to enter.

Last Saturday was the annual contest, a ballad from Serbia won, which means that next year's contest will be in Minsk. This past one was in Helsinki since Lordi won last year. That was the only time I ever bothered voting. Not only did they win, but also scored the highest poinst a winner ever has in the history of the contest. They did a part movie/part repeat performance at the beginning of the show this year and the middle act was Apocalyptica playing with acrobats, jugglers etc performed.

The contest has become more controversial lately because of the voting. You can vote for any country except your own, but neighboring countries tend to vote for each other, which people don't like.

Anyhow, this is crazyness that more than anything is a fun spectacle.

I'd honestly never heard anything about Eurovision until 2003. I was on a major t.A.T.u. kick at the time & burning every track of their's I could find when I stumbled across Ne Ver Ne Bosjna (sic), their Russian entry in that year's contest. Did a little research & as really surprised to see how big the contest was in Europe considering I'd never heard of it. Just another example of American ignorance of the rest of the world, I guess.

From my example, you can extend that to some of North America anyway... though my fellow Canuks may well be on it. B)

I hated the Serbia entry :(