I've always been intrigued by a loser. Because we all know that success is just down to obsessive hard work, self-improvement and, more often than not, the intangibles that just make you better than everyone else anyway; and so it's the stories behind those who come up short that are often more interesting. Eddie the Eagle, 2014/15 London Welsh, Liu Xiang pulling up before the start line at the Beijing Olympics. It's no coincidence that by far the most compelling season of Amazon's All or Nothing was the one that followed the Los Angeles Rams' dismal 2-14 season a couple of years back, or that by far my favourite YouTube discovery has been Todd in the Shadows' One Hit Wonderland: a look at the lives of artists who achieved one thing once and then not a lot else. Nul Points seems like a literary equivalent, as Moore delves into the dark side of the world's biggest talent show. What could it be like to get up there on stage, the hopes of a nation on your shoulders, only for literally millions of folks back home to ignore you completely? Well as it turns out, there are all sorts of tales to be told from before and after the big zero, from some fascinating characters who were determined - perhaps a little too much so - not to let the biggest failure of all define them.
There's Norwegian rock legend Jahn Teigen, the first to score nul points in what is generally considered the contest's modern era after his 1978 braces-twanging, high-kicking, rather tuneless performance of Mil etter mil garnered not a single sympathy vote from across the continent. He went on to form the Norwegian equivalent of Monty Python, is still respected in prog rock circles and now owns a recording studio and a micro-brewery. His is one of the more uplifting stories - in fact, it's really only matched by that of Finland's Timo Kojo, a former punk rocker who, halfway through his anti-nuclear anthem, decided for reasons that are still unclear, to start slapping himself in the face. He thought his final score was a hilarious middle finger to the establishment, although his countrymen, who take Eurovision very, very seriously, didn't agree. Still, that didn't stop him from rising to among Finland's elite; he now part-owns a country club and holds a patent for a floating golf driving range. Because of course. Oh and let's not forget Daníel Haraldsson from Iceland who had barely heard of the contest when he was thrust in at the age of 19, and went on to a successful career as an electronic musician and experimental artist. At the time of interviewing, he lived in a castle in Belgium.
Outside of that trio, things get considerably darker. You have the likes of Lithuania's Ovidijus Vysniauskus, completely nondescript on the stage and off both before and since, Austria's Thomas Forstner, who Moore almost completely failed to even track down, and Turkey's Cetin Alp - the 1983 final remains the only known footage of him performing. For others, it was worse still: rather than fading to obscurity, the likes of Portugal's Celia Lawson and Spain's Remedios Amaya were driven to a personal and financial ruin from which they never really recovered. Switzerland's wonderfully-named Gunvor Guggisberg was at the centre of a savage tabloid storm that left her bankrupt and effectively blacklisted from the entertainment industry: she went from Eurovision in May of 1998 to struggling to get bookings at local fairs by the end of the summer.
And let's not forget the utter travesty that inspired the whole book: the UK letting half a century of complacency get the better of us as Jemini took the stage in Riga in 2003, came in about half an octave flat of the backing track and spent the rest of the song failing to get back into tune... as perfomances go, it's by far the worst of any of these, most of which don't really seem notably bad compared to a lot of what's been out there. Pure and simple, an excruciating listen. Not their fault though - the track was apparently different to what they'd rehearsed with, leading to bizarre claims of sabotage in the wake of Tony Blair's entry into the Iraq conflict.
The worst story, though, would have to be that of Norwegian balladeer Finn Kalvik. A serious player in the Scandanavian folk scene, his 1981 tune Aldri i livet was penned by ABBA's Benny Andersson and featured backing vocals from the group's Anni-Frid Lyngstad; the closest, in fact, the group ever came to reappearing on a Eurovision stage after their 1974 win. In short, it deserved better; it's just impossible to pinpoint exactly why he didn't do better - too sensitive, too quiet, not enough of a show perhaps. In any case, he took the loss very badly: new releases became increasingly sporadic, the live show offers dried up and he was satirised mercilessly on Norwegian TV, all of which led to a self-imposed exile in Thailand, years of alcoholism and depression, and a seething hatred of the media that Moore ultimately feels in full force. It's a pertinent reminder of the human cost of failure and the dangers of competitive judgement of artistic endeavour.
In fact, his early encounter with Kalvik seems to put Moore off the project somewhat - in later chapters he runs out of steam; everything feels a bit more formulaic and hurried, there's less of a scratch beneath the surface of the people and more gleaned from past interviews and articles. Stylistically the prose can be clumsy at times and the witticisms do start to repeat.
But ultimately this is a fascinating insight into one of the world's most unusual events: Moore uncovers a fan community composed of flambouyant spectacle lovers and proper, committed statistics nerds, the latter of which provide a lot of the most interesting (or maybe tragic, I don't even know any more) facts in the book. Like how there is indeed a Scandanavian voting bloc, but Norway have always received far fewer points from their neighbours than they have given out, how national juries must be composed of four men, four women, four of which under 30 and four over, and how U2 bought up the staging of the 2005 contest for a future tour.
3.5/5
Yes, I've listened to all of these songs. Most are just forgettable; the worst by far is Remedios Amaya's godawful, tuneless, caterwauled flamenco-disco monstrosity Quien maneja mi barca? And of course the best is Aldri i livet.
No comments:
Post a Comment