Welcome once again to the Eurovision That Never Was 2014! Submissions aren’t
open yet, but in any event you should read all this before you send me your
entry.
If you’re still unsure what ETNW is all about, think of it like this: can
you name a song that sounded to you – the very first time you heard it – like
the kind of thing Croatia would have entered in the early 2000s/Moldova would
have come up with had they been participating in 1978/Luxembourg would have
sent to Malmö if they were still taking part? If so, now’s your chance to see how
many of your fellow MBers agree!
The 5th edition of ETNW will have basically the same set-up as
the last one. (See below.) If this doesn’t cover everything, ask and ye shall
receive – either by emailing me at the contest address or posting on the MB.
The board is probably the best option, since it gives everyone the chance to
see it.
*****
1. Songs from any country and any year can be entered for any country
and any year.
2. Songs can be in any language and any length.
3. No songs that have taken part in Eurovision or a national
selection process are allowed.
4. No cover versions are allowed.
5. Singers may have taken part in a national selection process
but not taken part in Eurovision itself.
6. Sponsors must be current MB regulars or former ETNW entrants.
*****
And now the explanations…
First and foremost, the idea of ETNW is to submit stuff that makes voters
go "yep, that certainly sounds
like something the Soviet Union might have entered in 1957!" or "sure,
I can see Denmark picking something like that in 2003". The more plausible
your combination – a Spanish song in Catalan recorded in 1994 being entered as Andorra
1995, for example, as opposed to, say, a song in French recorded in 2001 being
submitted as Greece 1982 – the more likely it is that people will view it as
‘authentic’.
(The same can be said of song length and language: you’re free to exceed
Eurovision’s three-minute and language rules, but bear in mind that some voters
may use these as criteria to mark your entry down if push comes to shove.)
This brings us to the big unwritten rule of ETNW: when
you vote, it’s not supposed to be about what you like as much as what you think
is most authentic based on the years and countries the songs are allocated to.
True, that’s largely subjective, and some people have struggled with it a bit
in previous contests, but the 2013 results in particular showed that most were
happy to embrace the idea.
If you’re still scratching your head a bit, here’s a crappy How To Vote flow
charty thing. (You should rank according to taste at each level in the chart.)
With any luck you’ll find 10 entries in each semi and the final you think
are authentic, in which case you can rank them as you would in any other MB
contest i.e. according to how much you like them. However, if you don’t, you
need to implement the approach in the flow chart. Voters in the past have had
trouble with the middle bit more than anything – rewarding good matches they
don’t particularly enjoy over poor matches they do – but like it or not, that is the
point of the contest.
The other thing about ETNW is that while it’s designed to find songs that
feel as though they could have been Eurovision entries, as a contest – like all
of the music contests hosted on the MB – it generally encourages ‘new’ music.
So although the former rules about ‘no ESC composers’ and ‘no national final
singers’ have been overturned, I’d still suggest you look for stuff that’s
unconnected to Eurovision but nevertheless fits, as opposed to something or
someone connected to the contest that never quite made it.
Also, don’t forget that your entry is not (necessarily) meant to replace the song from the year and
country you allocate it to – you’re not looking for an entry that sounds
exactly the same as an existing ESC entry. Voters tend to see through this a
bit. If you’ve found a Norwegian song that sounds uncannily like Lenge leve livet, you might want to
think twice about submitting it as Norway 1984. You may well find you do better
with the other Norwegian song you’ve found that sounds generally like the kind
of thing they entered in the mid-’80s and which you submit as Norway 1986.
(Then again, you might not. Nothing’s guaranteed.) The point is, ETNW isn’t
about copies of actual entries.
And just to spell out point #5 of the rules, I draw the line at Eurovision
performers as credited on screen (or if they form part of a duo/group/other as
credited). I’d prefer your singer never to have appeared on an ESC stage, but
if he/she was Unnamed Backing Singer #2 for Hungary in Baku in 2012 or whatever
and that’s the only line on their Eurovision CV (not counting the 53 national
final attempts), I won't slap you down. The voters might, but
that’s not for me to say… ;)
Submissions are yet to open, but you’ll need to send me the following in
due course:
1. An MP3 of your entry
2. The name of your song and singer
3. The year and country you’re allocating it to
4. Your MB/contest nickname
5. A bio for your entry following a template I'll post separately
Everyone's bios will be published when the semi-finals go live. They give you the opportunity
to provide background info on your entry and to explain to sceptical voters why
you think it's a good fit. (See the subsequent post for more details.)
That's it until submissions open. Start sourcing those hard-to-find MP3s!
P.S. I thought about throwing in a 5th anniversary twist telling
people they couldn’t submit songs for any countries they’ve submitted them for
in the past, so as to encourage variety and make it harder for people to guess
who’s submitted what… but then I realised that would probably just lead to
fewer entries. That said, I still encourage it. I’ve never submitted anything
for the same country twice ;)
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