Welcome once again to the Eurovision That Never Was 2015! 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 about it like this: is
there a song that sounded to you, the first time you heard it, like the kind of
thing Cyprus would have entered in the early ’90s/Latvia would have entered had
they been participating in 1958/Monaco would have sent to Copenhagen last year
if they were still taking part? If so, now’s your chance to see how many of
your fellow MBers agree!
The 6th edition of ETNW will have the same set-up as the last
one. (See below.) If this doesn’t cover everything, ask – 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 "woah, that definitely sounds
like something Slovakia would have entered in 1971!" or "yep, I can
see Malta picking something like that in 2008". The more plausible your
combination – a Montenegrin song in Serbo-Croat recorded in 2001 being entered
as Serbia & Montenegro 2002, for example, as opposed to, say, a song in Icelandic
recorded in 2012 being submitted as Italy 1996 – 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, all other things being equal.)
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 2014 results again showed that most voters 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 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 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 you can now enter national final singers, provided they never
actually appeared at Eurovision, I’d still suggest you look for stuff that’s
unconnected to the contest 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 another Albanian song that sounds just like Suus, you might want to think twice
about submitting it as Albania 2012. You may well find you do better with the
other Albanian song you’ve found that sounds generally like their poppier
entries and which you submit as Albania 2009. (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 Vocalist #3 for France in Jerusalem in 1999 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 (as high-quality as possible)
2. The name of your song and singer
3. The year and country you’re allocating it to
4. Your MB nickname
5. A bio for your entry (following a template I'll post separately)
The bios will be published when the songs 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.)
One last thing: do try to avoid submitting entries for the same countries
all the time. It makes guessing the sponsors very easy ;)
That's it until submissions open. Start sourcing those hard-to-find MP3s!
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