Since 1956, Europe has been creating amazing music through its "Eurovision Song Contest." In this contest, each country participating (usually 36 countries out of the 50 total countries in Europe) creates its own original song and performs it during the semi-finals of the contest that is broadcast on live TV every year. Viewers vote on which song they enjoyed the most, and the countries with the most votes in the semi-finals advance to the grand finale and perform their songs once again to declare the winner of the entire contest.
How did all of this get started? According to the "Eurovision" website, "In 1955, the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) came up with the idea of an international song contest whereby countries, represented by their respective public broadcasters, would participate in one television show, to be transmitted simultaneously in all represented nations." This is a crazy idea for its time because satellite TV had not been invented yet. Relating this to America, we didn't have anything like this until "American Idol" in 2002. Of course, we had shows where bands came to perform and became famous through it, such as "The Ed Sullivan Show," but we have never seen original content in our reality TV shows such as the content produced by the "Eurovision Song Contest."
Here is the biggest question: Should America try to join the "Eurovision Song Contest" (which would be awesome) or just create its own version of it here in the states? Each state could submit an original song to perform from one of its representatives and try to win the contest each year. It would definitely be a fun contest, but would it succeed with viewers? With the failures of "American Idol" and shows like it not too far in our past, I think it would be in our best interest to try to reboot our reality TV singing competitions — there's no better way to do that than joining with "Eurovision." Imagine a world where we competed against other countries outside of the Olympics every two years (summer and winter). We would not only be peacefully competing with these countries, but possibly even making the world a better place by working as one.
Could America join the "Eurovision" competition? It is possible. This year, Australia was among the competitors. As we all may (or may not) know, Australia is not in Europe; however, they are still allowed to compete. I believe that decision would be up to the members of the EBU, but who wouldn't want the American population to join their audience?
Whatever the case, America needs to get in on this "Eurovision Song Contest" because it has been so successful for Europe. To see some of the awesome music created out of this competition, here is a Spotify playlist that highlights all of the songs that made it to the competition this year.
If you give these songs a chance, you'll see that they're actually really catchy songs. There is also a YouTube video that highlights every winner from 1956 to 2014.
How cool would it be if America actually got in on this fun party of original songs? Which of our many popular artists would compete on behalf of us? I know that I would like to see Beyoncé show the rest of the competing countries what America is made of. What do you think?
