The Mystery of the New ESC Fan

[Stargazer]

Eurovision Song Contest is the only fandom that I've encountered where a lot of its newly acquired fans have practically zero interest in past years and yet consider themselves fans. Yes, Eurovision has a gigantic catalog of songs and no one is expecting anyone to listen to them all. But not even wanting to seek some of them out to listen to, or even get to know some of the past winners is what baffles me a bit.

When I discover an artist or a band I like, one of the first things I do is listen through their past discography for songs I might enjoy. I cringe a bit when I see threads on this forum where people list their favorite ESC songs of all time, and they're all from the same two years. It's akin to recently becoming a fan of an artist or a band with a huge catalog of albums, say... Metallica for example, and you consider yourself a huge Metallica fan, but you've only heard their latest album and don't really care about the rest.

This isn't about snobbery or elitism. You don't have to be an ESC expert to be a fan, not at all. It's the lack of interest that bothers me a bit. I grew up watching Eurovision from a really young age, and when I first heard some of the past entries and winners from the 1950s-1980s, my only reaction was "oh wow, I want to hear them all now!", not "meh, I don't really care".

If you only discovered Eurovision a couple of months ago, this isn't directed at you. Nor is it directed at anyone in particular, I just wanted to vent about something that has been bothering me ever since I joined this community 6 years ago.

Embrace the past! It's all on YouTube, just one click away.

 

[EurovisionSmile]

I fully agree. I doubt that many young fans who say they "don't like" past songs don't find one or another they will love, if they only care to listen. I'm 41, and that does not mean I don't love some of the recent songs, more than I love some of the classics. ESC was not born in 2000, though and there's a huge and amazing history behind what we see these days, and what we see and love these days, would not be possible if there wasn't the mentioned history behind the modern ESC. To all the young fans, visit the past ESC and you won't regret it.

 

[anto475]

You're absolutely right! The majority of the fans on Tumblr act as if 2004 was the first contest, and even then that's being generous, most of them even forget everything before 2011. It cheapens the contest when you only think of it as this modern glitzy show that we all know without knowing its illustrious history.

 

[Matt]

People like me who were born in the 80s, we weren't around for the old days (70s, 60s) either yet I still appreciate their contribution. Personally I think that the first decade wasn't that impressive. Don't get me wrong, there were a good amount of fabulous songs out there but I don't think it was until the mid 60s when Eurovision got away a little bit from the boring chanson style songs and became a bit more daring.

I get that people may not be into oldies just like I'm not into Rap but an older song does not equal oldie if you know what I mean.

But then I don't blame just the younger fans but also the broadcasters. DR was very vocal about not having the Olsen Brothers involved in anything related to Eurovision last year as they were too old and they wanted to focus on the new generation. Sure, they had random gigs like warming up the crowds during the red carpet event but that's about it.

So I am glad that the EBU created the new website celebrating decades of Eurovision.

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

Im one of the fans you describe here: I started watching in 2003, and I dont really care about what came before (bar the odd song that I really like). I have never watched a pre-2003 contest in full.

It's not just Eurovision for me though, I dont like old music, tv shows, films, etc, either - once again, bar the odd thing.

I think it's sorta natural when we're talking about such a long-running event though. It might be the same contest in name, but in reality it is completely different to its past years. I just so happens that I like what it is today, not what it was in yesteryear. I dont think it's any disrespect to the Contest or what it achieved/was in the past.

It can work the other way round to: my dad was like a Eurovision superfan during the 60's/70's - he knows all the entries, results, etc. But he has little interest in it now. I like that though because I feel like he was the uberfan back in his day, and he's now passed the baton to me for my day... and maybe I'll do the same one day Between us we've watched like every single Eurovision since the United Kingdom joined in 1957, and Im quite proud of that

 

[EscGeek]

60 years of the contest is not that hard to catch up to....imagine being an ESC-fan in 2753...

 

[tuorem]

One can become an ESC fan for various reasons: for the songs, the fun, the concept, etc. I don't think it's shocking that some people may call themselves fans of the contest while they only watched 2 recent editions for instance. I mean, we all appreciate Eurovision in our own way, there is no need to get to know the songs since 1956 to be considered a "true fan". Personally, I watch the contest since 2009 and I don't feel the need to listen to all the songs of the previous years, each to their own.

 

[blue00eyes]

No one can force me to listen to all the songs from the past if I really don't want to do that. It surely takes a lot of time, painful hours, I don't even enjoy the old videos, old music, old everything. Of course I know all the "classics" entries but I don't feel the need to listen to all of the songs. I watch Eurovision every year since 2008 and I know almost all of the songs since then, except few entries from 2012, 2013 (because my country was not in the competition and I simply lost a lot of interest). Sometimes I watch the videos from 00's on youtube but I don't care about what kind of music Eurovision had in 90's or earlier. So Yes, I'm a Eurovision fan but rather bad one.

 

[pinkchiffon]

I hate to say this, but old Eurovision doesn't seem as memorable to me because I mostly prefer Eastern Europe. I started watching Eurovision because of my interest in certain countries, and Eurovision gave me a starting point to learn more about music and media from those parts of the world. Most of my favorite countries joined in the 90s or later, and although I clearly end up enjoying songs from more than just my favorite countries, I don't have a lot of motivation to watch full contests before that point. But I have friends who are really into classic Eurovision and I try to take their cues on which parts I need to listen to for a history lesson

 

[Terence]

I agree with what Matt said.

I personally only like a handful of songs from the 50s, and my favourites lie from the mid-60s onwards.
I guess for the average fan, one problem lies in the language rule. Had the language-rule not been abolished, then we'd only get 2/3 English language songs a year so one would get used to listening to different languages and not get the "language shock" when listening to a non-English song. That's what put me off at first when I started discovering songs pre-1999. Once I started appreciating the beauty of other languages I don't speak, I fell in love with any song regardless of the language and/or decade.

(Hope that makes sense sort of)

But yeah, it sounds a bit unfair to call oneself a 'Eurovision fan' and only be familiar with the last 10-15 years or so, and 'Waterloo'.

 

[Stargazer]

Granted everyone is allowed to be what kind of Eurovison fan they want, but it makes me sad that some of you have such little interest in the contest's history. You are missing out on soo many fantastic songs, you have no idea!

I also find it weird how some of you dismiss the earlier years simply because it's old. Old is not a specific genre or a specific sound. There was as much variety in songs back then as it is now.

 

[Terence]

There was as much variety in songs back then as it is now.

Do you think so? I disagree, at least for the first few years of the contest, partly blaming the juries for favouring French chansons back then!
It was after the mid-60s that styles started becoming eclectic IMO

 

[Terence]

Granted everyone is allowed to be what kind of Eurovison fan they want, but it makes me sad that some of you have such little interest in the contest's history. You are missing out on soo many fantastic songs, you have no idea!

I have a solution for that problem, for those who are not interested in the oldies:

THE BIG TOURNAMENT

 

[Stargazer]

Do you think so? I disagree, at least for the first few years of the contest, partly blaming the juries for favouring French chansons back then!
It was after the mid-60s that styles started becoming eclectic IMO

I do think so. There were both up-tempos and ballads even back then. Sure, all the 1950s entries have a very 1950s sound to them, but in ten or twenty years we are going to look back at the entries of this decade (and the one before) and think "it all sounds the same!".

Some of the more upbeat entries from the 1950s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5yVhgLgrPk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nwiYjkulMM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39VZKVZrk1M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCZi1lraIVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v7Q-F9lI30

 

[Terence]

Great examples there, though looking at the winning songs from the early days (1956, 1957, 1958, 1962 etc, in favour of those uptempos), you don't blame countries for playing it safe, at least by that decade's standards!

 

[SpZ]

Well i think the main reason is that most of the old songs in esc are rather boring and bad (at least for me). I'm not saying that those songs are worse than the present ones, however they definitely seem to be stylistically a lot more close to each other, omitting the styles of music which is the best one in recent ESCs. And it may be a controversial opinion in an ESC forum, but i personally think that even newer ESC editions have at average pretty bad music.