Last night BBC announced that the boyband Blue will represent UK in Düsseldorf with the song “I can”. We are trying to figure out whether it can be considered an admission of failure that the power to choose the entry has been taken out of the hands of the Brits. Are the British voters to blame for the last years miserable failures or should BBC blame themselves for failing to mould a successful format for the national selection process, only to put the voters between a rock and a hard place forcing them to select rubbish songs year after year?
We recall Norwegian broadcaster NRK pulling a similar stunt back in 1991. The group Just 4 Fun was internally selected and they crashed and burned performing the dreadful song Mrs. Thompson in Rome. The Norwegian audience was not happy and NRK never dared to cancel the national final ever again.
Taking a closer look at the chosen act Blue, we can’t help but wonder if the BBC are trying to win the 2001 edition of Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps the once successful boyband still enjoys a certain standing and popularity domestically in the UK, however to us their name reeks of long lost fame and faded greatness. Still, the same could be said about A1 and they nearly ended up representing Norway on home turf last year. We could have easily settled for the boyband gone manband over the flop we ended up with. Last year’s Norwegian entry proved beyond doubt that that the televoters are not always in the position of making an informed and sane decision. When the bulk of the voters consists of screaming teenage girls and middleaged moms you sometimes end up with the strangest stuff.
We look forward to hearing the chosen song and we promise to keep an open mind hoping to be pleasantly surprised. We dread a dated R&B ballad, though. Cause it would be an awful shame for the UK to end up as the Lanterne Rouge again, wouldn’t it…
