Bulgarian Idol

Kiev, November 2004. The streets are alive with the sound of protest, and three days af­ter a rigged ballot, a local singer, Ru­slana, expresses her support for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. As her press release put it, “Ruslana has announced hunger strike and decided to place a symbolic ribbon around her head upon the news from Ukraine’s Central Election Commission to announce Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich the next President of Ukraine.” But Ruslana isn’t your average buxom Car­pathian activist: her engagement on behalf of Uk­raine actually started ­earlier that year when, clad in Xena-like leather and backed by an ar­mada of brawny percussionists, she performed “Wild Dances” at the Euro­vision Song Contest—and won. With that success, she followed in the hallowed footsteps of such glorious exponents of pop music as France’s Serge Gainsbourg (author of the 1965 winning tune, “Poupée de cire, poupée de son”) and Sweden’s Abba (triumphant in 1974 with “Waterloo”). But with her activism, Ruslana, née Lyzhychko, also vividly embodied the dizzying conflagration of pop and geopolitics that is the Euro­vision Song Contest.

Terry Wogan, who’s been commentating the an­nual live event for the BBC since 1971, once mused, “Is it a subtle pageant of postmodern irony? Is it a monumental piece of kitsch? Is it just a load of old plasticene?” It’s actually all of the ab­ove, with a few key elements Wo­gan somehow overlooked: na­tion-building ideals, behind-the-scenes drama, inane choreographies, conspiracy theories, costumes from outer space (or at the very least, outer Croatia), and of course songs that veer from blisteringly stupid to blisteringly brilliant and, just as often, hit both extremes. The ESC may well be the greatest invention in pop-music history.

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Growing up in France, I faithfully watched the telecast every May. Later, I also discovered punk rock and baroque, German techno and Norwegian black metal; I went to the opera and underground clubs. You might say I expanded my musical horizons. Yet I never got tired of Eurovision. In fact, I started enjoying it more as American and English indie rock got increasingly self-referential, didactic, and joyless. The Eurovision contest is the exact op­posite: it’s so garish that it makes Tele­mundo variety shows look like out­takes from a Bergman movie, and you can always count on surprises, whether it’s a singer sud­denly flailing out of tune or one unexpectedly putting on the kind of electric performance that short-circuits TV sets from Dublin to Bucharest. Every time I think nothing can top a particular eye-popping display, another act is champing at the bit in the wings, waiting to get its chance to show the world that his or her country’s pop stars can shine as bright as any others, or...