For those of you who aren't familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest, it's like the music version of the Olympics, only in Europe. Each contest opens and closes with the traditional theme song. Each participating country has a national song contest and the winner goes on to compete in the ESC. This year really stands out because there were a lot of good singers here. My only disappointment was that Italy's Massimo Ranieri, who was favored to win ended up in 5th place. The winner, Severine, representing Monaco, was born in France, and she'd NEVER even been to Monaco. I think that the participating countries should send someone who's actually a citizen of that country. But then, again, in 1988, you had Celine Dion win the ESC representing Switzerland, and she's not even European, but French Canadian. Anyways, other honorable mentions go to Austria's Marianne Mendt for her jazzy song, Musik, even though it failed to impress the judges, and Sweden's Family Four, with their very folksy song, Vita Vidder.
