I was listening to the audio commentary of PG Roxette's latest album, Pop Dynamo and Per said something like, "I'm a melody guy..." and I agreed enthusiastically, "Yes, yes, I know what you mean, Per. I, too, am a melody girl."

I approached the prospect of making a 1980s Eurovision episode with the mindset of a "melody girl". I perpetually seek out catchy vocal lines and synthy hooks, but I also lack the patience to watch whole competitions. So scrubbing song after song, competition after competition, I realise that I am looking for something super specific. I want something upbeat in a minor key. Needless to say, my favoured entries came from Belgium, Finland and Turkey.

Turkey in Eurovision, 1989

A more naturalistic approach would be to watch the whole competition among my friends back home in Australia, and cackling heartily with a bucket of hummus on my lap. There'd be sarcastic comments, but it would never be mean. After all, we're on the same mission to find some perfect Europop. We'd have our phones out, making notes on our favourites, perpetually reminding everyone of who we liked until the voting process destroyed our pop hopes and dreams.

I did attend Eurovision one year, back in 2016. It was a surreal, awe-inspiring affair but nothing like the hummus-cackling. The smallest things transfixed me like the speedy changes between acts and the LED lanyards that illuminated in sequence with the rest of the stadium. The first semi-final, I found a perfect piece of pop: If Love was a Crime, Bulgaria's entry by Poli Genova. Since then it's been my go-to recommendation for any doubters.

Eurovision, 2016

I'll be going up to Liverpool for this year's competition soon. In typical ritualistic fashion, I haven't listen to this year's entries and perhaps that's a part of being a "melody girl". For me, Eurovision requires another kind of pop sensibility, "dethroning the serious" as Susan Sontag would say. "Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment." The month of May is my time for just that, for the campness and the revelry, for friendship and that earnest search for perfect pop.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: 1980s Eurovision Podcast #71
Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up (UK, 1981)
Ofra Haza - Hi (Israel, 1983)
Pas de Deux - Rendez-vous (Belgium, 1983)
MFÖ - Didai didai dai (Turkey, 1985)
Pan - Bana Bana (Turkey, 1989)
Sandra Kim - J'aime La Vie (Belgium, 1986)
Liliane Saint Pierre - Soldiers of Love (Belgium, 1987)
Sonja Lumme - Eläköön elämä (Finland, 1985)
Vicky Rosti & Boulevard - Sata salamaa (Finland, 1987)
Cadillac - Valentino (Spain, 1986)

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Listen to the C&CM Mixtape - Eurovision Favourites (2008-2014)

Explore C&CM Podcasts 1-70 here

It's June. The days are grim, cold and dark. It's difficult to imagine emerging from the house without a hot water bottle strapped to the flank of your body. Not only that, it's the furthest point in time before we can watch the Eurovision Song Contest together again. We can watch the competition from previous years, sure, but it's simply not the same without the anticipation, without that desperate need to preserve the final result.

I'd like to imagine that everyone has been returning to performances on YouTube, dwelling on those three-minute entries that at first take, didn't generate much interest. In something as seemingly ephemeral as Eurovision, I'd never really considered that musical attraction could take place over several viewings. I see now that persuasions can be altered and augmented, pop appreciation can somehow flare up and intensify, without warning. The best part of it is we can tell each other all about it.

I love how we confer, how we understand the absolute joy and farce of it all. We're out to find pop in its different incarnations - the ridiculous, the plagiarised, the trashy and sublime. We're out to find something we want to hear the morning after and ultimately, we respect each other's final vote. Even now, I am thrilled by the prospect of Min's forthcoming ukulele cover of Moldova's Lăutar and I am overjoyed to hear Montenegro's Euro Neuro whenever I pass Andrew's room. I love Louise's stunning re-interpretation of Sweden's Euphoria and I adore 1.0's tweet, acknowledging that Sweden really deserved to win... even though I was more taken with Finland's Nar Jag Blundar.


Swedish winner Loreen with her entry, Euphoria
But as with anything to do with pop, I can't help but be confused by the love and enthusiasm we share for Eurovision. Inasmuch as we are out to find the performances that captivate us on a "legitimate" level, much of our enjoyment is derived from our hilariously bitter and sarcastic commentary. I find it difficult to reconcile the nastiness of it, and while we openly acknowledge the paramount importance of pop in our lives, we also accept its idiotic meaninglessness. It would seem that for that one weekend, the tenets of good taste are obliterated and the awful becomes the amazing.

Some days ago, I emerged from the house sans hot water bottle to meet a friend who didn't quite understand the appeal of Eurovision, as much as he'd hoped to. He asked me about it, about my attraction to it, whether it was "for real". I couldn't quite articulate it as I had wanted to, that joy associated with the mutual search for great European pop. Even now, I find it difficult to figure out why we tend to get so carried away with it all. I only hope that venturing forth to Sweden for Eurovision in 2013 will prove to be the excursion I need to articulate such thoughts.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #44
Monarchy - You Don't Want to Dance With Me
Le Le - Normal
Mirage - I Don't Want To
Grimes - Oblivion
Jamie Woon - Night Air
Metronomy - Corinne
Mia - Tanz der Moleküle
Riccardo Maggese - Boschima

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