Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Have any of you ever heard of the Eurovision Song Contest? I had never heard about it until last year when we moved over here. This thing is huge, garnering as many viewers or more as the Superbowl-between 100-600 million! Basically, each country who is a member of the European Broadcasting Union submits a song and the top 25 are chosen to compete against one another on live television. The countries take turns hosting the event with this year's contest held in Belgrade, Serbia. The first show was in 1956 and the ESC is one of the longest running shows in the world. It has introduced talent such as the Swedish Abba, with their winning single "Waterloo". Even Celine Dion was a contest winner in 1988, but she did not gain international fame until some years later.

I watched the show at the Wharton's house. It is a true tradition for Charlie as, growing up in Sweden, she's been watching it her whole life. Some of the songs were good, some were OK, and some were, well, just questionable. Most of the entries were sung in English, but there were still plenty sung in the country's native language.
My favorite song was Denmark's "All Night Long". It's a fun, uplifting song with a catchy tune. Enjoy it here.

The funniest had to be Latvia's pirate song "Wolves of the Sea". See it below.

This is the winning entry from Russia. Apparently the singer is pretty famous in his part of the world, but I thought the song was only average and the ice-skater did nothing for me. What do you think?