Is Lena Meyer-Landrut a pouty American teenage girl from Glencoe, Illinois?
No. She is the grandaughter of an aristocratic West German Ambassador and a Hungarian duchess. And she just won the Eurovision song competition representing Germany.
The annual Eurovision contest is a really big deal throughout Europe. It is their version of American Idol, except on a far larger scale. Each country has its own competition to choose its most talented singing act and the Eurovision contest supposedly selects the best Europe has to offer.
People cheer on their own nation's entrant as they do their soccer team in the World Cup.
In the past, the winners would generally represent something unique to their own national culture and traditions. When ABBA won the Eurovision award in 1974, while it was a rock group with general appeal, Benny Andersson's keyboard work had a distinctly Swedish sound and Agnetha and Frida sang with a charming Swedish lilt.
But the cute, pouty, Anglophonic German ingenue mimicked American black ghetto gestures and bounced around like any spoiled suburban brat on a night out club-hopping in the River North district of Chicago.
With this she won Europe's culturally iconic competition last year in Oslo, Norway.
Her winning song "Satellite" was co-written by an American, her gestures are black ghetto American, she chants (hip-hop isn't really sung)in a combo of American English with a slight cockneyfied British edge.
The socialists abroad always decried American "cultural imperialism."
Now I join them.
Well ... at least she's wearing clothes, and not "shaking the junk in her trunk" in only a glorified bra and panties like they do here.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, from a male perspective that might be considered a bad thing! LOL ;)
Never fear, they're in the cultural downward spiral. The bra and panties outfit will probably be sported by a contestant from Estonia next year.
ReplyDeleteIf they must imitate us, couldn't they at least imitate some of our good things -- like the Bill of Rights -- or baseball?
Why does she use that English cockney accent sometimes in there? She must have learned English from both American and English teachers.
ReplyDeleteOkay, actually the ESC is not quite such a big thing over here as you think it is. Most of us don´t even watch it, others watch it just for fun or to make fun of it. :) It used to be quite popular back when each artist sang in their native language and music style, but these days? ...
ReplyDeleteLena says that she´s trying to sound Cockney. She is trying to imitate British singers like Lily Allen, Kate Nash or Adele, not American popstars. As it is, she tries way too hard to act like a Londoner. And judging by the reactions from Americans and British people, she fails big time...
Honestly, I only ran into one person in the entire Chicago metropolitan area who had ever even heard of her and that person was a German emigre who worked at the Dank Haus.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, it's a little flattering that for most of the song, she has an almost perfect midwestern American accent -- but then she lapses into that annoying cockney drawl and it just becomes confusing -- and annoying.
I suppose I was most troubled by the fact that there is nothing distinctively German about her act, but as you say the Eurovision contest has changed. I even read that one of the Baltic states was represented by a Jamaican a few years back. YIKES!!!
Well I'm from Greece and Eurovision is a big deal here.Everybody watches it.I can't say a think about Lena because everybody in my town knows that I love her and I want to marry her.I write this in every blog that I find about Lena.My last name in greek means kiss so it perfectly match with Lena.
ReplyDeleteI HEART YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1