Eurovision 2009 - Number 1 - Inga & Anush - "Jan Jan"
2009 saw the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan find a new venue at Eurovision. Although actual fighting between the two in 2009 was at a low ebb, that lack of bloodshed seemed to transfer the hostilities to non-traditional venues. Like Eurovision. Both sides were determined to wind the other side up with the EBU stuck in the middle trying to act as referee, conflict de-escalator, and increasingly tetchy parent.
Part of the problem was that Armenia had sent a song and an act that went down extremely well in both Turkish and Persian cultures. Traditional and modern all at the same time and sung by two sisters with magnificent, delicate and strong Armenian voices singing both in harmony with each other and about harmony throughout a sisterhood.
Inga and Anush Arshakyan had been singing as a folk duo for just under a decade prior to Eurovision 2009. They'd toured the world promoting Armenian music and culture extensively including performances in the USA. At the time of their second album released, their tour included stops in Russia, Tehran, the US, Germany and London. Their music was popular not just among the Armenian diaspora, but across the region including in Iran and Azerbaijan.
It had been rumoured that Armenia and AMPTV would internally select the band System of a Down, which even though it was only a rumour, started protests from Azerbaijan and Türkiye as it was likely they wouldn't hold back in singing about the Armenian genocide. However this was only ever a rumour as AMPTV announced they would be selecting their song via national final, Evrotesil 2009.
Inga and Anush entered with Ջան Ջան (Jan Jan) an infectious song that combines folk music and dance, ethnic instrumentation together with electronic pop. As with the melange of musical influences, it also combined English and Armenian in a heady mix. Written by Mane Hakobyan, Vardan Zadoyan and Armenian TV presenter and song-writer Avet Barseghyan, it's fun and exactly the heady stuff that Eurofan dreams are made of. It romped home in the national final, winning both the jury vote and the televote.
There's nothing particularly about the song that is political at all. It's just a fun, folky pop tune that shows two voices. However as soon as it won, Azerbaijan called for it to be banned on the grounds that it plagiarized an Azerbaijani folk song by an Azerbaijani composer, Tofig Guliyev. That claim was investigated and found to be groundless on the basis that the "songs barely resemble one another with only slight similarities of regional rhythms and instrumentation".
The conflict didn't stop there, but the sniping between the two countries couldn't overshadow the performance of Inga and Anush on the stage in Moscow. Their harmonies and melodies wove through each other like the hair on their costumes. At once elegant and joyful, it's a song that demands that you smile. The part in the bridge where each sister takes alternate notes, splitting a harmony both in terms of pitch and which notes each part sings is so intricate and yet so confidently pulled off, it makes me feel dizzy. This is what musical filigree sounds like. Jan Jan is one of my all time favourite Eurovision entries.
They safely qualified from the semi final in fifth place, then in the final they finished tenth. It's one of those performances that stood out both on the night and in the memory as something distinct and different when surrounded by pop and ballads.
Now it's Jan Jan that's remembered and not the continued controversy that included Armenia featuring a statue located in Nagorno-Karabakh in their postcard and then again as the background image for their spokesperson, Azerbaijan blurring the voting number for the Armenian entry, then interrogating some Azerbaijani residents who voted for Inga and Anush at the Ministry of National Security.
It's also notable that 2009 is one of only two occasions when one of these two countries gave the other points. Armenia gave Azerbaijan a single point in the grand final.
Later in 2009, the sisters released their third album and toured to support it, not only in Armenia but also in Syria and Lebanon. Jan Jan was often heard all round the region including on radios in Iran. They gave another big concert in 2011 and also released a fourth album in 2014. Inga went back to Eurovision for Armenia in 2015 as part of the group Genealogy - with a song that was a lot more focussed on the Armenian genocide that Jan Jan ever was.
This is the performance of their song Գութան (Gutan/Plough) from their 2011 concert spliced with the video and some more impromptu performances. It's another song that combines folk elements and imagery from the Armenian countryside with some much more Western instrumentation.
