Tongo, tongo, tongo (Or How Benidorm Fest ended being Steal Fest).
So, Spain just celebrated Benidorm Fest to chose our representative/s in Eurovision and let me tell you, half Spain is not happy at all with the results, including me.
Maybe nobody cares about this, but I have to get it out of my chest.
This year was very special for me because of a song: Terra, by the Galician trio Tanxugueiras (pronounced something like tan-shoo-GAY-rahs). It's a song that is very traditional but modern at the same time. Some people have even called Tanxugueiras "electro-meigas". Meigas is what we call witches in Galicia (for those who don't know, Galicia is that bit right above Portugal). We speak Galician and Spanish, we have Celtic roots, and often our culture is depreciated, ridiculed and ultimately, disregarded and forgotten. As you may have guessed, I am from this region of Spain, so it hits close to the heart.
Terra was one of the candidates this year, and everyone and their mother was very excited about it. There were people in other parts of Spain who didn't understand a single word of the song, saying the music spoke to them, supporting Tanxugueiras. Roughly two thirds of Spain were prepared to have them perform at Turin. Even some people outside Spain were saying things like "if you don't select them as your representation, you'll be foolish, that's the best song".
There were other songs, of course, and other people had other favorites. Eventually, it was almost a tie between them and Rigoberta Baldini's song, Ay Mamá, which was somewhat of a feminist ode to mothers. At least a tie regarding popular vote, though Tanxugueiras were a bit ahead. The jury... well, let's not speak of them or I'll start to break stuff.
Anyway, do you know who won?
The "winner", was Chanel's generic pop song with English words and reggaeton flavor nº 364, SloMo. Which is fine to those who like that kind of music (not me), but personally I feel like it's the 10th attempt to do what Eleni Foureira did (and better done) in 2018 with Fuego.
We had an opportunity to do something different, and the jury threw it down the drain, despite what the public wanted.
Now there's people saying SloMo does not fulfill the requisites of Benidorm Fest to have the songs written in an official language (Spanish), a co-official one (Galician, Catalan, or Basque, mainly), and also don't have more than a certain percentage of the words in English. Which, give the song is written in Spanglish, I am inclined to believe it's true.
Feels like we've been robbed. Others have articulated it better than me, but basically, those of us who supported either Tanxugueiras or Rigoberta feel like the song was already chosen to begin with and the whole Benidorm Fest was nothing more than a game or a play to give us some sense of participation, like we, the public, were actually deciding for once in the last 10 years. Just theater, but nothing of substance.
I have nothing against Chanel as an artist, but it can't be a coincidence that the winner is the one with the major music label behind and with professional connections to members of the jury. Now there also have arisen some accusations of plagiarism, which is a problem legally for the writers/composers of the song, since Chanel is only the performer, but things are not looking good overall.
In case you liked Terra and want to listen to more songs by Tanxugueiras, I'll leave you with my two favorites, Midas and Figa, but you can find their whole albums on Spotify as well, and their videoclips are worth a watch (I didn't link them to keep things neutral, but they're easy to find).
janainaart
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
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