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Omar Naber: Slovenia’s latest Eurovision casualty. (source)
The finals of the Eurovision Cheese Song Contest are tomorrow night in Kiev. Yet again, Slovenia failed
to qualify for the final. And yet again, it was the only one of the
former Yugoslav republics not to make it in. Think about how lousy the
average entry is, and then think about how lousy you have to be to not make the cut. It’s like being told you’re too ugly to join a carnival freak show.
To be fair, Stop by Omar Naber, was nowhere near as bad as last year’s nightmarish Stay Forever. But
there was simply nothing remarkable about
it. It didn’t help that he decided to sing in Slovene, or that he decided to appear on stage
with a mohawk straight out of Taxi Driver.
But even without these things, his chances were dim from the very beginning. One site put his odds of winning at 229/1.
To put that into perspective: You’ve personally got a better chance of dying via
"accidental poisoning" and "exposure to noxious substances" than Omar
had of succeeding.
So:
another year, another defeat. Now the only remaining question is
whether Cyprus will give 12 points to Greece tomorrow night and
vice-versa. I guess only time will tell.
UPDATE: The final results of the semi-final can be seen here. Slovenia finished 12th, but remains defiant — as this flyer demonstrates. (via Sara’s place)
And yes, Greece and Cyprus gave each other maximum points. Who’da thunk it?
Comments
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lol! Omar Naber doesn’t seem like a Slovenian name.
So, who is the favourite for this year contest?
Ooooh, how "sad"! Austria didn’t make it either. So no Austrian-German 0 points-battle this year.
i don`t think anybody with half of a brain expected anything more.
Beside politics, imagine slovenia actually winning and then hosting
such an even as the eurovision. Where would we put it? the postojnska
jama? All in all, nothing unexpected happen. I just want to know
how th e media is going to justify all that hype that they`ve been
putting up after the rehersal was finished.
Can you believe I actually never heard this song that was supposed to represent Slovenia? :-D
Hmm.. I heard the opposite, actually. I heard that most polls have shown that his song should’ve gone to the finals, and I’ve heard a lot of people (foreigners) that watched the show and thought that Slovenia did deserve to go ahead.
actually i think it was smart to have it in slovenian. first it
sounded nice second it’s only correct in my opinion, third many chose
to sing in english, only revealing how dumb their lyrics were.good to keep a bit of mystery!
It’s embarassing how much exposure they get in our media. Does anyone know what kind of ratings this cheesefest draws around europe?I checked Google News and I got Ireland Online and BBC entries, I checked several swedish newspapers and Goteborgs Post is the only one that mentioned the event.There’s nothing on CNN, The Guardian, The Times, Washington Post, Reuters, Agence France Presse…
eurosong is so great!!! if you watch it on BBC that is …
Interesting, the Cypriot-Greek 12-12 conspiracy hasn’t been always there: in 1990 it was just a 6-6 conspiracy!
Well you said yourself it is a cheesy contest, it has nothing to do with the quality of the song. Omar’s winks were clearly directed to the girls (and not guys…he should have shown a bit more flesh, like in the pic above). Slovenia has a nonexistent expat community which could vote, and we think lobbying is an insult to our mother….I wouldn’t be surprised if Finland (!!) got more votes.
Btw…I forgot to say his winks worked on me..I like the guy.
Omar Naber doesn’t seem like a Slovenian nameHis
father was Jordanian, I believe. It’s quite interesting to note that
despite being such a homogenous society, Slovenia has sent a wide
variety of representatives, from transvestites to blondes to the mentally handicapped. It’s definitely to the country’s credit.
@Matt: Yes, they all say that: "Oh, you have great potential! Your song is going to be near the top! Great!"Yep, It’s near the top alright - on the loser top list.
It’s really depressing to see how Slovenia sent so many artists with
"great" songs to Evrovision in the last few years and none of them was
worth listening to. The only one that had me keep my fingers crossed was Nusa Derenda with her Energy. That was quality. But the rest is crap. …what else is there to expect…
you know … there was an unwritten rule that Turks would give 12
points to Yugoslavia every time Yugoslavia had a blond singer (ie.
Tajči)
Whoa, now that you mentioned Tajci, I typed her name in Google and guess what - she has become some kind of Jesus freak in the US. Who’d have thunk.
actually i think it was smart to have it in slovenian… good to keep a bit of mystery!
The old "flying under the radar" technique seems good in theory, but not so good in practice. Here’s how one Australian summed up Omar’s performance:"Slovenia - solo guy who makes no sense, who then does this creepy hug to his back up singer."Katsumi: I agree with you about Energy. As far as Europop songs go, it was a great little tune. Nusa has the mp3 available for free here. (The Slovenian version, and some more stuff, is here.)
Slovenia is not the only country where this is in the media all the
time… Here in Sweden they actually have several preview shows where
they show the videos and then comment on them (all really serious…
critics from all the Nordic countries are there). Maybe the big
newspapers
don’t have that many articles about it, but all the tabloids do (btw,
one of them mixed up the Slovakian and Slovene flag, again :)).
Anyway,
I watched a bit… And I can’t believe some of the songs that got
through! I mean, Norway?! Sure, our song was incredibly bad,
but there were worse ones there.Well, at least we’ll get to laugh at
them. :))
"Whoa, now that you mentioned Tajci, I typed her name in Google and guess what - she has become some kind of Jesus freak in the US. "AHAHAHAHAHA!! That’s fucking hysterical!
Eurovision is like SOOOOO Eurotrash! xaxaxaxaxaxaxa! I prefer thse songs in Slovenian or whatever because the poems in the Teenaged Angst School have been better.
I should say watching the semi-final of Eurovision contest was a
boring experience. How do you expect to vote if you don’t even
understand the lyrics? At the very least, they should have a subtitles
for non-English songs. By the time Omar’s turn to sing, I was totally
lost interest. His performance was just average.
I think sometimes it’s better if they sing in their own language…
especially when they can’t sing and when the song is crap. It’s torture
to hear somebody who can’t sing sing a really bad song in really bad
English. It’s torture.
The Slovenian entry deserved more than the Croatian gunk that made it through.Keeping in mind Eurovision is not really about the music, right?
Hello,
My name is Julien. I am building a new website for expatriates, and
will be the webmaster of {REMOVED}. In the last three years I
have spent a lot of time travelling and living away from my home
country, hence me setting up {REMOVED}.
I had the idea to create a blog so I could share my experiences of
living abroad and keep in touch with my family and friends. While
reading other expatriate blogs the idea came to me to create a
classified expat blog directory. This would include a free blog hosting
platform with interesting features such as picture albums designed
specifically for expatriates. I do not believe this would be in
competition with existing blog platforms such as blogger.
The website is still in working progress. The present situation is as follows:
> The expatriate blog directory, including a classification per
country and language - I am working on this at the present time
> The free Blog platform – this section will be completed by the middle of June.
> An Expat resource directory - this will include all expatriate suggestions.
> A forum designed to encourage interactivity and questions/answers from expatriate to expatriate
This is the global presentation of the website. Do you think my project is a good idea?
Would you like to add your blog in the expatriate blog directory? At
the moment there is noboby listed in Slovenia we really need your
contribution
I look forward to hearing from you
Julien
You may go ahead and list me, I am likely soon to be an ex-pat. The one
thing is that I have no idea what my internet access is going to be
like once I do it. It all depends on next quarter.
Julien, thanks for spamming my blog. If there’s a cardinal rule of blogging, I think it’s not
to do that. It’s not like I hide my e-mail address or something. I’ve
removed all the links and set your name to redirect somewhere else.Good luck with your project.
-Well the Greek girl won, she’s pretty and what I saw of her dress
in the Yahoo version of the story, I liked. (I don’t know if it is
disgustingly short from the Yahoo picture of her.)I have not heard her song but I bet it’s the usual Teenaged Angst School of ‘poetry’.
Hello Carniola people, its the first time i post a comment,yET, i am a fanatic reader/visitor,whatever.
I’m from Athens and what i have to say is dont worry about the Slovene artists, in the past we have sent 100000 times worst performers with exceptionally discraceful one guy called Michalis rakitzis and his amazingly pseudoelectronic voice, pre-recorded bad backing vocals and the astonishing bad taste rammstein+depeche mode look,singing the not exactly original SAGAPO (i love you in greek).No, we dont,sorry dude.Actually no one did,thats why we came last that year…
The Slovenes at least are good looking (check Michalis Rakitzis and you ‘ll see the difference)
We were always laughing at Eurovision,i mean ‘us’ normal average,people,who according to the greek awful television presenters of “TOP” quality shows ,Young Greeks dislike Eurovision and prefer to listen to strange singers because we are complex …etc(see,one the most beloved artists in my country is Tom Waits for example)
I am a journalist senior student working in a magazine and you cannot imagine what the ‘insiders’ of eurovision believe about the whole story. But who cares anyway but this is what we hate ,not the songs or the musicians, those ‘experts’ who appear in the mass media and talk bullshite about this and that…Last night Greek tv was full of this.
But again we dont take it seriously, since they are those kind of people to whom you wanna stick pens and little toys in their hair while they non stop analyze how the music industry functions…bla bla
So, even if they vote for us (1st time after a loooong period of :La Grece deux points…) we dont care since as many of you have wrote the whole thing is fiasco.
You mentioned the friendly vote of Cyprus but i must remind you the old time classic SverigeVotesNorwayVotesDanmarkVotesFinlandVotes…and the beat goes on.
Personally, i enjoyed very much the new countries that appeared for the first time (ok,some could have resemble less some band called RED HOT C.P. but , we have seen much worse: see last year Russia with the I-look-like- Avril-but-I-sing-like-Texas chica or Mando,the greek maraya Carey,only more irritating)
,thats all from me,with respect to the best Blog ever and a secret connection with Slovenia the nature of it i will not reveal at this stage,sorry for the long text i am terrible ,i know.
so let the motto be:
Euro-blind people Unite!
ps:Greek Kid asks : Mum,Dad,is Turkey in Europe?
Spela: I think sometimes it’s better if they sing in their own language… especially when they can’t sing and when the song is crap. It’s torture to hear somebody who can’t sing sing a really bad song in really bad English. It’s torture. :)Preach on! I noticed that Ruslana had undergone intense English lessons for this year, rather than hearing the "I vaaaaaaaaant you, to vaaaaaaaaaaant me". I must say, the "Bad English Award" goes to Bosnia Hercegovina with "I’m so heppy". GOLD GOLD GOLD! Athenian Republic - When will Greece’s path of glory end, I ask ya?! Euro 2004, Olympics, now Eurovision! :) I think you’ve "sikose"d enough, now you’re just showing off
Bad English award should go to the entry agonising thus:Come, baby, come, baby.
Slovenia has a chance to prevent Greece winning also Eurobasket
Matty:
I absolutely agree!
But i guess it is the post-olympic syndrome that is all over Greece…more more more…
(note: you forgot the First Greek Fashion -Victims-Week in Athens, earlier this year) and the forthcoming Summer Festival,ROCKWAVE, where prominent personalities will stop for a while in our sunny country, eg: Mar.Manson, DIO, Black Sabbath…All new bands as you see…(Hello! its 2005!)
Piiip! c’mon man! if we win the Eurobasket then its definitely a euro conspiracy in favor of us.
But why??
So, dont worry, we have chicken’s luck in Thailand to win the Eurobasket…
Rhetorical Question:when we won in the past ,in the 80’s , the victory song was ‘The Final Countdown’-Europe.{Remember them, the guys with awful haircut,barbie-doll like…) I guess now it will be the similar Norwegian ‘euroblind’ song…?
Athenian Republic - Don’t talk to me about Rockwave. The year I was living in Athens (2002) it was cancelled. I was devastated. Well done to Greece though for all of these victories, the only thing that gets my goat about it all is the diaspora carrying on like they achieved all of it with their own hands.Greek-Australian: No one said we could finish the Olympics but we did it!Matty: Do you pay taxes in Greece?Greek-Australian: NoMatty: Were you there to help build?Greek-Australian: NoMatty: So tell me how exactly you helped with the Games?Greek-Australian: Y’know, we just told the stupid fuckin’ convicts (Australians) that we could do it and we did RE!!! OLE ELLAS OLE OLE RE RE RE!!Matty: Milas ellinika?Greek-Australian: Oxi re ta Greek mou einai pretty bad re…*sigh*
I just had to point out that the ‘Greek’ singer who won the eurovision was actually born in Gothenburg, Sweden. So there! (I couldn’t care less of course, but Swedish popular media was very keen on emphasizing this after the competition) Man this is a lame contest…
Matty it’s still better if they’re proud of the Olympics (btw, most of
journalist here were still counting on the Balkan improvisation skills
so the surprise wasn’t as big as elsewhere) due to their Greek descent
although their Greek is pretty bad, than fighting with other Australians because of their Greek descent.
WELL, I’M FROM UKRAINE AND I THINK THAT SONG IS INCREDIBLE- I
REALLY LIKE IT AND IT WAS MUCH BETTER THEN 8 OUT OF 10 SONG THAT WERE
CHOSEN FOR FINALS. MAYBE PERFORMANCE WASN’T THE MOST MEMORABLE, BUT THE
SONG AND OMAR’S VOICE WAS
I’M FROM UKRAINE AND I THINK THAT THE SONG IS REALLY GREAT - I LIKE IT
A LOT. IT WAS BETTER THAN 8 OUT OF 10 SONGS THAT HAS ACCTUALLY GET INTO
FINALS. MAYBE PERFORMANCE WASN’T THE MOST MEMORABLE BUT THE SONG ANG
OMAR’S VOICE DEFINITLY WERE :))
Yeah, it’s not such a great song in my opinion, but comparing to others at Eurosong, it was one of the best.
something different from Paparizou and sakis but coming from Greece,check the band ‘Raining pleasure’…they are good!
Check what Richard Bloomberg had to say about Slovenia’s 2004 Eurosong competitors.
ah sorry, Bloomfield
For me it was the the best sond in semi-final or even in all contest!
omar is great!!!
hi omar iam your cousin in jordan i just wanted to say iam proud of u to be my cousin…;p
Yeah, Raining Pleasure rule!!!!!
check my blog about them!
potis,
myplanetb612.blogspot.com