Eurovision 2011

You might remember our coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest the past few years (08, 09, 10). It just doesn't get more entertaining than Eurovision. This year's competition was held in Dusseldorf, Germany because the previous year's winner gets to host the next year's competition. Interestingly, Lena, the performer who won it for Germany last year, was also Germany's entry this year (with a different song).
It was well worth watching the whole thing, but here are our highlights:

• The winner was Azerbaijan. We didn't love their song (not that we hated it), but here's the video of it.
  
  
  


• The initial photo in this post is from Moldova's entry. Yes, they really wore those hats. And the lady was on a unicycle... (This is why we love Eurovision.)


• Probably the most talked-about entry this year is Ireland's. Their performers are a duo (identical twins) called Jedward, who became famous in the UK for being awful but getting pretty far in 2009's X-Factor competition. (We watched that season and were really rooting for Jedward to leave as soon as possible.) Their song this year, called "Lipstick," was pretty bad


• The Israeli entry was a song called "Ding Dong" by Dana International (below), a transsexual past winner of Eurovision (1998). She didn't make it to the Saturday final this year.

• Portugal's entry (which also didn't make the Saturday final) was a hilarious protest song against economic austerity measures.


• Bosnia & Herzegovina's entry was very entertaining with an eclectic ensemble (including a hip-hop dancing trumpeter) and a catchy tune.


• The Ukraine's entry was awesome because a popular sand artist shared the stage with the singer and did some art on the screen while the song was going on. Apparently the sand artist was the winner of "Ukraine's Got Talent."


• Finland's entry is a save-the-world song sung by a performer called Paradise Oskar. The song, called "Da Da Dam," grew on me and I quite liked it Saturday night in the final.
  
  

• Russia's entry was catchy but a little naughty. I don't know if it's the dude's accent while he's singing it, but we found the following lyric hilarious every time he sang it: "You look so good On the floor Put my mind in the dirty zone."


• Our favorite entry that didn't even make the final (we saw it on Tuesday's semi-final) was Armenia's entry called "Boom Boom." Here's the video.