Oh my Lordi!

Growing up in Europe, one couldn't avoid the annual ritual that is the Eurovision Song Contest. Embarassingly, Ireland has won the contest more times (7) than any other county. Responsible for unleashing ABBA on an unsuspecting world in 1974, the contest also has to be blamed for "Riverdance". The music is largely worthless, clean-cut, "EuroPop", which makes it interesting that this year's winner was Finnish metal band Lordi for their work "Hard Rock Hallelujah!"

i-32c53b59d6b37953a4b16fd6e240ef33-lordi.jpg

ABBA, these guys ain't! There's a Google Video of their performance here.

Interestingly, the very participation of the group was opposed by some individuals in the host country Greece. The President of a Greek restaurant and bar owners' union, Mrs. Niki Kostantinidou, issued the following statement (speaking for all Hellenes) in March:

‘NO ENTRANCE’ TO THE FINNISH MUSIC GROUP!!

'LORDI' STAY OUT OF HELLAS!!

Hellenes declare that they do not accept the entrance of the elected Satanic Finnish Music Band in Greece during the next EUROVISION SONG CONTEST that is to be organized in Athens, because it has nothing to do with human, Hellenic and Finnish civilization.

We ask all people with common sense to say ‘NO’ to this evil presence and ‘NO’ to all these people that chose this song and music group, as the best to represent Finland.

We ask the Finnish Government, the Leader of Finnish Church, the Leader of Finnish Parliament to take place and stop the song now, declaring their opposition to the representation of Finland by this evil group of musicians and singers.

We ask the Finnish Commission of Eurovision Song Contest to cancel the procedure and choose another song.

This evil & satanic Finnish band is not welcome in Greece. We welcome all Finnish friends that love and respect Hellenic civilization, Hellenic Christian Church and our Orthodox believes. (source)

Mrs. Kostantinidou would fit right in here in the US, methinks.

Tags

More like this

"We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years." -Winston Churchill One of the great arenas in the world that knows no international bounds are the performing arts in general, and music in particular. Some of my favorite musical…
Ah, The Onion. I haven't used them in a while for my Friday Fun and it was feeling like it was way overdue. As usual, classic stuff: Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks: A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at the National Geographic Society to announce they had "…
Christian groups are attempting to censor the Da Vinci Code movie all over the world, wherever they can get away with it. In Thailand: In Thailand, government censors ordered the final 10 minutes of the film be cut following a meeting Tuesday with a coalition of Thai Christian groups protesting…
I'm a big fan of Swedish-Finnish ethno band Hedningarna ("the Pagans"). Centred around three musicians working with a series of very fine singers, the band released five albums from 1989 to 1999. Their method was to go for the most primitive acoustic instruments known to Swedish ethnic music and…

I'm perplexed as to what a *good* knowck-off of GWAR would be like :)

By John Lynch (not verified) on 20 May 2006 #permalink

Lordi looks to me like Warhammer RPG models which came alive.

By Roman Werpachowski (not verified) on 20 May 2006 #permalink

Roman,

wow, that takes me back. I haven't thought about Warhammer since the late 80's!

By John Lynch (not verified) on 20 May 2006 #permalink

Oh, in the university I knew two guys who were very much in this stuff. Never played it myself, though took part in some pen and paper sessions -- lots of fun, kinda miss it.

By Roman Werpachowski (not verified) on 20 May 2006 #permalink

Mordor has got nothing to do with Warhammer.

By Roman Werpachowski (not verified) on 21 May 2006 #permalink

Sean, they're not that bad. At least they are light years ahead of the typical Eurovision trash.

There are, it seems, scientific papers being written about Eurovision: http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/2/1.html

By Roman Werpachowski (not verified) on 21 May 2006 #permalink

Sean, they're not that bad.

Ditto here, Mr. Werpachowski. I've heard the song twice, and I actually liked it better the second time around. It reminds of some of those old KISS songs. FWIW, I think it's a fairly good song. Cheers!

It was announced today that Lordi will be part of this summer's "Ozzfest '07." Ticket details can be found here.

Let's try that again...

You can find Ozzfest ticket information here.

lordi so najboljÅ¡i vse muske poznam skor napamed k so mi tok hude saj en dobr komad je zmagal na ejvroziji Finska je pa tud huda država ampak lordi pa so Å¡e hujÅ¡i sam ko jih bi saj vidu na bliz no na lastne uÄi prihajam iz SLOVENIJE tem so lordi najbolj popolarni. MWA rad bi vas vidu lepo se imejte in velik komadov Å¡e posnemte.ADIJO.I love you