I live in the United States, so I'm not going to be able to suggest anything interesting, but the entire fucking Eurovision Song Contest history. I've posted about this before, but essentially, it is Europe's answer to the Super Bowl and Hockey Night in Canada.
I was just talking to some friends about Eurovision today and how much I hate it. We're all Latvian and were talking about this song here: "Cake to Bake" by Aarzemnieki This song is absolutely horrendous and I'm incredibly upset that it is representing Latvia in Eurovision. Most Eurovision songs are terrible pop bullshit that are meant to be broadly appealing and inoffensive, but end up being an assault on ears and musical tastes. Maybe I just don't understand europop. This probably seems like it came out of nowhere, but Eurovision simply makes me unreasonably angry.
That's the point. Part of why I enjoy Eurovision so much is because it's so ridiculous. I actually think Latvia's song this year is pretty damned awesome, in part because it doesn't take the contest remotely seriously. In fact, I guess I have a hard time grasping why anyone hates it when its role is essentially a pan-European kitsch fest and an excuse for people to have parties and go 'lol, that song is hilarious' or 'did you see that?!' Do people say they hate it because of some kind of national pride thing? In fact, I notice that Eastern Europe takes Eurovision REALLY SERIOUSLY. If you look at some of the youtube comments, you'll see people speaking in decidedly non-native-sounding English about how 'this song is boring' or 'oh my gosh why do you hate this artist, she is perfect!!!!' and there's this idea that they're trying really, really hard to make it with the big girls and boys in Western Europe and, to put it in the style of a certain meme, 'Polan can into relevant'.Most Eurovision songs are terrible pop bullshit that are meant to be broadly appealing and inoffensive, but end up being an assault on ears and musical tastes.
Utter schadenfreude here but it's nice to hear "our country is misrepresented in the eyes of the world because of X" from a non-American. Sorry. I think I listened to some Latvian folk music once, probably because of you. So that evens the score.