Eurovision – Bulgaria

Bulgaria began the process to choose their 2009 Eurovision Entrant over six months ago in October, and had finally chosen their representative by the end of February. Throughout the televised event the Bulgarian country watched and voted at each step of the process. The Bulgarian people watched the nine heats, then semi finals and the finals. Many were suprised and upset at the overwhelming win of Krassimir Avramov in the finals. Some claimed that someone who has lived in Los Angeles for ten years does not have the right to represent the Bulgarian people. Others pointed to the suspicious nature of Krassimir’s automatic entry into the contest in the semi-finals and the significant win he achieved.

However, at this point, just a few weeks until the Eurovision contest in Moscow, Krassimir has overcome the criticism and looks forward to representing Bulgaria. It will be interesting to see how he decides stage his song and how much of his music video will come across on stage.

After looking through various blogs where people have discussed their favorites for the competition and the New York Times article “Imported Cheese” it seems that the entrants that do the best in Eurovision succeed because of their personas and personal likability among viewers. The New York Times article discusses the popularity of imitating American Pop styles.

In 2008 Dima Bilan’s song “Believe” won Eurovision with Bilan’s good looks and sex appeal, catchy tune for the chorus of his song, and lyric’s that are easy to follow.

Krassimir’s song is in English like Dima’s, and both contain strong pop elements, however I do not think Krassimir will win the Eurovision contest this year because his style operatic style is too far off from what people will vote for. I also think that his personality is not right for the win, particularly in light of the concerns from his own country about the legitimacy of his entry.

After following the Bulgarian journey for a Eurovision entrant, I do hope that Bulgaria does well and the Bulgarian people can be proud of their representative.

This year’s final winner for Bulgaria’s Eurovision entry is Krassimir Avramov with his song “Illusion.” Krassimir was born in Silven, Bulgaria but moved to the captial, Sofia, and graduated from the National Academy of Theatrical and Film Art as a Tenor-Attino. Avramov has been living in Los Angeles for the past ten years. In 1997 his album “Silent Voices” debuted and topped pop charts. In 2005 Krassimir won “Superstar of the Year” at the LA Music Awards for his album “Popera”. The style of music on this album represents his own style of music where he blends classical and pop music, creating popera! His website is www.krassimir.com which includes a full biography and more information about his various albums and engagements.

The song “Illusion” is written in English and composed by Arvamov himself for the competition. The lyrics are highly repetitive with one main stanza and two or three other stanzas that occur once in the song. The lyrics themselves read without much political meaning. However, the music video presents a more complicated view of the song. What stands out at first is Avramov’s high tenor-attino voice, which often soars over the chorus “Give me, give me your time.”

In the interview with ESCToday (see link in “Selection Process” blog entry) Krassimir describes the meaning of his music video, for which quite a bit of money was invested. He says, “the hero gets seriously wounded on the battle field and is carried away by Death, as this beautiful woman in the video symbolises death. She takes him to the world of misery, sin, aggression. Despite that, love is stronger than him and he falls for her, this is his illusion. A fatal one, as it proves, as with her kiss she takes his life away in the end.” (description of the video in Krassimir’s words)

Although the plot of the music video is interesting and intriguing to watch, it does not have much connection with the actual lyrics of the song. Here are the lyrics of the song:

Give me, give me your time
Show me, show me you’re mine
Give me, give me your time
Show me, show me you’re mine
So I want your touch
All I want is your touch
I need you much
Baby, I need you so much

Show me all I’ve never seen
Wrong, it feels so wrong
To be a part from afar

Your lips can solve it for me
You don’t know how
You don’t know where to go, to go

As Krassimir explains, the illusion (hence the title) comes from the singer’s love for this woman character, even though she ends up not giving him what he wants. From just reading the lyrics, without seeing the music video, it is challenging to understand why the song is called “Illusion.” It seems dubious that at the performance onstage at Eurovision Krassimir’s vision of the song and its meaning will come across to the audience, jury, and voters.

As I mentioned before, Avramov’s style is formed around these two genres of pop and opera. The pop elements of his song sound similar to most pop songs heard in Bulgaria as well as all over Europe/US. Therefore, it must be his “opera” aspects that make his music unique. These operatic elements come through as Krassimir  sings high and slowly over the pop based chorus. His high register does make him unique in this way, however there is not enough to make this song sound much different from most other pop songs. In this way, I argue that Krassimir’s music is similar to the contemporary popular styles in Bulgaria. Even though he has lived in the US for 10 years, I don’t think there is enough of a change in his music away from Bulgarian music to say that he cannot represent them. However, it is possible that pop music in Bulgaria has gradually become more mainstream, and this is why it is easier for Krassimir to represent them.

In any case, Krassimir Avramov is headed to Moscow in a month to represent Bulgaria with his song “Illusion.”

The selection process for Bulgaria’s Eurovision entry has two parts. It is run by the Bulgaria National Television (BNT), which produces a special show to pick an entrant. The BNT changed the show format from last year’s, which was called EuroBGvision.

The first part of the show is called “Be A Star” (For a blog entry on this show visit– http://blog.eurovisionchat.com/bulgarian-eurovision-selection-takes-off/) and has nine heats. “Be a Star” ran from Oct. 2 to Dec. 18th, 2008. In each heat five songs are presented and the jury chooses one to go on and televoting chooses two to progress.

The second part of the show is called “Bulgarian Song for Eurovision 2009. The semi-finals were held on January 24th with 18 participants, nine chosen from “Be a Star” and nine chosen by the jury. Nine songs were then chosen to participate in the finals, and as it turned out only one of the songs from “Be a Star” made it to the finals. The finals occured on February 21, 2009 and 3 more wildcard songs were chosen, to make a total of 12 participants. Bulgarians were given fifteen minutes to text in their choices from the twelve artists who performed at the National Palace of Culture in the capital city, Sofia.

There is some controversy over the results of the final competition, in which Krassimir Avramov won with 55.52% for his song “Illusion.” Krassimir was one of the wildcard artists that the jury directly qualified for the semi-finals. One blog discusses the Bulgarian reaction to Krassimir’s win and describes three main concerns Bulgarians have with the results. There are complaints that there was not enough time for onlookers to send in text messages, and that some were sent back. Another concern is that Krassimir has lived in Los Angeles for ten years and thus cannot accurately represent the Bulgarian people. Controversially, this blog mentions concerns that Krassimir’s “untraditional sexual character” is a worry for some Bulgarians.
(http://sofiaecho.com/2009/02/24/680596_yet-another-scandal-at-bulgarias-eurovision-contest)

In an interview with ESCToday Krassimir reacts to the accusations against him. He argues that he wants very much to represent his country, even though he has been away. He emphasizes that there are specific groups that attacked him, but the Bulgarian public is behind him. Krassimir says he did nothing against the rules and that many have apologized for attacking him and his music. (http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/13600)

Despite all of the controversy surrounding Avramov’s overwhelming win, he is the Bulgarian entrant for Eurovision 2009, with his song “Illusion.”

Bulgaria, a country with a population of 7.6 million, joined the Eurovision competition in 2005, along with Moldovia. It had just joined NATO the previous year, and in 2007 became a part of the European Union. Since it has taken Bulgaria until 2007 to enter the European Union it can be assumed that Bulgaria is more of a periphery country. In his article “Camping on the Borders of Europe” Ivan Raykoff comments that many countries are admitted to the Eurovision competition before they are admitted into the EU. This is true for Bulgaria, and its EU entrance came not long after it began participating in Eurovision.

In the 2005 entry, Bulgaria did not make it into the finals with their english-language selection “Lorraine” by the jazz-influenced band Kaffe. They placed 19th in the semifinals.  

The following year Mariana Popova’s “Let me Cry,” another song in English, again failed to make it to the finals, placing 17th in the semi-finals.

Bulgaria first made it to the finals in 2007 with the song “Water” by Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov. This song was the first entry put forth by Bulgaria in the Bulgaria’s own language.

In 2008 Deep Zone and Balthazar’s “DJ, Take me Away” did not make it to the finals, placing 11th in the semi-finals.

Here is a blog article on DJ Balthazar’s success now .http://blog.eurovisionchat.com/bulgarian-2008-eurovision-star-dj-balthazar-goes-on-a-tour-in-the-us/

Although some of these songs were sung by women, some by men, and some are in English and some are not, most of them have a techno beat that permeates the song.

In the past Bulgaria has given the most voting points to 1. Greece, 2. Armenia, 3. FYR Macedonia, 4. Russia, and 5. Turkey. Bulgaria has recieved the most point from 1. Greece, 2. Cyprus, 3. Hungary, 4. Spain, 5. FYR Macedonia, 6. Czech Republic, 7. Malta, and 8. Slovenia. This shows us that much of the support for Bulgaria’s entries comes from countries also in Eastern Europe.

The history of Bulgaria’s entries into Eurovision provides a clearer understanding of the country’s participation in the competition as we next look at Bulgaria’s 2009 entry.