Despite being a musical snob (at least among my friends), I also love the Eurovision Song Contest. I think some great songs have come out of that contest, especially in the sixties. I know ABBA's Waterloo is in the AM3000, but does anybody know if other ESC songs in the list?

Gigliola Cinquetti's Non ho l'eta, the winner of 1964 should have been in, it's a magnificent song. Also the winner of the following year, France Gall's Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son should have been listed, had it been up to me. Non ho l'eta is on my top 100 song lists.

Horror movies never, ever scare me. Not even a tiny bit.

But Eurovision does it even when it doesn't try!

Effortlessly, I might add.

I take it it is crap like this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gcimSq4thu4

that scares you. It couldn't possibly be these ones:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4UtPFCZ4vqg
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oGGviSJ4Ilw

The last one has apparently been covered by Arcade Fire.

The first "good one" is alright, but the second one sounds like a bad spy movie theme song.

I'm American, and everything I know about the Eurovision contest I learned from this Monty Python sketch. Which immediately made me never to want to know more about it.

Of course, I'm willing to be disabused of my prejudice...but ABBA is a poor start.

Come to think of it, I would guess that American Idol has more acts on the list than the Eurovision contest. I've never seen Idol (although I knew about William Hung), but I know Kelly Clarkson was on it--any other singers?

(Do you start to get the feeling that pop music and judged competition don't go well together?)