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Eurovision, Chapter Two: Pop Music as Problematic Diplomacy · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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Speaker 1: the myth, the uh, the guy beloved by professional juries
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Speaker 1: and the public alike, mister Max Williams, I'm.
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Speaker 2: Loved by non professional juries too.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's no brown wooing in the background. Thank you,
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Speaker 1: and I'm able to be I like to be wooed,
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Speaker 1: you know, yes, to woo and to woo uh. My
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Speaker 1: name is Ben Bullen. For tax purposes, on this show,
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Speaker 1: we are returning to our exploration of a little thing
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Speaker 1: called Eurovision. Now. Previously on Ridiculous History, the three of
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Speaker 1: us delved deep into the origin story of a thing
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Speaker 1: that has become an international phenomenon. But Noel, you know
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Speaker 1: you and I were teasing this the entirety of our
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Speaker 1: first chapter. People do vote on Eurovision. Even though it's
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Speaker 1: a unifying thing, it is at heart a competition, so
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Speaker 1: there has to be a winner and there can only
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Speaker 1: be one.
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Speaker 3: Oh highlander rules Ben, which is also intensely European.
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Speaker 1: Yes, cartoonishly so yeah, that's good. Eurovision has a unique
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Speaker 1: system of voting that combines professional juries like the country
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Speaker 1: representatives or the big to dos of the music industry
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Speaker 1: with viewers at home at this point. So if we
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Speaker 1: are all watching Eurovision twenty twenty six, and the three
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Speaker 1: of us have a big group text and we're going Estonia,
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Speaker 1: no Hungary, you know what I mean, we can cast
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Speaker 1: our votes, we can make a voting block. It's so
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Speaker 1: weird because each country that participates in Eurovision has their
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Speaker 1: own in house jury of musical industry pros, and these
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Speaker 1: folks will award points to their favorite songs, but given
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Speaker 1: the conspiracy of nineteen fifty six, they are legally not
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Speaker 1: allowed to vote for their own country. So like, if
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Speaker 1: you're Simon Cowell or whatever, isn't he the.
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Speaker 3: Guy Timon Cowell is the mean British one? Yes?
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And then we've got Randy Jackson, who is not related
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Speaker 3: to Michael Jackson. He is a slap of de base
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Speaker 3: guy who is sort of a mean American who tells
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Speaker 3: people that he isn't feeling a dog.
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Speaker 1: That's a note for me, for me. Yeah, So those guys,
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Speaker 1: hypothetically even being at the top of the music industry game,
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Speaker 1: if they were part of a jury and Eurovision, they
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Speaker 1: could not vote for their own country. So essentially what
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Speaker 1: happens is this jury of boffins will make a top
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Speaker 1: ten list, a short list, and they will award points.
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Speaker 1: The maximum amount of allowable points is twelve points. If
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Speaker 1: you really really love every way that I can or
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Speaker 1: if you really really love think about things, et cetera.
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Speaker 1: So at the same time this is happening, the civilians
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Speaker 1: are participating. The public is a big part of this,
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Speaker 1: fans from around Europe. And at this point, by the way, guys,
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Speaker 1: pretty much anyone who has the app, you can vote
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Speaker 1: for your favorite performance by phone, text or in of course,
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Speaker 1: the official Eurovision app, which I do want to point out,
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Speaker 1: is going to scrape a lot of data from your phone.
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Speaker 1: It's true.
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Speaker 3: Any of those type of apps are going to have
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Speaker 3: significant cookies. I do believe there are rules now where
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Speaker 3: you are required to be a little more transparent about
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Speaker 3: which cookies you accept or do not. They EU SU
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Speaker 3: and the E's always been ahead of the curve in
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Speaker 3: terms of protection of privacy. So yeah, not something that
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Speaker 3: we have as much luck with over here. But I
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Speaker 3: do believe, at least I've noticed that cookie acceptance is
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Speaker 3: a little bit more transparent, even here in the States.
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Speaker 1: Do you, guys, get that thing? It may depend on
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Speaker 1: the browser you use, but do you get that pop
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Speaker 1: up where it says, except all cookies reject all cookies
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Speaker 1: customize you.
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Speaker 3: Sometimes there's there's a third secret, third thing or not secret.
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Speaker 3: But I like to say that for whatever reason, where
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Speaker 3: it's only relevant ones or only key functional functional ones.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
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Speaker 2: I mean I think we all mass reject all as
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Speaker 2: soon as possible, how as I do?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, of course I have cookies at home. Why do
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Speaker 1: I want more on the internet? What's your favorite kind
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Speaker 1: of cookie? Bin? Uh? My favorite kind of cookie? No,
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Speaker 1: that's a great question. I don't need a lot of sweets.
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Speaker 1: I'm sweet enough. I think that.
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Speaker 3: Uh.
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Speaker 1: Thanks, guys, I would say, you know what I like
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Speaker 1: a good soft chocolate chip. What about you?
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Speaker 3: A good soft baked chocolate chip. Ben, I also enjoy
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Speaker 3: a chocolate chip. Let's include some nuts of some kind
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Speaker 3: perhaps in that chocolate chip, and a little bit of
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Speaker 3: sea salt.
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Speaker 1: Oh, there we go, all right? Maybe some brown butter max. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: what's what to do?
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Speaker 4: Condition condition?
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Speaker 3: Come on, man, preconditioned? Favorite cookie?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, a hot soft chocolate chip cookie?
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Speaker 1: Is hot. Yeah, as you can tell, we are working
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Speaker 1: on our pitch for the next year of ficion so
6:18
Speaker 1: in contests when we can participate, because perhaps podcasts are
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Speaker 1: a country of their own. Look, we know that the
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Speaker 1: voting thing is a messy bull of spaghetti. It's a
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Speaker 1: big batch of weird cookie dough. If you are a
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Speaker 1: winning overstuffed cow zone, it's an overstuffed cow zone. Just so,
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Speaker 1: if you are a winning entry, then you have to
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Speaker 1: be able to appeal to the professional juries and then
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Speaker 1: you have to get the public on your side. But
6:50
Speaker 1: just like the electoral college or the electoral vote versus
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Speaker 1: the popular vote in US politics, you don't have to
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Speaker 1: win both of them to be the main act to
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Speaker 1: be the winner. And I gotta I gotta ask you, guys,
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Speaker 1: do you remember NOL. You and I have talked about
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Speaker 1: this in the past. Do you remember when we discovered
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Speaker 1: that there's maybe six people in Scandinavia who write most
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Speaker 1: pop music hits.
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Speaker 3: Oh of course, Yeah, I mean we're talking about the
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Speaker 3: hit factory sort of system over there. The most popular
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Speaker 3: person associated with that is Max Martin, and he's got
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Speaker 3: a whole team of crack Scandinavian songwriters song Smith's producers
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Speaker 3: that are basically dividing pop songs down into their component
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Speaker 3: parts in order to weaponize psychology against you.
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Speaker 1: Yes, you the listener. Yes could have said it better.
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Speaker 1: You nailed it. Folks, please check out stuff they don't
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Speaker 1: want you to know. If Nolan and I don't have
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Speaker 1: an episode about that yet, we will have one soon.
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Speaker 1: It'd be great. It'd be weird if we hadn't gotten
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Speaker 1: to that one yet. Okay, so look, we're we're the crew.
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Speaker 1: We're watching Eurovision the Big Night, the Grand Final, and
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Speaker 1: the points are being actively displayed. The scoreboard can flip
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Speaker 1: at the drop of a hat, so you're gonna see
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Speaker 1: Max name a name an obscure European country.
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Speaker 3: Sorry I'm late to the party, or at the drop
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Speaker 3: of a beat.
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Speaker 1: Oh oh, that's foreshadowing. So okay, you might see Armenia
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Speaker 1: uh performing the in in the Big to Do, and
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Speaker 1: they may all of a sudden look like they're shoeing.
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Speaker 1: They're the winner. But then the next uh, the next
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Speaker 1: act comes on, Nol, what's another country that is not
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Speaker 1: Armenia but still in Europe? Oh boy, I don't know.
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Speaker 3: Oh man, that's like saying name one woman that was
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Speaker 3: a billy on the street thing. He walks up to people, Billy,
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Speaker 3: what's that guy?
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Speaker 1: You know? That really intense dude.
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Speaker 3: He walks out of people and says, name one woman,
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Speaker 3: and they can't do it. They can't do it. I
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Speaker 3: am so bad at geography, Ben, you're putting me on
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Speaker 3: the spot. But let's go with.
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Speaker 1: There we go. Okay, all right, that's still the thing.
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Speaker 4: It is still a thing.
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Speaker 1: Thank goodness to ask uh and I also, I also
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Speaker 1: loved that joke because Max, I can't remember if you
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Speaker 1: were there for this recording, but Nolan and I had
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Speaker 1: quite a time, uh talking about how how weird passport
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Speaker 1: control and customs can be because of all yeah, yeah, like,
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Speaker 1: oh is your birthday insert date here? And they're not
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Speaker 1: looking for what you say, they're looking for your responses.
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Speaker 1: So both of your faithful co hosts here definitely got
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Speaker 1: some deer in the headlights moments, right you remember that?
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man, I mean it's how you It's not
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Speaker 3: what you say, it's how you say it. And it's
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Speaker 3: so it's much like we discussed on a recent episode
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Speaker 3: about IQ tests that test taking anxiety. It's a similar
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Speaker 3: emotional response, but all of a sudden, you're like under
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Speaker 3: the gun. Everything you think you know about anything, even yourself,
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Speaker 3: can just fly right out of your head.
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Speaker 1: Once upon a time, and this is a true story,
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Speaker 1: and I trust all of us not to make fun
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Speaker 1: of me about it too hard. But once upon a time,
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Speaker 1: when I was entering the United Kingdom, I freaked out
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Speaker 1: when they were asking me very basic questions. But in
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Speaker 1: as you said, Nol that quite direct way, I accidentally
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Speaker 1: called the passport control guy your highness. I didn't know
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Speaker 1: what to do. I didn't know what to do. It
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Speaker 1: was like, it was like, oh, so, what's your business here?
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Speaker 1: What's going on? I was like, ah, your highness, and
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Speaker 1: I ah.
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Speaker 3: Sorry, I might have dropped your lordship situation.
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Speaker 1: It's a weird one, right, And speaking of more weird stuff, uh,
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Speaker 1: we have to understand that Eurovision is not about the
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Speaker 1: best song, right, It is not about that. It is
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Speaker 1: about stage presence, it's about seeming original. It's a little
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Speaker 1: bit of rivalry and that brings us to again the
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Speaker 1: most broken of the main commandments of Eurovision being a
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Speaker 1: political case. We danced around it a little bit, but
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Speaker 1: we did a euroside steps, We did a shimmi or two.
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Speaker 1: We did. We did. We did an electric slide on
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Speaker 1: a couple of these because uh, this is of course
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Speaker 1: chapter two. Noel, you and I and Max were talking
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Speaker 1: off air. Eurovision is way more than this simple reality
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Speaker 1: TV show. It is a platform of diplomacy.
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Speaker 3: The Eurovision Song Contest as it's known, can act as
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Speaker 3: an incredibly powerful platform for public discourse, cultural diplomacy, and
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Speaker 3: utilizing that soft power in order to put forth some
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Speaker 3: very important nation branding. We talked recently about Thai food,
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Speaker 3: for example, then the exporting of Thai food to the
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Speaker 3: United States and other parts of the world. That's soft diplomacy.
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Speaker 3: We talked about food being soft diplomacy and cuisine being
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Speaker 3: soft diplomacy. This is no different. This can also be
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Speaker 3: an important component in political alignment with other nations, as
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Speaker 3: well as fostering cultural dialogues among other nations in Europe
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Speaker 3: and neighboring countries. And since nineteen fifty six, this whole
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Speaker 3: deal has allowed nations to influence international perception of their
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Speaker 3: culture through music rather than through political talking points or policy.
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Speaker 3: My friend, I think we both agree that is a
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Speaker 3: powerful thing. Oh absolutely, my friend, Because it's really hard
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Speaker 3: to wrap your head around the politics of other countries
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Speaker 3: if you're not like one of the wonks, you know,
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Speaker 3: or the boffins, as you'd like to say. But music
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Speaker 3: we can all kind of get behind.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, most people are going to feel the same way
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Speaker 1: about a F sharp or a flat you know what
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Speaker 1: I mean. It communicates fast words. And also to your
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Speaker 1: excellent point, there, Noel, why would someone read thousands of
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Speaker 1: pages about Latvia's post Soviet agricultural policies. Why wouldn't you
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Speaker 1: just tune in for a less than three minute song
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Speaker 1: called Latvia Makes Bread.
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Speaker 3: I'll tell you all. All I needed to know about
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Speaker 3: Latvia is that I could tap my toe to the
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Speaker 3: bread song.
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Speaker 1: There we go. Yeah, and we see when this works
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Speaker 1: in theory, we do see a great geopolitical glue. We
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Speaker 1: do see a great unifier. It also, however, acts as
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Speaker 1: a platform or venue for geopolitical tensions. So there are
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Speaker 1: going to be cases where two countries are beefing for
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Speaker 1: one reason or another and they just don't like each other,
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Speaker 1: and they're going to say, screw these guys, nobody vote
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Speaker 1: for them, right, and they'll get the same in return.
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Speaker 1: Eurovision during the Cold War is very interesting because it
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Speaker 1: was unifying Western Europe, but Eastern Europe, under the control
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Speaker 1: of the USSR, was excluded from the competition. So the
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Speaker 1: Soviet Bloc, that's what they call it, dude, they made
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Speaker 1: their own thing. They looked at Coca Cola and said,
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Speaker 1: will make pepsi at home. They created something called the
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Speaker 1: Intervision Song Contest. Not as Cool feels like a little
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Speaker 1: also ran.
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Speaker 3: No, it's it does for sure. You can't mess with
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Speaker 3: the classic formulas as evidenced by Coke two, coke, Oh psi.
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Speaker 1: We should do an episode on those.
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Speaker 4: Oh, how have we not?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we can combine those crystal pepsi and new coke.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we'll write it down. Also, the Intervision
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Speaker 1: Song Contest from the Soviet block ran from a you
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Speaker 1: had a much shorter career. It ran from about nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty five to nineteen eighty, and it was billed as
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Speaker 1: a socialist alternative to the corrupt capitalist practices of Eurovision.
15:55
Speaker 1: And they said, look, we are going to do our
15:58
Speaker 1: own show, right, We'll make a pepe to the coke
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Speaker 1: and we will not worry about you guys from Western Europe.
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Speaker 1: So then we saw for a few decades, we saw
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Speaker 1: Eurovision and Intervision competing sort of in the same room,
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Speaker 1: but not directly with one another.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but as we can see here from the outline,
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Speaker 3: Intervision only lasted from nineteen sixty five to nineteen eighty,
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Speaker 3: so it would appear that the OG won out and
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Speaker 3: that there indeed was could only be one at least,
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Speaker 3: you know, ultimately.
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Speaker 1: Like you said, Highlander rules, right, So this is different.
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Speaker 1: This is a contrasting case to the Olympic Games, because
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Speaker 1: Intervision and Eurovision did not pick their number one winner
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Speaker 1: and then send those two folks to sing it out.
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Speaker 1: There were only a few instances, pretty rare, where artists
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Speaker 1: from the Soviet block appeared on Eurovision. That all changes
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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, the Berlin Wall falls and shout
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Speaker 1: out to everybody else who has a little relic of that.
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Speaker 1: The USSR collapsed. And this means that many formerly Soviet
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Speaker 1: states in Eastern Europe, what do they do? No, they
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Speaker 1: don't hang with Intervision. They immediately joined the Eurovision Song
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Speaker 1: Contest in the nineteen nineties, and doing so is way
17:35
Speaker 1: easier than joining something like NATO. Yeah man, Nato, Huh,
17:41
Speaker 1: how's that thing going? Yeah? Oh yeah? Tap the mic
17:44
Speaker 1: like a nineteen eighty stand up NATO, guys. It just
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Speaker 1: I don't know, it just.
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Speaker 3: The soft diplomacy stuff is such an interesting microcosm of
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Speaker 3: like larger political systems and how propaganda can ultimately be
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Speaker 3: more effective than things like NATO and like the UN
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Speaker 3: and governing bodies, and like what we're seeing right now
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Speaker 3: in the United States. Not to be like too political
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Speaker 3: about it, but we're really just seeing so much actual
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Speaker 3: international law is a matter of just folks deciding to
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Speaker 3: play nice and follow the rules, you know, And how
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Speaker 3: much more influential some of this soft diplomacy stuff can be,
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Speaker 3: and how you know, this branding kind of these branding
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Speaker 3: plays can really make more of a lasting impact than
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Speaker 3: even you know, how you vote in the UN or
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Speaker 3: like resolutions or even sanctions.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. You know. I think what we're
18:46
Speaker 1: all saying here is that makes sense. Yeah, it does.
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Speaker 1: It's well put. What we're all saying here is, while
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Speaker 1: Eurovision is a lot of fun, it's hacking minds. It's
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Speaker 1: building relationships in a way that in institutions like the
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Speaker 1: United Nations or NATO simply cannot. This is much more
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Speaker 1: than a singing contest. It is not just international diplomacy
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Speaker 1: at its finest, it is also international diplomacy at its weirdest,
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Speaker 1: at its most ridiculous, and that means naturally, Eurovision is
19:23
Speaker 1: no stranger to controversy. And Noel, you, Max and I
19:28
Speaker 1: were talking about this a little bit off air. This
19:32
Speaker 1: is part of why we made this a two part series.
19:36
Speaker 1: Eurovision has, despite its noble intent and its grand ambition,
19:42
Speaker 1: been embroiled in so much controversy. We could sum it
19:46
Speaker 1: up in three rough categories. Maybe we step through those
19:50
Speaker 1: political tensions between competing countries that hell or high water
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Speaker 1: will not vote for each other ever at all, not
19:59
Speaker 1: even if the song is clearly the best song. And
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Speaker 1: the second controversy is going to be entries or songs
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Speaker 1: being disqualified due to political references in song lyrics. Just
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Speaker 1: for an example.
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, Ben, I don't mean interup. We're gonna
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Speaker 3: get the examples real quick, but we're no stranger to that.
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Speaker 3: Over here in the United States, we've certainly seen artists
20:26
Speaker 3: banned from say Saturday Night Live for Life for rage
20:30
Speaker 3: shout out to rage, for having an upside down American flag.
20:33
Speaker 3: I believe that they were told not to do, and
20:36
Speaker 3: I also believe they switched songs the last minute. Shout
20:39
Speaker 3: out to Elvis Costello who did the song radio Radio,
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Speaker 3: which is a total indictment of the broadcast system and
20:48
Speaker 3: the idea of like artists and performers being kind of
20:52
Speaker 3: slaves to these corporate interests. And of course shout out
20:56
Speaker 3: to Sinad O'Connor for tearing up a photograph of the
20:59
Speaker 3: post on live television.
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Speaker 1: Fight the real enemy.
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Speaker 3: So you know, it's it's and this is not an
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Speaker 3: exclusively European phenomenon. This is something that you know, when
21:09
Speaker 3: you're dealing with these live performances, politics can definitely make
21:14
Speaker 3: things a little bit messy and make things a little
21:16
Speaker 3: bit difficult for say the network in this case, for
21:20
Speaker 3: the competition.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, at our third category of controversy, here would be demonstrations,
21:27
Speaker 1: boycott's protests against certain countries. People are saying, don't let
21:33
Speaker 1: this country compete because of their politics and their policies.
21:38
Speaker 3: When s talk about the right, probably the most extreme
21:42
Speaker 3: version of that that's happening right now.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, as we build up to that, let's mention
21:48
Speaker 1: the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This these folks
21:55
Speaker 1: get beefed up, so often in Eurovision. They both in
22:01
Speaker 1: the late two thousands, but in two thousand and nine,
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Speaker 1: Get this, there were people in Azerbaijan, civilians, right, not military,
22:11
Speaker 1: not professional judges or whatever, just regular people watching the
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Speaker 1: show and they vibed with Armenia's song and they voted
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Speaker 1: for it, and then later they were visited by law enforcement.
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Speaker 1: They got a heard you voted wrong. Imagine the police
22:32
Speaker 1: knocking on your door because you voted wrong. In America's got.
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Speaker 3: Talent well, and that is not to put too fine
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Speaker 3: a point on it. The kind of stuff that it's
22:42
Speaker 3: easy to take for granted, and that we've talked about
22:45
Speaker 3: the slippery slope of some of the things going on
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Speaker 3: here again in this country, that one day some Facebook
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Speaker 3: post you liked, or some you know thing you've voted for,
22:55
Speaker 3: you know poll you took could come back to haunt
22:58
Speaker 3: you if they were to change, and may in certain
23:03
Speaker 3: positions are made retroactively quote unquote illegal.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, the retroactive illegality is a big concern of mine,
23:11
Speaker 1: hopefully for everybody as well. I mean, we also know
23:15
Speaker 1: there are some illegal.
23:16
Speaker 3: Is also such a broad term, it might not even
23:19
Speaker 3: be considered illegal. It's just at this point, the law
23:22
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if you have a leader or a desk,
23:27
Speaker 3: but that has so much power and has so much
23:29
Speaker 3: influence over law enforcement, the law doesn't even matter. It's
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Speaker 3: just this person doesn't like you and doesn't like your opinion,
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Speaker 3: and they're going to come find you and make sure
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Speaker 3: that you're on a list.
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Speaker 1: And then we know where that can go exactly. And
23:44
Speaker 1: we also know there are several elephants in the room
23:47
Speaker 1: of Eurovision controversy. One of the biggest is obviously going
23:53
Speaker 1: to be Russia and Ukraine. Now, originally pre twenty fourteen,
24:00
Speaker 1: these nations peacefully participated in co competition, right of Eurovision,
24:09
Speaker 1: We're all having fun. But then Russia invaded an annexed
24:13
Speaker 1: Crimea in twenty fourteen, the war and don Bass popped off,
24:18
Speaker 1: and in twenty sixteen Ukraine one Eurovision with a song
24:24
Speaker 1: called nineteen forty four. The lyrics were talking about the
24:30
Speaker 1: deportation of Tartars people in Crimea, and because of the
24:36
Speaker 1: events in Crimea occurring right at the time, pretty much
24:41
Speaker 1: everybody said, hey, this is not a political You guys
24:46
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. Everybody knows what you're talking about.
24:49
Speaker 1: This is a statement against the nation of Russia. However,
24:55
Speaker 1: the boffins, the judges, most importantly the producers and showrunners
24:59
Speaker 1: got to together and they said, look, you can compete
25:04
Speaker 1: because this song is about history. And the Russian delegation said, no,
25:09
Speaker 1: screw you guys.
25:10
Speaker 3: Also whose history and which history and which version of history?
25:15
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, just so, I mean we know that the
25:20
Speaker 1: country of Georgia, not the state. The country of Georgia
25:25
Speaker 1: had gotten in trouble with Russia as well, because after
25:29
Speaker 1: the Russo Georgian War, Georgia came out with a song
25:34
Speaker 1: called we Don't want to put In, We don't want
25:39
Speaker 1: to put In, Putin on the ritz. Yeah, And the
25:44
Speaker 1: European Broadcasting Union objected to this and they said, look,
25:48
Speaker 1: you guys are clearly doing, you know, a sneaky little
25:54
Speaker 1: pun and you are criticizing Vladimir Putin. Were not dumb,
26:01
Speaker 1: you guys, We're still very plugged in and cool. We
26:03
Speaker 1: get it, and you shouldn't do it. Yeah.
26:05
Speaker 3: We're seeing some controversies like that, or we did see
26:07
Speaker 3: some controversies like that, at least in terms of these
26:10
Speaker 3: more low key kind of protests in the recent Winter Olympics,
26:14
Speaker 3: specifically surrounding Palestine and Israel. And like I think there
26:17
Speaker 3: was like a bobsletter that wore. Yeah, Max has got
26:21
Speaker 3: the facts on this one were on his helmet some
26:25
Speaker 3: sort of card with names of folks who were killed.
26:28
Speaker 2: It was a Ukrainian bob sletter I believe, who had
26:31
Speaker 2: like photos of people who had been killed, but in
26:33
Speaker 2: the in like the Russian in Vagins.
26:35
Speaker 3: So sorry, it wasn't wasn't a Palestine thing it was.
26:37
Speaker 3: It was a Ukraine thing, so even more uh.
26:40
Speaker 2: And he was he was not allowed to compete with
26:42
Speaker 2: it on there and but he did it anyway.
26:45
Speaker 4: Well, no, he wasn't allowed to compete.
26:47
Speaker 1: He wore he did, oh got it and he wore
26:50
Speaker 1: and like.
26:50
Speaker 2: Practice and told him you have to tick that you
26:52
Speaker 2: can't wear that you were something confirms the whole a
26:55
Speaker 2: political stance. And I remember hearing the president of it
26:58
Speaker 2: of the IOCA her statement, and to get a little
27:02
Speaker 2: on my own soapbox here, I said, somehow y'all are
27:05
Speaker 2: still better than FIFA, but only FIFA, only FIFA.
27:09
Speaker 1: We're still holding it out for that FIFA Peace Prize,
27:13
Speaker 1: which will be the first awarded to a podcast, and
27:17
Speaker 1: let's make it happen that was Max with the facts.
27:22
Speaker 2: That seeking in the phones and peacefullen knowledge.
27:28
Speaker 4: It's just for you right now here with the facts.
27:41
Speaker 1: Now we have to get to one of the biggest
27:45
Speaker 1: controversies in all of Eurovision, and this is something that
27:50
Speaker 1: is very sensitive to a lot of people. We're going
27:53
Speaker 1: to be responsible about it. If you look at Eurovision
27:58
Speaker 1: and you just hear the name, you would be reasonable
28:02
Speaker 1: in assuming that Eurovision is a contest for European countries.
28:08
Speaker 1: That is not always the case. There is a very
28:12
Speaker 1: well known non European country regularly participating in Eurovision, and
28:19
Speaker 1: that country is the Middle Eastern nation Israel.
28:23
Speaker 3: Israel first competed in the contest in nineteen seventy three,
28:26
Speaker 3: becoming the first country from outside of Europe or the
28:31
Speaker 3: EU as it's known today, to enter. As participation in
28:35
Speaker 3: the contest over the years has at times raised significant controversy,
28:41
Speaker 3: as have you know, other actions at Israel have taken there.
28:44
Speaker 3: They've always been a very dicey kind of political hot
28:48
Speaker 3: button issue, especially well not especially, but certainly here in
28:51
Speaker 3: the United States, in no small part because of our
28:54
Speaker 3: super cozy relationship with them and some of the nasty
28:58
Speaker 3: goings on that they you know, get into from time
29:01
Speaker 3: to time.
29:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of this controversy will hinge on other
29:07
Speaker 1: countries participating in Eurovision, and they'll raise concerns. They'll say,
29:14
Speaker 1: what about the conflict in that region of the world,
29:18
Speaker 1: the Israeli Palestinian conflicts, what about the wider Israeli Arab
29:23
Speaker 1: conflict in that region? And so at various times in
29:28
Speaker 1: the past, other countries have threatened to boycott Eurovision or
29:34
Speaker 1: they've called for the Nation of Israel to be removed
29:38
Speaker 1: from participating. Despite all that, this country, which again is
29:43
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, not in Europe, has remained a
29:46
Speaker 1: regular competitor since nineteen seventy three. The Nation of Israel
29:52
Speaker 1: has not only one Eurovision four times, but has also
29:57
Speaker 1: hosted it thrice for sure.
30:00
Speaker 3: And if you can imagine, a lot of people have
30:03
Speaker 3: a lot of thoughts and feelings and opinions about what's
30:07
Speaker 3: going on with Israel right now in terms of their
30:11
Speaker 3: treatment of folks in Palestine and in terms of their
30:14
Speaker 3: actions against Iran that we here in the United States
30:17
Speaker 3: seem to have gotten, you know, more or less fully
30:21
Speaker 3: on board with, and that has trickled and filtered into
30:26
Speaker 3: how they are being looked at and treated in the
30:30
Speaker 3: Eurovision competition again to that soft diplomacy or that kind
30:34
Speaker 3: of political microcosm of it all. It really is an
30:37
Speaker 3: interesting signifier, you know, of how the greater European world
30:43
Speaker 3: is looking at these conflicts.
30:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one hundred percent. In twenty twenty five, just
30:51
Speaker 1: last year, as we record, the Nation of Israel took
30:55
Speaker 1: the top spot in the public vote, but they got
30:59
Speaker 1: a score from the jury, so their popular vote was great.
31:04
Speaker 1: Their electoral college vote, if we could call it that,
31:07
Speaker 1: not so much. As a result, the European Broadcasting Union
31:12
Speaker 1: introduced rules for stricter auditing lower public vote counts, and
31:19
Speaker 1: then they put tighter restrictions on what they portrayed as
31:24
Speaker 1: state sponsored promotion. So what the EBU was essentially saying
31:29
Speaker 1: last year is that they were polite, they were diplomatic
31:34
Speaker 1: in circumspect about it, but they clearly thought that on
31:39
Speaker 1: some state sponsored level, the Nation of Israel was rigging
31:44
Speaker 1: the vote for sure, which is like with a lot
31:47
Speaker 1: of propaganda, not like forcing people to vote, but encouraging
31:51
Speaker 1: them to only vote for their country propaganda.
31:55
Speaker 3: And you gotta wonder too, where we talking like hackery
32:00
Speaker 3: are we talking about? I mean, I do seem to recall.
32:02
Speaker 3: I was going to mention some dear friends of mine
32:05
Speaker 3: in Berlin who are kind of the ones that really
32:07
Speaker 3: hipped me to how massive the whole Eurovision thing is
32:10
Speaker 3: over there. Like they have parties and it's just like
32:12
Speaker 3: it's like a seasonal you know, like literally like a
32:15
Speaker 3: social event of the season. They seem to think, and
32:19
Speaker 3: these are folks who are in tech that there may
32:21
Speaker 3: well have been some you know, shenanigans that play in
32:26
Speaker 3: terms of rigging the vote, for ringing the vote for Israel,
32:31
Speaker 3: because of course these things all involve using apps, you know,
32:35
Speaker 3: using perhaps phone numbers that you can call, and there
32:38
Speaker 3: are ways to spoof these kinds of things.
32:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a standing concern for a lot of
32:46
Speaker 1: Eurovision fans in Western Europe to be honest and across
32:50
Speaker 1: the world, because look, Eurovision may be for primarily European
32:55
Speaker 1: countries to participate, but the world is watching. People love
33:00
Speaker 1: watching Eurovision, and everybody wants the competition to at least
33:05
Speaker 1: feel fair. We know that controversies will surely crop up
33:10
Speaker 1: in the future because Eurovision will continue. It is so
33:15
Speaker 1: amazing to watch. It has got to be a wild
33:19
Speaker 1: ride to participate in it, and it's also a key
33:23
Speaker 1: piece of diplomacy. At this point, I think it's fair
33:26
Speaker 1: to say that on balance Eurovision is ridiculous, but it
33:31
Speaker 1: is also a tremendously positive thing for the world overall.
33:36
Speaker 1: Is that safe to say?
33:37
Speaker 3: I think it is too, Ben, and I just want
33:40
Speaker 3: to walk back what I said just briefly. I don't
33:42
Speaker 3: know that we have evidence of hacking in terms of
33:45
Speaker 3: it is more, like you said, Ben, a concerted effort
33:48
Speaker 3: to do sort of like vote manipulations or you know,
33:51
Speaker 3: kind of coercive voting. But there was an instance back
33:56
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen where it is Raeli webcast of the
34:00
Speaker 3: first Eurovision semifinal was hacked to show faked explosions in
34:07
Speaker 3: Tel Aviv. The Israeli national broadcaster COHN blamed Hamas for
34:12
Speaker 3: the interruption, though the Palestinian group didn't comment. The TV
34:18
Speaker 3: broadcast at large was not affected, but viewers tuning into
34:21
Speaker 3: the con webcast all the warning risk of missile attack,
34:24
Speaker 3: please take shelter under a fake logo of the Israeli
34:28
Speaker 3: army and the sound of rocket warning sirens.
34:31
Speaker 1: Turty stuff. Why can't we just have a one nice thing?
34:35
Speaker 1: Why can't we just see why can't we just see
34:38
Speaker 1: silly songs being sung by people? Man this so it
34:43
Speaker 1: goes deep, learn more about the concept of soft diplomacy.
34:48
Speaker 1: We talked off Mike and Max, Noel and I couldn't
34:52
Speaker 1: leave you without a one last you know, digit Steve,
34:59
Speaker 1: We we have to share some of our favorite weirdest
35:03
Speaker 1: Eurovision songs ever, because again this thing started in nineteen
35:08
Speaker 1: fifty six, aside from COVID, it kept going all the
35:12
Speaker 1: way up to the modern day. I got to tell you, Noel,
35:16
Speaker 1: two of my favorite Eurovision songs ever are every Way
35:20
Speaker 1: that I Can by Sir toab Erener and Think About
35:24
Speaker 1: Things by Daddie Freire. That is my guy, Doddy Fryar.
35:28
Speaker 3: Got to see him perform here in Atlanta at the
35:30
Speaker 3: Variety Playhouse. He had a giant inflatable of his head
35:34
Speaker 3: on stage, because of course he did, of course he did.
35:36
Speaker 3: And he's you know, his videos are just as delightful
35:38
Speaker 3: that one you're talking about.
35:39
Speaker 4: Ben.
35:40
Speaker 3: I think they're all wearing like weird sweaters in the video,
35:43
Speaker 3: and then he's got some that they're just like weird
35:45
Speaker 3: little after effects clones of himself and just really delightful stuff.
35:49
Speaker 3: Real tall lanky dude, very into electronic music, kind of techno,
35:53
Speaker 3: but it's sort of comedy music, but it's also just good.
35:56
Speaker 3: Like I would have a lot of heart to him,
35:58
Speaker 3: really a lot of heart, and he just seems like
36:00
Speaker 3: a lovely guy. And he actually just moves to Berlin,
36:02
Speaker 3: which is my favorite city in the EU, and makes
36:05
Speaker 3: a whole lot of sense because that is sort of
36:07
Speaker 3: the heart, the beating, the four on the floor beating
36:10
Speaker 3: heart of the electronic music world.
36:12
Speaker 1: Berlin is your favorite city out of that whole pseudo continent.
36:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just have really good friends there, and I
36:20
Speaker 3: just love the history of the music scene, and you know,
36:23
Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff that I'm into, and I
36:24
Speaker 3: just dig the vibe there.
36:25
Speaker 1: It's cool. Nice. We also want to shout out the
36:30
Speaker 1: weirdest Eurovision performances, things like Finland's monster rock band Lordie.
36:38
Speaker 1: So if you are a fellow theatric rock nerd, you
36:43
Speaker 1: might recall bands like Guar, Lordie, l O R d I.
36:49
Speaker 1: They have a song called hard Rock Hallelujah. Check it out.
36:53
Speaker 1: It's exactly what you're thinking about, it sure is.
36:56
Speaker 3: And I also want to pull a couple of fun
37:00
Speaker 3: from an article the Guardian put out called Vampires, Naked
37:03
Speaker 3: Apes and free Booze the twenty wildest Eurovision performances ever,
37:07
Speaker 3: because you know, this absurd aspect of Eurovision is almost
37:14
Speaker 3: as important as like say, the you know, having the
37:17
Speaker 3: best pop song or being the most polished act. Vampires
37:21
Speaker 3: are alive Switzerland two thousand and seven. Vampires are alive
37:25
Speaker 3: in hell Sinky, they say, beginning this surreal Swiss pop entry,
37:30
Speaker 3: which occasionally veered into Pirates of Penzance territory. It was
37:33
Speaker 3: especially odd because, despite the subject matter, neither DJ Bobo
37:37
Speaker 3: nor his crew resembled vampires. As Eurovision rules stipulate that
37:41
Speaker 3: you can't have more than six performers on stage, whoa
37:43
Speaker 3: that still holds a row of mannequins were added at
37:46
Speaker 3: the back to make the stage look busier. The result
37:49
Speaker 3: a band of not vampires lost in the pants department
37:52
Speaker 3: of a Marks and Spencer. That must be a British
37:54
Speaker 3: reference that I do not get, and I am reading
37:56
Speaker 3: from this article directly. One more that I thought it
38:00
Speaker 3: was fun was Helium to the Rescue. If you're unsure
38:04
Speaker 3: whether you're going to hit the high note at Eurovision,
38:06
Speaker 3: you can always take a leaf out of Sebastian Telier's book.
38:09
Speaker 3: By the way, adore Sebastian Tellier. This guy's a serious
38:13
Speaker 3: electronic artist from France who does really gorgeous kind of
38:16
Speaker 3: lounge type music. But he arrived on stage driven in
38:20
Speaker 3: a golf buggy and inhaled a helium balloon mid performance,
38:24
Speaker 3: thereby raising his voice a couple octaves. Tellier ended up
38:27
Speaker 3: coming in nineteenth in that year's final.
38:30
Speaker 1: And let us not forget Dustin the Turkey representing Ireland
38:36
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. We're gonna play one real quick
38:39
Speaker 1: clip and it counts as fair you so again, Turkey's
38:46
Speaker 1: Ireland Dustin puppets. Now do you see it? Do you
38:55
Speaker 1: see the puppet? I sure do, swear it?
39:02
Speaker 3: Amazing, amazing, All right, we'll stop it.
39:09
Speaker 1: I'm a little triggered.
39:11
Speaker 3: Is a little bit dark, Crystal Skexies coded a little bit.
39:16
Speaker 1: But I'm here for it.
39:17
Speaker 2: Ben, thanks for sharing to jump in here, because this
39:20
Speaker 2: seems very relevant. I pulled this up before we even started.
39:23
Speaker 2: But most Eurovision wins in the history of the competition,
39:28
Speaker 2: it is.
39:29
Speaker 4: A tie between Sweden and Ireland.
39:34
Speaker 1: The two countries that famously have.
39:36
Speaker 4: Fun seven times each.
39:38
Speaker 2: I Sweden I could have guessed that that would have
39:41
Speaker 2: been one of my guesses.
39:42
Speaker 4: Ireland, Ireland.
39:45
Speaker 1: It's something in the eyes, you know. So we also
39:50
Speaker 1: know that we also knew that there were entries into
39:55
Speaker 1: Eurovision that we're bragging about agricultural goods. If you go
40:00
Speaker 1: to twenty twelve, you'll see Russia's submission, which is Borronolskie
40:07
Speaker 1: Babushki Party for everybody.
40:11
Speaker 3: Bushki means everybody. I thought of Babushka. It was like
40:14
Speaker 3: a like a little old lady.
40:16
Speaker 1: Well it was, and they did have Russian Granny's baking
40:22
Speaker 1: bread on stay thank that was part of their musical act.
40:25
Speaker 3: Love It also shout out to Kate Bush, my favorite
40:28
Speaker 3: artist of all time, second only maybe to David Bowie
40:31
Speaker 3: for her song Babushka.
40:33
Speaker 1: It's shout out to those mad lads from Moldova who
40:38
Speaker 1: got on unicycles. Of course, shout out to Estonia's chaotic
40:43
Speaker 1: punk act Winnie Push. That's true, that's the real day.
40:49
Speaker 4: I believe it.
40:49
Speaker 1: I believe it been so guys. This is all building
40:53
Speaker 1: toward one of the biggest questions that we and our
40:56
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians have had over the past to episodes
41:01
Speaker 1: of this series. When are we going to Eurovision? Will
41:05
Speaker 1: accounting pay for it?
41:06
Speaker 2: Let's go this weekend?
41:09
Speaker 1: We actually, we actually cannot go this weekend.
41:14
Speaker 3: Stuff going on. We're gonna be on the road, y'all
41:16
Speaker 3: doing ridiculous history from the Bahamas. Gosh, must be nice,
41:21
Speaker 3: is what y'all are probably saying.
41:22
Speaker 1: It is work.
41:23
Speaker 3: We are stoked, and we're very grateful to Baja mar
41:26
Speaker 3: the Resort for putting us up for a couple of
41:28
Speaker 3: days and letting us record from their podcast studio, which
41:32
Speaker 3: they apparently have.
41:34
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, we will update when we are recording in
41:39
Speaker 1: Baja Mark. Wish us the best, folks. We can't wait
41:43
Speaker 1: to hear from you your favorite Eurovision songs. Give it
41:47
Speaker 1: to us, your least favorite, give it to us the
41:50
Speaker 1: ones that still thoroughly confuse you. Because Max Noll and
41:55
Speaker 1: I each have our own collected set of just real
41:59
Speaker 1: weird stuff from Eurovision. Big big thanks to our super
42:02
Speaker 1: producer mister Max Williams, Big thanks to his biological brother
42:07
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed this track. And you know what,
42:11
Speaker 1: Nol I think Alex would be great at Eurovision.
42:14
Speaker 3: The man's got stage presence, the man's got riz let's
42:18
Speaker 3: put him forth as as the US, the first ever
42:21
Speaker 3: US entry into Eurovision, though I'm pretty sure they wouldn't
42:24
Speaker 3: have us at this point.
42:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's all in the swagger. Okay,
42:28
Speaker 1: So it's if it's Alex Max, you myself. We'd have
42:35
Speaker 1: to add Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister. Can we put
42:38
Speaker 1: him in the back maybe with like a what's the
42:41
Speaker 1: least intrusive musical instrument? The kazoo? No, that's too far.
42:51
Speaker 1: We'll give him a thereman. Can he drive a Theramy
42:53
Speaker 1: Herman's pretty intrusive? Max goes high? Can we give him
42:57
Speaker 1: like a triangle?
42:59
Speaker 4: You can get truth of what the triangle ben? All right,
43:03
Speaker 4: it's not all right to stay on the air, but
43:04
Speaker 4: I can tell you later.
43:05
Speaker 1: Okay, Well tuned in for the after show, folks, which
43:10
Speaker 1: I guess means Texas or hit us up on ridiculous
43:13
Speaker 1: historians over on Facebook. Big thanks to Christopher hasiotis here
43:18
Speaker 1: in spirit. Big thanks to use Jeffcoat, who recently returned
43:23
Speaker 1: to South Africa. By the way, I think she's okay
43:26
Speaker 1: with us saying that. No, I don't think either of
43:29
Speaker 1: us were able to make it to her yoga session
43:31
Speaker 1: when she was back in town.
43:33
Speaker 3: No, sadly, but that's because everybody Dylan who does live
43:36
Speaker 3: music for it and also produces our show stuff, they
43:38
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. He told me it's sold out,
43:41
Speaker 3: so I'm looking forward to trying out the next one.
43:43
Speaker 1: Big thanks as well to aj Bahama's Jacob's The Puzzler,
43:47
Speaker 1: and big thanks to Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance and man Ben.
43:52
Speaker 1: I got to thank you twice over for this.
43:55
Speaker 3: One because you were the research associate on this episode,
43:58
Speaker 3: this pair of episodes as well as my You know,
44:01
Speaker 3: we could maybe be a Eurovision duo. We just have
44:04
Speaker 3: to renounce our citizenship.
44:06
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, the price dropped for that, that's what I heard.
44:09
Speaker 1: I think we can afford it. We'll go in Apsi's
44:11
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, Poets.
44:19
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
44:23
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.