Showcasing the Journalism work of Daniel Rosney
An enthusiastic, motivated BJTC accredited journalism graduate, a self-starter with excellent organisational skills and proven experience in various media environments.
Engelbert Humperdinck is Flying The Flag (For You)
The Eurovision song contest, an event which hasn’t had a succesful UK entrant since 1997, is almost upon us. Amongst the sparkly jackets, the lifting of t-shirts and the winking into cameras there is that one act that has everyone stumped. Previous examples of this include Lordi screaming their way to victory, but now it seems it’s UK’s turn “stumpe the Eurovision audience.
Choosing ex- talent show alumni has proved to be a poor tactic to represent the United Kingdom, if we didn’t vote for Jessica Garlick, James Fox, Javine Hylton or Andy Abraham to win their respective “talent” series, then why would the rest of Europe?
So instead, Mr. Eurovision bigwig at the BBC has gone for Engelbert Humperdinck to represent at Azerbaijan 2012. At 75, releasing his debut single in 1967 he’s the perhaps the most unusual choice for a musical representative of the United Kingdom since Shayne Ward sang for Swedish Royalty.
Unusual it may be but not necessarily a wrong choice as Heidi Stephens, Eurovision expert and Television Liveblogger for The Guardian explains “We won’t win. We CAN’T win. We could reform the Beatles and we still wouldn’t win, whereas the Greek entry could wander out and fart into a megaphone and Cyprus would still give them 12 points. That’s the beauty of Eurovision, it’s total nonsense and all the better for it.
“Yes – he’s an old crooner who’s sold 150 million records and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He’s not trying to revive his career, he’s 75. No-one will laugh at him, he’s a legend. He’ll sing a good song well, and we’ll have done our bit for another year. Job done, good work BBC.”
That’s exactly what Engelbert needs, “a good song”, which should sound more like German winner Lena’s Taken By A Stranger than Daz Sampson’s Teenage Life.
A BBC press release confirms that Mr Humperdinck will be singing “a track produced by Grammy award-winning Martin Terefe (Mary J Blige, James Morrison) and co-written by Martin and Ivor Novello winner Sacha Skarbek (Adele, Lana Del Rey, James Blunt). The track is being recorded in London, L.A and Nashville.”
We could have another crooner sitting high at the top of the charts again, à la Tony Christie in 2005.
