About as hip as Eurovision gets... Sebastian Tellier, the French contender, counts Daft Punk among his fans
Over the past few years there has been talk of our nation's pop stars graciously offering their credibility to the Eurovision Song Contest. After our candidate failed to win in 2006 Morrissey, perhaps hoping to follow in the bare footsteps of Sandie Shaw, said, "Why Didn't They Ask Me?" The following year Jarvis Cocker announced to the BBC that his door was always open to Eurovision: 'I've always wanted to write one for them.' It was all talk and no trousers though. Entrants for this year's UK Song For Europe included a 'former Joseph' and Michelle Gayle who used to be in the 'Enders. The winning hopeful is a chap called Andy Abraham whose song resembles Sydney Youngblood's If Only I Could and who wears a shirt as shiny as his head.
The French, on the other hand, have entered a far more hirsute gentleman who currently resides at number one in their iTunes chart. Sebastian Tellier is about as hip as it gets even in normal pop circles - so hip that Daft Punk fall at his feet with praise, and one of them even twiddled the knobs on his album Sexuality and Eurovision entry Divine. (Oddly, he sings it in English on the album and has had to record a French version for the contest.)
Previously Tellier's best known work was the epic La Ritournelle which often crops up on that other song contest the X Factor to lend gravitas to proceedings. I even got a lump in my throat when it was used to back a hair gel advert. His Eurovision entry isn't the most emotive or left-field thing he's done, though. Divine is the most pop moment from Sexuality and features Beach Boys-style bebop backing. It's synthetic europop of the kind Daft Punk evangelized on their Discovery album.
The performance could prove interesting though; according to Mixmag, Tellier spent one tour "downing bottles of whiskey in one, doing press-ups on stage and sticking cigarettes up his nose". He may well need to employ these visual aids, given that he's up against a turkey from Ireland.
Want to hear an Irish joke? Meet Dustin, a turkey puppet who gobbles his way through a parody of the Eurovision's voting system with Irelande Douze Pointe. This distant relative of Zig and Zag and author of the album Bling When You're Minging has already made the semifinals. The Irish are pinning their hopes on the novelty factor in much the same way Finland backed big-shoed death metallers Lordi who won in 2006.
Does it make a mockery of a contest that is already beyond a joke, or can artists like Tellier take it in a new, cooler direction?
