Orcs and Elves compete in Song Contest

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I was very happy for our Finnish Downer contingent last night...despite having been in the contest almost from the beginning, Finland have never been given douze pointes before, let alone won.

Thanks! You know what they say, 40th time lucky...

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I'm quite amused at the prospect of Scandinavian countries being inspired in future to maybe put some of their black or death metal bands forward for Eurovision.

Well, Nightwish was one candidate for representing us years ago, but they got turned down...


According to the official Eurovision site, Norway's song was "Elve's Dance" in English, but Lommy is right, the lyrics didn't say anything about elves. Still, it's no wonder that they came up with a song title like that since forest spirits, elves and trolls are such a big part of Scandinavian mythology - often combined with the magic of Midsummer's Eve, like in Norway's song, I assume. Lordi, on the other hand, has got his influences mostly from historical/ horror stories. For example, the band's guitarist is supposed to be a mummy from ancient Egypt and Mr. Lordi is a reincarnation of Jenghis Khan and Freddy Krueger. But they do look rather orcish.

Lordi faced quite much criticizing beforehand from accusations of Satanism (the accusations were unfounded, though) to disgracing Finland in the eyes of the Europeans, and as a Swedish newspaper put it, a competition between Beauty and the Beast ended in the latter winning.

I think it's nice that in the middle of basic pop songs some countries have something more traditional or natural to them. Norway's Elves were sweet singing in Norwegian and all, but our Orcs were the alternative option in the contest which was bound to gather at least a few votes from their fans. Even though we don't have such characters in our folklore as in the band Lordi, hard rock/ metal as a music genre is what Finnish bands do best and for once we chose a representative accordingly.