Eurovision Song Contest: Lordi

And on the topic of funny music, I'm reminded of a conversation I had in London with my old Royal College of Music buddies over dinner about a nice, pleasant Finnish band named Lordi that took home top honors at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest.

For most Americans, we've never heard of the Eurovision Song Contest: basically it's an annual event where each nation in Europe nominates a song to represent their country, and all the performers of these songs duke it out on an internationally televised show. Every nation gets to cast their vote. The winner gets....well, I don't know. But judging by YouTube comments I've seen, the winning country at least gets bragging rights.

Usually the bands that get trotted out are the formulaic, bubble-gum teen-pop-idol variety. And many people I've spoken with often ridicule the show because of this fact. But in 2006, the Finns decided to buck the trend by putting forth a band called Lordi to do a song called 'Hard Rock Hallelujah'.



MONSTER ROCK! They won with MONSTER ROCK! I.....can't....stop.....laughing.....

They managed to squeeze in both "arockalypse" and "Day Of Rockening". GENIUS.