Red Ochsenbein

Well, this weekend the final round of the ESC European Song Contest was held and the german girl Lena Meyer-Landrut won with a fantastic score. In my opinion this is well deserved. It was pretty amazing to see this 19 year old girl winning without any big show effects or dance performance: just she and her song. But I don’t want to talk to much about that just because this is easy: the most outstanding and memorable act just won. Period!

On the other side the artist sent from switzerland failed in the first round with just 2 points! Since several years switzerland did not have any chance. And what do I read today? Blick am Abend proposes three girls from switzerland to be the next ‘Lena’. In my opinion this is plain wrong and exactly the same fault switzerland makes year after year: they try to clone something that was successful. In doing this switzerland makes sure it is alway one step behind. As this wouldn’t be worse enough they even don’t seem to get what exactly made the acts successful.

As Blick am Abend proposes to send Stefanie Heinzmann, Jaël from the Band Lunik or Francine Jordi as the next ‘Lena’ they miss one point: they are all professionals! Not that this is a bad thing, but it misses the point of Lenas success. She won just because she is NOT perfect, and NOT too professional. Or let’s take a look at one of our most successful artist of the present: DJ Bobo. He failed when he tried to recreate the success of Lordi with a song about Vampires. He wanted to create the same dark and mystical mood. I think he did not realize why Lordi won. Lordi was able to mobilize a community of people who would not care about the ESC but they supported one of ‘theirs’ to win this contest. Lordi is probably not their favoured metal band, but it was A metal band at this contest and thus worth to vote for. But DJ Bobo can’t mobilize those metal fans!

So, what should switzerland do? I propose the next act from switzerland should be fresh, new, innovative… so switzerland should show courage, try new things, experiment, take chances, go crazy! This is the only chance to be at least one step ahead. This is how the good things in this country got big!