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Abba, cabaret and smug marionettes: the 1974 Eurovision song contest reviewed!
Fifty years since Abba won with Waterloo, fans are paying tribute to a pop classic. Its status is a far cry from its origins in a celebration of weedy pop and dodgy lyrics – and, whisper it, ‘nul points’ from Britain
In 2024, we might occasionally raise an eyebrow at Eurovision’s galumphing attempts to keep pace with pop culture – a bit of awkward rapping here, a clumsily deployed trap beat there, a smattering of disco-influenced pop-house that Dua Lipa or even Kylie wouldn’t give houseroom to – but it’s as hip as Saturday night at Berghain compared with what was happening 50 years ago. Photograph: ShutterstockCarita notwithstanding, the ballads invariably sound like something that Engelbert Humperdinck might have essayed five or six years previously, and there’s a lot of clompy oompah music, perhaps because the in-house orchestra turn virtually anything faster than that into cacophonous mush, including the efforts of Greece’s bouzouki-assisted Marinella and Spain’s Peret, who rocks up bearing a flamenco guitar and some off-colour lyrics: “If you stop for a blonde while driving on the road and she only wants a ride, it doesn’t work at all,” he is apparently singing, although it’s perhaps worth noting that this translation comes courtesy of David Vine, who, as we’ve already established, isn’t the most veracious source. A couple of years before, she was releasing exceptionally well-made country-influenced pop – critics claimed her cover of If Not for You superior to both Bob Dylan’s original and the celebrated version on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass – and now look at her: struggling manfully with Long Live Love, the hideous offspring of a secret tryst between Puppet on a String and Cliff Richard’s Congratulations.
Or read this on The Guardian