Rock ‘n’ roll never dies (and nor does Malta’s Eurovision delusion)...

If you ask me, there was a single pivotal moment during last Saturday’s Grand Final, which – if properly analyzed by a panel of experts (of which, let’s face it, we seem have an infinite supply) – might even provide answers to one of the most imponderable questions ever asked about the Eurovision Song Contest:

1) Why does Malta always (but ALWAYS) approach this competition as though: a) we’ve already won; b) our victory was ‘pre-ordained by the Heavens’ (and, therefore, any predictions to the contrary are clearly ‘blasphemous’); c) the entire contest itself is nothing but a time-wasting formality, before our inevitable triumph is finally announced at the end, and; c) any failure of these expectations to actually materialize, is…

just…

not…

FAIR!!!

Oh, wait: I left out one of the most important stages, in the build-up to this inevitable, annual national melt-down of ours.

There is also this utterly irrational belief (which, to be fair, may even contain a small element of truth) that ‘winning the Eurovision Song Contest’ – apart, of course, from being a natural Maltese birthright, enshrined in all the relevant Treaties of International (and Inter-Galactic) Rights and Freedoms… (so obviously, all other competing nations annually conspire to steal it from us, each and every single time…  with, it must be said, an astonishing history of success…)

No: as if all that were not enough, it is now even believed that ‘winning Eurovision’ would also usher in some kind of new, undying ‘Golden Age’ for our country: a sort of historic (and long overdue) ‘seal of approval’, akin to the George Cross for Gallantry in 1942… or the final recognition of Malta as an independent nation on 21 September, 1964…

Heck, it might even end up being as nationally revered as that other great moment of undying national pride: when Malta managed to lose to West Germany in 1984, by a lot less than everyone else had even thought possible at the time (I believe the final score was 3-2…)

Ah, the good old days. You know: when our national expectations of such events were actually bang on the money, for a change…

Strangely, however: all that ‘pragmatic resignation’ that we have become so inured to, over the long years and decades of successive (predictable) defeat and disappointment… or at least, in football… seems to suddenly just melt away into a puddle, at the mere mention of the word: ‘Euro-sf*ckers’…. (sorry, ‘-vision’).

And rising to replace it all, almost like the transformation of The Incredible Hulk, is a sudden surge of confidence – not to say ‘unswerving self-assurance, of the cockiest (and most misplaced) variety imaginable’ – that grips the entire country so totally, and so instantaneously, that…

Well… sooner or later, you have to ask yourself who’s really snorting lines of coke here: Maneskin vocalist Damiano David… or the entire of population of Malta and Gozo…      

But back to that pivotal moment I mentioned earlier. In case you were wondering: no, actually… it wasn’t when Maneskin’s Damiano David was caught on camera, in what looked like (but turned out not to be) an impersonation of Al Pacino’s final scene in ‘Scarface’.

Though there is, of course, quite a lot to be said about that one, too. For starters, it all slots in rather neatly with some of our other, more recognizable national delusions: including our ingrained tendency to only ever believe what our own private agendas make us want to believe: and to hell with any evidence …

Honestly, though: how other times, in recent years, have we seen precisely the same sort of thought process in action… with precisely the same results?

“He looks like he’s doing coke; it pays us to believe that he’s doing coke, because… you never know, it might get them disqualified… and even if it doesn’t [for let’s face it: why the heck should it, anyway? They’re rock-stars, not politicians] … and even if, in any case, it wouldn’t have remotely affected Malta’s final placing anyway [in practice, it would only have meant Switzerland winning instead]…

“… well, let’s just say that it would still cast a shadow over Italy’s [entirely deserved] celebrations; and that’s one way of ‘paying them back’, for having ‘stolen’ a victory that was rightfully ours all along…”

And hey presto! On the basis of that flawless logical syllogism… Damiano David instantly becomes a confirmed dope-fiend (to add to all the other insults already piled onto him, his song, his bandmates – not to mention the entire Italian Peninsula, and everything it contains, or has ever produced – over the course of the entire festival…)

Never mind that a subsequent drug-test proved beyond doubt that the image itself had been, at best, ‘misinterpreted’… and that, not only was the singer himself completely ‘drug-free’; but he also turns out to be an anti-drug campaigner to boot…

No, those are all just minor trivialities, that inconveniently get in the way of a much more compelling, and satisfying, popular narrative…

So yes: that little ‘misunderstanding’ does tell us a very great deal about the sheer extent of this national Eurovision hang-up of ours (which, after this year’s edition, can only be described as ‘certifiable’). It is not just our expectations of the final result that are woefully misplaced… but pretty much everything else that is built on the same false premise: whether it is actually related to the Eurovision Song Contest, or otherwise…

But the moment I had in mind occurred earlier: almost exactly halfway through the voting process, in fact… at a point when the national juries had all already handed in their final verdict; but the televoting results had yet to be announced.   

In the interval, we were treated to a brief interview with Switzerland’s Gjon Muharremaj: who held back his tears long enough to say (something along the lines of): ‘Winning the national jury vote is akin to winning the entire competition… because it means professional validation by industry experts; and that’s the sort of validation all artists strive for, in their careers…”

With hindsight of how the rest of the evening actually unfolded: that statement invariably invites comparisons to Damiano David’s own reaction, upon being declared winner: which was to shout out - with all the defiance (and incoherence) of a genuine rock-star – “Rock ‘N’ Roll Never Dies!”…

Already, a certain difference can be discerned between the two approaches.

And this had already long been visible in all those onscreen images, during the tortuous build up to the ‘Big Reveal’. On one side of the screen there was Gjon’s Tears: sleek, sophisticated… utterly marketable; vaguely reminiscent (in look, if not musical style) of the 1980s ‘New Romantics’…

In a word, every inch the sort of act that has been meticulously groomed, from day one, to meet a set of standards that is ultimately imposed on the masses from above (and even then: artificially created by the same industry that goes on to exploit it…)

Not, of course, that there is anything fundamentally ‘wrong’ with any of that; or with the resulting music, either (which, at other times, would have been just as worthy of Eurovision as any other, all things considered…).

But still: it is a ‘look’… a ‘sound’… an overall ‘vibe’, that feels like it’s been churned out by the same old, perpetual ‘instant-celebrity’ factory, that in the past gave us…

…ooh, wait: let me spare myself a few random death threats, by not actually naming any bands or acts that are/were – in my own, entirely inexpert opinion, of course – ‘mass-produced’. Let’s just say that Switzerland’s entry this year – like so many other Eurovision acts this year (including Malta’s) – was clearly geared towards ‘industry acceptance’, over mass appeal

Italy, on the other hand… to me, it looked as though they succeeded in (metaphorically) doing, what Germany had earlier tried to do quite literally:  i.e., flip a giant ‘middle-finger’ at that same musical establishment, whose ‘approval’ means so much to everybody else.

And – like both the song, and the performance (especially the ‘encore’)… it was a glorious spectacle to behold.

Love it or hate it, Maneskin’s ‘Zitti E Buoni’ won because it was perfectly attuned towards the complete opposite end of the scale: aiming to ride on an undeniably widespread undercurrent of ‘national angst and rebellion’, at a time when – let’s face it – it’s not just Italy that has good reason to feel uneasy (or even angry) with all the traditional superficiality of such a glitzy, ‘happy-clappy’ event…

Admittedly, the band itself doesn’t sound much like The Smiths…  though it seems to have struck out in the direction of practically every other recognizable denomination of ‘Rock N Roll’: from Metal, to Punk, to 1970s Glam Rock, and beyond (the even bear a vague, superficial resemblance to Depeche Mode)… but with regard to the overall theme: I was reminded of that classic line from ‘Panic’:

“Burn down the disco… hang the blessed DJ… because the music that they constantly play, says nothing to me about my life… so hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ…’

And this, too, is why ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Never Dies’… it draws its limitless energy from none other than the global Zeitgeist itself: and just as rock music inevitably responds to stimuli from the national mood, or the immediacy of the historical moment… the masses, too, respond in their turn: all the more so in this particular case: when they could (for a change) recognize a reverberating note of insincerity, among all the discord – real, or political – in this year’s Eurovision.

Naturally, it doesn’t mean that all future Eurovision winners are from now on going to be a bunch of angry, ardenaline-fuelled rock fiends… it does, however, strongly suggest that most of those future winners, will be the ones who – like Italy – at least tried to tap into the current, global mood… instead of just giving the industry what they think the public wants (but invariable gets wrong…)