The scandalous Russian group TATU has once again attracted the attention of the mass media, this time because of the Eurovision Song Contest. As has been reported previously, the two Russian women will sing a song called “Ne verj, ne boisja”. The music was composed by Mars Lasar from the United States, while the lyrics are by Valeriy Polinyenko, who supposedly stopped working with TATU after a scandal during which he demanded a payment of $500,000 for the performance of his songs.
The song will be sung in English at the Eurovision Song Contest, and the group claims that this will not be a violation of copyright rules, because the lyrics will completely be rewritten. This has caused a bit of a dispute, however. A few days ago, on the official TATU homepage, the group’s producer, Ivan Shapovalov, announced that the song will be performed in Russian after all. Similar announcements have appeared elsewhere on the Internet, including the esctoday.com homepage, which received confirmation from the Russian television station ORT. A few hours later, however, the information disappeared from all of the homepages, and the same ORT representative denied that the song will be performed in Russian.
The scandalous aspects of TATU’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest also include rumours about alleged corruption at ORT. The main role in selecting Russia’s representatives at the contest was played not by the music, but rather by personal acquaintanceship. The Russian news media have been claiming that thousands of entries were submitted, but none of these was considered seriously. ORT has refused to answer any questions about the criteria for selection, and the membership of the relevant jury is not known. This makes it all the more possible that there were machinations in the way in which the national competition was organised. It seems quite peculiar that information about TATU’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest appeared on the ORT homepage only a few days after the official announcement. The homepage then said that the jury was made up of the general director of ORT, Konstantin Ernst, the producer Aleksandr Faifman, the director of the ORT musical division, Yuriy Aksyuta, as well as Vladimir Matecki and Dmitriy Malyikov. ORT claims that only 500 entries were submitted that year, as compared to some 11,000 entries last year. TATU was selected from amongst these entries, says ORT, but it has not named the other would-be competitors.
Shapovalov, for his part, has said that there was no contest. He was asked to submit a song, and he did so. Shapovalov says that the song is an aggressive and modern piece of music which may allow the Eurovision Song Contest to restore its long-lost sense of modernism. The live broadcast, moreover, will be seen all over Europe, and that presents an interesting opportunity.
Some journalists have said that the way in which the song was submitted was in violation of Eurovision statutes, but official representatives of TATU and ORT deny this.
After it was announced that TATU would take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, the group granted an interview to the German magazine Bild. Once again, the two young women shocked the audience with their statements. They said that they will do better than any other competitor in the history of Eurovision and that they have no doubt at all that they will win. Asked why they decided to take part in the competition, they claimed that this has been their dream, because they are Russians with their heart and soul.
That was not enough for Yuliya and Elena, however. Next they called the German performer an old witch who should be put into a senior citizens’ home instead of being allowed to perform at Eurovision. The interview concluded with a rhetorical question – are these the new ambassadors of the Russian Federation?
There are lots of people in Russia, too, who doubt whether TATU deserve a chance to represent the Russian state, asking whether their scandalous behaviour will not cause negative resonance.
It’s not really clear whether this might not be a marketing trick, an example of corruption or a situation in which the two girls from TATU are simply pawns in the endless row of Eurovision-related scandals. One thing is clear, though – Russia will be represented at Eurovision by its currently most popular export product, the scandalous group TATU. Each year Russia’s representatives promise to shock and to captivate the European audience, but so far they have not managed to do so with any great success. What will happen this year? We’ll be finding out in less than two months’ time.
Armands Baranovskis
01.04.2003
eurovision.tv
|
