Engelbert Humperdinck has previously been described as “one of the finest middle-of-the-road balladeers around”. However, when he represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, he flopped massively, coming second to last with only 12 points. In an interview with British newspaper, Metro, he has blamed this flop on politics.
What exactly did he say?
The comments came after he was asked if he’d watched this year’s Eurovision, in which Lucie Jones represented the UK with her song, written by Eurovision 2013 winner Emmelie de Forest, Never Give Up On You, and gave the UK their best result since 2011. Humperdinck responded:
“No, I don’t watch it. It’s very political. The UK will never be up there again because the competition is too controlled. No matter how much talent you send out there from the UK, nothing will come of it.”
He also makes negative comments about the Russian entry for 2012, the Buranovskiye Babushki:
“How can you put a person on who is a global artist when there are people there who don’t have record contracts and have never appeared in an arena before and win a music contest? There was a group of Russian grannies who were cooking when they were singing. How does that make sense? And they came second.”
….is he delirious?
Some might say that his song did badly because of the unimaginative staging, whilst others might say that the issue was with the song itself. However, it seems that Humperdinck has other ideas, and has gone for the most basic and sloppy excuse for not doing well: blaming it on political voting. It’s worth pointing out that his entry, Love Will Set You Free, only reached number 60 in the British charts. But never mind that, clearly the issue here is politics, how else could such a popular global star as himself do so badly?
What do you think of Engelbert Humperdinck’s comments? Is what he says fair, or do you agree that he’s just making excuses for doing so poorly? Let us know in the comments below!
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