Turkey

Düm Tek Tek Hadise

"Feels like there's no way back..."

What makes a cliché a cliché is the fact it's so true, and nowhere is the old maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" truer than in a world of Eurovision dominated by diaspora-heavy voting where uncomplicated girly ethnopop from the south/east of the continent does so well. For large swathes of the audience it is more than sufficient; for those of us who like a little more ingenuity in our ESC entries* it leaves something to be desired. This year's Turkish delight, Düm Tek Tek, is a case in point: joining the dots very neatly, with a ruler and a proper pen and everything, but joining the dots nonetheless, it does what it says on the tin and offers nothing fresh whatsoever.

What Düm Tek Tek doesn't do is take into account the fact that while the way the voting in the semis works may make it a nigh-on 100% qualifier, the final is now a different kettle of fish entirely. Well, 50% entirely, with 'professional' juries from each country providing half of the catch. Performed by the Turkish émigré twin sister Helena Paparizou never knew she had, the song is certain to make the Belgian douze as unpredictable as such a thing can be when there are only two alternatives for who it will go to, but its fate in the final is yet to be determined. As the combined televoting and jury results released for 2007 showed, there is every chance that a song of its calibre could sail through to Saturday night and founder once it gets there, which I feel would be more justified in the case of Düm Tek Tek than the Armenian entry Jan Jan. But the success or failure of both will be pounced upon by all as a measure of how worthy the switch to 50/50 voting has been.

In any case, many would argue that there's little point in trying to second-guess the outcome: who's to say it will be any different just because juries are involved? After all, Düm Tek Tek is not at all incompetent: minimalist, perhaps, and unimaginative, but not incompetent. It can hardly not get the staging songs like it need, so it will probably do well regardless. But while - after repeated listens - I've grown somewhat enamoured of its relentless drive, I'm glad Turkey's playing it safe in a year when they might actually be punished for it. There's a place in Eurovision for this sort of thing (and for the Hadises of the world), but they've shown us they can do so much better.

* For which we, or they, are frequently labelled 'pretentious'