The place where all these amazing things happened was Eurovision 2015. Held in Austria last weekend, Eurovision is the world's biggest X Factor competition ever, the kind of place where all those weird American Idol dreams you keep having after eating too much cheese exist in one happy utopia.
It's a place where countries send their most flamboyant, over-the-top and downright ridiculous performers to represent them. It's where bearded ladies from Austria socialise with terrifying masked metallers from Sweden without being judged.
It's also a place where rejected power ballads go to die, where woeful lyrics like, "When you follow a dream, surrender the sorrow inside" (from Armenia's awful entry Genealogy) don't just feel meaningful, they feel absolutely justified.
New Zealand has never been invited, but we absolutely need to be part of this incredible annual event. Imagine Beau Monga up there beatboxing New Zealand's national anthem. Or Gin Wigmore giving a Crowded House classic a down-and-dirty makeover. Or Lorde duetting with Lordi. This needs to happen faster than Conchita Wurst shaving off her 5 o'clock shadow.
Guy Sebastian just stank the place up for Australia. I know we can do better. So come on, Eurovision overlords, just give us a go. We promise to leave our air violins at home.
Lydia Jenkin says no
Honestlyl, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I don't mean to rain on the fun parade, but there's no way you could come out of Eurovision feeling like you'd made a good career move, and I for one don't have the heart to put any of our local acts through such a horrific experience.
We've finally managed to get The X Factor off our screens, let's not stoop even lower.
Eurovision has all the potential to be an incredible celebration of the best that each European nation has to offer, and yet somehow it's devolved into a terrible pantomime of humiliatingly bad music, made worse by the ludicrous amount of lights and lasers and smoke machines and fireworks, which often feel like too many garish Las Vegas shows happening at the same time.
Lord knows how contestants are actually selected - it's like each country has a go at finding an act that everyone feels uniformly embarrassed about, and then gets a malfunctioning computer to write a musically bankrupt song to make the audience's skin crawl.
No one sings in their own language (it's usually just barely discernible English), the lyrics mean nothing, everything sounds like it was written in the 90s, everyone looks like they were dressed in the 90s (this year's winner wore leather pants), and none of them would last two minutes in front of Simon Cowell.
It's a bizarre farce, with ratings driven by far too many people sitting at home and laughing at the whole sorry mess.
I think the international reputation of New Zealand music is doing just fine without us wading into that quagmire of saccharine television jingles dressed in bad taste.
* What do you think? Post your comments below!
