So, it's that time of year. Artists from the whole of Europe climbs the stage with unplugged guitars and perform an expensively produced and impressive 3 minutes of intense Karaoke singing in front of millions of snacks loaded TV sofas. It's time for the Eurovision Song Contest. It's a tradition, just like many of us celebrate Christmas year after year regardless of its religious connotations. It's something you just do, like going to the dentist.

In Sweden, it has transformed from an innocently happy event where hopeful nobodies brushed shoulders with national celebrities, to a highly produced circus involving professional song writing crews and an overly used bunch of national radio hit heroes. It's just this vision of a hit machine gone wrong. Same old teams of writers, same old songs, same old artists, with just the right amount of new polish for us to go "hey, that might stand a chance in [insert city of eurovision finals] in two months".

See, we have it all here in Sweden. The Pro attitude and experience on all levels of this machinery. When we walk into the Eurovision Song Contest, nothing ever glitches. No one will ever sing the wrong lyrics anymore, no one will look into the wrong camera. It's all drilled and exercised hundreds of times. We don't rely on hopeful nobodies and amateurs anymore. We rely on hit making science. It's just one little detail missing: honesty. You know that little quality so tightly connected to words and concepts such as "soul" and "heart" and "warmth".

Somewhere along the lines of effectiveness, it was rationalized, marginalized and institutionalized until it simply died. They might look into the right cameras with glittering eyes, perfect lighting and hand made dresses displaying the latest fashion, but something's not there. This lean, mean killing machine might be impressive, but people don't buy. Big surprise.

But it is. A surprise, I mean. Seriously, every year Swedish media (and probably the people too) actually thinks we will win. Why not? We did choose a song with all the qualities of past victories, following the recipe down to the last point. We chose it from a long list of other songs that also had these qualities. Good productions, a chorus that everyone will recognize without exactly being able to pinpoint why, and an experienced artist who could do it in his/her sleep. Of course we will win. We have bought tons of lottery tickets, statistically we can't lose.

But we do. And to me it's obvious. Music is not rational, perfection cannot help it beyond a certain point. The last years, I have always favored the music from eastern Europe and the balkan countries. They still express something, and to me, that's got to be the core of music - expression. Music as a way of channelizing emotions - we sing because we have to, because life hurts too much if we don't. Or we sing to make people happy, or to communicate something. We don't sing to win. Winning is not an emotion, it's a result.

See, if you sing to win, that implies something else - you are afraid to lose. That fear will effectively prevent you from breaking new ground. Sweden is the kind of nation nowadays that would send a metal song one or two years after Lordi wins, because then we know that a song like that can actually have winning potentials. But by then, of course, it's too late. We look to the past to predict the future, instead of creating the future. Yeah, that's a plan.

In short, we have stopped trusting the gut feeling. Simple as that. I recall when I was a kid and Greece (I think) sent a contribution with a woman singing barefoot. Big laughs. But why? Is that really funnier than Carola's yellow dress from 1983? In retrospective? We talk about diversity all the time, but it should only be sufficiently diverse. Western Europe with a touch of spice. And up until now, we have had the privilege of "teaching" the less westernized and streamlined contributions by killing them in the voting procedure. Now, with more and more countries joining this circus, I had hoped for a change.

But it seems a lost cause, with fewer and fewer contributions standing out. The westernization is more and more prominent every year. Productional quality flourishes, on behalf of a suffering compositional quality. It's somehow like we all think that imitating something original may somehow make the imitation seem original too. "Hey, it sounds exactly like ABBA, and they were really original"...

Germany this year was the worst contribution I've seen in years. As expected, the production was fine, the girls were pretty, they had the moves and choreography worked out, they looked into the right cameras at all times, they smiled and did all they could to look sexy. Just two small details remained: the song sucked and the only thing sucking more was the singing. It's increasingly obvious every year that Germany made the right move in demanding amnesty from the qualifying process. Now the right move from the rest of Europe is to deny them that, so we don't have to suffer through more of their music.

Poland had decided to go all-in on the western hit industry thinking, Russia hired outside help with making the perfect hit, Latvia had a Swedish song writing team involved (yes, the pirate song), Greece had a singer who lived half her life in the US. These contributions were some of the lamest and sorriest excuses for music I've witnessed in a long time. France kind of sucked, but in an alternative weird fashion as always, and that makes it easier to respect. You never know what the French will have up their sleeve, and I pray that they will keep this originality. Man, even when they suck, they have to do it their own way.

But there were promises. It was, in general, the best finals I have watched. I had seven contributions I really liked, and that beats previous years by far. Bosnia was great, and so were Portugal, Serbia, Turkey, Georgia and Israel. Albania was very good apart from some unnecessary off key vocals here and there, and will be better on album. I imagine that some songs on my No-list will also make more sense on album, like France and Azerbaijan for instance. I don't know what to make of Spain, but I definitely prefer that to any of the boring recipe music presented by the other typical western european countries.

All-in-all, this years European Song Contest raised my hopes. The music was better than ever (all coming from old respected music nations as far as I am concerned) with the biggest let-downs coming from Greece, Croatia and Russia, who usually do much better than this year's copycat songs. Sort of like a Greek Britney and a Russian Justin. Very 2002 if you ask me. Anyway, with 44 countries voting, the odds are also starting to even out and there is really room for Southern and Eastern Europe to change the scenery. Finally!

But what happens? Well, at first I have a good time, seeing Sweden at the bottom along with just the worst contributions - the old "pros rubbing shoulders with amateurs" gets a new meaning. I also appreciate the Swedish TV commentators' worn out "they are just voting for their neighbors" finally being replaced by "now Norway is coming up, they should give us high points", thus blatantly displaying their hypocritical view point on this, even more displayed when they sulk about actually not getting the high points even from them.

But then something is happening. Everyone seems to be voting for Greece, Croatia and Russia. All three countries are thus highly rewarded for going western mainstream. The countries having contributed with quality music that expresses something are left in the middle as usual. Boring above, bad below. And we turn the screw another turn, and next year, we will see even more hit machines in action, to drain nation after nation on their musical heritage. Conditioned by winning.

Talk about irony. The most reward based conditioning system imagined - inch by inch they become like the rest. But in this case, these proud music nations are rewarded for sounding more and more like the UK, Germany and Sweden. All of which ended up at the bottom of the scrap barrel! Hear the bells ringing? You should just wait for us to adapt and reach out a helping hand, we need it to pull ourselves up from there. But whatever you do, don't slip and let us pull you down too!

So, I voted for Bosnia, and was glad to see that Sweden gave them 10 points in the end. And 12 to Norway, which means we were among the best at embarrassing neighbor voting after having complained about it for fifteen years. Good old Sweden. But in the end, Serbia must be the nation to win this year's Daniel Award. Why? For the combination. They contributed a great song, and they also gave Bosnia 12 points. I don't remember the entire voting, but as far as I can tell, that makes them pretty much alone in both contributing a good song AND voting for a good one.

So, Serbia, it will be an honor to visit you at the end of this week, and present some Swedish music that will never make it to the Eurovision Song Contest!