29 April 2004
You’re A Star, Ireland’s early-’00s talent show format for Eurovision selection, had two crucial design flaws. First, it’s one thing plucking a fresh-faced unknown from obscurity and planting them in the white-hot glare of national TV. But You’re A Star went way beyond that: it then teleported them onto the unforgiving stage of the biggest live music TV show on Earth. That’s like you winning the Community Games and then the following weekend finding yourself on the start line of an Olympic final.
That’s not a bad reflection on Chris Doran, I should add. He had the same likeable on-stage demeanour as Simon Casey and Mickey Joe Harte did from the previous year’s final, and he went on to have further Irish chart hits post-Eurovision. I can’t imagine anyone not wishing him well in the metaphorical green jersey of our Eurovision entry, or the literal white suit. It’s just that Eurovision has two specific requirements: a big personality and a bigger song. Even if Prince and Liberace had been duetting on it, ‘If My World Stopped Turning’ was never that song. Its schmaltzy balladry and negligible melodic content, plus its lyrics about domestic lifelong commitment, combined with the four identi-suited backing singer lads, and especially the kompromat that it was co-written by a certain Brian McFadden, all tot up to a damning sub-total in the debit column: Ireland had sent a Westlife track to Eurovision, had brought a spoon to the gunfight.
That brings us to the second design flaw: the ’00s talent show format was in thrall to the quick, lazy buck of Westlife-ism. All well and good for topping the ’00s charts, because we’ve seen by now that any old rubbish (viz. Westlife) can top the ’00s charts, but even Eurovision has standards. If we were to send a young hopeful to represent Ireland, let’s at least give them the sporting chance of a decent song.
