Eurovision 101

Fifty years ago, a little Swedish pop group named ABBA won Eurovision, the world’s biggest songwriting competition, dancing their way into the international spotlight. If you only know Eurovision from a cheesy Will Ferrell movie or if you’re entirely uninitiated, Dr. Kristinia Nielsen will teach you everything you need to know and more. Get to know the history and what to pay attention to before the “olympics of music” returns next month.

Kristina Nielsen is a professor at SMU. She has enjoyed watching Eurovision for several decades going back to when it required “creative” maneuverings on the internet to see it from the US. As a Danish-American, much of her experience comes from watching it with family and friends. Yet as an ethnomusicologist, meaning that she looks at what music tells us about culture and society, she enjoys both the annual fanfare and the bigger questions of what Eurovision tells us about everything from the state of gender and human rights to geopolitical conflict.