Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008

ESC National Year
Year = 2008
Country = ESP
Preselection = Salvemos Eurovisión
Preselection date = 8 March 2008
Entrant = Rodolfo Chikilicuatre
Song = "Baila el Chiki-chiki"
Final result = 16th, 55 points

Spain participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with an entry selected through a MySpace [ [http://www.myspace.com/eurovision2008 MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/eurovision2008 ] ] project called "Salvemos Eurovisión" (Let's Save Eurovision). The Spanish Final was held at TVE's Estudios Buñuel in Madrid on March 8th [ [http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/10574 Eurovision Song Contest Serbia 2008 | News - Spain to postpone national final ] ] , hosted by the popular Italian actress and singer Raffaella Carrà. [ [http://www.vertele.com/noticias/detail.php?id=18098 Raffaella Carrá vuelve a TVE por el Festival de Eurovisión ] ] 10 songs participated in this televised final - 5 chosen by an "expert" jury and 5 chosen via internet voting between February 11th-25th. The comedic act Rodolfo Chikilicuatre won the final by a landslide getting the highest possible amount of points [ [http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=MqHA-jpXw Rodolfo Chikilicuatre's act: "Baila el Chiki Chiki"] ] , and thus participated for Spain in the Eurovision final in Belgrade. The winner was chosen by televoting. [ [http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/10219 Eurovision Song Contest Serbia 2008 | News - Exclusive: Spain Decides: Through MySpace!!! ] ]

Participants

More than 530 songs were uploaded to participate in the Spanish selection process. Out of these, the following ten acts proceeded to the televised final:

The five acts qualified by online voting were the comedic character Rodolfo Chikilicuatre (109,995 votes), the indie-pop band La Caza Azul (67,706 votes), the Latin-pop singer Arkaitz (63,460 votes), the pop singer Coral (58,339 votes) and the pop-rock band Bizarre (54,842 votes). [ [http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/10671 Eurovision Song Contest Serbia 2008 | News - Spain: TVE puts the cat out in final vote count ] ]

The five acts chosen by the jury were the pop duo Ell*as, the metal band Null System, the rap artist Marzok Mangui, the R&B band D-Vine and the pop singer Innata. Null System was later disqualified as their song, "Mourning", didn't fulfill the rules [ [http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/10697 Eurovision Song Contest Serbia 2008 | News - Exclusive: Null System disqualified in Spain ] ] , and they were replaced by the electro-pop duo Lorena C. [ [http://www.rtve.es/FRONT_SALA_PRENSA/?go=eacaa4148f48af89730076a6669df2169fcb5b71e1aa29da6b3326aee96788b1ce15c114842d2994ab3f0f6a4ccbe644 Rtve - Sala De Prensa ] ]

Controversy

Spain decided to make the selection process more democratic, so they made a Myspace page where the general public could vote for any of the artists who was interested in participating, discovering new talents. However, the online voting process was accused of being easily distorted (Forums like media-vida.net [http://www.media-vida.net] claim that they voted massively using fraudulent methods), and the participation of popular comedic acts like Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, the eventual winner, who gets publicity from the TV show he works for, was also disputed.

Rodolfo Chikilikuatre ("Chiquilicuatre" or "chiquilicuatro" in Spanish is a word referring to a good-for-nothing) is a fictional character played by David Fernández, a comedian who collaborates on the late night TV show "Buenafuente" on the competing channel LaSexta, where his entry was repeatedly promoted. He presented the song "Baila el Chiki-chiki" ("Dance the Chiki-chiki"), which is a parody of reggaeton music and has a joke reference to the world-famous "¿Por qué no te callas?" incident. Some Eurovision fans accused this song of containing political content, which is prohibited in the Eurovision contest. An example of the song's political content would be "Lo baila Rajoy, lo baila Hugo Chávez, lo baila Zapatero, mi amor ya tú sabes." ("Rajoy dances it, Hugo Chávez dances it, Zapatero dances it; my love, you already know it"). Supporters of the song claimed that this is only a mention of Spanish political figures, and doesn't constitute political content. In any case, the most controversial lines were changed to fit the rules after the Spanish national final. [ [http://www.cadenaser.com/sociedad/articulo/chiki-chiki-tiene-letra-definitiva/serpro/20080315csrcsrsoc_5/Tes El "chiki chiki" ya tiene letra definitiva en CADENASER.com ] ]

"Baila el Chiki-chiki" was the song with most online votes until El Gato rocketed from barely 300 votes to 80,000 in two days [ [http://77.240.115.195/ranking EUROVISIÓN 2008 ] ] . However El Gato's song "La bicicletera" got most of its votes deleted after they were discovered to be fake by TVE. [ [http://www.vertele.com/noticias/detail.php?id=18024 Rodolfo Chikilicuatre gana la preselección de Eurovisión ] ] Users of forums like M-V.net claim they first supported Rodolfo Chikilicuatre fraudulently until Buenafuente himself refused to recognize their help, so, in protest, they decided to rise another contestant, "El Gato", to the first places of the competition. Later, TVE, cancelled most of the votes of "El Gato" but Rodolfo Chikilicuatre's votes remained untouched.

Eurovision 2008

As a member of the "Big 4", Spain automatically qualified for the Eurovision final, held on 24 May, 2008.

Rodolfo Chikilicuatre was accompanied on stage by "Disco" and "Gráfica", two comedic dancers that also accompanied him in the national final. One of them, Gráfica, played by fellow actress Silvia Abril, dances clumsily without knowing the basic dance steps. Another three dancers (Leticia Martín, María Ángeles Mas and Cecilia López) were chosen through the special casting show "Dansin Chiki Chiki" to join them in Belgrade. [ [http://www.elconfidencial.com/cache/2008/04/30/92_leticia_maria_angeles_cecilia_bailarinas_acompanaran_rodolfo_chikilicuatre.html Leticia, María Ángeles y Cecilia, las tres bailarinas que acompañarán a Rodolfo Chikilicuatre - elConfidencial.com ] ]

TVE's commentator for the event was José Luis Uribarri, regarded as the voice of Eurovision in Spain after doing the job 16 times between 1969 and 2003. [ [http://www.noticiasdegipuzkoa.com/ediciones/2008/05/08/mirarte/comunicacion/d08com76.1022524.php "Hablaré del asunto de los votos de Eurovisión a la vuelta de Belgrado o en mis memorias" ] ] He first hinted that he would be back in the special show "Dansin Chiki Chiki". This caused some trouble among some journalists and Eurovision fans, as in the national final he appeared outraged by the election of a comedic act. [ [http://www.eurovision-spain.com/iphp/noticia.php?numero=4346&idioma= eurovision-spain.com | Duras críticas a Uribarri y al programa “Dansin Chiki Chiki” ] ]

TVE host Ainhoa Arbizu was Spain's spokesperson, as in the 2005 and 2007 contests. [ [http://www.vertele.com/noticias/detail.php?id=18845 Uribarri vuelve a ser la voz de Eurovisión cuatro años después ] ]

Result

*Spain's entry finished in the 16th position with 55 points.

See also

*Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest

References

External links

* [http://www.eurovision2008.rtve.es] Official Spanish site (TVE)
* [http://www.myspace.com/eurovision2008 myspace.com/eurovision2008] Official Spanish site (Myspace)
* [http://www.rodolfo-chikilicuatre.com/ Rodolfo Chikilicuatre's website] (In Spanish)