Ireland remembers how to enjoy itself

MAY 15 2011 · 12:15

Jedward · "Lipstick" · Ireland · 2011 Placement: 8th · Language: English · Composers: Dan Priddy, Lars Jensen, Martin Larsson · Venue: Esprit Arena · Host: Düsseldorf, Germany · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: HD John and Edward Grimes walked onto the Esprit Arena stage in Düsseldorf in matching red and silver space-cadet outfits, hair quiffed to the ceiling, and proceeded to do the thing Ireland had forgotten how to do: they enjoyed themselves publicly. Jedward — the identical-twin X Factor UK runners-up who had already turned novelty-pop into a career — performed Lipstick with the frictionless energy of two people who did not understand that Eurovision was supposed to be difficult. The staging was bubblegum-pop maximalism: jumping, choreographed hair-flipping, bright backing dancers, a set that looked like a Euro-disco airport gate. The song itself was a Scandi-written mid-tempo pop number, cleanly constructed and disposable in exactly the way Eurovision rewarded in the early 2010s. Ireland had won Eurovision seven times, more than any other country, and had spent the post-2000 years losing faith in its own contest tradition, cycling through bruised-balladeer entries and reluctant returns in the wake of the Celtic Tiger collapse. RTÉ's decision to select Jedward through a national final was read domestically as either a collapse of standards or a long-overdue acknowledgment that the contest had changed. Jedward finished eighth with 119 points — Ireland's best result in a decade — and the country was visibly, if slightly self-consciously, pleased. They returned the following year with Waterline and finished nineteenth, confirming that Lipstick had been a moment rather than a course correction. But for three minutes in Düsseldorf, Ireland's Eurovision relationship had briefly remembered joy. Context Jedward had placed sixth on The X Factor UK in 2009 and built a teen-pop career on energy and perfect identical branding. Their selection for Ireland came through the Eurosong 2011 national final on RTÉ, a process that saw the broadcaster experimenting with more contemporary, televote-friendly acts after a decade of disappointing results. Lipstick was written by Scandinavian pop-writing teams — part of the international songwriting economy that had come to dominate competitive Eurovision entries. Legacy Lipstick is cited as the entry that temporarily restored Irish Eurovision confidence and demonstrated that joyful, uncomplicated pop could still place in the top ten. It did not arrest Ireland's longer-term decline in the contest — the country would face repeated semifinal failures through the 2010s — but it proved the televote had not abandoned the country outright. The entry also helped establish Jedward as a cultural phenomenon beyond the UK. Mythology Remembered as the moment Ireland stopped performing grief and started performing fun. Frequently cited as the best-case outcome of the televote era.