2012/01/11

Turkish Video Nasties

First published on MySpace blog - 22/01/11

So Mr Brass Sturgeon... you want to play the old "Who Can Dig Up The Most Obscure Video Clips With Which To Titillate The General Public?" ploy, do you?

This is excruciatingly horrible, but of immense historical significance as the inspiration for a certain Johnson's Gridling Band skit... Turkey's understandably "Nul Points"-scoring entry from the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest (and possibly a very early namecheck for one of the world's leading internet browsers?).

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the late, great(?) Çetin Alp & The Short Waves with (altogether now!) "Opera! Opera! Opera!"



This also scored zero points for Turkey in 1987. Why? It's tuneful, it's memorable (something you can't say about most Eurovision fodder) and it's got a fantastic 'oriental' riff! Perhaps it was a little too soon for Eurovision voters to appreciate that new-fangled 'World Music' genre the rest of us were just getting into at the time? I think I still have this tune on my MP3 player.

Sing along with Seyyal Taner & Locomotif!

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