Eurovision

Okay, off on a tangent but for me:
Euphoria - Loreen
Spirit In The Sky - KEiiNO
Heroes - Måns Zelmerlow
Soldi - Mahmood

In that order, are the best Eurovision songs since 2010. Probably before that too, but I didn't really watch properly.

Spirit In The Sky is pure, unashamed Eurovision. The bald bloke with the deep voice is my spirit Nord.

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I thought the Finnish one was a real example of middle of the road, manufactured pop starts interpreting metal.

Italy was a bit more authentic, but either would get bottled off the stage at Download in a hail of p155.

 

This is the key. We pay to host it, because, I presume, despite the regular outcry, it still draws in the viewers and the interest.


It's a bizarre concept to begin with and a voyeuristic annual peep into what the weirdos on the continent think music should sound like. A kind of freak show.

That's why it's entertaining. Not because our acts, who wouldn't normally get into our own top 40, don't succeed.

 

Soldi is an outstanding composition, but I was rooting for KEiiNO on the night. I’ll occasionally break into Sami vocals even now.

 

I'm a little bit of a neutral in this, and I have to say the UK does get a bad deal in the Eurovision. They are constantly marked down and have been since about 2003. Before that, the record for the UK was pretty impressive in this competition.

Over the past 18 events, the UK has come last 5 times, scoring 0 points twice, in the bottom three a 4 further times and have only finished in the top half twice.

Before that, the UK won 5 times, never finished in last place and only on a couple of occasions were out of the top half. The UK have nosedived since 2003. I'm surprised at the change of fortunes, unless the bias is political. That can be the only explanation. Jade Ewen did come 5th with "It's My Time" in 2009 but is the only time the UK has done well since before 2003.

The UK entry last night was poor though. But was it the worst song on the night? No, of course not. I placed the UK 17th overall, and I think that was a fair position. To have finished last with 0 points was quite ridiculous. It was not the worst song in Eurovision history, but the points total suggests it is in that bracket.

Under the new scoring system, it's actually quite rare to get zero points. Since 2003 only four acts have scored nil points. They are UK (Jemini "Cry Baby" 2003), (Austria and Germany 2015) and the UK again last night.

Something has also to be done about Greece and Cyprus. However, last night I thought both were good songs. In isolation for either country to vote 12 points for each other was probably justifiable, but looking at their previous history, it's obvious what's going on. Greece and Cyprus always give top marks to each other, so it's ridged voting, or voting for yourself, which is against competition rules. The historic voting proves it, so they have to be stopped from voting for each other.

Now that Jon Ola Sand has been replaced by Martin Osterdahl hopefully he'll have more balls and will make that change.

 

Imagine:

1. Watching this trash, and
2. Forensically analysing it the morning after

Just ***** LOL

 

It's pleasing to the Cypriot half of me, that our voting for our Mother Greece every year annoys the other corrupt Euro panels. Some small consolation.

 

It's a laugh pure and simple.

 

That was Popstars my mate.

 

The first Saturday night that you can legally sit inside a boozer and people, who have been cooped up for god knows how long, stay in and watch that garbage.

 

The point is, that in both panel and public judging, only the top 10 songs score points. As our song was bland and forgettable, with a lacklustre performance, it wasn't going to break into anybody's top 10. A few countries get the odd point here and there because of geopolitical considerations (you'd have thought Australia and Israel might have helped us out) or the 'so bad it's good factor' (Germany). Nul points may not have been fair, but is a consequence of the first ten past the post voting system. I expect all the outraged brexiters will lobby for the abolition of FPTP.

 

Friday is the new Saturday.

 

In the UK maybe.
It's something I've grown up with since watching in the early 70s with the family and still do it now with mine. It's a harmless laugh that's not supposed to be taken seriously.

 

Lithuania didn't 'do' Sunday newspapers - except Lietuvos Rytas (the biggest daily) would bring out a special Sunday edition following Eurovision. It would have reviews and commentary on all the performances plus lengthy articles explaining the geo-political inferences/reasons for the countries that didn't vote/voted for their song... ISTR one year their neighbours Latvia didn't vote for their entry and questions were raised in the Seimas (parliament) about what appropriate action the government should take.

 

Sorry, for a moment I thought you were talking about a game where 22 adults ineptly chase a ball around like their pants are on fire, while thousands of less fit folk shout at them through mouthfuls of high calorie snacks.

 

It’s entertaining and escapist. Not everyone’s cup of tea but I can’t see why people feel a need to mock others for their enjoyment of it.

 

It's all about the spectacle, the event. Arranging parties and competitions about it. Treat it as a bit of fun in the same way you don't criticise the pub football team you play in for socialization as if they were pros. There's plenty of backslapping serious music awards if that's your thing. This isn't one and isn't meant to be one. People "into their music" can understand this without being snobby about it, in the same way that people "into music" who prefer other genres can still understand and appreciate the skill and talent required in producing music of a different style.

If it's not for you it's not for you fair enough. Criticizing and looking down on others just because you don't like it is pretty telling, especially when one decides to comment on the thread. Come out of the closet, you know you want to, there's no need to be embarrassed.

The UK music scene is one of the biggest in the world, so we compete seriously, quite well, certainly when compared to other nations in Eurovision. The competition needs a certain style which is rarely a commercial success. There's nothing stopping the UK winning it on musicality bar the politics which of course isn't a recent thing due to recent events this decade.

 

Still too much. Don't see why we have to pay more than others just for the privilege of not having to qualify. Get it all done and dusted by Thursday and we won't have to waste a Saturday night, saving money to boot.

 

Imagine having such little respect for it but then still not having anything better to do than comment on it.

Bigger LOL

 

- You got zero points. -

Good, didn’t want any. Next.

 

You mean you wouldn’t watch it if the U.K. weren’t in it? Why?

 

Proof that Europe hate the UK. Just seen it in this documentary.

Dan Stevens
@thatdanstevens


Called it... #Eurovision

 

We haven't had a good song for years and years so it's not exclusively politics. A brilliant song would at least get public votes. We tend to pick nobodies who were rejects from talent shows and let them write their own songs. We don't do anything that stands out in the performance. What was the idea this year? Some Rag n Bone Man impersonator and a couple of blow up trumpets on the stage. Inspiring.

We've no chance. Which is probably just fine for the BBC as they don't want to go through all the expense of hosting it. They once put Katie Price up in the 'selection' show. They don't take it seriously at all.

Then again, could you imagine if we did win? It'd be presented by Jack f*cking Whitehall and Alex Scott and be utterly horrific. Small victories.

 

More like a modern Sweet...

 

Congratulations!

 

The clue is in the smiley.

 

This is true - it costs an absolute fortune to put on which PSB's can't get back.

I believe there was a documentary that covered this in some detail:



This is one for you @hornmeister (telecoms background) - ISTR historically it was more about the EBU driving standards (particularly in sound) so they needed 'something' to broadcast. They had later It's a Knockout to drive vision standards...

 

This was done for a period - I think in the 80s, but certainly post-ABBA - when the organisers deemed that all songs had to be in the countries’ native languages. After a while they conceded that it was a disadvantage for those with Germanic or East European languages which didn’t lend themselves so well lyrically as English or the romantic languages.

 

I thought it was one of the highest quality Eurovision for many a year, with a lot of good quality songs. Excellent staging too by the Dutch, especially in a pandemic.

I didn’t like the winning song at all, but it had been favourite with the bookies this past week and I appreciate it’s all subjective.

I try never to lose sight either of the fact it’s light entertainment, a fun contest not to be taken too seriously. I loved last night, right up until the last ten minutes when the final tele-votes were announced.

Hugely disappointed for my home island, because I felt Destiny deserved top three and was on for that too after the jury voting. To only get 47 tele-votes was a huge surprise and disappointment.

Malta has reacted today a bit like the uk has, in the sense of anger and disappointment and a feeling of we are an island and nobody likes us etc.

Regards the uk, it would be very hard to argue a case against that being a reason we do so badly. It would be naive to imagine things like Brexit, the Iraq war and the general snobbery we have towards Eurovision (Wogan’s light-hearted mickey taking etc) aren’t contributing factors.

However, I have been arguing for years that responsibility for choosing our entry should be taken away from the bbc, who have consistently messed up the selection and submitted entries of a poor standard. What have they done to continue to deserve the job of choosing our song? Two bottom places in a row now. I agree that Newman’s song didn’t deserve last place and no points, but it was still a poor to average entry and yet again we seemed to fail to truly understand what Eurovision is these days.

So yes, probably a mix of our unpopularity in Europe coupled with a consistently poor standard of entry. There is still obviously some political voting, though not as bad as a decade ago, and the fact is the last three winners have now been stand alone nations (Portugal, Netherlands and now Italy) rather than part of a wider Baltic or Scandinavian block.

 

What disgraceful behaviour. A “staff member” drunk on SB ? Is that a disciplinary matter ?

 

On the contrary, it used to be mandatory.

 

We take it too seriously .
The masked singer is Eurovision style entertainment
Never mind the quality of the singing just look at the costumes is the
way forward .
Not sure which part of Europe Australia or Israel is in tho .