Eurovision Song Contest 2012

[Defcon]

If we'd had singing grannies we'd have probably got nil pointe!

I wonder if the Russian Grannies actually hurt Engelbert's chances. They probably stole his senior citizens votes.

( I also wonder if Engelbert tried to score with the Russian Grannies.)

 

[Count Zero]

I feel sorry for Englebert, he wasn't that bad, patriotism apart he was better than a whole heap of other crazy acts. I don't know where the UK goes from here. We've tried taking the piss and got nowhere, tried taking it seriously and got nowhere. If we'd had singing grannies we'd have probably got nil pointe!

I think you were trying too hard and that never works at the ESC. You should just have a national song contest and let people vote for what they think is best. In the long term that seems to be the best course of action.

 

[Shaytan]

I think you were trying too hard and that never works at the ESC. You should just have a national song contest and let people vote for what they think is best. In the long term that seems to be the best course of action.

We tried that, it didn'd work at all. AT ALL. But that was funny at least. I post that every year but we nearly sent that (I thought we should have sent that) :

[yt]
]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dodjtxv5n7c[/yt]

 

[Starkers]

I feel sorry for Englebert, he wasn't that bad, patriotism apart he was better than a whole heap of other crazy acts. I don't know where the UK goes from here. We've tried taking the piss and got nowhere, tried taking it seriously and got nowhere. If we'd had singing grannies we'd have probably got nil pointe!

I think you were trying too hard and that never works at the ESC. You should just have a national song contest and let people vote for what they think is best. In the long term that seems to be the best course of action.

But we have done this, I think this led to the woeful 'flying the flag' song.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting us to win, we just always do so badly these days, mid table next year would be great

 

[iguana_tonante]

I think Germany and Italy should do what Yugoslavia did. Split into 5 or 6 little countries and then keep voting for each other.

I am going to forward you all the material I can find from Lega Nord.

 

[Seven of Five]

Hmm when was the last time we had a National Song Contest? The problem we had there was that there were too many shit entries, which meant we sent whichever mediocre acts that didn't stick out like a sore thumb. I suppose the answer there though is to have better entries to choose from in the first place, but who in the music industry takes Eurovision seriously?

The most successful one we had in recent times was when Andrew Lloyd Webber got involved and they had a series. Surely that would be overkill to have every year?

 

[Count Zero]

It works for many other countries. I'm not sure whether they have a sort of prior screening. We also had pretty bizarre stuff in those national contests - and not all entries do well later in the ESC, of course - but all in all, it works.

 

[Defcon]

We also had pretty bizarre stuff in those national contests

Yeah, especially in the post-Guildo years.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LpNCNrOZM&feature=BFa&list=PL222B1F6F1F579935[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yckbjKicNo&feature=BFa&list=PL222B1F6F1F579935[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZH86ufaAUM[/yt]

 

[Count Zero]

Weren't the first two even in the same year? I remember both of them being booed by the audience in any case.

 

[Defcon]

Yes, both were in 2001. Knorkator was a year prior.

What most of those "joke" entries after Guildo didn't get was that thanks to Raab the song had a solid musical background and Horn had many years of experience with entertaining live audiences, so that while it was a comedic entry it was able to score well in Europe (and for the national pre-selection Raab's presence on VIVA at the time certainly didn't hurt).

 

[smiki]

I do love how all these Balkan countries who wanted to kill each other not so long again can't stop voting for each other.

That's because most of us people here don't hate each other, y'know (I'm not saying you said otherwise, I just feel like ranting ). The wars were started and lead by a small number of kooks in power, and of course, a bunch of equally crazy kooks with guns on all the sides. But the majority by large of us people here aren't crazy, you know. After all that's happened, voting for each other on Eurovision is the least we can do. Also, we understand each other's lyrics (and that's why everybody sings in English, to get more votes because of people understanding their lyrics).

But seriously, though, I would have definitely preferred if it weren't for "block voting", (even though it obviously suits my country), but if you're gonna have a popular vote, you just can't avoid it. And completely replacing it with an objective jury would create a whole bunch of its own problems in a competition such as this one. Still, the fact a different country wins each year, including the ones with no notable neighbouring "buddy" countries, shows it's not that big of a problem. Twelves and tens go to neighbours, but all the other points, from eights downwards go to the actually best songs, by the public opinion of course. Kitsch or no kitsch.

I would also prefer if more countries sang in their own language. So many beautiful languages, from Italian to Icelandic, from French to Estonian, from Hungarian to Swedish... etc, etc... such a waste.

Oh, to add, I'm fine with Euphoria winning. I also liked of the finalists, in no particular order, Macedonia, Iceland, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Turkey, Spain, Albania, Moldova, Estonia.

 

[lennier1]

I think Germany and Italy should do what Yugoslavia did. Split into 5 or 6 little countries and then keep voting for each other.

I am going to forward you all the material I can find from Lega Nord.

To be fair, my relatives on my father's side are from Sicily's Enna province. So I can't really blame people for trying to distance themselves from the South.
But since Italian talent for turning political parties into freak shows is still very much alive, it's hard to take those Lega nutjobs seriously.

OTOH, there's the whole Tyrol issue, which would get { Emilia } at least something for her idea.

 

[Starkers]

I do love how all these Balkan countries who wanted to kill each other not so long again can't stop voting for each other.

That's because most of us people here don't hate each other, y'know (I'm not saying you said otherwise, I just feel like ranting ). The wars were started and lead by a small number of kooks in power, and of course, a bunch of equally crazy kooks with guns on all the sides. But the majority by large of us people here aren't crazy, you know.

Apologies, it was a bit of a sweeping statement

Block voting kinda annoys me, but I guess the flipside is that, you'd imagine, similar countries might have similar musical tastes.

 

[Eyes]

Twelves and tens go to neighbours, but all the other points, from eights downwards go to the actually best songs, by the public opinion of course. Kitsch or no kitsch.

And's that's only the the worst offenders, like Cyprus/Greece, Romania/Moldova and Turkey/Azerbaijan. This contest, Sweden broke the record for the most 12s ever. How many neighbours does it have in comparison to Serbia or Russia? A lot of countries gave 10s and 8s to their neighbours this contest and saved the 12 for Sweden.

The winner is pretty much always about the song quality and the performance, even though due to neighbourly voting, countries like Turkey, Russia and Greece will end up in the top 10 more often than not.

 

[JRS]

The winner is pretty much always about the song quality and the performance, even though due to neighbourly voting, countries like Turkey, Russia and Greece will end up in the top 10 more often than not.

Though this year Greece was out from the top 10 and so was Romania. It seems people did not like dance-pop so much this year, besides Sweden.
Turkey made it to the top 10 this year..and last year they did not even make it to the final.
Ukraine was last year on the Top 10 and was 15th this year, mostly because they had better song last time, IMHO.
The biggest loser was Austria, who got 8 points this year, while they managed to go to finale last year. The song about shaking your butt did not really appeal to people.. and I perfectly understand why.

Eastern Europe most likely like same kind of music indeed,
but all honestly they do send often much better quality music than many other regions do, so in someways the success they have had is justified, I mean Ukraine became second twice in a row.
They also send often many of their top artists to the show, a thing many European countries are not interested of doing..(nor is Finland, I might add)

Germany and Spain have improved their ESC music in the past couple of years..and Italy came back with quality music.
The reason UK is doing so poorly, is the fact that the music they are sending is quite often only average. But dont forget that UK became 5th at 2009..and with a good reason, because the song was very good.
But then came 2010 and audience was like..WTF?!!?

This year UK was counting too much for the fact, that the supposedly huge European wide fanbase would vote him for victory. I doubt many of his fans even watched the shows.
So my friends in the UK, send good music and Europeans will support you..it is actually that simple really

Edit: BTW, here is the The Royal Guard on Stockholm Slott performing the Swedish eurovision winner and european mega hit Euphoria by Loreen:

http://youtu.be/4_yhPw-SS3g

 

[Eyes]

The winner is pretty much always about the song quality and the performance, even though due to neighbourly voting, countries like Turkey, Russia and Greece will end up in the top 10 more often than not.

Though this year Greece was out from the top 10 and so was Romania. It seems people did not like dance-pop so much this year, besides Sweden.
Turkey made it to the top 10 this year..and last year they did not even make it to the final.
Ukraine was last year on the Top 10 and was 15th this year, mostly because they had better song last time, IMHO.
The biggest loser was Austria, who got 8 points this year, while they managed to go to finale last year. The song about shaking your butt did not really appeal to people.. and I perfectly understand why.

Greece failing might be something to do with them being eclipsed by Sweden, as most of the dance-pop was really, but Greece suffered from being directly before.

I know Turkey didn't make it last year but they were in about the most unfriendly semi possible with an awful song, but they normally do annoyingly well and this year was no different.

I wasn't fussed on Ukraine this year and I think it came on too late to make a difference. And compared to Ruslana, Verka, Ani Lorak and Mika Newton, it has nothing.

But... but... woki mit deim popo?

I found this really good letter to the Guardian (on a poorly researched article of theirs) addressing the whole political voting thing which is really so tired, old and inaccurate now I'm sick of it:
http://eurovisiontimes.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/editorial-letter-to-the-guardian/

 

[AdAstra]

Im loving it. First song in years that I have believed in

The more I hear it, the more I like it!

A very deserved winner, imho!

Go Sweden!

Eyes, I completely agree. I am so tired of all the Eurovision bashing ("all those Eastern countries just vote for each other") - it's so tiring and untrue. Sure, neighbour countries tend to vote more for each other, but that's logical - shared history, culture, language, ... just means that you're more likely to know and enjoy the artist, or the music genre. Besides, Sweden is hardly an "Eastern bloc" country.

 

[Seven of Five]

...But then came 2010 and audience was like..WTF?!!?

I couldn't actually remember who we sent in 2010. So I just looked on Youtube and I wish I never bothered as it all came flooding back to me - unmitigated shit!

UK has had some very, very dodgy entries over the years since winning in 97, I will never deny this. Josh Dubovie, Scooch, Andy Abraham, goddam Gemini- argh! The list is endless. I actually thought Englebert was an improvement on some of the stuff we have been sending!

To be fair though, when you compare him to what I listed, as well as the other many names I can't even remember without looking at Wikipedia, he's bound to come out on top!

I also think I agree on this whole 'political voting' thing. I thought about the songs I liked the most this year, and I don't think that, aside from Macedonia, I actually really liked any of the Eastern European ones. I think it happens every year - I'll only like one or two, whereas the bulk of my interest remains with Western Europe. It got to be more to do with culture overlap, as I don't go round hating on different countries. Maybe their regimes if they're not up to scratch ethically, but that's a different discussion.

 

[Count Zero]

My parents ended up watching the ESC because nothing else was on that evening and so I had to listen to my father's rants about the whole thing yesterday. So, I'm also tired of the usual criticisms.

The UK should send Paul McCartney next year. He does have the fanbase to even win this thing. I know I'd vote for him (several times). Just an idea.

 

[Seven of Five]

Ha! Whilst that's a pretty good idea I doubt he'd touch it with a barge pole. There just tends to be a lack of respect going into the whole process. It's happened with the BBC chosing someone in arrogance to represent, and also when they've chosen a bad pool of songs for the public to pick from. The UK music industray see it as a joke too, which is a shame.

I have visions of more garbage being sent next year - sorry! Our whole process needs a big overhaul.