Eurovision 2021: Rotterdam, May 18-22

[Veltigar]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Yeah, this was a really good year. Good point, @Veltigar, on seeing so many non-English songs at the top. There was a period that performing in English seemed to be the only way to win, but things seem to be opening up.

And the diversity wasn't just there in languages, also in genres. Classic Rock, French chanson, ballad, 80s influenced pop and electro-folk. It makes the entire contest more exciting really as there is something for everyone there.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The public vote still seems to be less political than the judges one though. There were the usual nonsense of countries voting for each other just as there always is

Yeah agreed, perhaps it's less noticeable in the televoting due to the fact that we don't see the points for everyone separately but there definitely was some blatant favoritism in certain juries. Like all those countries giving high marks to Moldova or the Greek countries showering love over each other.

Still, there was one nice moment in the jury voting. The UK giving 12 points to France was more than a little unexpected and it's good to see that their jury selected on quality.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I thought the UK had a reasonable entry this year, before the show having watched the videos.. but his performance was really dreadful, he was either unprepared or just not very good at singing. Who knows.

Still it wasn’t a 0 point thing, and there were some pretty awful songs in there. But on the whole can’t complain too much about it, though I think next year the UK should really just go in there and take the piss, UKIP party style, it doesn’t really matter for the scores anyway

Self-referential songs usually do well in Eurovision, although not good enough to win. I was saying to friends that Australia should send the Axis of Awesome next year with a song titled "this is how you write a Eurovision song" I think it could work quite well  

I do wonder what happened with his performance though. The analysts over here have been taking swipes at the UK as a whole for about a week (the only country that doesn't understand the modern Songfestival is a comment I heard several times from our pundits), but the singer itself has been hailed as the nicest guy at the festival.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Have to agree with the other though, the quality at the top was really high this year, at least 4 songs that should win it. Usually I feel like one song is getting undue praise and it doesn’t make sense, guess it was Malta this year, but I would have been happy whoever

I think the only songs I thought were really bad were Finland, Malta, Moldova and Serbia. The UK messed up their performance, but was otherwise a fine song. Next to the top 5, all the other songs were also pretty okay and a few good ones (Portugal and Israel) which didn't get enough love in my book.

 

[Heartofice]

Thinking a bit more about the Uk entry, thing to remember is that although it’s billed as a song contest, there are a lot of other factors at play.

I think we came up with a decent song, wouldn’t have been out of place in UK charts ( maybe the problem as no other songs in the contest would be a commercial success here) but basically everything else to judge it on was sub par

Singer had a real off day but even at his best he has no charisma or presence. Staging, costume, choreography were all bare minimum with no thought attached. Song had no meaning or message or power either. 
 

So in some ways the UK takes the contest too seriously by thinking it’s a real song contest, but at the same time totally misunderstanding it’s audience.

Then it also makes no effort because most artists see it as career death and most of the UK still see the whole thing as a bit of a joke

[Buckwheat]

Eh. I really disliked the Italian song and would have been happier with pretty much anybody else winning. This is just not the style of music I like and I also hated the whole look.

I liked France, Iceland, the Ukraine ... even Germany better than the Italians.

I feel sorry for all the countries ending up with zero audience points. Seriously, Germany had tap dancing! Why does nobody value tap dancing?

And poor Icelanders, who were off quarantined. I wonder if it would have made any difference if they could have participated live.

[Toth]

51 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Self-referential songs usually do well in Eurovision, although not good enough to win. I was saying to friends that Australia should send the Axis of Awesome next year with a song titled "this is how you write a Eurovision song" I think it could work quite well  

Had to take a double-take at that. Would have been a great idea before the Axis of Awesome disbanded in 2018.

[Veltigar]

18 minutes ago, Toth said:

Had to take a double-take at that. Would have been a great idea before the Axis of Awesome disbanded in 2018.

They disbanded? 

27 minutes ago, Buckwheat said:

Eh. I really disliked the Italian song and would have been happier with pretty much anybody else winning. This is just not the style of music I like and I also hated the whole look.

I liked France, Iceland, the Ukraine ... even Germany better than the Italians.

I feel sorry for all the countries ending up with zero audience points. Seriously, Germany had tap dancing! Why does nobody value tap dancing?

And poor Icelanders, who were off quarantined. I wonder if it would have made any difference if they could have participated live.

Oh yes, Germany, thanks for reminding me that was really terrible. I did laugh a lot about their dancing hand though, so that's why I didn't put it all the way at the bottom but if you had played me their music without the accompanying performance I would have probably assumed you were a CIA operative trying to torture me XD

I don't think Iceland would have performed better if they had been there live. On the contrary perhaps, they were already scoring pity points due to the fact that they really got shafted last year and the additional quarantine really hammered that home. 

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Thinking a bit more about the Uk entry, thing to remember is that although it’s billed as a song contest, there are a lot of other factors at play.

I think we came up with a decent song, wouldn’t have been out of place in UK charts ( maybe the problem as no other songs in the contest would be a commercial success here) but basically everything else to judge it on was sub par

Singer had a real off day but even at his best he has no charisma or presence. Staging, costume, choreography were all bare minimum with no thought attached. Song had no meaning or message or power either. 
 

So in some ways the UK takes the contest too seriously by thinking it’s a real song contest, but at the same time totally misunderstanding it’s audience.

Then it also makes no effort because most artists see it as career death and most of the UK still see the whole thing as a bit of a joke

 You could be an commentator on our public TV as that is exactly what our pundits mean when they say the UK is the only country that doesn't understand the modern song festival!

 

[Heartofice]

27 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

 

 You could be an commentator on our public TV as that is exactly what our pundits mean when they say the UK is the only country that doesn't understand the modern song festival!

 

I suspect those in charge of the UK entry have a similar view to a lot of people in the country, in that the whole contest is some bizarre embarrassment that just highlights how much better UK music is than the rest of Europe , it’s just that Europe is so backwards it doesn’t see it! 
 

I have to admit I also used to think the same thing, I didn’t get why anyone liked Eurovision, the songs were awful, the whole thing was seemingly unaware of how dated and silly it was. But after a while I tended to get into it and feel more on its wave length, and can appreciate it for all its peculiarities.

Still I’m sure the BBC and anyone in the UK music industry looks down it’s nose at the whole thing and has only disdain for it. Which is why we seemingly make so little effort. Last night really highlighted just how little effort had gone into it, it was like he’d never even practiced the song before and they’d just thrown together the set and dance routine 

I wonder if this will lead to a reaction, maybe there will be some effort to do something good and try and understand what makes a winning song. It’s not just about what music is successful in the UK charts because that’s irrelevant.

[Buckwheat]

2 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Oh yes, Germany, thanks for reminding me that was really terrible. I did laugh a lot about their dancing hand though, so that's why I didn't put it all the way at the bottom but if you had played me their music without the accompanying performance I would have probably assumed you were a CIA operative trying to torture me XD

I took it as a joke entry. I like joke entries, so that might explain my admittedly weird taste.

[Werthead]

I think there's been a change in the contest over the last decade or so as well, it's more slick, it's more professional, you don't have quite as many blatantly insane or joke or just awful entries that you did back in the day (you can tell Graham is struggling a bit more than he used to or Terry did with making fun of people). Everyone seem to take it much more seriously. Sweden, the country with the most success this century, takes it very seriously and has a full month of publicly auditioning acts, voting on the songs and putting their heaviest hitters on it.

In contrast, in Britain we don't really care and a lot of people usually show up on the night having never heard even the UK entry before and couldn't tell you the name of the guy ("Aldi Rag 'n' Bone Man" was the phrase I heard mentioned a lot), moan about "the politics" and "well, that's typical" and mutter about how we should have sent Adele in like a WMD to flatten the competition (despite that generally not being in the spirit of the award, which is why Ireland never sent U2 or Boyzone, not to mention convincing massive mega-selling artists if they want to risk embarrassment by not winning).

The other thing is that Britain's attitude (and not just us, Ireland sees it in a similar way which is why they've done poorly recently after prior periods of dominance) is much more well-known among other countries now, with Graham's commentary being available internationally and people saying that Britain's attitude of smug superiority to the contest is out of keeping with the friendly nature of competition. There's also the fact that Britain seems to constantly get the tone wrong, going for silly pop songs that are almost mocking the competition instead of silly pop songs that are just in the competition, or self-indulgent ballads that are not that interesting.

One constant is that we usually have a really restrained stage show, whilst everyone else goes innovative or big or just batshit insane (remember the Polish milk maids?). I can't remember the last time the British entry went proper bonkers on the visuals.

[Ran]

25 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Sweden, the country with the most success this century, takes it very seriously and has a full month of publicly auditioning acts, voting on the songs and putting their heaviest hitters on it.

Yes, Melodifestivalen is a real institution here. I wouldn't say our heaviest hitters get involved, as such -- it's a lot of usual X Factor and Idol starlets, as it is in many other European countries (Måneskin was second place in Italy's X Factor a few years ago), and then some pretty good artists who are famous in Sweden and maybe Scandinavia but not known outside of there. The likes of Robyn, Tove Lo, Lykke Li, First Aid Kit, etc. don't enter. The closest was maybe... Army of Lovers and Alcazar, who had minor international dance hits but didn't qualify to the final, and The Ark, who at least did qualify but were probably internationally less successful than either of those two? ("It Takes A Fool To Remain Sane" is a fantastic song, though; just saying).

But yeah, it's treated quite seriously. Not always with great results, but often with great results. Why the BBC has not taken a similar approach when it's so very clear that they've been awful at both internal selection and their simplified national vote, when they could make a real go of it, I'll never know. Nor does Christer Bjorkman, the mastermind behind Melodifestivalen, who said he had long waited to get a call from the UK about helping them out, and would consider getting involved in Eurovision again (he's officially retired from it this year, but will be heading up the production of the American Song Contest that he and the EBU have sold to NBC) if they did ask for his help.

21 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I can't remember the last time the British entry went proper bonkers on the visuals.

2006 had "Teenage Life" with a choir of over-aged schoolgirls at their desks, 2007 had the very camp "Flying the Flag". (Honestly, that was a catchy song.)

I was looking back at the history of the Big 4 when it was announced -- in 1999 -- that they would not have to qualify in the semifinals. All of them began to do quite badly almost immediately, and in some ways Spain has done even worse than the UK. I don't have the sense that Spain doesn't actually care about it, they seem to send decent attempts almost every time, but it's just off the mark every time. Even once bloc voting became less of a factor, it's remained the same.

[Veltigar]

1 hour ago, Buckwheat said:

I took it as a joke entry. I like joke entries, so that might explain my admittedly weird taste.

Joke entries can be pretty good though. One of the most memorable acts of this century was the "We are the Winners of Eurovision" song from one of the Baltic states. I still sing that sometimes. This one I hope to forget as soon as possible.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

 

I wonder if this will lead to a reaction, maybe there will be some effort to do something good and try and understand what makes a winning song. It’s not just about what music is successful in the UK charts because that’s irrelevant.

I hope for them it does. Sweden has build quite a cottage industry out of it and it is good for your countries' music industry to score consistent successes in the competition. It's a bit like the oscars really. They might not have the artistic credentials we might hope for, but slap oscar winner on something and it will sell better.

20 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yes, Melodifestivalen is a real institution here. I wouldn't say our heaviest hitters get involved, as such -- it's a lot of usual X Factor and Idol starlets, as it is in many other European countries (Måneskin was second place in Italy's X Factor a few years ago), and then some pretty good artists who are famous in Sweden and maybe Scandinavia but not known outside of there. The likes of Robyn, Tove Lo, Lykke Li, First Aid Kit, etc. don't enter. The closest was maybe... Army of Lovers and Alcazar, who had minor international dance hits but didn't qualify to the final, and The Ark, who at least did qualify but were probably internationally less successful than either of those two? ("It Takes A Fool To Remain Sane" is a fantastic song, though; just saying).

 

 

I wonder whether the inclusion of Flo Rida this year might tempt others to try and draw in bigger names. The song was average and it didn't do much in the ranking; but I did respect San Marino for convincing Flo Rida to give it a shot.

[Heartofice]

Not sure what the real incentive is for anyone in the UK to take Eurovision seriously though. I can’t see there ever being any real commercial success here even if you won it, and the death of your career from even entering makes it’s an absolute toxic choice for many artists, so it’s too risky for most. 
 

Also looking at Flo Ridas face after realising how few votes they got makes me wonder if anyone else will want to be in that position 

[Ran]

30 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

but I did respect San Marino for convincing Flo Rida to give it a shot.

The word is that it's less San Marino and more that Senhit is being bankrolled by her wife, who is apparently very wealthy.  It was a bit of useless stunt, but still, interesting. 

Madonna and Justin Timberlake have both performed at grand finals in the past, but no one of their caliber has collaborated on a song with a contestant, I think.

ETA: I should note the minor scandal that came out of the grand final: a clip of Måneskin as voting results come in, and a brief moment where Damiano arguably looks like he's in the process of snorting cocaine when Ethan (the drummer) nudges him. Damiano was clearly upset by the insinuation when a Swedish journalist (for tabloid Aftonbladet) asked him about it at the press conference. He denied it very strongly, saying that here was a broken glass on the ground and that that's what he was looking at, and claimed he'd take a drug test.

Now the EBU has put out an official statement, confirming that Damiano and the band denied it very strongly, that a drug test would be administered (at Måneskin's insistence) when the delegation is back in Italy, and that there was footage of the broken glass that Damiano said had been on the ground.

[Denvek]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Joke entries can be pretty good though. One of the most memorable acts of this century was the "We are the Winners of Eurovision" song from one of the Baltic states. I still sing that sometimes. This one I hope to forget as soon as possible.

The only reason they weren't the winners was because they were unlucky enough to be there the same year as Lordi.

[Maltaran]

10 minutes ago, Denvek said:

The only reason they weren't the winners was because they were unlucky enough to be there the same year as Lordi.

That can’t be true, because they came sixth

[Ran]

9 minutes ago, Denvek said:

The only reason they weren't the winners was because they were unlucky enough to be there the same year as Lordi.

Not very likely, given their placement, as Malt notes. Dima Bilan would have won, almost certainly, or possibly Bosnia. The only way to square the idea of Lordi not being in the race leading to a Lithuanian win is if you think the vast majority of votes for Lordi were "joke" votes and that they would all have migrated to the next "joke" song. But I don't think it's true. I think Lordi got its votes in small part to the "this would be a funny winner" factor, and more likely because it was an extremely rare example of a catchy rock/metal tune in the contest.

[Ran]

So cute, with bonus Tusse:

 

[The Wondering Wolf]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

I should note the minor scandal that came out of the grand final: a clip of Måneskin as voting results come in, and a brief moment where Damiano arguably looks like he's in the process of snorting cocaine when Ethan (the drummer) nudges him. Damiano was clearly upset by the insinuation when a Swedish journalist (for tabloid Aftonbladet) asked him about it at the press conference. He denied it very strongly, saying that here was a broken glass on the ground and that that's what he was looking at, and claimed he'd take a drug test.

Just read about it and I think it's nonsense. If he had needed it so badly, he could have gone to the restroom. Doing it in front of both the people in the arena and the cameras does not make any sense to me, and I'm sure someone of his delegation would have stepped in.

[john]

The reaction was quite funny. “Of course we wouldn’t take drugs, we’ve never done drugs, we’re against drugs.” Rock and roll will never die indeed.

[Ran]

Per the EBU:

Quote

Following allegations of drug use in the Green Room of the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final on Saturday 22 May, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), as requested by the Italian delegation, has conducted a thorough review of the facts, including checking all available footage. A drug test was also voluntarily undertaken earlier today by the lead singer of the band Måneskin which has returned a negative result seen by the EBU.

No drug use took place in the Green Room and we consider the matter closed.

We are alarmed that inaccurate speculation leading to fake news has overshadowed the spirit and the outcome of the event and unfairly affected the band.

We wish to congratulate Måneskin once again and wish them huge success. We look forward to working with our Italian member Rai on producing a spectacular Eurovision Song Contest in Italy next year.

So that's that. 

Apparently in 2017 RAI was talking about the possibility of hosting Eurovision in Turin, and the mayor of Turin was quick to offer to host. Bologna, Florence, and Rome have also had mayors or city councilors make their pitch. Apparently it'll be decided by the end of the summer.

[Ran]

Some interesting post-Eurovision stuff:

A report in the Times of Malta that an audit will be conducted about the spending to support and promote the song because of claims that at least some of the money was routed to foreign nationals so they could place bets on Malta with bookmakers, thereby improving the standing in the odds. They also are said to have overspent, and in particular to have spent on things like getting social media influencers to post pro-Malta content.

In a slightly similar vein, an Aftonbladet tabloid journalist -- Tobbe Ek (the same dope who asked Damiano about the alleged cocaine use) -- has noted some discrepancies in the voting patterns which he believes should be investigated. Specifically, it concerns Moldova and rumors that attempts were made to buy televotes in the semi-finals. Moldova went from getting 8 12s from the televote in semi-final 2, to getting 2... and of the 8 who gave it 12s in the semi-final, fully half of them gave them 0 points. The speculation is that many of the countries that awarded 12 have, historically, very low interest  in Eurovision and have relatively few participating voters for the semi-finals, leaving room for someone to pay people to place votes in large numbers to game the system. It's also alleged that ties between producers of the Moldavian song to Bulgaria and Greece explains some vote trading behavior.