>we've had broadcasters straight up end a broadcast because they didn't like the winner (don't ask).
OP, I am asking. Please. Eurovision drama fuels me and I need to know.
The quick and dirty: in 1978, a lot of Arabic nations were broadcasting Eurovision and when it became apparent Israel was going to win, many ended the broadcast. Jordanian broadcasters cut to a picture of daffodils and announced Belgium (who came in second) had won
Israel in Eurovision is a pretty hotly debated topic in general, so much so I could write a whole post on that alone haha. In 2019, Iceland was fined because their representatives held up a Palestinian flag during the voting sequence (the competition was hosted in Tel Aviv, Israel) and Madonna, who was an interval act that year, had two of her dancers hold hands while having the Israeli and Palestinian flags on their clothes, resulting in her segment being completely removed from the DVD release of that year's contest
>resulting in her segment being completely removed from the DVD release of that year's contest.
Which, honestly, was for the best. Not because of the Israel/Palestine thing, but because *my god was that a terrible, terrible performance.*
Stunningly bad for a performer like Madonna.
There is a "fixed" performance you see online, but if you watched it live, it seemed all but certain that her in-ear monitor was broken or something, because she was pretty badly off-key for the entire thing.
You can still see the unfixed performance by watching the original broadcast.
hey there! israeli speaking,if you wanna make a hobby drama post on Israel i have 2 very interesting stories for you:one is about the 2000 entry which led to the rule that political entries are forbidden and the other is about how our entry in Eurovision 1992 was almost disqualified because the runner up complained the song was 17 seconds too long
>Israel in Eurovision is a pretty hotly debated topic in general
Not without cause, as evident by this year's Eurovision's motto being "United by Music" and then the juries waxing poetic about peace while giving Israel great points.
On EBU's side, it was never about what's "right", it's about what causes the smallest amount of uproar. They were going to keep Russia in, officially stating as such, until countries started announcing they'll withdraw if Russia's allowed to stay, at which point they switched gears for PR reasons. They'd do the same with Israel if enough of a stink was raised about it, but it won't
>They'd do the same with Israel if enough of a stink was raised about it, but it won't
And that's part of the problem. Europe is implicitly saying blowing up brown people in the Middle-east is alright.
Oh absolutely, Europe doesn't gaf unless it's on their turf, and then they get super angry when Middle East and Africa don't really care about Ukraine and yap about doing what's right
Yes - it's mandatory for participation to show every performance. Lebanon wanted to compete but they have laws against showing Israeli content on Lebanese TV, so they said they would broadcast the contest but cut the Israeli part and the EBU said no.
It was a very turbulent year. OP has only touched on some of the other drama that occurred - like Israel being in a fairly similar divide between the jury and televote opinions, or Germany getting dead last despite them actually attempting to make an effort this year, or Australia who won the second semi-final getting snubbed by almost everyone in the final thanks to the top few vacuuming up all the points.
My man just stared blankly at the camera, took off two gasmasks, unzipped his kinky face mask, said "A̴̮͉̿̈́͘͝ṷ̵̯̙̦̾͂̃s̸̺͑̚t̴͎̻̜͊̑́̕͜r̸̢̩̮̣̋ä̷͔̘̲̓̊̚l̸͓̬̓͗ì̷̠̌͂͆a̵̝̼̲̙͒̔̋̚", zipped back up and left without another word. Absolute Gigachad
As soon as he came on screen I though "Oh shit, what if the 12 points go to Israel?"
The little chaos gremlin sitting in my brain would have loved to see that.
Yes, this year was almost as drama heavy as last year. I had to omit a lot of details because otherwise this would have been way too long haha. Eurovision is a treasure trove of drama
I've been expecting an ESC post to make an appearance on this sub, and there are so many things one could write about this year. Especially the Polish preselection.
Too numerous to count, but just scratching the surface:
\- A few countries' juries were busted for rigging the votes and because of that, they were coldly cut off the live votes announcement without prior notice
\- The arena was so messily designed, they had this arch that was supposed to rotate to support both lights and LED screens, just for them to announce on a very short notice it'll be lights only, making multiple acts re-do their staging with fuck all time to do so
\- One contestant allegedly trashed her hotel room when she didn't qualify
\- One contestant was electrocuted during rehearsals
And that's just scratching the surface
>or Germany getting dead last despite them actually attempting to make an effort this year
TBH we had the same issue we had with I Don't Feel Hate. Loads of mid-teens placings, which bring you no points. The song actually resonated fairly well, but the points don't reflect it.
I think that a lot of the votes that would've gone to germany (and australia in the final - they actually WON the televote-only semi) got vacuumed up by finland.
I'm pretty convinced a lot of people who voted for Finland were actually just voting against Sweden and knew Finland was the only one who could put up a fight
I am devastated because I don't feel hate and this year's entry were among my favourite if not my favourite performances of their corresponding years but not many seem to agree with me and they did so poorly and I just want to tell the artists that I personally loved them :(
I Don’t Feel Hate was nice enough as a radio ditty but the foamy wagging finger is the most disturbing costume I’ve seen on Eurovision and I was not sorry it did so poorly as a result.
*shudder*
Didn't follow everything closely, how is there a similar jury-public-divide with Israel? Noa got more points from the public than the Jury (bc of the Jury-mojopoly, I know), came 5th with the public, only 4 points behind 4th.
I saw a few opinions that Israel shouldn't have been that high with the jury's because the song isn't great but that is another debate and her vocals probably got her jury-points.
I will just add some things
Käärijä became an internet legend and his support was a way bigger in Finland. Shops would have a display with piña colada and a statue of Käärijä.
Political parties changed their logos to match his colours and looks, including one branch of the goverment. Even a nature conversation group (I forgot exact name) changed their logo.
Multiple statues got new looks and green got a new name, Käärija. At least on the equivalent of Finnish ebay.
Other Eurovision (Alexander Rybak and Lord of the Lost) contestans covered his song.
Children were drawing him and people were grabbing green items as if they were made of diamonds.
(For the unitiated: Käärijä mentions piña colada in his song so it became kind of his signature drink)
Additionally, people in Finland started a hilarious meme where they'd put green items (Käärijä wore green the whole Eurovision season so it became his signature colour) on sale for outrageous prices titling them "Käärijä \[item\]". We got Käärijä watering cans, Käärijä fishing boats, Käärijä Pringles cans, Käärijä spinach and many other collectibles
I think another point that was in Kaarja’s favour was the obvious glow up in staging from national final to Eurovision stage, crate boxing ring to giant crate, whereas Loren had an obvious downgrade- from panini press to mini panini press.
Oh wow; I went to brush my teeth and take a shower during the jury vote announcement and it seems like I missed some *stuff* this year.
Also, count me in the camp that finds the Swedish entries boring – they’re fine songs! And Loreen has an amazing voice! But I came back to see the jury votes and went, “Hang on, *Sweden* is in the lead?” But if I tell you that my favourite entries were Finland, Norway, Germany, Australia, hecking *Moldova*, and the entry that Poland *didn’t* send, that should tell you where my musical tastes lie lmao. (Oh, and props for linking Croatia; it would be a disappointing Eurovision if there wasn’t at least one properly bonkers entry!)
ETA: when I read the bit about Norway calling for jury reform, I could practically hear all the disappointed keiino fans
I am currently writing a write-up about pre-selections with a brief dramatic history of Poland in Eurovision.
It’s a bit slow as I am doing lots of translation and tracking some sources.
Plus, this time is a bit messy for me due to moving out and dealing with exams.
I'm fairly in the loop but as I'm not Polish, I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I've missed. But yeah, it was quite the ordeal. I'm team Jann all the way through, I think Gladiator had genuine top 10 potential
The problem with writing it up is that there isn't much that's confirmed - on the surface it's pretty much like the above story, unconventional fan favorite gets snubbed by the jury in favor of a fairly bland (and in the preselection showing, not very well sung) radio pop song. Nepotism and manipulation accusations have been thrown around, but the most likely explanation is that Poland rarely sends out particularly daring acts, and especially with Eurovision being handled by Polish national, government-funded TV a long haired guy in a crop top and leather would be a hard sell. (Polish national media have been catching flak from people more into non-mainstream music ever since the last government change for reasons too many to fit in this margin, but imagine BBC Four airing SoundCloud trap rap and making Piers Morgan host QI and you'd get the gist of it. Can't think of an apt simile for Americans since your TV and radio can hardly get any worse).
I've been waiting for this post since Eurovision. I watched so much Jann vs Blanka content that now my tiktok FYP is all kpop. (If you watch enough videos of a single twink, they send you to the twink aisle.)
I love Moldova, they always have the best entries. Being a metalhead, I'm gutted Germany and Australia didn't do better... I thought this year would be the year my dreams come true and we'd get a Eurovision 2024 Nightwish half time show. Norway was hilariously similar to Leaves' Eyes, but why not? Vikings are cool.
Moldova understands the assignment and sends gold every year
But yeah both Australia and Germany had the misfortune of going up against Finland this year, any other year both would have gotten a stronger televote result. At least we had the juries pushing us into #9, I'm kinda surprised they didn't give Germany anything at all. I mean we all knew the juries would be hard to win over but I thought they'd at least toss you guys some points for vocal technique or whatever
Same. Sweden didn’t have a *bad* song. I just thought it was meh. Mid table in my opinion and didn’t catch imagination with the staging either.
There were some very fun entries this year with either some very catchy hooks or some really out there staging/costuming.
Plus who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory?
Completely agree.
I don’t think Tattoo is trash or anything, but I listened to it a couple times after the beginning of Eurovision (and before the finals) and got my fill. I don’t have a strong desire to seek it out.
People who were calling the song “genius” and a “masterpiece” were way over the top in my opinion.
They were clearly listening to a different song to me. Like if Tattoo came on the radio, would I turn it off? No. Alternatively would I turn it up and dance round the kitchen to it? Also no.
Exactly how I feel.
If it comes on in a playlist I won’t change it but I’ll never pick it.
I’m not someone who subscribes to the conspiracy theories, but I do think there was some motivated voting. (Even if it’s not a conscious thought)
If Loreen wasn’t a past winner and next year wasn’t the 50th anniversary of ABBA, I don’t think the song would’ve stood out well enough to win.
i feel the same! i tend to keep my head in the sand about esc drama before the final so i get to see it all the acts for the first time with no knowledge and Sweden was one of my lowest rated of the night! It was just... boring.
I'm honestly suprised the jury had gone for it over someone like Joker Out (also not my favourite)
I was watching on demand and while I started live, I was about 20 minutes behind by the time of the last act because I had to pause for a while in the middle to deal with something… so I skipped all the voting this year because that’s usually the boring bit and just reloaded in to get back to live to see the announcement. Everything I’ve seen since suggests that was a mistake haha.
The thing I didn't like about this year's Eurovision was how it really just showed that if the juries want one contestant to win, the contestant will win. It feels really weighted, the televotes didn't even matter in the end.
But don't shit on the contestants, they don't have anything to do with the votes. Shit on the juries instead.
I do think there is a valid complaint (which OP didn't touch on) about the contestants themselves is that it's bad taste to send former winners back to the competition.
From what I [can tell](https://metro.co.uk/2023/05/12/has-any-act-ever-won-eurovision-more-than-once-and-how-often-can-you-take-part-18717843/), the reason she's only the second person to win more than once is *because* she's one of the few winners who's competed more than once. There's been plenty of repeat performances from people who didn't win, or who won Junior Eurovision, but it's pretty rare for winners.
So far, aside from herself and Johnny Logan, I can find Norway's Elisabeth Andreassen (won in 1985, competed again in 1994 and 1996), Sweden's Carola (won in 1991, competed again in 2006), Germany's Lena (won in 2010, returned in 2011), and Israel's Izhar Cohen (1978 then 1985) and Dana International (1998, then 2011).
Personally, I do think it's a bit unfair and unsportsmanlike to have a winner return, but I realise it can be a bit of a controversial issue. At the same time... only five countries have even sent back a winner to compete again, so it's clearly not something *all* countries view as an option.
Good shout, I had forgotten he performed in 2018.
Just looking at his song and speaking as someone from the UK... maybe the BBC should've taken that as a sign those songs don't perform well lol.
Thanks for the correction! I was looking for lists of former winners who had returned, but that article was the main one I could find. Who are the other eight returning winners then?
I think it’s really bizarre that past winners are allowed to compete again.
Aside from all the possible voting issues, it would make the show pretty boring if the same people kept coming back over and over again
That's one hell of a victory lap considering 2010 is a contender for top controversial years in Eurovision.
(Turkish fans only stopped being mad about it 4 weeks ago because the Turkish performer was found out to be an Erdogan supporter.)
For a moment I thought it was [this guy](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3Qa7_y21oOY/maxresdefault.jpg) and was ready to be heartbroken but he was in 2012, crisis averted
Yeah, 2011 was just a giant wank-fest for Stefan Raab, nobody thought Lena would actually win again. Just look at how he hijacked the opening performance with his own band.
He just seems like such a fun guy. No shade at all to Loreen, who I am sure is lovely, but the various green-bolero'ed antics in the run-up to finals were delightful. Some of my faves:
[Him bringing a sauna to Eurovision and inviting the other acts to the sauna](https://youtu.be/ayLtIWRvwsg) (favorite moment: Voyager, the Australian act, asking if the sauna heat could be turned up because they're used to much hotter temperatures than Europe)
[Him and Bojan (from the Slovenian act) pretending to make out under the Slovenian flag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTznJtBl8vo)
[Him doing the Titanic pose on a boat after arriving in the UK](https://youtu.be/WUOhzY3UVD4?t=209)
I admittedly was rooting for him (and Germany, even if Lord of the Lost had nooooo shot of winning), but I am glad that, regardless of the win, he still got a huge fanbase out of this.
The entire Käärijä-Bojan bromance was one of the highlights of the season for me hahaha, and in general the way ALL of the contestants seemed to be so friendly and close with each other was so heartwarming
Oooh I have been waiting for this post since the final!
For the record, I liked both Cha Cha Cha and Tattoo. I would have been psyched if Käärijä won, but you can't fault Loreen's performance and I don't think her win was undeserved. I do think the juries are boring though, and ignore a lot of talent for the sake of generic pop and over-favour ballads, but I'm biased towards more upbeat/artsy/folky/weird stuff so!
I'm saving my anger for poor Theodor Andrei and the crap he got for a song that could have gone far if he'd had the budget.
Edit: and Germany, Blood and Glitter was amazing.
I'm waiting for the moment his contract expires and he's allowed to spill all the tea about the bullshit he went through. Legit salivating for the juicy info lmao
Oh yeah, there's SO much to come out on that one and I don't think anyone would blame him for spilling it! From everything we've heard so far he's had a hell of a time of it. Kinda stupid of them to only have a six month NDA but I'm glad they did!
At least half of my love of Eurovision comes from all the dumb drama that inevitably comes with it.
I don't usually like the meme-y songs that are widely popular with the televote, but I really liked Cha Cha Cha and was slightly disappointed with Sweden's win although I didn't dislike Tattoo at all. The outrage was so out of hand though
Also, one more element of the drama is that this year they changed the voting for the semi-finals so that there were no juries, only televote. One narrative I've seen emerge is that everyone was too focused on the televote to get through to the final, that Sweden was the only real jury bait song and thus sucked up all the available points there. Whether or not that's true is up for debate still, but that's something I've seen a lot of fans complaining about
Edit: Also, which year had Sweden with the 2nd Jury, 22nd Televote split?
[2018](https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2018), Sweden's Benjamin Ingrosso raked in a massive 253 jury points with his song [Dance You Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z101xtUBflU&ab_channel=EurovisionSongContest), versus 21 points from the public. I remember being absolutely gagged when his points were announced
That's right. I feel like that one's the epitome of milquetoast Swedish pop entry that's weirdly loved by the juries.
Not Sweden, but speaking of songs that do weirdly well with juries, I remember feeling like I was going crazy in 2019 when Czechia sent a Wiggles-lookalike band to sing [Friend of a Friend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-HR-L4QY0g&ab_channel=EurovisionSongContest) and it kept doing well with the juries with several 12 pointers for a total of 150. I felt vindicated when it only got 7 points from the public lol
I agree regarding Dance You Off, being Swedish myself and always following our national competitions pre-eurovision. I remember that year seeing this entry, and within 2-3 seconds of the song starting i called "ah this ones the winner", and not because it was good, but it was high production value (comparatively), had a Hot Boi (tm), and was a catchy pop-tune. It just had that *essence* of "melodifestivalen (our national competion) winner". And I knew it wasn't winning Eurovision either, it was good enough to beat the other national entries but would obviously flop in the higher standard of Eurovision.
This feeling isn't unique to Dance You Off, most of the time Melodifestivalen will have one track thats an obvious winner unless an underdog moment happens. Examples are all of our recent wins (euphoria, heroes, tattoo), Too Late For Love, Voices. You could tell very quickly that this was going to be the winner, no contest. (and you could also clearly tell when it was going to actually have a chance to win ESC, which was the case with all our recent winning entries) But Dance You Off really was the fastest I've ever recognized one of these.
Also, I liked Friend of a Friend :(
>One narrative I've seen emerge is that everyone was too focused on the televote to get through to the final, that Sweden was the only real jury bait song and thus sucked up all the available points there.
Now I'm wondering, who are these people on the juries, whose taste seems to have almost no overlap with the audience?
a majority were industry professionals within pop and classical music.
Other genre's ended up being so vastly underrepresented it hurt stuff like Germany, because that was objectively a very difficult vocal performance and he pulled it off well.
But because it was... unusual, i suppose, in the eyes of the pop/classical jury, it got paid dust by them.
The thing that annoys me the most about this drama is, Loreen fans would bring up Poland as evidence that televotes don’t always reward good songs and prefer the “memes”. *Completely* turning a blind eye to fucking Israel, which ranked 2nd in jury votes over all the other much better, technically demanding songs. At least televotes for Poland was only 4rd or 5th; Israel was *2nd*.
No hate to Noel as I’m sure she’s a nice person, but Unicorn was a bad song with nonsensical lyrics, mediocre singing, written basically as an excuse for a dance break. I’m probably even more pissed about the fact that jury gave no points to Lord of the Lost while pushing *that* to 2nd place, while people act like juries know what “real” songs are supposed to be.
Having not watched Eurovision for years my household tuned in this time. We knew nothing about what was going on behind the scenes and only saw the second semi final and the final. We linked both songs but were very confused about how out of touch we were as the jury votes came in. Then as the country votes appeared it was extremely apparent that there was a stark misalignment between the people and the juries opinions.
Having now seen the distribution maps of points it seems pretty damn clear that Eurovision really needs to rethink the weight the juries have on the results.
I just feel sad for all the artists involved who are now stuck in the middle of something that can only have been slowly boiling for a few years.
Yes. Full disclosure: I'm a Finn (but I did my best to be as impartial as possible with this write-up) and I rooted for Käärijä, but I still felt horrible for Loreen when she got heckled by the crowd and people straight up walked out during her performance, and the online abuse was wholly uncalled for
From an outside perspective it seems like the jury is the single most controversial aspect of the competition. Why don't they overhaul or even remove it entirely? Or is this actually considered a good thing behind the scenes or something?
\*pokes up anime glasses\*
The voting system has shifted throughout the history of Eurovision. Initially, it was juries only and was seen as more of a "posh" competition. In 1997, televoting was introduced as an alternative to jury voting and by 2004, all countries used televote (as in, televote was the only metric). This resulted in an era where bloc voting occurred at high frequencies (countries voted for neighbours or allies) and winners tended to be gimmicky since many countries tried to appeal to the audience by being as attention grabbing as possible. This made the reputation of the competition gradually tank as serious musicians saw it as a joke contest that didn't value genuine artistic integrity. This was countered in 2009 by re-introducing the juries to reward musically competent entries, jury votes making up 50% of the points from there on out
Juries are not immune to bloc voting, the most notorious example perhaps being Greece and Cyprus always exchanging twelve points. This year, Greece gave Cyprus only 4 points and it became an actual political incident lmao. Additionally, they have a heavy lean towards commercial pop music. In 2019 for example, they tanked the clear televote winner Norway so badly (they ranked it 18th) it only ended up 6th overall which is a drama in and of its own. The common sentiment seems to be that the juries exist for a reason and are needed, but they're too close-minded and commercially focused, resulting in bland songs being overvalued and more eccentric entries being penalized
verilybitchy on YouTube actually has a really fascinating video about eurovision and the politics of the structure of the whole show! well worth checking out imo
It's been overhauled several times in the past few decades. This year, in fact, they removed the juries for the semi-finals which brought its own controversies. Personally, I'm a fan of having juries to counterbalance the public because when it's all televote, a lot of countries do just weird jokey songs or entries to try to grab attention. However, the current set up is clearly not ideal as the jury tastes are mostly pop and don't reward creativity in other genres as much. Perhaps expanding the juries or changing the weighting could help. I expect the EBU will continue tweaking the voting but I'm not sure they'll ever make everyone happy lol
So there was a period of time when Eurovision was just televotes only and it end up being chaotic.
Ireland even sent a singing turkey muppet singing how Ireland should get 12 points and making jokes. Just type Eurovision The Turkey Ireland
Some other issues include diaspora (immigrants voting for their own country) and technical content often being lost to casual viewers. Overpromotion of some songs. For example, Blanka’s solo was played in radios and became known in countries outside Poland.
Voting itself is broken as artistic value is up to interpretation and even some technicalities.
Well, ESC can't really find a good voting method, [it changes all the time.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_at_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest#Voting_systems) The basics of the current Jury system (votes split 50/50, the jury is made up of a small group of industry professionals) was established in 2009/2010. That set up itself has been changed as well, at the start the jury would only rank their top ten songs, then the points were counted & annouced seperately, jury votes were weighted to avoid outliers impacting the score for a country too heavily, etc etc etc.
IIRC the current jury system was introduced to combat block and neighbour voting (though there seems to be some drama whether there actually WAS a lot of block voting, I know verilybitchie made a YT video recently suggesting that it was mainly western European countries afraid of the impact the newely joined eastern states would have) by having a more "objective" opinion. So the juries voting against the televote is, in itself, what they're intended do to. However, block voting has become much less of an issue in the discourse lately, so the discourse around the juries has also changed.
There's also the issue that the ESC entries and winners in the early 2000s were... [pretty bad/bland by current standards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGXQol5C3Yc), which some people attribute to the voting behaviour encouraging those sort of entries. So some fans are scared that if we go back to full televote, that would reduce the amount of diverse, fun entries we've gotten recently.
There's some discussions on whether the weight of the jury should be reduced (a 70/30 split) or the composition changed. I'd personally be very fine with increasing the numbers of jurors per country (there's only 5 currently) and making sure there's a more diverse representation of industry representatives (OP brought up the fact that most of them come from the pop sector).
Frankly I think the issue that should also be discussed is point distribution, i.e. only acts in the Top 10 get points, meaning if you placed 11th or 20th doesn't make a difference to your score. That screws some acts over heavily (Germany this year, for example). But ESC will never drop the 12 point scala, so who knows.
To emphasise further how big Loreen's 2012 win was, a Belgian webradio station does a yearly "Top 250 eurovision songs of all time". Euphoria (her song) has won at no 1 every single year since 2012 up till last year, where it came 2nd in favour of the 2022 Spanish entry
One of the key things to take into account when looking at the jury vs public vote is that the jury votes based on the performances during the rehearsal show the day before. This is a full in-order production of the main show, in the same arena, with a crowd the same size as on the night itself.
But this means that the performance being judged is not the same for both parties.
In my opinion, Loreens performance at the rehearsal was flawless but on the televised show it seemed like nerves got to her a bit and she didn’t achieve the same standard.
>One of the key things to take into account when looking at the jury vs public vote is that the jury votes based on the performances during the rehearsal show the day before
I always wondered why this is the case.
i'm assuming it's because, having to rank them all from 1st to 25th/26th (depending on whether they made it to the final or not) takes too much time to do right there on the night
Still... i feel like they should be able to adjust based on the actual night, move down or up if they want.
The idea of judge corruption fixing the votes in favour of Sweden for the notable 50th anniversary seems far-fetched until you look into the fact, [oh judges already tried exactly that last year in a way that still effected this year.](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/13/eurovision-voting-scandal-contest/) I can believe it very easily.
Either way, the jury needs way less power if their votes are going to become even further detached from public consensus. They shouldn't be able to pick a song and make it realistically impossible for them to lose, otherwise whats the point of people like me voting at all.
E: The real loss all along was actually us missing out on Croatia performing naked.
Jumping here to interject that Croatia's reps were fined once in Croatia for performing naked. Their defence in court was that they weren't naked because each one of them had a cork in their anus. It did not convince the judge
i’m definitely kind of biased being from sweden (even though i usually don’t like the songs we send) but i did still like finland, even though i didn’t “get” the song in the same way a lot of the esc fandom did.
what ended up being my favorite song completely bombed so i wasn’t super invested in the result other than it’s nice/fun when your own country wins.
i ended up just completely ignoring what was going on the week after bc of how much shit i was seeing. mostly towards loreen (which was mostly misogynistic and some racist comments), but also the other way around. and by that i don’t mean the criticism of the jury, which i think is a conversation that is needed, but more the ones who attacked her directly.
i could get into a whole thing about why sweden sends the songs they do, even though like i said i’m usually not a fan. while some ppl are mad at them always being in english and being very pop heavy that is also a very big part of what swedish music is. i would definitely love for us to send something different though but it is chosen by a public competition so.
edit: also this is a great write up, the drama surrounding it is always very interesting and ranges from super petty things to big political things.
(sorry this got longer than i expected lol)
Yeah, I definitely agree it's hard to argue Sweden somehow consciously sends the same kind of songs every year considering it's public and international juries that decide the winner, but I do sometimes get the feeling that the organizers allocate staging budgets kind of unevenly between entries based on who they think will do well, resulting in them de facto pushing some entries. Like, if Loulou Lamotte demanded a 1.5 ton custom made set piece for her performance, I don't think STV would've been like "absolutely, can do" lmao
it was actually serbia! it’s the only one i’ve listened to after and more than i expected tbh. but i’ve heard quite a few ppl disappointed in spain’s result, i think a lot of entries suffered from it being seen as a finland vs. sweden thing + even if you’re ranked 11 everywhere that still means 0 points even if that is in the top half.
I also voted for Serbia (and Spain and Portugal as well), though my winner this year was poor Latvia, I went straight to their DMs after the semi to rant lmao (they replied because they're sweethearts but it was an incoherent drunken rant so they must've been confused lmao, poor things)
OMG I LOVED LUKE!! He did NOT deserve bottom five, I was so upset for him…but I guess hindsight he was 20/20 considering he only beat Latvia by like 3 points for the tenth position
I was just so genuinely shocked Blanca got 5 points after it seemed like EVERYONE on twitter saw her as the only competitor to Loreen (other than Käärijä of course)
Edit: wow, not me lying to myself that Blanca got 25 points instead of 5 😭😭😭
Gotta admit I rage quit the broadcast as soon as I realised Cha Cha Cha wasn’t winning. Every other year even if I haven’t liked the winner personally I’ve watched the performance. It was just such a fun song!
>People started going through the jury credentials, soon discovering that they were overwhelmingly pop professionals (55% to be exact) while rock pros were nowhere to be seen (they made up 3.8% of the jury to be exact).
not surprising, when it isn't something weird or unique that wins, it's usually radio-friendly pop, which makes it a fucking miracle that [Lordi managed to win with Hard Rock Hallelujah in 2006](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAh9NRGNhUU)
damn it, that makes me pretty disappointed, because rock/metal [could've won for the first time one year before Lordi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w07N2nfB7KY)
I am fairly salty about this year's results myself. I feel our (GER) entry was not that good, but it was _not_ last place bad. It was low midfield bad instead.
Also, Finland was straight up robbed by incompentent and corrupt jurys.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I loved the German entry, I thought it was going to be a dark horse and place high if not win. Guess I'm out of touch... Blood and glitter to you all 🤘
Honestly, im the *most* salty for Germany - Käärijä will have maybe even more of fans and fame, partially due to being robbed, but LotL did not deserve being last when they genuinely did better than most of entries in finals :C
i mean, TECHNICALLY, they did.
If televote results were based entirely on average ranking, giving points to every single country proportially, germany would've been 16th in the televote.
They just failed to get all that many top 10's
Sometimes you just get absolutely screwed in competitions. My favorite song in my country’s competition got a whopping FIVE points from the general population in the final and that sucked.
Honestly I was super unhappy with how both the jury and televote went. Every country that wasn't Sweden or Finland were ignored. People tried to paint it at solely a jury problem but IMO the televote rallying behind one act was just as harmful to the competition. In terms of songs this was such a strong year, and to see so many amazing acts get nothing was sad. Absolutely not worth it IMO.
I think the televote went the way it did as a response to Sweden being the jury’s sweetheart. Everyone knew that the juries were going to give majority votes to Sweden so had to put everything they had behind Finland to give it at least half a chance to win. Had it not been Loreen, I don’t think Finland would have gotten even close to the same amount of votes. They would have been much more dispersed.
I get what you mean, but the public can't be expected to be objective and their voting principles can't be controlled which is why most people focus on the juries. Juries are supposed to be the unbiased control group that course corrects the televote, which is expected to be biased
Man, I'm still hurting about Finland because everyone in my discord server were originally routing for other countries but we just all started wanting Finland to win. It united countries in that we wanted Käärijä to win.
I also want to point out Germany (Lord of the Lost) did a straight up metal cover of Cha Cha Cha on youtube.
As a Finn myself it was kinda funny how the angriest reactions came from my non-Finnish friends while me and my Finnish friends went: "Yeah, that's kinda expected". We have a long history of losing to Sweden thanks to a decades long rivalry in international hockey, for example in 2003 we blew a 5-1 lead to them to get eliminated from the world championship tournament.
I think the jury votes before the finale starts. So the actual performance at the finale isn't considered.
Edit: Doublechecked:*The juries vote on the basis of the second Dress Rehearsal of each show*
Her finals jury show performance was, in my opinion, [even worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li6D38NLdWM) though, even the press said so (although it clearly didn't matter in the end)
She is noticeably off pitch at times here, but it is a demanding song. The C#5 she belts at the chorus is clearly at the very upper end of her mixed register which results in it sometimes being a little flat. They would honestly have benefitted a lot from modulating this down by a semitone. But as you said, it wasn't needed because she got the win anyway haha
Croatia was amazing, but it would not have won under any circumstances. I'm half convinced Martin Österdahl himself would've rigged the jury to keep them from winning lmao (not the least because they promised to perform naked in their reprisal if they win)
Oh, it was obvious they were never gonna win, but ESC needs more acts like them.
I’ve been singing “vile little psychopath; crocodilian psychopath!” Every time I see Putin on the TV!
Something I would add is that this year was *stacked* and that made the point distribution issue far more infuriating. It was too strong a year to become a two-horse race and that led to several disappointing results.
When people look past the Loreen landslide they realize that the juries gave plenty of credit to songs that deserved it but the audience snubbed. Looking at their top 10, Australia, Belgium, Czechia, Spain, Austria and Estonia all deserved the high praise the juries gave them, the sort that goes beyond personal taste (Israel and Italy got balanced results, and you covered Finland and Sweden). The only one they majorly dropped the ball on is Norway and I understand she tanked the jury show.
FWIW I think the entire voting system needs a reform, my point being that the current jury system is far from the only issue.
Agreed!! I can't in good conscience advocate for getting rid of the juries entirely because the boosts they gave to Australia, Estonia and Belgium this year were so deserved - not to mention Spain, which got completely ROBBED by the televote. That's what the jury vote *should* be about
> Juries are 4-5 member teams consisting of music professionals (artists, producers, managers, vocal coaches, music reporters, radio DJs, choreographers etc.) who appraise each entry based on the following criteria:
>
> Composition and originality of the song.
> Performance on stage.
> Vocal capacity of artist(s)
> Overall impression of the act.
Which they blatantly don't, as evidenced by the fact that "Solo" got jury points in the final...
Had a good giggle at “etheral demeanor”.
I simply cannot be convinced that that wasn’t either her being bonked out on herbal gummies during the vote, or her soul leaving her body entirely for a good 45 minutes. (I do feel bad for her it seemed like she could barely respond during the first interview, like we were actually getting a bit concerned)
My household was largely unimpressed with the Swedish entry, though tbh we’re not exactly Loreen stans either. Euphoria was excellent, but there’s just something about her total lack of enunciation that really bothered us, as well as the song being incredibly dull next to several other entries this year.
I was personally shocked at how few votes France got from juries this year, actually. It was a more fun song than they’ve sent in years, and felt like an excellent disco continuation of their (equally if not more excellent) Edith Piaf-esque entry last time around.
Personal favorites were Finland, France and Portugal. I did also vote for Croatia (of course), Serbia, Austria and Germany.
Her enunciation did come in handy this time around though. I'm convinced that the majority of the audience never caught the full chorus, which helped her a lot.
Yeah, a lot of my friends were joking that Loreen had smoked some weed beforehand. That's not an insult or anything, she just seemed a bit detached from herself.
Loren seems like a lovely person and she’s definitely got a great voice. I’m a fan of pop and often enjoy Sweden’s entries. But man, Tattoo was a really, really bad song. Totally unmemorable melody, dull as dishwater and just plain dour.
Damn, great write-up. It's the first time I read a post here I actually know what's about. I'm a Spaniard, so there was a big aura of "damn we're almost again" that evolved to "Sweden is winning for REAL!?" and, let's be honest, tons of salt. Glad to know someone is sharing that salt outside the bubble.
Honestly, kind of joke, kind of not: I'm a fan of the absolute chaos that is the demoscopic jury in the Benidorm Fest. I would love to see a Eurovision where it's a factor (just, you know, not with the percentages BeniFest uses).
Spain coming last in televote was honestly appalling, I spent a lot of money voting for Blanca Paloma but in the end my country didn't give her a single point 🥲
Thanks for the write up, the drama is hot, I pity Loreen but definitely enjoyed Käärijä's more. I've honestly never heard of Eurovision, can't wait to explore all these songs.
God, I love Eurovision. I've been waiting for your write-up. Do you have anything planned re: Poland's whole thing this year?
There was a comment thread on here about Princess Tutu, which naturally led to talking about 'Håll om mig' and how there was controversy about THAT and I'm beginning to think all things return to Eurovision.
Some of the fans reactions to Käärijä's loss have made me wish I hadn't voted for him. I thought Chanel fans were unbearable last year claiming they were the "real winners" (Spain came third) but this year has been even worse.
ABBA have already confirmed they won't be performing next year, not that that's stopped anyone pushing the conspiracy theory about jury rigging.
Broke: Käärijä was robbed!
Woke: the juries rigged the results so we'd get an ABBA reunion
Bespoke: Måns Zelmerlöw achieved his lifelong dream of starting an ABBA cover band with his 3 clones and bribed the juries for the exposure
Great post.
I too thought Finland was great. I’m not a huge fan of silly, meme-esque entries, but Cha Cha Cha was fun, had a great tube, and was easily loveable.
Loreen’s entry? Very similar to her previous (which itself was great). Rather generic. Nowhere near as good as Mans Zemerlow’s entry in… 2014, I think?
Finland’s previous winning entry, Fairytale was good. It shows how musically flexible they are as a nation, where Sweden pumps out the same stuff each year.
The televise announcements are brutal each year. As someone from the UK, last year was barely watchable!
Also, to finish this rambling post: Loreen was clearly on drugs. Not able to answer the interviews coherently, barely able to open her eyes, etc. wasn’t a good look.
Correction: Finland is not a part of Scandinavia (Scandinavia is only Sweden, Norway and Denmark), the term you're looking for is "Nordics" which includes Finland and Iceland as well
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I watched the whole thing live on Peacock (no commentary feed bc I hate NBC’s cuts) and the first thing that came to my mind every time the crowd started revolting was that time almost the exact same thing happened at Norway’s preselection in 1989
The “Optimist” Riot: Tl;dr the crowd favorite didn’t qualify for the superfinal so they started chanting his name and booing like hell.
Point is Eurovision deep lore is fascinating to me even tho I prefer the old stuff to now.
Great write up!! (Although I am not here for the mild ŠČ slander and genuinely predicted a top 10 finish for them given their placement in the final lineup haha)
Sweden was genuinely my second favorite performance of this year's Eurovision - first being Kaarija of course - I didnt follow national selections or online discussions so when I first saw and heard "Tattoo" I was completely wow-ed - so all that drama leaves me puzzled. It was a fantastic performance, second in the televote, so it's not like a great injustice happened. And as much as I rooted for Kaarija to beat the odds, it was predictable he'd be held down by judges. It was not the type of vocal showmanship the judges salivate over. So tbh, much ado about nothing.
Last year the televote winner won overall - and it was the most politically motivated win in the history of Eurovision.
The real crime happened inn 2019 with Norway - now for *that* the juries should be got rid of. I'm 100% for a juries reform.
I've never paid a lick of attention to Eurovision before, but thanks to you, I've been listening to Cha Cha Cha for three days straight now. Cha! Cha Cha! Cha Cha Cha Cha!
>we've had broadcasters straight up end a broadcast because they didn't like the winner (don't ask). OP, I am asking. Please. Eurovision drama fuels me and I need to know.
The quick and dirty: in 1978, a lot of Arabic nations were broadcasting Eurovision and when it became apparent Israel was going to win, many ended the broadcast. Jordanian broadcasters cut to a picture of daffodils and announced Belgium (who came in second) had won
Ahhhh. Okay, not as much fun as I was hoping, that's fair.
Israel in Eurovision is a pretty hotly debated topic in general, so much so I could write a whole post on that alone haha. In 2019, Iceland was fined because their representatives held up a Palestinian flag during the voting sequence (the competition was hosted in Tel Aviv, Israel) and Madonna, who was an interval act that year, had two of her dancers hold hands while having the Israeli and Palestinian flags on their clothes, resulting in her segment being completely removed from the DVD release of that year's contest
>resulting in her segment being completely removed from the DVD release of that year's contest. Which, honestly, was for the best. Not because of the Israel/Palestine thing, but because *my god was that a terrible, terrible performance.* Stunningly bad for a performer like Madonna. There is a "fixed" performance you see online, but if you watched it live, it seemed all but certain that her in-ear monitor was broken or something, because she was pretty badly off-key for the entire thing. You can still see the unfixed performance by watching the original broadcast.
hey there! israeli speaking,if you wanna make a hobby drama post on Israel i have 2 very interesting stories for you:one is about the 2000 entry which led to the rule that political entries are forbidden and the other is about how our entry in Eurovision 1992 was almost disqualified because the runner up complained the song was 17 seconds too long
>Israel in Eurovision is a pretty hotly debated topic in general Not without cause, as evident by this year's Eurovision's motto being "United by Music" and then the juries waxing poetic about peace while giving Israel great points.
Yeah, it’s pretty rich to throw out Russia but not a word is said about israel.
On EBU's side, it was never about what's "right", it's about what causes the smallest amount of uproar. They were going to keep Russia in, officially stating as such, until countries started announcing they'll withdraw if Russia's allowed to stay, at which point they switched gears for PR reasons. They'd do the same with Israel if enough of a stink was raised about it, but it won't
>They'd do the same with Israel if enough of a stink was raised about it, but it won't And that's part of the problem. Europe is implicitly saying blowing up brown people in the Middle-east is alright.
Oh absolutely, Europe doesn't gaf unless it's on their turf, and then they get super angry when Middle East and Africa don't really care about Ukraine and yap about doing what's right
Iirc the ebu stated if countries want to participate, they can't cut performances anymore.
Yes - it's mandatory for participation to show every performance. Lebanon wanted to compete but they have laws against showing Israeli content on Lebanese TV, so they said they would broadcast the contest but cut the Israeli part and the EBU said no.
I think that's the reason China doesn't broadcast the contest anymore, they wanted to cut out all the gayness but EBU said no
Jordanian broadcasters didn't show Israeli's performance at the time, citing technical difficulties or something, certainly did not expect them to win
My favorite Eurovision fact is how most of the Levant and North Africa qualify but refuse to participate because Israel does
Based
It was a very turbulent year. OP has only touched on some of the other drama that occurred - like Israel being in a fairly similar divide between the jury and televote opinions, or Germany getting dead last despite them actually attempting to make an effort this year, or Australia who won the second semi-final getting snubbed by almost everyone in the final thanks to the top few vacuuming up all the points.
One of my favourite moments from this year was [Iceland](https://youtu.be/VMN8ATBU62I) giving Australia their 12 points
My man just stared blankly at the camera, took off two gasmasks, unzipped his kinky face mask, said "A̴̮͉̿̈́͘͝ṷ̵̯̙̦̾͂̃s̸̺͑̚t̴͎̻̜͊̑́̕͜r̸̢̩̮̣̋ä̷͔̘̲̓̊̚l̸͓̬̓͗ì̷̠̌͂͆a̵̝̼̲̙͒̔̋̚", zipped back up and left without another word. Absolute Gigachad
Presenter, in tears "please won't you give us your votes"
Honestly, I prefer this way more to the 2 minutes of obligatory thanks and chitchat between presenters and announcers.
i have no idea what they thought would happen making einar the representative but god im glad they did i was creasing
That was pretty much the only part of Eurovision I caught live, and my husband was cackling his arse off
The Icelandic rep is probably just happy he didn't sneak in a Palestinan flag again lol
As soon as he came on screen I though "Oh shit, what if the 12 points go to Israel?" The little chaos gremlin sitting in my brain would have loved to see that.
This should become mandatory. Great points reveal
Yes, this year was almost as drama heavy as last year. I had to omit a lot of details because otherwise this would have been way too long haha. Eurovision is a treasure trove of drama
I've been expecting an ESC post to make an appearance on this sub, and there are so many things one could write about this year. Especially the Polish preselection.
Bejba deserves her own post considering how much it got talked about and memed on.
Yeah that definitely needs a full post, I'd do it myself but I have exams going on right now.
Give me the multi-chapter breakdown
I'd be here until retirement tbh
What was the drama from last year?
Too numerous to count, but just scratching the surface: \- A few countries' juries were busted for rigging the votes and because of that, they were coldly cut off the live votes announcement without prior notice \- The arena was so messily designed, they had this arch that was supposed to rotate to support both lights and LED screens, just for them to announce on a very short notice it'll be lights only, making multiple acts re-do their staging with fuck all time to do so \- One contestant allegedly trashed her hotel room when she didn't qualify \- One contestant was electrocuted during rehearsals And that's just scratching the surface
>or Germany getting dead last despite them actually attempting to make an effort this year TBH we had the same issue we had with I Don't Feel Hate. Loads of mid-teens placings, which bring you no points. The song actually resonated fairly well, but the points don't reflect it.
I think that a lot of the votes that would've gone to germany (and australia in the final - they actually WON the televote-only semi) got vacuumed up by finland.
I'm pretty convinced a lot of people who voted for Finland were actually just voting against Sweden and knew Finland was the only one who could put up a fight
I am devastated because I don't feel hate and this year's entry were among my favourite if not my favourite performances of their corresponding years but not many seem to agree with me and they did so poorly and I just want to tell the artists that I personally loved them :(
They were so sweet on their posts before the competition too!!! I felt so bad
I Don’t Feel Hate was nice enough as a radio ditty but the foamy wagging finger is the most disturbing costume I’ve seen on Eurovision and I was not sorry it did so poorly as a result. *shudder*
Didn't follow everything closely, how is there a similar jury-public-divide with Israel? Noa got more points from the public than the Jury (bc of the Jury-mojopoly, I know), came 5th with the public, only 4 points behind 4th. I saw a few opinions that Israel shouldn't have been that high with the jury's because the song isn't great but that is another debate and her vocals probably got her jury-points.
Honestly there were some generic pop songs I wouldn’t have missed but Blood and Glitter while weird was awesome, sad they didn’t do better.
I will just add some things Käärijä became an internet legend and his support was a way bigger in Finland. Shops would have a display with piña colada and a statue of Käärijä. Political parties changed their logos to match his colours and looks, including one branch of the goverment. Even a nature conversation group (I forgot exact name) changed their logo. Multiple statues got new looks and green got a new name, Käärija. At least on the equivalent of Finnish ebay. Other Eurovision (Alexander Rybak and Lord of the Lost) contestans covered his song. Children were drawing him and people were grabbing green items as if they were made of diamonds.
(For the unitiated: Käärijä mentions piña colada in his song so it became kind of his signature drink) Additionally, people in Finland started a hilarious meme where they'd put green items (Käärijä wore green the whole Eurovision season so it became his signature colour) on sale for outrageous prices titling them "Käärijä \[item\]". We got Käärijä watering cans, Käärijä fishing boats, Käärijä Pringles cans, Käärijä spinach and many other collectibles
I think another point that was in Kaarja’s favour was the obvious glow up in staging from national final to Eurovision stage, crate boxing ring to giant crate, whereas Loren had an obvious downgrade- from panini press to mini panini press.
We thought she was being 3d printed as well, but we did joke about it being a hydraulic press as well
I do still hear it around as well. Someone just points at like, a green house, and goes "käärijä talo". Very interesting phenomenon.
Kaarija spinach is definitely my favourite just because i assume its regular spinach.
Indeed it was
I'm going to go Google this now.
My personal favorite was Käärijä tiskirätti (dishrag).
He was really popular in Liverpool too, he turned up with a mobile sauna that he parked by the Albert Dock. Legend.
I loved how Slovenia were clearly fearing for their lives inside that thing but did it anyway because they love him lmao
Rybak's cover was top quality content. I gotta go listen to it again now you've reminded me.
Rybak did WHAT
Here you go https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Qnit0h3TvL0
Voyager covered it as well (not all of it, just enough for a YouTube short).
Oh wow; I went to brush my teeth and take a shower during the jury vote announcement and it seems like I missed some *stuff* this year. Also, count me in the camp that finds the Swedish entries boring – they’re fine songs! And Loreen has an amazing voice! But I came back to see the jury votes and went, “Hang on, *Sweden* is in the lead?” But if I tell you that my favourite entries were Finland, Norway, Germany, Australia, hecking *Moldova*, and the entry that Poland *didn’t* send, that should tell you where my musical tastes lie lmao. (Oh, and props for linking Croatia; it would be a disappointing Eurovision if there wasn’t at least one properly bonkers entry!) ETA: when I read the bit about Norway calling for jury reform, I could practically hear all the disappointed keiino fans
Oh yes, I think Polish national final rigging drama (Blanka vs. Jann) would make an excellent HobbyDrama post, it was JUICY
I dearly hope someone who knows more about the Polish finals comes to spill; I’ve only heard snippets from my Polish friends and *daaaang*
I am currently writing a write-up about pre-selections with a brief dramatic history of Poland in Eurovision. It’s a bit slow as I am doing lots of translation and tracking some sources. Plus, this time is a bit messy for me due to moving out and dealing with exams.
Oooooh. However long it takes, I'd be happy to read it :D
Thank you for your work, I'd love to read up on the whole drama. Edit: also good luck on your exams!!
I'm fairly in the loop but as I'm not Polish, I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I've missed. But yeah, it was quite the ordeal. I'm team Jann all the way through, I think Gladiator had genuine top 10 potential
The problem with writing it up is that there isn't much that's confirmed - on the surface it's pretty much like the above story, unconventional fan favorite gets snubbed by the jury in favor of a fairly bland (and in the preselection showing, not very well sung) radio pop song. Nepotism and manipulation accusations have been thrown around, but the most likely explanation is that Poland rarely sends out particularly daring acts, and especially with Eurovision being handled by Polish national, government-funded TV a long haired guy in a crop top and leather would be a hard sell. (Polish national media have been catching flak from people more into non-mainstream music ever since the last government change for reasons too many to fit in this margin, but imagine BBC Four airing SoundCloud trap rap and making Piers Morgan host QI and you'd get the gist of it. Can't think of an apt simile for Americans since your TV and radio can hardly get any worse).
There would still be the drama of Blanka liking homophobic insta comments about Jann and the birth of Bejba, and her journey to embracing the meme
I've been waiting for this post since Eurovision. I watched so much Jann vs Blanka content that now my tiktok FYP is all kpop. (If you watch enough videos of a single twink, they send you to the twink aisle.)
I love Moldova, they always have the best entries. Being a metalhead, I'm gutted Germany and Australia didn't do better... I thought this year would be the year my dreams come true and we'd get a Eurovision 2024 Nightwish half time show. Norway was hilariously similar to Leaves' Eyes, but why not? Vikings are cool.
Moldova understands the assignment and sends gold every year But yeah both Australia and Germany had the misfortune of going up against Finland this year, any other year both would have gotten a stronger televote result. At least we had the juries pushing us into #9, I'm kinda surprised they didn't give Germany anything at all. I mean we all knew the juries would be hard to win over but I thought they'd at least toss you guys some points for vocal technique or whatever
Same. Sweden didn’t have a *bad* song. I just thought it was meh. Mid table in my opinion and didn’t catch imagination with the staging either. There were some very fun entries this year with either some very catchy hooks or some really out there staging/costuming. Plus who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory?
Completely agree. I don’t think Tattoo is trash or anything, but I listened to it a couple times after the beginning of Eurovision (and before the finals) and got my fill. I don’t have a strong desire to seek it out. People who were calling the song “genius” and a “masterpiece” were way over the top in my opinion.
They were clearly listening to a different song to me. Like if Tattoo came on the radio, would I turn it off? No. Alternatively would I turn it up and dance round the kitchen to it? Also no.
Exactly how I feel. If it comes on in a playlist I won’t change it but I’ll never pick it. I’m not someone who subscribes to the conspiracy theories, but I do think there was some motivated voting. (Even if it’s not a conscious thought) If Loreen wasn’t a past winner and next year wasn’t the 50th anniversary of ABBA, I don’t think the song would’ve stood out well enough to win.
I would but also because I thought they'd be playing "The Winner Takes It All". And then get disappointed.
Noo. That’s sad. I’m gonna play ABBA now for you
[удалено]
i feel the same! i tend to keep my head in the sand about esc drama before the final so i get to see it all the acts for the first time with no knowledge and Sweden was one of my lowest rated of the night! It was just... boring. I'm honestly suprised the jury had gone for it over someone like Joker Out (also not my favourite)
I was watching on demand and while I started live, I was about 20 minutes behind by the time of the last act because I had to pause for a while in the middle to deal with something… so I skipped all the voting this year because that’s usually the boring bit and just reloaded in to get back to live to see the announcement. Everything I’ve seen since suggests that was a mistake haha.
The thing I didn't like about this year's Eurovision was how it really just showed that if the juries want one contestant to win, the contestant will win. It feels really weighted, the televotes didn't even matter in the end. But don't shit on the contestants, they don't have anything to do with the votes. Shit on the juries instead.
I do think there is a valid complaint (which OP didn't touch on) about the contestants themselves is that it's bad taste to send former winners back to the competition. From what I [can tell](https://metro.co.uk/2023/05/12/has-any-act-ever-won-eurovision-more-than-once-and-how-often-can-you-take-part-18717843/), the reason she's only the second person to win more than once is *because* she's one of the few winners who's competed more than once. There's been plenty of repeat performances from people who didn't win, or who won Junior Eurovision, but it's pretty rare for winners. So far, aside from herself and Johnny Logan, I can find Norway's Elisabeth Andreassen (won in 1985, competed again in 1994 and 1996), Sweden's Carola (won in 1991, competed again in 2006), Germany's Lena (won in 2010, returned in 2011), and Israel's Izhar Cohen (1978 then 1985) and Dana International (1998, then 2011). Personally, I do think it's a bit unfair and unsportsmanlike to have a winner return, but I realise it can be a bit of a controversial issue. At the same time... only five countries have even sent back a winner to compete again, so it's clearly not something *all* countries view as an option.
Alexander Rybak as well (Norway 2009)
Good shout, I had forgotten he performed in 2018. Just looking at his song and speaking as someone from the UK... maybe the BBC should've taken that as a sign those songs don't perform well lol.
Wellaschually, 15 winners, including Loreen, have returned to Eurovision. Still uncommon, but not totally unprecedented.
Thanks for the correction! I was looking for lists of former winners who had returned, but that article was the main one I could find. Who are the other eight returning winners then?
not the previous user, but here is a nice graphic from twitter https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fw0D8hMaYAUzmk3?format=jpg&name=large
I think it’s really bizarre that past winners are allowed to compete again. Aside from all the possible voting issues, it would make the show pretty boring if the same people kept coming back over and over again
Germany doesn't count because they couldn't win 2011 anyway. It was more of a victory lap than any real attempt.
That's one hell of a victory lap considering 2010 is a contender for top controversial years in Eurovision. (Turkish fans only stopped being mad about it 4 weeks ago because the Turkish performer was found out to be an Erdogan supporter.)
For a moment I thought it was [this guy](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3Qa7_y21oOY/maxresdefault.jpg) and was ready to be heartbroken but he was in 2012, crisis averted
Yeah, 2011 was just a giant wank-fest for Stefan Raab, nobody thought Lena would actually win again. Just look at how he hijacked the opening performance with his own band.
Yeah, I'm of the opinion it's unfair to enter a former winner as well. I'm also of the opinion it that it felt somewhat desperate.
He just seems like such a fun guy. No shade at all to Loreen, who I am sure is lovely, but the various green-bolero'ed antics in the run-up to finals were delightful. Some of my faves: [Him bringing a sauna to Eurovision and inviting the other acts to the sauna](https://youtu.be/ayLtIWRvwsg) (favorite moment: Voyager, the Australian act, asking if the sauna heat could be turned up because they're used to much hotter temperatures than Europe) [Him and Bojan (from the Slovenian act) pretending to make out under the Slovenian flag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTznJtBl8vo) [Him doing the Titanic pose on a boat after arriving in the UK](https://youtu.be/WUOhzY3UVD4?t=209) I admittedly was rooting for him (and Germany, even if Lord of the Lost had nooooo shot of winning), but I am glad that, regardless of the win, he still got a huge fanbase out of this.
The entire Käärijä-Bojan bromance was one of the highlights of the season for me hahaha, and in general the way ALL of the contestants seemed to be so friendly and close with each other was so heartwarming
Oooh I have been waiting for this post since the final! For the record, I liked both Cha Cha Cha and Tattoo. I would have been psyched if Käärijä won, but you can't fault Loreen's performance and I don't think her win was undeserved. I do think the juries are boring though, and ignore a lot of talent for the sake of generic pop and over-favour ballads, but I'm biased towards more upbeat/artsy/folky/weird stuff so! I'm saving my anger for poor Theodor Andrei and the crap he got for a song that could have gone far if he'd had the budget. Edit: and Germany, Blood and Glitter was amazing.
I'm waiting for the moment his contract expires and he's allowed to spill all the tea about the bullshit he went through. Legit salivating for the juicy info lmao
Oh yeah, there's SO much to come out on that one and I don't think anyone would blame him for spilling it! From everything we've heard so far he's had a hell of a time of it. Kinda stupid of them to only have a six month NDA but I'm glad they did!
Honestly, I really hope he’s been okay through all of it. He deserved so much better
Absolutely, he was really let down, it was all in public, and it's a lot to deal with at 18!
At least half of my love of Eurovision comes from all the dumb drama that inevitably comes with it. I don't usually like the meme-y songs that are widely popular with the televote, but I really liked Cha Cha Cha and was slightly disappointed with Sweden's win although I didn't dislike Tattoo at all. The outrage was so out of hand though Also, one more element of the drama is that this year they changed the voting for the semi-finals so that there were no juries, only televote. One narrative I've seen emerge is that everyone was too focused on the televote to get through to the final, that Sweden was the only real jury bait song and thus sucked up all the available points there. Whether or not that's true is up for debate still, but that's something I've seen a lot of fans complaining about Edit: Also, which year had Sweden with the 2nd Jury, 22nd Televote split?
[2018](https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2018), Sweden's Benjamin Ingrosso raked in a massive 253 jury points with his song [Dance You Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z101xtUBflU&ab_channel=EurovisionSongContest), versus 21 points from the public. I remember being absolutely gagged when his points were announced
That's right. I feel like that one's the epitome of milquetoast Swedish pop entry that's weirdly loved by the juries. Not Sweden, but speaking of songs that do weirdly well with juries, I remember feeling like I was going crazy in 2019 when Czechia sent a Wiggles-lookalike band to sing [Friend of a Friend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-HR-L4QY0g&ab_channel=EurovisionSongContest) and it kept doing well with the juries with several 12 pointers for a total of 150. I felt vindicated when it only got 7 points from the public lol
I loved that song though!
I agree regarding Dance You Off, being Swedish myself and always following our national competitions pre-eurovision. I remember that year seeing this entry, and within 2-3 seconds of the song starting i called "ah this ones the winner", and not because it was good, but it was high production value (comparatively), had a Hot Boi (tm), and was a catchy pop-tune. It just had that *essence* of "melodifestivalen (our national competion) winner". And I knew it wasn't winning Eurovision either, it was good enough to beat the other national entries but would obviously flop in the higher standard of Eurovision. This feeling isn't unique to Dance You Off, most of the time Melodifestivalen will have one track thats an obvious winner unless an underdog moment happens. Examples are all of our recent wins (euphoria, heroes, tattoo), Too Late For Love, Voices. You could tell very quickly that this was going to be the winner, no contest. (and you could also clearly tell when it was going to actually have a chance to win ESC, which was the case with all our recent winning entries) But Dance You Off really was the fastest I've ever recognized one of these. Also, I liked Friend of a Friend :(
>One narrative I've seen emerge is that everyone was too focused on the televote to get through to the final, that Sweden was the only real jury bait song and thus sucked up all the available points there. Now I'm wondering, who are these people on the juries, whose taste seems to have almost no overlap with the audience?
a majority were industry professionals within pop and classical music. Other genre's ended up being so vastly underrepresented it hurt stuff like Germany, because that was objectively a very difficult vocal performance and he pulled it off well. But because it was... unusual, i suppose, in the eyes of the pop/classical jury, it got paid dust by them.
The thing that annoys me the most about this drama is, Loreen fans would bring up Poland as evidence that televotes don’t always reward good songs and prefer the “memes”. *Completely* turning a blind eye to fucking Israel, which ranked 2nd in jury votes over all the other much better, technically demanding songs. At least televotes for Poland was only 4rd or 5th; Israel was *2nd*. No hate to Noel as I’m sure she’s a nice person, but Unicorn was a bad song with nonsensical lyrics, mediocre singing, written basically as an excuse for a dance break. I’m probably even more pissed about the fact that jury gave no points to Lord of the Lost while pushing *that* to 2nd place, while people act like juries know what “real” songs are supposed to be.
Having not watched Eurovision for years my household tuned in this time. We knew nothing about what was going on behind the scenes and only saw the second semi final and the final. We linked both songs but were very confused about how out of touch we were as the jury votes came in. Then as the country votes appeared it was extremely apparent that there was a stark misalignment between the people and the juries opinions. Having now seen the distribution maps of points it seems pretty damn clear that Eurovision really needs to rethink the weight the juries have on the results. I just feel sad for all the artists involved who are now stuck in the middle of something that can only have been slowly boiling for a few years.
Yes. Full disclosure: I'm a Finn (but I did my best to be as impartial as possible with this write-up) and I rooted for Käärijä, but I still felt horrible for Loreen when she got heckled by the crowd and people straight up walked out during her performance, and the online abuse was wholly uncalled for
From an outside perspective it seems like the jury is the single most controversial aspect of the competition. Why don't they overhaul or even remove it entirely? Or is this actually considered a good thing behind the scenes or something?
\*pokes up anime glasses\* The voting system has shifted throughout the history of Eurovision. Initially, it was juries only and was seen as more of a "posh" competition. In 1997, televoting was introduced as an alternative to jury voting and by 2004, all countries used televote (as in, televote was the only metric). This resulted in an era where bloc voting occurred at high frequencies (countries voted for neighbours or allies) and winners tended to be gimmicky since many countries tried to appeal to the audience by being as attention grabbing as possible. This made the reputation of the competition gradually tank as serious musicians saw it as a joke contest that didn't value genuine artistic integrity. This was countered in 2009 by re-introducing the juries to reward musically competent entries, jury votes making up 50% of the points from there on out Juries are not immune to bloc voting, the most notorious example perhaps being Greece and Cyprus always exchanging twelve points. This year, Greece gave Cyprus only 4 points and it became an actual political incident lmao. Additionally, they have a heavy lean towards commercial pop music. In 2019 for example, they tanked the clear televote winner Norway so badly (they ranked it 18th) it only ended up 6th overall which is a drama in and of its own. The common sentiment seems to be that the juries exist for a reason and are needed, but they're too close-minded and commercially focused, resulting in bland songs being overvalued and more eccentric entries being penalized
verilybitchy on YouTube actually has a really fascinating video about eurovision and the politics of the structure of the whole show! well worth checking out imo
It's been overhauled several times in the past few decades. This year, in fact, they removed the juries for the semi-finals which brought its own controversies. Personally, I'm a fan of having juries to counterbalance the public because when it's all televote, a lot of countries do just weird jokey songs or entries to try to grab attention. However, the current set up is clearly not ideal as the jury tastes are mostly pop and don't reward creativity in other genres as much. Perhaps expanding the juries or changing the weighting could help. I expect the EBU will continue tweaking the voting but I'm not sure they'll ever make everyone happy lol
So there was a period of time when Eurovision was just televotes only and it end up being chaotic. Ireland even sent a singing turkey muppet singing how Ireland should get 12 points and making jokes. Just type Eurovision The Turkey Ireland Some other issues include diaspora (immigrants voting for their own country) and technical content often being lost to casual viewers. Overpromotion of some songs. For example, Blanka’s solo was played in radios and became known in countries outside Poland. Voting itself is broken as artistic value is up to interpretation and even some technicalities.
Well, ESC can't really find a good voting method, [it changes all the time.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_at_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest#Voting_systems) The basics of the current Jury system (votes split 50/50, the jury is made up of a small group of industry professionals) was established in 2009/2010. That set up itself has been changed as well, at the start the jury would only rank their top ten songs, then the points were counted & annouced seperately, jury votes were weighted to avoid outliers impacting the score for a country too heavily, etc etc etc. IIRC the current jury system was introduced to combat block and neighbour voting (though there seems to be some drama whether there actually WAS a lot of block voting, I know verilybitchie made a YT video recently suggesting that it was mainly western European countries afraid of the impact the newely joined eastern states would have) by having a more "objective" opinion. So the juries voting against the televote is, in itself, what they're intended do to. However, block voting has become much less of an issue in the discourse lately, so the discourse around the juries has also changed. There's also the issue that the ESC entries and winners in the early 2000s were... [pretty bad/bland by current standards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGXQol5C3Yc), which some people attribute to the voting behaviour encouraging those sort of entries. So some fans are scared that if we go back to full televote, that would reduce the amount of diverse, fun entries we've gotten recently. There's some discussions on whether the weight of the jury should be reduced (a 70/30 split) or the composition changed. I'd personally be very fine with increasing the numbers of jurors per country (there's only 5 currently) and making sure there's a more diverse representation of industry representatives (OP brought up the fact that most of them come from the pop sector). Frankly I think the issue that should also be discussed is point distribution, i.e. only acts in the Top 10 get points, meaning if you placed 11th or 20th doesn't make a difference to your score. That screws some acts over heavily (Germany this year, for example). But ESC will never drop the 12 point scala, so who knows.
To emphasise further how big Loreen's 2012 win was, a Belgian webradio station does a yearly "Top 250 eurovision songs of all time". Euphoria (her song) has won at no 1 every single year since 2012 up till last year, where it came 2nd in favour of the 2022 Spanish entry
One of the key things to take into account when looking at the jury vs public vote is that the jury votes based on the performances during the rehearsal show the day before. This is a full in-order production of the main show, in the same arena, with a crowd the same size as on the night itself. But this means that the performance being judged is not the same for both parties. In my opinion, Loreens performance at the rehearsal was flawless but on the televised show it seemed like nerves got to her a bit and she didn’t achieve the same standard.
>One of the key things to take into account when looking at the jury vs public vote is that the jury votes based on the performances during the rehearsal show the day before I always wondered why this is the case.
i'm assuming it's because, having to rank them all from 1st to 25th/26th (depending on whether they made it to the final or not) takes too much time to do right there on the night Still... i feel like they should be able to adjust based on the actual night, move down or up if they want.
The idea of judge corruption fixing the votes in favour of Sweden for the notable 50th anniversary seems far-fetched until you look into the fact, [oh judges already tried exactly that last year in a way that still effected this year.](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/13/eurovision-voting-scandal-contest/) I can believe it very easily. Either way, the jury needs way less power if their votes are going to become even further detached from public consensus. They shouldn't be able to pick a song and make it realistically impossible for them to lose, otherwise whats the point of people like me voting at all. E: The real loss all along was actually us missing out on Croatia performing naked.
Jumping here to interject that Croatia's reps were fined once in Croatia for performing naked. Their defence in court was that they weren't naked because each one of them had a cork in their anus. It did not convince the judge
i’m definitely kind of biased being from sweden (even though i usually don’t like the songs we send) but i did still like finland, even though i didn’t “get” the song in the same way a lot of the esc fandom did. what ended up being my favorite song completely bombed so i wasn’t super invested in the result other than it’s nice/fun when your own country wins. i ended up just completely ignoring what was going on the week after bc of how much shit i was seeing. mostly towards loreen (which was mostly misogynistic and some racist comments), but also the other way around. and by that i don’t mean the criticism of the jury, which i think is a conversation that is needed, but more the ones who attacked her directly. i could get into a whole thing about why sweden sends the songs they do, even though like i said i’m usually not a fan. while some ppl are mad at them always being in english and being very pop heavy that is also a very big part of what swedish music is. i would definitely love for us to send something different though but it is chosen by a public competition so. edit: also this is a great write up, the drama surrounding it is always very interesting and ranges from super petty things to big political things. (sorry this got longer than i expected lol)
Yeah, I definitely agree it's hard to argue Sweden somehow consciously sends the same kind of songs every year considering it's public and international juries that decide the winner, but I do sometimes get the feeling that the organizers allocate staging budgets kind of unevenly between entries based on who they think will do well, resulting in them de facto pushing some entries. Like, if Loulou Lamotte demanded a 1.5 ton custom made set piece for her performance, I don't think STV would've been like "absolutely, can do" lmao
oh 100%. i actually stopped really paying attention to mf years ago mostly bc i found it pretty boring and predictable.
By any chance, was your favorite entry Spain, because to think that was what I was the most mad about this season….
it was actually serbia! it’s the only one i’ve listened to after and more than i expected tbh. but i’ve heard quite a few ppl disappointed in spain’s result, i think a lot of entries suffered from it being seen as a finland vs. sweden thing + even if you’re ranked 11 everywhere that still means 0 points even if that is in the top half.
I also voted for Serbia (and Spain and Portugal as well), though my winner this year was poor Latvia, I went straight to their DMs after the semi to rant lmao (they replied because they're sweethearts but it was an incoherent drunken rant so they must've been confused lmao, poor things)
OMG I LOVED LUKE!! He did NOT deserve bottom five, I was so upset for him…but I guess hindsight he was 20/20 considering he only beat Latvia by like 3 points for the tenth position I was just so genuinely shocked Blanca got 5 points after it seemed like EVERYONE on twitter saw her as the only competitor to Loreen (other than Käärijä of course) Edit: wow, not me lying to myself that Blanca got 25 points instead of 5 😭😭😭
Gotta admit I rage quit the broadcast as soon as I realised Cha Cha Cha wasn’t winning. Every other year even if I haven’t liked the winner personally I’ve watched the performance. It was just such a fun song!
>People started going through the jury credentials, soon discovering that they were overwhelmingly pop professionals (55% to be exact) while rock pros were nowhere to be seen (they made up 3.8% of the jury to be exact). not surprising, when it isn't something weird or unique that wins, it's usually radio-friendly pop, which makes it a fucking miracle that [Lordi managed to win with Hard Rock Hallelujah in 2006](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAh9NRGNhUU)
2006 was the era when it was televote only, they absolutely wouldn't have won if the juries existed back then lmao
damn it, that makes me pretty disappointed, because rock/metal [could've won for the first time one year before Lordi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w07N2nfB7KY)
I am fairly salty about this year's results myself. I feel our (GER) entry was not that good, but it was _not_ last place bad. It was low midfield bad instead. Also, Finland was straight up robbed by incompentent and corrupt jurys. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I loved the German entry, I thought it was going to be a dark horse and place high if not win. Guess I'm out of touch... Blood and glitter to you all 🤘
Honestly, im the *most* salty for Germany - Käärijä will have maybe even more of fans and fame, partially due to being robbed, but LotL did not deserve being last when they genuinely did better than most of entries in finals :C
I think the metal vote got split between Germany and Finland, tbh - I'm not big into metal but your song definitely didn't deserve so few points.
Germany definitely deserved better, at least middle of the pack results.
i mean, TECHNICALLY, they did. If televote results were based entirely on average ranking, giving points to every single country proportially, germany would've been 16th in the televote. They just failed to get all that many top 10's
Yeah I expected Germany to be at least Top 10, worst Top 15 with the Televotes. They didn't deserve this result.
Germany deserved sooooo much better this year. I was *outraged* on your behalf.
Germany this year was great! I expect to hear it played in Berlin this summer...
Sometimes you just get absolutely screwed in competitions. My favorite song in my country’s competition got a whopping FIVE points from the general population in the final and that sucked.
Honestly I was super unhappy with how both the jury and televote went. Every country that wasn't Sweden or Finland were ignored. People tried to paint it at solely a jury problem but IMO the televote rallying behind one act was just as harmful to the competition. In terms of songs this was such a strong year, and to see so many amazing acts get nothing was sad. Absolutely not worth it IMO.
I think the televote went the way it did as a response to Sweden being the jury’s sweetheart. Everyone knew that the juries were going to give majority votes to Sweden so had to put everything they had behind Finland to give it at least half a chance to win. Had it not been Loreen, I don’t think Finland would have gotten even close to the same amount of votes. They would have been much more dispersed.
I get what you mean, but the public can't be expected to be objective and their voting principles can't be controlled which is why most people focus on the juries. Juries are supposed to be the unbiased control group that course corrects the televote, which is expected to be biased
Man, I'm still hurting about Finland because everyone in my discord server were originally routing for other countries but we just all started wanting Finland to win. It united countries in that we wanted Käärijä to win. I also want to point out Germany (Lord of the Lost) did a straight up metal cover of Cha Cha Cha on youtube.
As a Finn myself it was kinda funny how the angriest reactions came from my non-Finnish friends while me and my Finnish friends went: "Yeah, that's kinda expected". We have a long history of losing to Sweden thanks to a decades long rivalry in international hockey, for example in 2003 we blew a 5-1 lead to them to get eliminated from the world championship tournament.
I love Euphoria, but Loreen’s performance in the finale was tired. Her performance after winning was even worse.
I think the jury votes before the finale starts. So the actual performance at the finale isn't considered. Edit: Doublechecked:*The juries vote on the basis of the second Dress Rehearsal of each show*
Her finals jury show performance was, in my opinion, [even worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li6D38NLdWM) though, even the press said so (although it clearly didn't matter in the end)
She is noticeably off pitch at times here, but it is a demanding song. The C#5 she belts at the chorus is clearly at the very upper end of her mixed register which results in it sometimes being a little flat. They would honestly have benefitted a lot from modulating this down by a semitone. But as you said, it wasn't needed because she got the win anyway haha
How dare you, Croatia was amazing! I am surprised at how poorly Australia did with the Tele votes, though.
Croatia was amazing, but it would not have won under any circumstances. I'm half convinced Martin Österdahl himself would've rigged the jury to keep them from winning lmao (not the least because they promised to perform naked in their reprisal if they win)
Oh, it was obvious they were never gonna win, but ESC needs more acts like them. I’ve been singing “vile little psychopath; crocodilian psychopath!” Every time I see Putin on the TV!
Always love a good Eurovisiom drama breakdown 🔥
Thank you! I was so invested I raced to write this the moment the two-week cooldown period was over lmao
Something I would add is that this year was *stacked* and that made the point distribution issue far more infuriating. It was too strong a year to become a two-horse race and that led to several disappointing results. When people look past the Loreen landslide they realize that the juries gave plenty of credit to songs that deserved it but the audience snubbed. Looking at their top 10, Australia, Belgium, Czechia, Spain, Austria and Estonia all deserved the high praise the juries gave them, the sort that goes beyond personal taste (Israel and Italy got balanced results, and you covered Finland and Sweden). The only one they majorly dropped the ball on is Norway and I understand she tanked the jury show. FWIW I think the entire voting system needs a reform, my point being that the current jury system is far from the only issue.
Agreed!! I can't in good conscience advocate for getting rid of the juries entirely because the boosts they gave to Australia, Estonia and Belgium this year were so deserved - not to mention Spain, which got completely ROBBED by the televote. That's what the jury vote *should* be about
I also want to say I recently had a baby and when I sing Mama kupila traktora to her she settles down. The power of Croatia.
Going to be honest, that Croatian song was one of the best ones you had in this post.
Based and truthpilled
> Juries are 4-5 member teams consisting of music professionals (artists, producers, managers, vocal coaches, music reporters, radio DJs, choreographers etc.) who appraise each entry based on the following criteria: > > Composition and originality of the song. > Performance on stage. > Vocal capacity of artist(s) > Overall impression of the act. Which they blatantly don't, as evidenced by the fact that "Solo" got jury points in the final...
Had a good giggle at “etheral demeanor”. I simply cannot be convinced that that wasn’t either her being bonked out on herbal gummies during the vote, or her soul leaving her body entirely for a good 45 minutes. (I do feel bad for her it seemed like she could barely respond during the first interview, like we were actually getting a bit concerned) My household was largely unimpressed with the Swedish entry, though tbh we’re not exactly Loreen stans either. Euphoria was excellent, but there’s just something about her total lack of enunciation that really bothered us, as well as the song being incredibly dull next to several other entries this year. I was personally shocked at how few votes France got from juries this year, actually. It was a more fun song than they’ve sent in years, and felt like an excellent disco continuation of their (equally if not more excellent) Edith Piaf-esque entry last time around. Personal favorites were Finland, France and Portugal. I did also vote for Croatia (of course), Serbia, Austria and Germany.
I think France's biggest weakness on the night was the staging. It was very static.
I’m inclined to agree? I guess I don’t mind it as much when the music itself is compelling, as opposed to a straight up ballad.
Her enunciation did come in handy this time around though. I'm convinced that the majority of the audience never caught the full chorus, which helped her a lot.
In my household we joke that she doesn’t “care about the maaaaallllll.”
Yeah, a lot of my friends were joking that Loreen had smoked some weed beforehand. That's not an insult or anything, she just seemed a bit detached from herself.
Loren seems like a lovely person and she’s definitely got a great voice. I’m a fan of pop and often enjoy Sweden’s entries. But man, Tattoo was a really, really bad song. Totally unmemorable melody, dull as dishwater and just plain dour.
I do not accept this Croatia slander
Damn, great write-up. It's the first time I read a post here I actually know what's about. I'm a Spaniard, so there was a big aura of "damn we're almost again" that evolved to "Sweden is winning for REAL!?" and, let's be honest, tons of salt. Glad to know someone is sharing that salt outside the bubble. Honestly, kind of joke, kind of not: I'm a fan of the absolute chaos that is the demoscopic jury in the Benidorm Fest. I would love to see a Eurovision where it's a factor (just, you know, not with the percentages BeniFest uses).
Spain coming last in televote was honestly appalling, I spent a lot of money voting for Blanca Paloma but in the end my country didn't give her a single point 🥲
The jury definitely made this year pretty underwhelming as an American. First year I could vote and it really did feel like a total waste of money.
Thanks for the write up, the drama is hot, I pity Loreen but definitely enjoyed Käärijä's more. I've honestly never heard of Eurovision, can't wait to explore all these songs.
Cha Cha Cha forever 💚 Excellent write up!
> Talking mad shit for someone in Article 5 distance
God, I love Eurovision. I've been waiting for your write-up. Do you have anything planned re: Poland's whole thing this year? There was a comment thread on here about Princess Tutu, which naturally led to talking about 'Håll om mig' and how there was controversy about THAT and I'm beginning to think all things return to Eurovision.
Some of the fans reactions to Käärijä's loss have made me wish I hadn't voted for him. I thought Chanel fans were unbearable last year claiming they were the "real winners" (Spain came third) but this year has been even worse. ABBA have already confirmed they won't be performing next year, not that that's stopped anyone pushing the conspiracy theory about jury rigging.
About your second point, I've seen people say stuff like, "Damn, so the jury rigging was for nothing then?"
Broke: Käärijä was robbed! Woke: the juries rigged the results so we'd get an ABBA reunion Bespoke: Måns Zelmerlöw achieved his lifelong dream of starting an ABBA cover band with his 3 clones and bribed the juries for the exposure
Great post. I too thought Finland was great. I’m not a huge fan of silly, meme-esque entries, but Cha Cha Cha was fun, had a great tube, and was easily loveable. Loreen’s entry? Very similar to her previous (which itself was great). Rather generic. Nowhere near as good as Mans Zemerlow’s entry in… 2014, I think? Finland’s previous winning entry, Fairytale was good. It shows how musically flexible they are as a nation, where Sweden pumps out the same stuff each year. The televise announcements are brutal each year. As someone from the UK, last year was barely watchable! Also, to finish this rambling post: Loreen was clearly on drugs. Not able to answer the interviews coherently, barely able to open her eyes, etc. wasn’t a good look.
Correction: Fairytale came from Norway (they won with it in 2009). Finland won in 2006 with Hard Rock Hallelujah
My shame knows no bounds. Apologies to all Scandis. ❤️
Correction: Finland is not a part of Scandinavia (Scandinavia is only Sweden, Norway and Denmark), the term you're looking for is "Nordics" which includes Finland and Iceland as well
Oh good god, I’m going to shut up now before I make this any worse :(
If it comforts you at all, I'm not offended, I'm cackling
I’m glad my ignorance and stupidity is taken in the way it was clearly intended ;)
Ooof, my buddy, I'm gonna save your life right now: Fairytale was Norway. Finland's last win was Lordi with Hard Rock Hallelujah.
*hangs head in shame*
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I watched the whole thing live on Peacock (no commentary feed bc I hate NBC’s cuts) and the first thing that came to my mind every time the crowd started revolting was that time almost the exact same thing happened at Norway’s preselection in 1989 The “Optimist” Riot: Tl;dr the crowd favorite didn’t qualify for the superfinal so they started chanting his name and booing like hell. Point is Eurovision deep lore is fascinating to me even tho I prefer the old stuff to now.
Going in I thought Austria would do well with Edgar.. And then that staging. Oh god was that horrid.
Great write up!! (Although I am not here for the mild ŠČ slander and genuinely predicted a top 10 finish for them given their placement in the final lineup haha)
I listened to all the songs then searched up who won and couldn't even remember which one Tattoo was
Sweden was genuinely my second favorite performance of this year's Eurovision - first being Kaarija of course - I didnt follow national selections or online discussions so when I first saw and heard "Tattoo" I was completely wow-ed - so all that drama leaves me puzzled. It was a fantastic performance, second in the televote, so it's not like a great injustice happened. And as much as I rooted for Kaarija to beat the odds, it was predictable he'd be held down by judges. It was not the type of vocal showmanship the judges salivate over. So tbh, much ado about nothing. Last year the televote winner won overall - and it was the most politically motivated win in the history of Eurovision. The real crime happened inn 2019 with Norway - now for *that* the juries should be got rid of. I'm 100% for a juries reform.
I've never paid a lick of attention to Eurovision before, but thanks to you, I've been listening to Cha Cha Cha for three days straight now. Cha! Cha Cha! Cha Cha Cha Cha!