I think it makes sense to have a general discussion thread to build this community and for you to be able to interact more with each other and talk about stuff.
You can write about all kinds of Eurovision related things here: What are your current favorite songs? Which one grew on or off you recently? What are your staging suggestions? What are your rankings? What are your predictions?
Have fun talking about the songs :D
Am I the only one who absolutely loved Estonia’s performance? The dance, the singing, the way it looked like a weird wizard battle. I was surprised they scored so poorly when they were one of my faves.
The leaked votes from Italy shows that Israel got 40% of the audience votes. So while jury is absolutely bullshit, the issue is that the audience is also very much political.
If they do (I doubt it but they’ll do very well) then Eurovision will have to decide whether they can host the competition in a country that has repeatedly broken the international rule of law, shut down press outlets it doesn’t like, illegally occupied land from a neighbouring country, and is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of children.
EBU: We are not a political organisation the rules are the rules and we have to continue no matter what.
I think most TV stations with free broadcasting will have their streams geo-blocked too. You could try german public TV - here’s a link to the second semi final: ardmediathek.de/…/Y3JpZDovL25kci5kZS8zMmY1MDNlZi1…
Edit: There’s an option to chose the english version-> … -> Sprache und Barrierefreiheit
Thanks! I actually discovered that the music videos everyone posted a couple months ago aren’t geo-blocked like the competition seems to be. I know it’s not quite the same as the live shows, but I was mainly curious about the music.
My take: a lot of the music is just so… bland. Like, no offense intended, it’s just so bland. Most of what I listened to is stuff that sounds like top-10 American “”“Corpo-Pop”“”. I only got about 4-5 songs in before I started skipping to anything I’d heard about or looked interesting. That said…
Armenia/Ladaniva - I loved the blend of folk and pop that Armenia’s entry had. I don’t know if they qualified for the finals, but imo they should have. That said, I’d love to see Armenia dig System of a Down out of hiatus and send them to Eurovision. I know SoaD is technically American, but all the band members are Armenian. The big issue I can see, however, is that despite Serj’s insistance to the contrary, SoaD is a very political band and might refuse to participate simply because Armenia would have to muzzle them.
Australia/Electric Fields - probably should go back and give this a second try. I felt like it was going somewhere, but kind a lost interest halfway through. I’d love to see Australia field King Gizzard, but they’d probably have the same issue as Armenia would have with SoaD. I can’t really see King Gizzard being willingly muzzled. They might be able to talk them into something like 12 Bar Bruise though.
Croatia/Baby Lasagne - heh, Baby Lasagne is fun, plus he’s got a silly name.
Estonia/5MIINUST x Puuluup - Wasn’t a huge fan of this entry, but I still enjoyed it for the same reason I liked Armenia’s entry.
Finland/Windows95man - deserves to be in the top 3. While I didn’t feel like the music was that amazing, the stage show in the music video was 10/10.
Ireland/Bambie Thug - yeah. I like this. Not the music itself, but how “risky” it is compared to the other entries I listened to. I like that Ireland took a risk.
Netherlands/Joost Klein - I can’t decide if I like Joost’s Europapa or not, but I can tell why people liked it and the music video was great. The story behind it makes me really sad he was banned for such a minor thing. This might have been his only chance to really participate in Eurovision and he got banned for obvious bullshit.
There were others I listened to, but I just… they were just kinda meh. All-in-all, I was honestly hoping for stuff that was more unique and risky. Maybe I just got unlucky when I was skipping through stuff though. Also, Eurovision should loosen the “no politics” rule. Telling countries not to take shots at each other is reasonable. However, there’s a lot of “political” music that doesn’t specifically call any one country or culture out (like environmentally-focused stuff) which would probably be disqualified if it was written for Eurovision.
Np. The fun part is watching the show with friends and family and simply having a good time. The promotional videos don’t really capture the spirit and the songs will be tweaked for the live show to make them more interesting.
But you’re absolutely correct about the songs. A lot of songs use the same formula and similar styles will come up again and again. It was more fun when artists had to sing in their home countries’ languages. But every year there will be something unique. And often it is political. They just veil it better and sometimes the audience is in favour of the message. That said: I don’t know what you define as ‘risky’.
Armenia/Ladaniva - Made it to the finals and were one of the better Acts. And I love your idea of sending SoaD for Armenia (Switzerland send Celine Dion before she became really famous. Nationality isn’t such a problem). Unfortunately I don’t see the band coming together again. Serj and John seem to be polar opposites when it comes to their personal views.
Are there any others that I should listen to?
You seem to have covered the interesting stuff from 2024. If you’re not familiar with the older ESC songs - there’s Finland / Lordi - Hard Rock Halleluja, who won.
Winners or other artists
Last year: Croatia / Let 3 - Mama ŠČ!, Finland / Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha
Earlier: Moldova / Zdob şi Zdub & Frații Advahov – Trenulețul Italy / Måneskin - Zitti e buoni Israel / Netta - Toy Ukraine / Verka Serduchka - Dancing Lasha Tumbai
Dizzy is growing on me quite a bit now, to the point where it might actually break into my top 10. It might not win, but the UK should focus on consistently getting to the left side of the scoreboard before thinking about victory.
I think Belgium might win it this year. It feels very much a song that will not just impress a pop-biased jury but is also upbeat enough despite being a ballad, that it’ll get a decent televote score unhindered by whoever the audience roots for.
That is, unless an audience strongly associates with another act (as what happened with Maneskin and Kaarija), but IDK if that’ll happen this year.
I feel like there was a memo passed around to all artists that “late 90s dance music is preferred”. Dunno why, but so many contestants are going for it this year. Norway had several in the national finals.
I was originally ride or die for Vidar Villa, but unfortunately didn’t make it out of the round. Gåte is a good choice, though. (Damdiggida was fun, but I miss the days when KEiiNO featured all three members prominently.)
To start this: If I had to bet now who the winner will be, based on the currently released songs and videos, I’d probably pick Italy or Switzerland. It’s obviously super hard to choose this (and I’m not very good at predicting stuff like this) and there are many other songs which will do well and could win (just some examples are Belgium, Croatia, France or even Netherlands), but those are the two that I could imagine, given a great staging, being well-received by both the juries and the public so that they could be the overall winner.
What do you think about this? Do you agree or what would you predict will win?
I feel Baby Lasagna will follow in Käärijä’s footsteps, likely to come top 3 in the semi-final, be extremely popular but may not fare as well with the juries in the final. (I’m not comparing styles; they are rather different.)
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