Last edited by ryanb741; 24th May 2021 at 07:28.
Here’s a question, If Eurovision is the best of the best in Europe then why dont I have a single song from any of the entrants of the last 70 years on any playlist, in fact apart from ‘Making your mind up’ and ‘Save your kisses for me ’I dont think I can actually name one, why? Because they are all shiiiiiiiittttttteeeeeee.
RIAC
How many of the 700+ losers do you have on your playlists?
But more seriously: No one but you said anything about it being the best at anything, let alone in Europe.
It certainly isn't. The winner was the best of those on offer, and that doesn't even mean the best song, but the best overall act, that resonated most with other countries' citizens, who cannot even vote for the one they have chosen to represent them.
And it is first and foremost live entertainment, all be it with a large helping of kitsch. But those singers get to show their wares to a public the scale of which neither the Beatles, the Stones or the Floyd ever managed to touch in one evening.
However, if the UK population chooses a poor song or, as was the case, it's poorly sung on the night, it won't win. It's simple, really.
Last edited by Saint-Just; 24th May 2021 at 07:47.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Abba Waterloo was a hit. And there was that little German ballad by Nicole - a little peace was it? It was a Uk number 1
https://youtu.be/oB_t__fN7gk
For some reason I reaLly liked that song.
If we had Adele with Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart as backing singers we would still come last, its time we stopped
Eurovision is great fun for the sheeple who are prepared to waste 4 hours watching various musical acts (many of whom would struggle to get a gig at Butlins), singing instantly forgettable tunes, whilst experiencing a bit of rampant nationalism and the power of the block vote.
But if it fills hours of TV airtime, generates millions in ad revenue for some media outlets, provides a platform for budding “stars”, a payday for Norton and provided a distraction from the BBC’s other problems, then it’s a worthwhile exercise.
Interestedly whilst the UK may have finished last Eurovision contest, it seems we are first in other things
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...20and%20France.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
350 million viewers for the Beatles live broadcast of All You Need Is Love in the sixties and still remembered and shown regularly today, this weekends cheesefest won't be shown next week apart from for some saddoes on catchup. And yes our song was cack and no points awarded was about right, no complaints.
It’s no surprise that the UK record industry is the biggest in Europe.
On the other hand, Zitti e Buoni has been streamed over 29m times on Spotify, whereas Embers only managed 2.3m times so far. The winner was just more popular, although I agree James Newman wasn’t the worst by any means. He probably didn’t help himself by having a few too many beers the night before, as he confessed on Radio 2 on Saturday morning.
A big track from Coldplay etc. will get 1bn streams over time.
If you don’t like it don’t watch it, seems simple enough. 8m People (nearly 50% audience share) in the UK did so seems a good use of licence payer’s money.
Eurovision, OTT nonsense and I love watching it!
It did make me think when watching it how many international top artists come from Europe in comparison to the UK, or should I say how many artists break America.
The UK has a massive list of musical icons that are world famous, Europe has ABBA, Julio Iglesias, Pavarotti, bit of Latin pop, couple of metal bands and some deck spinners
Bill Bailey has put himself forward for Eurovision 2022: https://twitter.com/BillBailey/statu...85663768006659 "I’d be happy to throw my hat in the ring for #Eurovision 2022". Apparently he did a similar thing in 2007, but it did not go anywhere.
I have no idea how the UK picks their act, but I think we should take this offer seriously - after all, he can't do any worst than this year, and he might even surprise people and do much better than we have recently. He is bound to give a great, entertaining performance, and the music will properly be good too.
This, really - I always enjoy Eurovision and this year was a welcome return to camp, cringey, hilarious nonsense. I never really understand the outrage from some quarters: it's just a bit of fun, no? Besides, our offering was pretty poor, and why they chose to dress the poor man in a leatherette binbag accessorised with zips, I shall never know. Germany's entry made me look suspiciously at the wine bottle, but I enjoyed it for the sheer WTF-factor.
The thing that really confused me was the success of the Swiss entry. I thought that was unexceptional, generic bum-gravy delivered by an unexceptional, generic, dog-eyed yelper - but apparently both juries and public disagreed. Now that made me feel foreign.
Ukraine gave Russia nul-points again this time round, I think. "And from Russia, to the Ukraine entry: the Third Guards Shock Army!..."
I just find Eurovision irrelevant (and it has been for decades) - So much so that I had no idea it was on beforehand.
But then, I don't watch soaps, Love Island, Mrs Brown's Boys or Keeping Up With Kardishians and clearly lots of people love those.
It's one evening a year, so let them enjoy it if they do - There's always plenty of choices.
You could even switch the TV off...
I'd definitely vote for that one.
All we need to do is get a bus, paint that the £48m a week we spend on the Song Contest will go to kittens on the side and it'll be a landslide!
M
Last edited by snowman; 24th May 2021 at 13:46.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
I'm not a fan of either of those two. Some of Saturday night's offerings were enjoyable to me, especially the French and Ukraine entries.
My favourite Eurovision song ever is Ding a Dong by the Dutch group Teach In. Despite having a dumb title it's just perfect pop. Waterloo too does exactly what it's supposed to - upbeat, fun, catchy.
I can't remember the last UK entry that I liked, to be fair. Maybe the Lynsey de Paul one.
Just having a look at the list of UK entries and apparently we entered Matt Monro in 1964, never knew that. And Kenneth McKellar in 1966, when young people were mostly listening to the Beatles, Kinks, Who et al.
No country wants to win the contest. Why? Because they have to host the next one. It's eye-wateringly expensive to stage & there's little-or-no financial return.
Re M. Monroe & K. McKellar - the contest was an MOR borefest before Sandy Shaw in 1967. For example, Ronnie Carroll (twice), Kathy Kirby & Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson were previous UK entries.
______
Jim.
The voting system seems to work well for the top half of the leaderboard.
People seem to vote for the songs they like. Pro juries & peoples votes roughly align. But in the bottom 13, things are different. People don't vote for the lacklustre songs, if they're voting for someone in this half of the board it's more likely that they're voting for their neighbour. The further down the leaderboard you get the more political the public voting seems to be.
Eurovision themselves recognise that there is a problem, the introduction of professional and therefore apolitical juries was an attempt to lessen the effects of political voting.
By the time you get down the leaderboard to us, we're neither picking up points for a decent performance, nor are we picking up votes from our friendly neighbours. We've just poked two fingers at the EU, and there's a shiny new border between us and Ireland. The French, never a harmonious relationship, have gone from doing their best to ensure that the UK is worse off after Brexit to the fishing protests at Jersey. We've never been very popular on the other side of the sleeve, but right now we must be at an all time low.
Our song didn't deserve to win. But it wasn't the worst by some considerable margin either. But as long as you don't mistake Eurovision for a song contest what's the harm?
For clarity, the wife watches it. My choices are to join her or go elsewhere. Usually I go elsewhere, but Saturday night I was too knackered to do anything other than grab a beer and endure it.
The song from the Ukraine is growing on me...
The song from the UK is not...
I didn't miss your point at all, I was being metaphorical. You may not care who comes last, that doesn't mean that the people at the bottom of the table don't care about how they placed relative to each other. Unless this is your alter-ego and in real life you're a Euro-loser. In which case I, yup, did miss your point.
Are you Gabriela or Monica Irimia?
I'm sure that if Britain wants to get some points next time, they should get two large breasted ladies to perform this. Can't fail! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCHF2BTwSH4
My vote would go to Iceland for their entry ‘Fire Saga’, my personal favourite being jaja ding dong. Although their other hits are timeless including ‘Volcano Man’! Great documentary on Netflix charting this duo’s road to Eurovision.
Play ja ja ding dong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From the BBC web site:
He seems to have caught the narcissism disease which (minor) celebrities are prone to - he is so self-centred that even after scoring 0 from both the juries and the public he still thinks he did OK, instead of facing the reality that this probably a career killer.Asked if he'd do anything differently, James [Newman] said he "wouldn't change a thing" about his performance.
^That's not actually too bad, Mag. Thought it might be worse. Mind you, the lyrics...
"When you slip your..."
*cringes*
"...hand in mine..."
*phew*
Caving in to morbid curiosity I just tracked down the UK entry. He's lucky you can't score minus points.
F.T.F.A.
Yes, I have grown to like some of the classic standards.
I reckon ‘My Lovely Horse’ would actually have scored a few points!
https://youtu.be/jzYzVMcgWhg
Radio 4's More or Less gives a statistical and analytical view of the competition.
They highlight that, good song or bad, the public mainly vote for their own country. As you cannot vote for the country you are voting from - the British in Britain can't vote for the British entry for example - what is often seen as countries voting for their neighbours is more accurately an indication of migration. A big part of the Moldova vote for Russia is that quite a few Russians have gone to live in Moldova. Simple as that. For most of the last ten years, the majority of public votes from Great Britain and from Eire have gone to Lithuania.
Going back to the British heyday, there were only half the competitors there are now, and before 1973, countries were required to sing in their own language which put those that sung in English at a bit of an advantage.
There's been quite a bit of research into the song choice too. The trend in popular music has (apparently - I'm no musician) been towards songs written in a minor key and this has been reflected in those songs that are popular in Eurovision. For the last couple of decades, minor key songs have been 3 times more likely to win than major key songs. GB has picked major key songs. I think 8 out of the top 10 this year were minor key songs.
So it's more to do with migration than politics, there being more contestants in the competition, the rules being changed to take away our language advantage and us choosing the wrong songs.
Other than tactically choosing a better song, our best option for votes is to get lots of Brits to go and live across Europe, so when the voting opens they can vote for dear old Blighty! Oh, hang on...