Eurovision 2016

The one and a half hour UK selection show is on BBC2 tonight, with not very much fanfare. Pick the least bland out of six entries. And in keeping with an all-white Brit Awards, all six acts are white.
All six contenders

It's on BBC4 right now, in fact. Which makes me think that they reallllllly don't care about this any more. Just switched on, this is all going to be awful.

Oh god, white dreads and sub-Mumfordisms.

Oh I meant BBC4, not BBC2, sorry.

Bring back Love City Groove

Matthew James: bland bland bland ouch key change bland bland bland

Yeah, there's nothing even really to comment on there.

Darline's song is the least awful so far, sounding like the kind of anonymous Eurovision entry that no-one remembers during the voting.

Love the amount of denial going on among the presenters. Like any UK entry will do well, ha. Maybe if we weren't such an awful, awful country.

Someone buy Karl William Lund a rhyming dictionary.

Rhyming 'miracle' with 'beautiful', really?

Dub backing on this a bit of a weird choice, but I actually don't hate it. Like, I wouldn't ever choose to listen to it, but it's at least competent.

That's about whoever it is after Karl William Lund, I didn't catch the name.

Bianca, the Robbie Williams of the band Parade.

LOL I was going to make a 'this is sub The Voice' joke, but Joe & JAke have actually beaten me to it.

Joe & Jake. Ideas for band naming as strong as ideas for songwriting.

"I I I feel like I'm dancing in the sky y y"

Imagine if Jedward had sung that, it'd be halfway entertaining.

I was thinking 'a credible Jedward', but the sole good thing about Jedward was that they fully went for the ridiculousness of themselves. Attempting credibility is *lessening* the good things about them, not adding anything.

I'm glad you're all commenting on this, saves me having to watch it.

Voting begins. Now let's laugh at foreigners because of course the UK entries are always so much better!

Or alternatively, here's why all six acts we've just seen are total shite.

Or, again, alternatively, why bother laughing at foreigners when we can watch old clips of Terry Wogan doing it for us?

Oh my god, they really are pulling out all the stops for this show with these out-of-work nonagenarians.

WTF?!!??!

Seriously, Joe & Jake? Cloth-eared Great British Public make the wrong decision again.

OK, so I just turned over because there's a programme about ABBA coming on and caught the end of that, bottom 3 I reckon.

To be fair to the public, when they had judges choose they also chose shit songs.

True. We're just shit.

When Dima Bilan won in 2008 he was already Russia's biggest pop star. We're sending two guys who were among the many forgettable acts on The Voice last year. Oh and IMHO the Terry Wogan VT should have consisted entirely of clips of him complaining about block voting.

They're the Tesco Value Sam & Mark.

Yeah, but we tried sending one of our big pop bands, we tried sending an old crooner who was big overseas, neither worked and it was embarrassing for those acts to do so poorly. I think it's safer sending new and unknown artists. It's just that these people are terrible.

The block/bloc voting thing is more complicated than just scoffing at the idea, because I think there is a certain amount of friendly voting for neighbours, but I don't think that's cheating or anything bad. The UK has two major problems: one, everyone hates us, and two, every song we send is shit.

The latter is true, former is Woganesque.

I was disappointed when Blue didn't do better, but there wasn't much of an effort made to publicise their entry in Europe. Englebert and Bonnie Tyler have big followings but mainly in English speaking countries. We did better than usual with Jade Ewan - she was unknown but Andrew Lloyd-Webber accompanied her on piano, and that made people think we were actually taking the ESC seriously for once. But the rest of the time we get unknowns who need the publicity boost (which with YouTube etc. basically means acts who can't social media) or old hands who don't have to worry about the effects of losing because their audience don't care if they don't win Eurovision (which includes Cliff if we're going back far enough). No-one else is going to risk their career on a gamble that they don't need to take if they keep plugging away releasing records and touring. I've no idea what the answer is. But it seems that the ideal UK Eurovision entry don't actually exist. We don't even have a semi-novelty act like Jedward - everything here is so safe and boring. A few years ago - and people may very well find this laughable but here goes - my hopes were pinned on Chico. He was on the X Factor, had started to sell record in Europe, but was not getting much success in the UK. So at the time he seemed like the kind of act who would take the gamble, but also might have the European following to pull off a win. But it didn't happen, mainly because he drifted off into boring Euro-ballad-land.

OK OK, that's enough of us losers.

Other losers will be selected tonight in these countries:

http://s30.postimg.org/s2rd9cagx/Eurovision_Feb_27_2016.png
(times CET or local(?) - see ESC site)

Germany has chosen the highly inoffensive "Ghost" by Jamie-Lee Kriewitz - https://youtu.be/Qp5hRoU9HgQ

...while shamefully snubbing "Masters of Chant" by Greg Orion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfwRxhGxjn4

ROBBED

And in minor developments, they're changing the Eurovision voting system again

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=biggest_change_to_eurovision_song_contest_voting_since_1975

It's not very well explained on there, but apparently Melodifestivalen in Sweden has used something similar.

AIUI there'll be twice as many points awarded – a full set of points from each country's jury, and another set from each country's televote. Then (plz correct me if wrong) they'll announce the jury results in the normal way. And finally, at the end, the host reveals how many points each country received in the televote – each country's total, in ascending order from 26th to 1st. To guarantee massive tension and/or confusion.

It might well be a better way, but the descriptions all make it sound like neuroscience. Or something else.

After viewers have cast their votes by telephone, SMS or using the official app, each national spokesperson from the 43 participating countries will be called in to present the points of their professional jury. After the presentation of the scores from the juries, the televoting points from all participating countries will be combined, providing one score for each song. These televoting results will then be announced by the host, starting with the country receiving the fewest points from the public and ending with the country that received the highest number of points, building towards a guaranteed climax.

The UK song isn't good, but it's better than the complete shit-show that they sent last year, and probably better than Molly's dull crock of shit. The point about the UK needing to send popular artists is not rebutted by Blue, because they'd been inactive for a few years.

Really like a couple of the tracks from Melo this year - Lisa Ajax, Boris Rene, Robin Bengtsson, Ace Wilder - all good stuff. The Polish Sia/Rihanna rip-off (not selected yet, but I'm sure it will be) is also very effective. There's some good stuff in the Finnish final too, though I was disappointed my favourite song was sung by an OLD PERSON, not because that bothers me, but because I think they should totally send her but they probably won't.

And I'm going to all three jury shows and all three live shows this year! Woo.

Oh and the hot favourite to win for Latvia was written by Queen Aminata from last year but I don't think it's very good to be honest

edwardo have you been before?

Yes I went to Vienna last year. only saw the 3 jury shows plus the second semi live show.

enjoyable set of reveals, some of which were expected - Norway's chosen well, Finland's gone with my second fave, Slovenia's song is a total rip off of Carrie Underwood's "Something in the Water" and therefore great, Hungary fine, Moldova enjoyable enough.

Reviews of the last Melodifestivalen heat are strong, going to download it now (stupid not living in Sweden).

Poor Linda Bengtzing ripped off again :(

Molly Sanden's song must have run away with this heat and could be a potential winner for Sweden.

oh and Dollystyle are literally three Pegasisters

I was so happy that Sandhja's song won the Finnish semifinal. This is the first time I can remember that Finland's entry for the competition is a singer and tune that I actually like (I've been a fan of her for a while, even started an ILM thread about it), instead of some crappy rock band or a pop singer with a "decent enough for Eurovision" tune.

"Sing It Away" only got the third place in the popular vote, though; it only was because the jurys favoured it that Sandhja won. The tune that won the popular vote was more clearly in the Eurovision mold, which might be a bad omen for Sandhja. I kinda think "Sing It Away" is too upbeat and joyous to have any chance of winning the main competition, but I hope she'll at least get all the exposure she deserves out of it.

The Finnish pre-selection was quite strong this year I thought. I really liked Eini's song the best though. The Finnish jury make-ups is very interesting.

Eini's tune was nice, but for a veteran singer with a 40-year career, her singing was suprisingly bad. You could hear her voice waver in both of her live performances of the song. Don't know how much the voting public cares for such things, but I'd assume it cost her some jury votes at least.

I didn't watch the live performance (is it readily downloadable) - I just downloaded the whole UMK album on Spotify and watched the videos of the ones I liked. I really like how most (all?) of the songs have videos in some countries. Her song sounded really good on the album!

I presume the video version had some autotuning, but they couldn't hide it in the live perf obviously. I think one of the reasons Sandhja won was that she was one of the few contestants who sounded as good live as on the video. She really is a great singer with an unique voice. A lof of the younger contestants are reality show veterans, so their performances tend to reflect that, whereas Sandhja has been doing her own pop/soul/dance thing for a while now, which kinda makes her stand from the crowd. (There were a couple of other more unique tunes in the first round of the Finnish contest, but they didn't make it to the semifinal.)

OTOH, like I said, her lack of the reality music show mannerisms might mean she won't do that well in the main competition. Even the few dance-pop tunes that have managed to win the contest in recent year (like "Diva" or "Euphoria") have had that big, melodramatic tinge Euro voters love, and "Sing It Away" just doesn't have it.

Agreed - the Molly Sanden track this year - "Youniverse" - has a terrible title but it fits snugly into that "Euphoria" mold without sounding too much like Euphoria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLyQNYa7mfo

Ugh, Sweden has gone with fucking Frans. Not a surprise.

I really wanted Lisa Ajax to win, her song was pretty great in a Jordin Sparks meets Margaret Berger style.

"Masters of Chant" deleted from YouTube? What an indignity for Greg and the lads. Maybe they can take comfort from having had a 25-year career ploughing a really narrow furrow.

yeah srs

Jury votes are so dodgy. Four of them haven't placed Russia or Australia at all.

whaaaat

my top 6 was fwiw serbia, azerbaijan, russia, latvia, armenia, australia

not sure what the political ramifications of liking both azerbaijan and armenia are

so are there two sets of results, for jury and for audience?

Yes, it is designed to make it more dramatic but it only serves to highlight how ridiculous the juries are.

agh

I have to say, I wouldn't mind Australia winning. Despite the problems in the song, her performance was quite thrilling. And at least then we wouldn't have the usual complaints about neighbour countries voting for each other.

Though the local presenter said that even if Australia wins, the competition will not be held there, but in some European country... I don't get it?

Oh good because the voting is always the best bit

these jury votes are insane

The audience's results are announced at the end. Quickly, they promise. (They give each competitor's total in ascending order AFAIK)

on the one hand australia doesn't need to be storming into yet another international contest and just winning it.

on the other hand australia has become such a toxic racist shithole that a sth korean born woman winning a multicultural popularity contest that's nine tenths lgbt mardi gras would actually flatten the thumping brigade of self-serving bigots here, at least for a while.

LEE LIN

Fuck the UK. I'm on the first plane out.

who's on the jury?

Fuck the UK. I'm on the first plane out.

― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Saturday, May 14, 2016 10:14 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you generally are tbf

True!

Xp, Two producers, two no name singers and a coach from The Voice.

All of Russia's political enemies have given them no points, which is unlikely to be reflected by their public votes, but I can't see Australia being caught at this stage.

Wow, UK jury gave Georgia douze points? (Hope the public has more sense..!)

There'd be no practical problem with Australia actually hosting the contest, except it'd have to be afternoon European time, instead of prime time ad time -- ohh, right

georgia was real music made by real musicians m8

I missed that, so Britain gave 12 points to the Britpop pastiche? Lol!

Tense now

Poland a real example of jury/audience split there

I like not knowing what the max points are!

UK 12 points went to lithuania...

Glad Ukraine had the credibility of coming second in the popular vote but that was some of the worst political voting from the juries I have ever seen.

Had Bulgaria e/w though!

the emphasis on the popular vote has worked out pretty well

The Polish vote was extraordinary. The diaspora genuinely can't be that big.

Lol UK

always

That was the most entertaining package this show has ever been. Admittedly I only tuned in when the performances had finished. Also good to see Burial's influence finally hitting Eurovision.

I don't think the Polish discrepancy was that weird, their tune was the sort corny but heartfelt bag of clichés that a lot of people like, but professional music folks probably don't.

poland guy's costume got him bare votes

That was a really tense way for the final results to play out! Amazing stuff.

Is it true SVT has used that system on the Swedish selection contest for a few years?

Final totals:

http://www.eurovision.tv/save-files/resizes/d2/7e/bc/3f/62/6f/c4/2a/38/ac/de/62/8c/7f/1a/ea/final.jpg

The detailed results are up. The Ukrainian public gave Russia 12 and the Russian public gave Ukraine 10.

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/results?event=2113&voter=RU

Not a classic contest but still entertaining, one of my favourite winners in extra time. Australia being overtaken in the second half was predictable ime. Most fun round our place was guessing whether Polish Pirate Dude (a) was going to come from last to win the thing or (b) had been forgotten about.

I was going to bet on Bulgaria e/w too but never got round to it, oh well.

my vote for serbia was the second least popular uk vote behind croatia :/

my second choice, azerbaijan, was the third least popular

w/e

Very, very happy with these results. 4th for Bulgaria is magnificent. A win for Ukraine is magnificent. Australia didn't win, but Dami Im will still hopefully get a boost from it because she is potentially an ace pop star.

Atmosphere in Globen was goosebumps the whole way. Unfortunately the screens they put up were too small to follow the scores in the arena unless you had 20:20 vision. Vienna was better in that regard.

Are you going to Kyiv?

Shame they didn't have separate points for the Polish milk maids with the big tits because that'd have been top 10 as well, and cream and butter >>>> long-haired creep-faced diva man.

x-p Yes I will go to Kyiv.

Cool, I might too. I think I say that every year but Kyiv hosting makes it more likely.

I went to the final a few years back. Lots of fun, really positive atmosphere and the efficiency of the whole operation was pretty impressive

My entire band is now making plans to go to Kiev for the contest next year (should I be spelling it as Kyiv or are both spellings acceptable? Not sure of the political/historical implications, if any.)

Very, very happy with these results. 4th for Bulgaria is magnificent. A win for Ukraine is magnificent. Australia didn't win, but Dami Im will still hopefully get a boost from it because she is potentially an ace pop star.

― oh, boy, .GIF! That's where I'm a Viking! (edwardo), Sunday, May 15, 2016 1:13 AM (15 hours ago)

All of this, yes.

The UK entry was shit and we voted for shit.

Kyiv is the Ukrainian spelling and Kiev is the Russian spelling. Both are acceptable as a very high proportion of people in the city speak Russian or a mixture of the two. I tend to use Kyiv as most of the people I deal with in Ukraine are primarily Ukrainian speakers. In general, if anyone feels very strongly that it should only be one spelling or the other, they're dubious.

Hmm. Ukraine has banned the Russian Eurovision 2017 singer, Yulia Samoylova, from taking part in the contest as she performed at a show in Crimea two years ago.

How convenient.

The Ukrainian security services are apparently investigating whether the Armenian entrant has also visited Crimea, so she might be out too.

This is all very strange.

(I mean on the one hand it obv isn't, but on the other.)

i've always heard that crimea is one of the most beautiful places on earth. so i'm not surprised that a lot of pop musicians have been there?

It's a huge summer holiday destination so there are lots of beach concerts, etc