Eurovision 2016

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.

Hold on, Australia are in it again?

Huh? I thought their entry last year was just an exception made for celebrating the 60th anniversary year?

People liked them, so they're back in.

I thought the idea (someone had it) to invite a new guest country every year was v good.

korea korea korea

can't wait for the eventual expansion to worldvision

US = elephant in the room.

Australia have to qualify from the semis this time fwiw

The affiliate broadcaster SBS has been given the green light to work on an Asian equivalent. That could be really good, and far better than Australia continuing to be in Eurovision where it really has no business being unless they did a different wildcard country every year, which could have been very fun.

I kind of hated the increase in number of nations competing as I felt like the more interesting songs didn't get to the 'proper' contest so it lowered the enjoyment factor. But now I've got pretty into watching the heats I'm all for having a world song contest.

Japan and S. Korea would slay all the other countries immediately, mind you.

Unless they sent second-rate material like other countries with big record industries like the UK and Germany (that said I like Germany's song this year, though all signs point to twee, disastrous staging), that is!

LOOK AT LITTLE DAMI IM GO, REPRESENTING US ON THE WORLD STAGE!!!111!!!11

Her single was apparently at Number 68 in Australia this week. Coinciding with Disturbed's cover of "The Sound of Silence" means that it's not even the highest-placed song called "Sound of Silence" on the chart. Meanwhile I've heard Sweden's song several times while shopping this week... hmmm...

Romania expelled from Eurovision

This is huge

Ovidiu Anton was due to perform Moment of Silence at this year's contest in Stockholm in 12 May.

Lots of silence in this year's songs. Is that a growing trend, or something? But seriously, Romania's dismissal has certainly handed victory to _____________ <- Insert winner's name retroactively

http://wiwibloggs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Captura-316.png

Lazarev is currently evens, which is the shortest odds I think I have ever seen. With the current anti-Russian bias this leads me to think a) there might be money to be made and b) the French guy can not carry a tune live. It is such a weak field though. Ukraine is currently second favourite at 4/1 and that is awful.

Damn it, I'm going to miss this. Bastard.

Talk among friends is that Australia's in with a strong chance.

I'm stoked for Sandhja's performance in tonight's semifinal, apparently she's the first one to perform. Like I said upthread, I think her song isn't "Eurovisiony" enough to contend for the top spots, but I'm hoping she'll at least make it to the final.

It's a really weird situation for me, this is the first time in my life that I've really liked and rooted for the Finnish entry (and the first time it's by an artist I already was a fan of)... So it's also the first time I'm facing the "can't vote for my favourite even though I'd want to" thing. I guess this is how nationalists feel every year? Though I still couldn't care less whether Finland as a country makes it, but I do like her and her tune a lot!

Also, I think this is the first time Finland is represented by a non-white singer, so I'm hoping she'll succeed just so it'll irritate the local racists and fascists.

Any minute now:

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/webtv?program=213563

Finland is ok. Australia starts off like it could be quite successful but goes downhill rapidly.

Bulgaria is probably the pick but I assume she can't sing live at 80/1.

Armenia has a fairly thin song but A+ delivery and presentation.

This San Marino guy reminds me of Yello! :)

San Marino kind of sounds like Gepy & Gepy. This is quite good.

Russia clearly aiming for #1 in the special effects.

Repping for the goth queens = Croatia & Armenia
Creepy but great = San Marino

Worst by a mile so far= the Netherlands.

Croatia had the most sympathetic singer so far, sadly the tune was a bit too fairy-dust corny, even for Eurovision.

I guess this is the obligatory token "rock" entry of this semifinal?

Austria is quite charming on record.

Wow, I didn't expect Estonia's dude to sound like *that*!

SAN MARINOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No rapping astronauts so far but this is pretty recognisably Montenegro.

What Bosnia's singer was doing 12 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23h__RssJQo

everything is so dour now

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