Eurovision 2023

Cor blimey or something.

https://wiwibloggs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Eurovision-2023-Logo-Liverpool.jpg

Much to come as various national finals happen but I already know my 'we are an arch art outfit and we know what we're doing' Hatari/Konstrakta entry for the year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isZ_4AnCTnA

For the first time ever, I really like the Danish song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04C8E7PUMQo

He wasn't great on stage, so I don't think he'll win it, but that is legitimately a good song, no?

It's definitely closer to a typical Swedish entry than a Danish one.

The Norwegian entry this year is a big dumb goofy song, with emphasis on 'dumb', but in a very weak year I struggled to find an alternative to root for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYWhh-E_VPo

(His hat is insured)

I thought from the clip that Croatian entry might be too wacky for me, but it's great. Wild but actually musically good, too. Eastern European countries have really been testing the 'no politics at Eurovision' rule over the last... decade?

I didn't mean the clip, I meant the preview image. You know, that thing.

If that Belgium song doesn't have "I have gone off the internet..." then, well..

Okay Finland's choice is currently my fave easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wmSjw6enq8

Has anyone tried (and maybe even succeeded) to buy tickets before? I'm considering trying to get some today as a gift for someone, but get the sense it may be all but impossible. Also, any tips on which events might be good to aim my sights at if I do try?

https://eurovision.tv/tickets

do european visitors need a visum?

As suspected I had no joy on securing tickets. Ah, well.

All of my Eurovision friends failed too! A couple got to the end but there were only hospitality packages available for £300-£400, way too expensive. Apparently the site kept crashing people out of the queues and there's a lot of bad feeling going around.

I gave up on the idea of going earlier in the year, I don't have the mental or physical capabilities of withstanding huge crowds. Far too much anxiety + fatigue. Unfortunately everyone else has decided to go party in Liverpool even without tickets to the shows, so I won't even have my normal group chat available this year. Bah.

no joy with our group either

This year is shaping up to be real good. Austria's banging ode to being haunted by Edgar Allan Poe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMmLeV47Au4

Eurovision 2023: Mae Muller announced as UK act for song contest

'I Wrote A Song'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ21grjN6wU
I heard a song. Then forgot what it sounded like 5 minutes later, apart from a vague memory of an Eastern European banger that people like but gets lost amoungst the other entries when it comes to the voting.

loreen heavy favourite to win mello
obvs not as good as euphoria but i like it

Don't hate the UK song but it has strong "eliminated in Andra Chansen" energy

Albania always a favourite of mine, but this year it looked like they botched it with a mess of a song - but lo and behold, they dusted it off and remixed it, and now it sounds awesome, love the drill bass (!) that's in there at some points, just a fabulous melange of modern and traditional sounds and instruments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp8OG4ApocI
Albina & Familja Kelmendi • Duje

another big favourite this year:

Latvia's Sudden Lights with "Aijā": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRV2-jPqaUw

*personal* favourite obv, both of them, neither of these will make it to the final unfortunately.

the Spanish and Czech entries, sister acts in a way, will do much better:

Blanca Paloma • Eaea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuO0qZITko

Vesna • My Sister's Crown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y78qgDlzAM

I also love our Dutch entry. it goes (pretty shamelessly) for a Duncan Lawrence x Common Linnets hybrid, but it actually works imvho.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOf-oKDlO6A
Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper • Burning Daylight

would never give this type of stuff the time of day outside of Euro season, but I'm glad to have this yearly opportunity to indulge in it

Loreen winning again would be the boringest thing ever btw. the song is okay, but it offers nothing new, it's a retreat. please remain a Eurovision icon, don't become a mascot. one Johnny Logan is plenty, thank you.

Agreed that Czechia is pretty choice. And agreed on Loreen so here's hoping not, I'm still giving it to their neighbors across the Gulf of Bothnia.

Full playlist of all 37 choices is now up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ21grjN6wU

But if you just need a summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LC9LgRDtRU

Anyway made my annual Eurowhat appearance -- and among other things I got to talk about Finland so I win.

https://fireside.fm/episode/HEjpsK8z+fzttA7ls

First three days of rehearsals for the semis done -- gotta say most everything looks pretty solid. Should be a hell of an entertaining week next week!

Who's watching the semis tonight? It feels like this one's stacked in comparison to Thursday's bout.

yes, just seen the draw, should be excellent tonight

Yeah first half is easily the better of the two, but there are some good ones in the second. Just nowhere near as many!

Anyway two hours to go!

great performance!

phenomphenomphenomenal

I know this is a bit off-topic but I just wanted to point out that imho this song from Italy that ALMOST made it (Placed 2nd at the Sanremo festival) would've been my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ab7U9RVLE

Fucking hell, far too many good songs in this semi final.

yep what a finale that was

want to see the following qualify
Finland, Israel, Moldova, Sweden, Croatia, Norway, Czechia, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia

finland, croatia and moldova my choice picks
my outfit for saturday mirrors netherlands' so them too

Croatia, Norway, Finland, Czechia, Serbia, Moldova... but a bunch of the other ones were really good too.

excellent results

Very very pleased with these results. Saturday is going to be immense.

Yep, semi 1 is absolutely the stronger of the two and got rid of a lot of chaff today (not all, Switzerland getting through is garbage). Semi 2 will be chaos but a couple of good acts in there that should go through, and given the relative strength of the autoqualifiers Saturday should indeed be a hell of a treat.

Was very glad Albania got through tonight, what a great performance.

Yeah Albania and Slovenia were my two levelled-up-in-performance choices, and well deserved from both. Some 'eh' numbers inevitably got through because the first semi was so stacked in comparison but otherwise everyone who I already wanted to go through in this semi -- Australia, Austria, Belgium -- did.

Oof, you liked Belgium? I hated that one!

I liked Georgia and it was a shame that they didn't get through, but honestly I need a few songs that I don't like otherwise the final will be too exhausting.

Lithuania my favourite of this crop, Albania having her mum and dad as backing singers was v cute

Oh Belgium wasn't spectacularly great -- very much a song that knows its market and a classic case of everything around the core performer doing the heavy lifting! -- but it was sweet enough in its own way.

Speaking of 'everything around' that's KINDA how I feel about Lithuania but the song does carry the performer well enough when it fully gets going.

I wouldn't've minded swapping out Armenia for Iceland, but at least Greece got the heave-ho.

Lithuania and Albania were the two I voted for, and for once I did ok on predictions: 9/10. The six that I really liked got through, and the three that I hated didn’t, so yay.

Man, Denmark really crashed and burned. No pun intended.

Lithuania is 22nd of 26 in tomorrow night's running order (Sweden and Finland are both performed a lot earlier), and the odds this morning were an astonishing 300/1. I have never placed an online bet before, but an each-way at these odds was screaming to be placed. It was our clear favourite last night, anyway.

Checking in here!

xp thanks for the tip, can confirm it's still 300-1 at ladbrokes

I’ve missed most of the semis this year, kind of into that stupid Austrian meme song. Will watch the final ofc

Now for the real #Eurovision2023 pic.twitter.com/uAQkIbVN0Z

— James Benge (@jamesbenge) May 13, 2023

This is the first year in living memory that I think the UK song is pretty competent. It's been in my head since I heard it (maybe alternating with the Polish one)

so loreen has won this hasn't she?

the televote moodswings can be wild, with huge margins. have a feeling Finland might do big things there

loved the Iceland linkup

Love too have solidarity for Ukraine and vote for...Israel

These jury votes are fucking shite. What the fuck is going on?

my sentiments exactly

one thing is that they’re based on friday’s dress rehearsal, not on tonight’s performance

come on voters, fuck things up

Lol @ UK getting 9 points from the public. Less than Germany.

ahaha go Norway

Spain got five points ugh

oh fuck off, haha

re Finland

At least one of the good ones got some points!

Bah, Finland wuz robbed

Fucking bullshit!@!

Nonsense

Ugh

Ban jury votes

Only beat Finland due to the jury votes and people remembering her far superior Euphoria #Eurovision2023 pic.twitter.com/rzxV1iqsIs

— Samplo Corvodina (@TreborRhurbarb) May 13, 2023

backed 2nd 3rd and 4th ffs, blatant match fixing by the juries

I agree with the outrage and Finland should have won of course, but the Sweden song is still good, sorry.

So near and yer so far. At least Loreen IS iconic, if it had been some more run of the mill singer I would have contemplated violence.

NEW CONSPIRACY THEORY JUST DROPPED https://t.co/C9Qan1Wynk

— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) May 13, 2023

Haha, my god, I literally just said that we should start that conspiracy theory to my Eurovision groupchat.

get your rewards new NATO members Sweden and Finland

#letsconspireaway

That's an interesting point, though a few good tracks got shafted and Eurovision tracks play with the edges of what is novelty.

The industry juries sometimes come away with different prefs to the general audience because they sit listening to all the songs carefully on recordings for a long time which most of the popular audience don't. That format makes ballads better and cheap novelty tactics worse

— hos and trichs 🆓 (@fireh9lly) May 14, 2023

juries mostly made up of boring conservatives, but sometimes act as a check and balance against public "voting for the narrative" trends, in short the voting is the boring bit of Eurovision i just turned off when the songs had finished

like watching an ILM poll work itself out in real time

don't really remember the details of last year but wasn't it the public vote that gave Ukraine the Eurovision Being Invaded Is Bad award?

Doesn't the narrative around various entries start at the latest several weeks before the contest? And aren't most viewers unaware of these narratives anyway? If there was a narrative around the Portugal entry for example I wasn't aware of it. This year both the public and jury votes were in accord regarding the winner and the act that came last. (German entry: glam + Rammstein = Glamstein? I'm not going to get a chance to make that joke again)

Missed it for once. Last year saw the demise of the usual whining about how everyone hates the British because

1. The Empire or sumthin'
2. Brexit
3. They're just jealous

So I wonder if it'll make a comeback in spite of Boris Johnson being canonised in Kyiv and the UK handing out missiles to the Ukraine like sweeties (and making sure everyone knows about it).

Why shouldn't the UK be handing out missiles to "the" Ukraine like sweeties?

take it to the rolling proxy wars thread

Finland was joyous - the true winner obv. The crowd shouting "cha cha cha" at random points throughout the night made it feel like a moment.

I wonder if there's any good writing about the effect of rules changes on songs and staging - e.g. those video effects that you can now do at the beginning, I don't think anyone really worked out how to make use of them; the introduction of prerecorded backing vocals seems to mean that the "six people on stage" budget is getting spent on dancers rather than singers hiding at the rear of the stage.

Good page for looking at stats: https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2023

There would have been plenty to complain about in a public-only vote too, but I'm still seething about Sweden beating Finland.

don't really remember the details of last year but wasn't it the public vote that gave Ukraine the Eurovision Being Invaded Is Bad award?

― contrapuntal aversion (Noodle Vague)

This was a good thing, not a bad thing.

'Stefania' being actually good helped a lot

Couldn't understand the love for the Israel and Italy entries.

Very slickly professional and competent-as-such enough to win a ton of jury votes, plus a little televote love. Unsurprising in the end.

I am absolutely not getting the love for Hannah Waddingham, at all. She was truly awful in every way.

She's getting the dads to watch it.

Speaking as a dad, I love her, but in my experience it is the mums who are her core constituency.

i liked her as a host, personally

Norton looked pretty grumpy a lot of the time but did laugh at his "it's juries, not Tinder" line.

Oh, Hannah Waddingham was the SHAME nun from Game of Thrones, knew there was something she was familiar from

yeah it took me a little while to realise that also

Guess you don't watch Ted Lasso, then?

Her mugging for the camera and "posh totty" persona just rubbed me up the wrong way completely. She reminded me of being 18 and meeting women who would say "oh I LOVE gay men let's be bffs!!!" because they expected us to be constantly quoting Mean Girls and singing Kylie

I am absolutely not getting the love for Hannah Waddingham, at all. She was truly awful in every way.

"COMING SOON - Online auction of Eurovision 2023 props and costumes"

https://auctions.ramco.uk/auctions/8565/ramco-11297