This is the thread where we watch the Eurovision Semi-Finals

I'm irked that I'll be stuck @ work until two hours into the damn thing. I would also gladly link to the Eurovision thingy I pooped out for P!tchfr0ck, but I'm guessing most of the folks that'll happen on this thread already know 90% of what I talk about, so I'll save ye the blue text.

Mike, the Irish entry should get negative points.

01. Austria. Pretty decent- cuban folk and yodelling!!!!!

02. Lithuania. OK- Texas-tyle rock-dance hybrid...

03. Portugal. Reasonably catchy, but nothing special...

04. Moldova This is my favourite!!!! Great catchy rock number, with great "whistle" hook!!!!!

05. Latvia Ballady stuff in the vein of Savage Garden!!!! Not bad actually...

06. Monaco Like one of those orchestra-laden ballads you used to get in 70s Eurovision!!!!!!!! Yawn!!!!!!!!!

07. Israel Sounds like one of those ballads that J-Lo or Christine Aguilera use to fill up their albums!!!!!!!!! Avoid!!!!!

08. Belarus Bit bizzare this one!!!!! Starts off sounding all guitary like an 80s Bonnie Tyler record, then suddenly turns into something like Ronnie Hazelhurst ripping off an old Bobby Orlando record!!!!!! To the tune of "I Will Survive"!!!!!!!! Despite this, it's not particularly good.

09. The Netherlands Really really terrible ballad!!!!!!!!!!

10. Iceland Very well executed pop
but not exactly impressive... One of many gazillion entries this year either influenced by Middle Eastern strings and percussion!!!!! Or at the very least ripping off elements of Britney's "Toxic"!!!!!

11. Belgium Hilariously over-the-top kitchen-sink ballad!!!!!!!! I'm surprised they didn't have fireworks exploding at the end of it!!!!!!!!!!1

12. Estonia A bit like the Donnas, only not quite as good!!!!!

13. Norway Big Hair 80s rock a la Bon Jovi!!!1! And it's a pretty decent tune as well!!!!!

14. Romania Another Ronnie Hazelhurst Does Dance!!!!! (Though a bit better than the Belarus one...)

15. Hungary One of those "modern pop with folkie bits thrown in" numbers!!!!!!! This is supposed to be one of the favourites!!!! Despit this, it's not bad.

16. Finland Sounds very much like a 70s folkie-rock number!!!!! You half expect Gerry Rafferty to come in on the chorus!!!!!

17. FYR Macedonia Pop on auto-pilot!!!! Yawn!!!!!!!

18. Andorra More auto-pilot pop!!!! ZZZzzz!!!!!!!!!!

19. Switzerland Crikey, this is a dark tune by Eurovision standards!!!!! One of the lines goes: "Cool vibes, why don't you kill me?" then jumps in a 80s rock arrangement of the type that Cher used to sing along to!!!!!!!!!

20. Croatia The song's a bit meh, but the arrangement's quite nice!!!!!!!

21. Bulgaria Not heard yet!!!!!!!!

22. Ireland I think Ireland's trying to a do a Father Ted here and enter the worst possible song in order to not stand a chance of winning and hosting the thing the following year!!!!!!! The tune really is utter bobbins, the arrangement might as well be done on a Bontempi organ, and it appears to be sung by the Irish equivalent of Cindy and Bert!!!!!!!!

23. Slovenia This is a bit wierd as it appears to be a cross between a standard syrupy pop ballad and one Muse's more dramatic show-stopping numbers!!!!!!!! Doesn't exactly save it though!!!!!!!

24. Denmark Hmmm... Starts off like a ballad then turns into a bit of light reggae for the chorus!!!! Like that's going to lift it up!!!!!

25. Poland Not heard yet, but I'll be interested to see what they'll come up with!!!!

My fave 3 are: Moldovia, Austria, Norway!!!!!

The thing is, they both played from the start, so I assume I'm about five minutes behind everyone else?

If this qualifies, I'd be a little surprised.

What I heard of Austria was nuts!

But it was mostly voted for by the public!

Ah Portugal. Yer right, Mike, this is dreary as all hell.

And now. Drumming Grandma. Fucking hell. WINNER.

first "C'MON EUROPE!" of the night...

Israel next.

??
http://www.rocktoys.com/1594.jpg

ooh, the Ice types. This is a definite improvement.

My fave.

And now it's a Javine travelog, I guess. Could you shrink the RealPlayer screen a bit more, please?

Yes, we were stoking on those foldback wedges too.

I have a theory about how the UK does so badly in the Euro in spite of having the best pop music. They try to go for the overwrought classical Euro angst thing (done so well by ABBA), but they don't really have it in them as they are an island. They'd be better off doing something they're good at - something a bit more down-to-earth. Then they'd win more often - it works for Ireland, after all.

Did anyone notice that the bottom 4 countries - UK France Germany Spain - are also the "big 4" who stump up most of the money, thus getting automatic entry to the finals? I'm seeing major re-thinks next year. Greece's win baffled me: great in the studio version, considerably less so on the night. Still, I'm going to Athens next year, so YAY.

1) Greece - 230
2) Malta - 192
3) Romania - 158
4) Israel - 154
5) Latvia - 153
6) Moldova - 148
7) Serbia & Montenegro - 137
8) Switzerland - 128
9) Norway - 125
10) Denmark - 125 (fairly sure Norway got more twelve point votes, which would put them ahead)
---- (cutoff point for automatic qualification for next year)
11) Croatia - 115
12) Hungary - 97
13) Turkey - 92
14) Bosnia & Herzegovina - 79
15) Russia - 57
16) Albania - 53
17) FYR Macedonia - 52
18) Cyprus - 46
19) Sweden - 30
20) Ukraine - 30
21) Spain - 28
22) UK - 18
23) France - 11
24) Germany - 4

Weighted voting might seem like an idea, but that would mean the entire contest would basically hinge on Russia, which isn't overly desirable. Plus, Russia wouldn't be able to get any points from themselves, so they'd hardly be delighted by the idea.

Play at home fun - explain the Monegasque public's voting.

I would guess that your standard Brit (or Swedish, or even Norwegian) pop idol in the SAW tradition would have a good chance of creaming the Euro - but who ever sees a big UK name perform there? It's rare. I didn't see this years entry, but in general UK entries are always a little limp and dull compared to what the UK is capable of offering...? Certainly they haven't had the hooks of late. Even lame old Bucks Fizz has a bit of life and spark about them, in their own gormlessly bright and perky way.

Yes, Terry Wogan noticed. As did I once he'd pointed it out.

Britain would totally win if we put Girls Aloud or Rachel Stevens or Emma Bunton or Jamelia in. You couldn't ignore them for any amount of political reasons. Either that or Charlotte Church.

"pop idol" a good choice of words as at least three (Jessica Garlick, that guy that was on last year that looked a bit like Darren Day and Javine) British entries have been losers of Pop Idol/Popstars, haven't they? However Jemini were probably the perkiest Eurovisionest ones yet, but they were also bollocks.

Doubt so. Way too modern for the Southern Europeans.

The best way for a Northern European act to do well the Eurovision now is to do a ballad. Ballads tend to transcend the South/North boundaries while faster numbers don't.

On the other hand, Ukraine usually gets 12 from Russian, and only got two points or something this time around. Obviously, the Russians didn't like their revolutionary number....

(Of course, one reason may be that it was completely fucked up, and one of the worst entries in the entire competition, too...)

However, I would said it isn't really that much a matter of political voting as it is of musical taste. Greece and Cyprus usually give each other 12 (this year was no exception), but they didn't in 1993, when Norway hosted "Alle Mine Tankar", a very Greek sounding song with bouzoki in it. There was nothing Greek about neither Silje Vige nor her family, but the song sounded Greek, which was enough for Cyprus and Greece to give 12 to Norway rather than each other for once.

It was so terrible, but I could listen to it all day.

Why does anyone like Terry Wogan?

2. fact -- (a statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened; "he supported his argument with an impressive array of facts")

3. fact -- (an event known to have happened or something known to have existed; "your fears have no basis in fact"; "how much of the story is fact and how much fiction is hard to tell")

4. fact -- (a concept whose truth can be proved; "scientific hypotheses are not facts")

1. opinion, sentiment, persuasion, view, thought -- (a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty; "my opinion differs from yours"; "what are your thoughts on Haiti?")

2. public opinion, popular opinion, opinion, vox populi -- (a belief or sentiment shared by most people; the voice of the people; "he asked for a poll of public opinion")

3. opinion, view -- (a message expressing a belief about something; the expression of a belief that is held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof; "his opinions appeared frequently on the editorial page")

4. opinion, legal opinion, judgment, judgement -- (the legal document stating the reasons for a judicial decision; "opinions are usually written by a single judge"

5. opinion, ruling -- (the reason for a court's judgment (as opposed to the decision itself))

6. impression, feeling, belief, notion, opinion -- (a vague idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying")

Then again, Bosnia was an ABBA song in all but name, Moldova had a toothless granny and Turkey had a lovely rhythm. It could be - but this is a stretch of course - that I like ABBA, grannies with drums and lovely rhythms.

(btw, the opinion that Germany's was the worst song must be so widely shared that it borders on fact, right?)

The war, maybe, although I think that one would mainly harm the USA if they had entered.

A more reasonable explaination is that there has been a war going on against all the Northern European countries singing in English since that rule appeared somewhere in the late 90s. The Southern European countries have a huge problem with the fact that, for instance, Norway, Latvia and Finland are allowed to sing in English, not to mention the fact that they choose to do it. Thus they mainly vote for entries performed in a language they don't understand at all (like Serbo-Croatian, for instance...)

Geir: spite?
Don't see that as more reasonable, actually.

This link:
Voting behaviour
is a good scientific approach to the whole regional favouritism question. Ignore the Dutch (or run it through Babelfish), the three top 10s are:
-highest average number of points two countries have awarded each other
-highest no. of points awarded by 1 country to another
-how similar the voting of two countries is.

And btw. Spain did deserve to do badly. "The Ketchup Song" was awful already the first time around. Spain would have deserved zero.

And it was the last bloody song! It slipped out of the brain as soon as it was done!

Bad singing is NEVER a barrier to doing well. Julia Savicheva came 10th last year for Russia and she was WAY out of tune.

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), May 23rd, 2005.

My mistake - I was thinking of the Russian entry.