Well, he probably hasn’t had a snack for a while.
well i went as i thought
Finland won and malta came last with 1 point
malta sucked
Lordi deserved it. Not that I liked the song all that much, but they came on stage, had fun, made people say “What the…???”, and walked off again. No backing dancers, no blowing kisses to the camera, no focus groups to determine the appropriate amount of cleavage, hell, no cleavage. (The singer is obviously a man, but could you guess the sex of the other band members…? I sure wouldn’t want to try.) It was exactly what was needed in the middle of what was otherwise one of the most boring ESCs I can remember. Maybe they’ll even managed to breathe a bit of new life into the contest, and show people that being “daring” doesn’t mean putting girls in pervy mini-skirted school uniforms and doing something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike rap.
As for Norway’s entry? Good enough song, but at least a decade too late. The stage show was too sweet, too innocent, and too downright dull, frankly. From a musical point of view, the chorus was repeated too much - a “haunting” chorus quickly becomes an “annoying” one when it dominates the entire song.
France phoned it in once again. Either the only people in France who bother to call are all over 70… or they keep thinking that if they just keep doing this, eventually they will lead the rest of Europe back to the straight and narrow Eurovision path of weepy ballads and women in evening gowns.
Scary Russian Piano Lady. Shudder. Something was wrong with the Romanian
singer’s eyebrows, too.
What the hell was Germany up to? They were dressed like they were going to play some country-and-western, but the song was… well, why dress like idiots just to bring us another boring Europop ditty?
American Dopers, brace yourselves - NBC is finishing up talks with the European Broadcasting Union to purchase the rights to create an American version of the ESC. Personally I think it’s doomed to fail, but nobody asked me…
Not that it’s really anything to do with your point, but, I’m pretty sure the keyboardist is female. The character (Awa) is, and there’s a female sounding voice in the backing vocals sometimes. Hard Rock Hallelujah is one of their weaker songs, IMO, but the Eurovision performance has the voice I assume to be Awa’s clearest. It’s far from impossible she’s played by a male under all that makeup, but it seems unlikely.
(I’m a fan. <_<)
That said, I agree with your point - they were a CHANGE, which, whether you like their music or not, has to be a a relief.
And, God, did they put on a show.
This photo says it all!
Since American Idol is a ratings blockbuster, every other channel is trying to compete, although not quite sure how they will do it here…one song from each state?
So a friend in Germany put the show on DVD for me and sent it over and I watched it tonight from beginning to end, without knowing who won (avoided this thread while it was “live”)
OK folks, seriously…was that Finnish win a colossal joke vote, or were people serious? Not only were the costumes lame and very 80’s, the song was really bad…I have heard 16 year old kids in garage bands playing better than that. Granted, there wasn’t a whole lot to choose from this year, but geez…
Also, I think the “new” (last few years?) method of everybody in the countries phoning in has skewed the results to be more of a political popularity contest than anything else. True, it was always a little bit like that, but now it is so obvious…just color the countries by blocs and you got the votes. Too bad. I think at least in years past, for the most part people actually voted for the best song and not just for their neighboring country or political viewpoint du jour.
As it stands, Germany couldn’t win now if they resurected John Lennon and George Harrison and got all the Beatles together and had them write and perform a song for them - same goes for France and the UK. We all know there is currently no love lost for those countries in the rest of Europe, so why do they even bother to show up anymore?
If they keep this up, my guess a few other countries might just follow Italy’s lead and just throw in the towel.
Yes it was. By the way, was it the Lithuanians who got second? I didn’t bother wait for the results. I mean the ones whose lyrics were:
"We are the winners,
we are the winners,
we are the winners
of Eurovision.
Vote for us because
we are the winners."
The only ones in Europe who try to look serious about Eurovision (no, they don’t really take it seriously either) are the different national TVs. Since the votes went from being by “juries of music professionals” to being directly from viewers, there’s been a huge trend of voting for the crankiest song. Watching Eurovision is kind of like watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show minus the toilet paper.
My own guess here is that the winners got voted by every metalhead in Europe who was watching the show and tossing popcorn at the screen, plus every tolkienhead, plus a bunch of other people who simply thought their sketch was the best.
And hey, you have to respect them for having the bollocks to spend a week in 80F+ heat, leaving your room only in full costume.