Let’s see if there’s much interest in Eurovision on the SDMB, being mostly USA members.
I got hooked on Eurovision since most of my European trips have been in May.
Watching the semifinals now, will be back with comments later
My personal favorite tonight was “El Diablo” from Cyprus. Not because the singer gave good shimmy — though she did — but because I thought the song was an extremely well-constructed piece of pop. Good hooks, variety of levels and intensities, energetic and fun.
On the level of musicality, I also really appreciated the Belgian song. Very unusual tonally and melodically for what’s supposed to be a crowd-pleasing event. Probably too sophisticated to stick much longer, but I liked it as a piece of musical craftsmanship.
Our least favorite was the piece from Ireland. It desperately wanted to be a big arena-rousing anthem, but it goes for high energy right at the top and stays there without any sort of variation, and winds up as an undifferentiated wall of irritating noise. The paper-animation framing was really clever and interesting and technically well executed, but the song was a dud.
My dark horse favorite out of this group is Ukraine. I like that brand of edgy, sinister pop, especially with a fierce female vocal. And the performance angle, for me, is quintessential Eurovision. My wife thought the song from Norway was the most Eurovision-y, and the angel/devil business is certainly bombastically silly in just the right way (not to mention the singer’s whole vibe), but I thought the song itself was unremarkable.
The clear winner in terms of pure crowd-pleasing energy was Malta, I think. Big song, big performance, should rack up big support.
My wife was happy Azerbaijan went through. We both liked the balance of pop hooks and world-music seasoning. We also both really enjoyed the enthusiastic Devo-esque wackiness of Lithuania’s song. Doubt either will go all the way, but a win in the semis is worth something.
Looking forward to Thursday.
I didn’t get to see Thursday, from Tuesday I really liked Azerbaijan and Norway and wish Croatia had gotten in, Russia was awful. Definitely liked Lithuania as well
Now, it’s showtime!!!
So far, only Malta has impressed me. Belgium should stick to beer and Russia, I can’t even.
Rooting for Ukraine.
My kids love the Cyprus song. It’s a Lady Gaga rip but still solid pop.
Finland goes crazy hard. Swiss song growing on me, very beautiful.
Azerbaijan, Norway, Malta in that order for my top 3
I’m rooting (and I have voted for) Iceland. A very funky song. Funky Icelanders, what’s not to love? And they looked so refreshingly unglamorous, though they had a good show.
ETA: this means of course nothing. My favorites usually totally drown in the end.
These public votes are brutal.
The two hard rock acts, Italy and Finland, got the most public votes by far. Maybe a shift in ESC preferences?
Italy? Italy???
Yuck.
And this is a rather traditional hard rock song (in fact, it sounds like, say, Korn or some other generic Nu-Metal band in 1997), not even especially extravagant costumes and make-up like in the case of Lordi.
I’ve been in love with Eurovision since I first saw it. I happened to be in France in … 1996, I think? … and watched Lordi win. I was smitten with the whole thing, but didn’t have a chance to watch it again until this year. (Has it been broadcast in the US before? I don’t think so.)
My daughter’s high school graduation was Saturday, but we rushed home because we both wanted to watch the finals. We came in at the middle — so sorry to have missed Germany’s song, which seemed shockingly terrible in the recaps.
Not a fan of either Italy or Finland (the entries; I like the countries). And what the hell did that Finnish guy want so badly for us to join?
The Netherlands was nice Afropop, and the last two — San Remo and I Forget — seemed to be straight up hip hop, both of which I enjoyed. None of them are countries I associate with large Black populations, but I guess they’re a big part of the pop music scenes anyway.
The two biggest jury-point getters were France and Switzerland — both were earnest, sincere songs performed by solo vocalists. And as EinsteinsHund pointed out, the two biggest public-vote getters were standard-issue hard rock songs. Interesting.
Could someone here explain to this poor American how this thing works? The first round is on Thursday, and 1/3 of the countries are eliminated. Then on Saturday, the remaining 2/3 perform … the exact same song again? With the same choreography and pyrotechnics and everything?
Also, I noticed that Moldova — a former SSR — did poorly in the juried voting but got a full 12 points from Russia nonetheless. Has/Does politics played/play a role in the jury voting?
Do what??
How could it possibly??
Heh.
I forgot to mention: I absolutely loved Iceland’s jury announcement!
Most certainly. Countries that normally love nothing better than fire-bombing each others’ orphanages will happily put that aside to swap bloc-votes. That is partly why there is just collective sighs of resignation when Russia and former Russian republics do it. Also some countries should just get a room - e.g. Greece-Cyprus, or the former Jugoslav states.
I only saw the final this year - I thought it was a better range of musical styles than most of the past five or so years, and perhaps fewer songs overall in English.
Fantastic array of 12 pointers being given out in the jury round, but its those consistent 10s and 8s that also added up for Italy. Personal faves - Lithuania, France and Malta all did pretty good. In our place we thought Azerbaijan and Serbia and San Marino were the most Eurovisionary.
Yes, the Logo (LGBT) network broadcast it for a couple years, but either lost the rights or didn’t renew it