Eurovision 2021

:joy: Touche. I initially posted in padded cell because it was about the absence of any votes rather than the music. I actually thought the Portuguese entry was very listenable, along with a number of others. Italy’s entry which won, wouldn’t have ticked any of my boxes!

Lest we forget, James Newman has written many big hits in his time…

From my point of view the main problem is, that artists “who made it” simply do not want to take part at the ESC. And even those who are starting their career have doubts to show up.
Bjoern Ulvaeus of ABBA once said that back in the 1970’s, the ESC was the only way for a swedish pop group to become well-known to a wider group of viewers/ listeners.
There was no internet (with YT or Spotify) and radio stations in Europe would certainly not broadcast swedish pop music back then. So they they came to Brighton and the rest is history/ legend.
Being german, I’m living in Switzerland for 13 years now and my wife and me found the swiss artist “OK” but not overwhelming. Personally I liked the Ukrainian entry as it sounded completely different compared to the usual euro-hodgepodge.
The UK could do so much better if the choice would be better AND the will of artists singing at the ESC would be higher. Just imagine if Adele would have been on the ESC stage some 10 years ago. Victory would have been (almost) certain!
Same thing for Germany. That “artist” was “below U-boat level” as we say here.
If Germany would really like to get into a win-win situation they definitely need to get Rammstein on the stage with a song like “Bück dich!” INCLUDING their live performance of that song. YT will show you some examples like Montreal 2012.
In this case, Germany would win with HUGE numbers or getting banned for the next 10 years (which might be a not such a bad idea as it saves tons of money)!
Just my 0,50CHF.

Regards,

Meccanoman

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The suggestion yesterday (Sunday) was that the UK could do a lot worse than dispatch Steps to be our entry next year. They’re good, have no fears career-wise and can bang a decent tune out. An alternate view from Danny Kelly (one time editor of the NME & Q magazine and a decent writer himself) was to send Hawkwind to stir things up a bit.

There is a conundrum in that the winner hosts next year’s contest. The BBC are strapped for cash and without getting into the politics of it are likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. It may well suit them down to the ground to select a ropey song that ensures they don’t end up footing the bill for the next one.

It’s relative though. No votes doesn’t mean no votes, it just means not enough to trigger the bottom rung of the available votes per country whether that’s the pro juries or the popular vote. And we can’t overlook (even though we can’t mention it) the way that our great leaders have made it abundantly clear recently that this country doesn’t require friendships and partnerships with our European friends and colleagues. Maybe they all reciprocated.

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Yes - that is correct, I should have said points rather than votes!

I can’t help but feel if they’d held their nerve and put Justin Hawkins into Eurovison that time a few years back, instead of Scooch(!), we may have been in a better place just now…It was funny when he flounced off in a huff though.

Just listened to the English entry on Youtube, it was seriously boring and bland. The only wake up call was the heavy disco beat which in a way made the song itself worse because it expressed the total inane quality of the whole song. I am astonished that this song was chosen to represent England but then its competition in UK may of been even worse… But then it is the Eurovision Song Contest where all kinds of musical disasters are entertained…?

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1974 it was votes. 2021 it’s points. Sometime in-between it must have changed. Didn’t they one year try asking the taxi drivers in the host city what they voted for?

Heads up that today (Weds 26th) More Or Less on BBC R4 at 9:00am and then on BBC Sounds includes a ‘statistical look at the UK’s nil points.’ Here’s hoping that it goes into the mechanics of how the votes are collated - that’s the interesting part of the process.

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I thought it was very interesting - especially the stuff about minor and major keys (you’re more likely to do well if your song is in a minor key).

GB and Ireland did disproportionately well until 1999 because every entry had to be sung in the entry country’s native language and of course English is the language of pop. Since 1999 entrants have been allowed to sing in any language they want so that advantage has been lost.

Interesting too, that in GB we’re more likely to vote for Lithuania than any other nation.

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Indeed. Interesting to note that in 1981 Bucks Fizz came 1st out of 20, this year we were last out of 39 so there are two effects - we’re getting worse (or more disliked) and there are more opponents to take the vote away.

I still believe that a factor is that the cost of staging the event suppresses the temptation to send an absolute banger that’s a nailed on winner. Ireland had the opposite issue a few years ago when the people who turn up to produce and present the show discovered that Dublin is a brilliant place to spend a few days, and Ireland kept winning. RTE made some protestations about the unfairness of having to keep staging it year on year.

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Which of course led to this delightful Neil Hannon effort…

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I listened to the UK entry for the first time this evening on Yootoob…

I lasted about a minute, and then had switch to “Enter Sandman” for respite!

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Cyril Hanouna,it was not Bolivia finest.Ciao.

Is that right? Abba sung and won in 1974 and they were singing in English.

That’s very true! Shall have to investigate that.

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The rules on language have changed a number of times over the years.

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