Eurovision 2015: Ah, Vienna

[SnideAsides]

I swear I'll get around to finishing making all the national threads. In the meantime, a thread for this year!

[joelene]

The Swedish finals are this Saturday after over a month of quarter and semi and second chances-finals. Yes, Sweden has no less than FIVE weeks of live competitions leading up to the final when all the winners from those airings are competing against each other. Ten songs in total in the final, I think (and something like 40 songs in total). I've been watching a bit on and off, sometimes muting songs after 30 seconds, and they're all dreadful. Apparently Loreen, who won the whole thing a few years back with Euphoria, did a number (whilst naked) last week during the collection of votes (so she didn't actually compete) and it seems pretty much everyone wants that song to compete in Eurovision rather than the songs we've been voting on. I didn't see her performance myself but from what I've seen of everything else I agree.

[lovemytvshows]

The semi finals running order have been released: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=running_order_of_semi-finals_revealed

[SnideAsides]

SBS, the Australian network that airs the contest, is devoting one of its online radio channels/channels on the SBS Radio app to Eurovision 24/7 until the contest. And it's not geoblocked.

[SnideAsides]

Semi-Final 1 starts in just over ten hours (9pm Vienna time; adjust accordingly) and can be streamed live without geoblock on either the official Eurovision website or on this Youtube page. You're welcome.

[SnideAsides]

That semi-final seemed strangely dull for Eurovision. Glad Belgium and Serbia got through; annoyed the Netherlands didn't; didn't really care about any of the other songs.

[lovemytvshows]

Lots of power ballads this year, some good, most meh.

 

I'm glad Estonia got through, I'm rooting hard for them and Norway this year. I'd feel extremely g***** if Sweden won. That song does nothing for me and sounds like pretty much every other EDM Avicii/David Guetta song on mainstream radio.

[SnideAsides]

I really, really don't want Sweden to become the new Ireland and win every year. I mean, I get the argument that they take Eurovision seriously, but pretty much the only ones who don't right now are Italy (who just send the winner of their own domestic competition every year, even if it's clearly not the right fit for Eurovision), Portugal (who don't want to have to host the thing, and usually send songs in the "like but not love" range that stops people from caring enough to get them out of the semis), Ireland (whose national selection is literally a segment on a late-night talk show), and the UK (though they're kind of getting better?).

 

Final running order:

1. Slovenia

2. France

3. Israel

4. Estonia

5. United Kingdom

6. Armenia

7. Lithuania

8. Serbia

9. Norway

10. Sweden

11. Cyprus

12. Australia

13. Belgium

14. Austria

15. Greece

16. Montenegro
17. Germany

18. Poland

19. Latvia

20. Romania

21. Spain

22. Hungary

23. Georgia

24. Azerbaijan

25. Russia

26. Albania

27. Italy

 

France are screwed (nobody's ever won performing second, and the song is good but not great), the UK should do fairly well given they have a pretty upbeat song in a sea of ballads and are being followed by Armenia's terrible staging, Belgium is probably the only song that could do well in between Australia and Austria, and Italy got a huge gift by going last. I feel like Hungary might benefit too.

[joelene]

I really, really don't want Sweden to become the new Ireland and win every year.

I do! But it ain't gonna happen. We might take the contest (too) seriously but we still send a lot of duds to Eurovision. We're usually about a decade between wins so winning this close to Loreen would be quite a feat for us. The song this year is alright but it's mostly show and a pretty face (but why the hell is Måns wearing that boring sweater?). But at least it's up tempo. This is gonna be one boring Eurovision this year.

[joelene]

Holy shit, we won! Me and my friends thought that Russia were gonna win for sure and that Sweden would get a bit lost in the pretty great second half line-up and place like 4th or 5th. We also thought Spain would be top 5, but we were way off on that one. Belgium, Russia, Australia, Spain, the big girl with the insane dress and the uptempo song, and the lady in the 90's version of a futuristic bondage outfit singing about all the women working and being poor were my favorites.

Edited May 24, 2015 by joelene

[lovemytvshows]

Yet another reason why they really need to get rid of the juries, especially now with the news that Macedonia and Montenegro's jury votes had to be excluded for reasons unknown and to be addressed in June: http://oikotimes.com/2015/05/24/may-24-eurovision-2015-italy-won-televoting-sweden-jury-voting/

 

So the David Guetta EDM rip-off won. Well seems like a winning formula so shall we have maybe 10 countries next year send some cheap, imitation mainstream EDM track to try and win the title? Whatever happened to singer/songwriters penning their own tunes with a clear reflection of their nation and heritage? Nope, too "old fashioned" for Eurovision. Pffft...whatever.

[SnideAsides]

Highlight of the final? Definitely the "I even learned some Chinese!" "No. Don't. We're having such a great time." host banter. But I can't tell whether it was just a jab at the random China jokes in last year's show or because apparently China wants to buy their way into the contest.

 

For those of you keeping track, that "I think she can do better" BS in the German national final earned Germany a grand total of zero points.

 

Also: I kind of love how, despite all the comments I saw all over the internet about how the real contest was whether Nigella Lawson would be more or less nuts reading the votes for the UK than Lee Lin Chin was for Australia, they were pretty much the two tamest spokespeople and pretty much everyone else was far more wacky, up to and including the Dutch votereader all but whipping her boobs out to try and turn the gays in the audience.

[darkestboy]

I actually liked the winning song. Sure, Heroes wasn't the most exciting of songs but it was pretty solid though and Mans is certainly a decent enough singer as well.

 

The hosts were some of the best ones this year as well. Good banter with the ladies and Conchita and the jokes didn't seem as painfully contrived as well. Well, just about.

 

Some good efforts from Serbia, Georgia, Azerbaijan as well.

 

If Russia really did edit out Conchita during their airing, well that's just a new low for them.

 

Overall, one of the better years.

[SnideAsides]

I guess so, but my problem is I want to be excited by Eurovision, and I just wasn't by 90% of the songs this year. And aside from Belgium the few entries I did really like did kind of terribly - the entertainment value in Serbia's entry was gone in the final, France had a great song with a simple, amazing performance but basically did nothing in terms of results, and the Czech Republic didn't even get out of the semi (though their three previous entries had been such disasters - a second-last and two lasts, with a nul-pointer and only 10 points in total between them - that this year's 13th/33 points in the semi was still by far their best result ever).

 

I did like that the theme of inclusion extended to straight people as well and there wasn't a "Look at all the GAYS!" moment like there has been the last couple of years, but the hosts were pretty wooden and missed basically all of their cues. That, combined with the surprisingly dull postcards (though what could top last year's, really?), and all the fuckups in the voting mean I'm probably not going to look back upon this contest that fondly.

 

There was one good thing though: As much as Australia's very presence was nonsensical and seemed to be solely about making money (ironically, Guy Sebastian's record label footed the bill on SBS's behalf and they got everything for free), the massive European diaspora here seemed to shift just enough votes to ruin most of the regional voting that usually affects the contest. We still got some of it (the annual Dutch 12 to Belgium, for instance), but a lot of it didn't happen this year - Austria and Germany obviously didn't trade points, Azerbaijan seemed to have not bothered vote-rigging this year, Greece and Cyprus had to settle for trading 10s, and Lithuania was the only country not to give Russia any points. I don't know whether all of that is entirely due to Australia siphoning votes, but it's interesting.

 

One final note: Remember how about ten to fifteen years ago everybody was worried about the eastern European nations winning all the time? The last seven winners have been Norway, Germany, Azerbaijan (with a Swedish-written song), Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Sweden. I don't know about you, but as much as I would totally support Iceland finally winning the thing (see also: Portugal, Moldova), I'm so sick of the Nordic countries winning so often.