I've just listened to the BBC More or Less podcast which covered the UK's loss at Eurovision amongst other things:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09jlfpl

They mentioned a couple of things:
- the UK tend to vote for Lithuania, as do Ireland and Norway. 
- the top coutnries for Lithuanians to emigrate to are the UK, Ireland and Norway so there may be diaspora voting.   - - - there are now 39 contestants, up from 20 forty years ago, so harder to win
- contestants used to have to sing in their native language, which gave UK and Ireland a big advantage who could sing in English, one of the international languages of pop
- songs in minor keys tend to win Eurovision recently, and all of this years top ten were in a minor key, and three of the bottom four were major (UK's entry was in a major key).

I thought the last point was very interesting!  So I had another look and came across this twitter thread;
https://mobile.twitter.com/kitlovelace/status/1396161768196554753  
and yet another More or Less podcast
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07b8b2c

I did not know this!  The twitter thread is really interesting and I had a look at the author's guide to Eurovision 2021 here https://popbitch.com/the-popbitch-guide-to-eurovision-2021/ which gives all the tempo, key, etc. information, and has a guide to the characteristics of the winners and losers from previous years.  Wish I had seen it before and will check him out in 2022 if I remember!
 

Last edited by Liberty (May 27, 2021 6:51 am)

I think the key change is a bit of a standing joke!  Apparently there's a drinking game where you have a drink whenever there's a key change, but it seems as though there aren't as many now... apparently many more in 2000.  It used to be a bit of a cliche with boy bands, if I remember too, years ago.  Kind of funny to put one in as a pastiche element, though, I like that!  Yes, I wonder if Iceland would have won in 2020.  The song definitely got a lot of buzz.  I see he is touring near me in November!  Hopefully the tour will sell well and bring more acclaim.

I'd love to know more about why people are choosing minor keys.  The articles seemed to be saying that it's because things are gloomier now, but you would think people might want something in a major key to cheer them up?  But the UK entry was cheerful and major and obviously did not appeal at all.  I found it a bit bland.  Whereas the San Marino entry was in a minor key but had more of a bouncy, party feel for me. 

This might not be interesting to you, but I ended up watching the final again last month with my mom because she was curious about it (she'd heard of Eurovision but had never seen it before). She ended up getting into it! We liked pretty much the same songs. She thought Malta and Germany were fun (though she had trouble deciphering lyrics and I had to explain the dancing finger to her), thought Iceland was creative, and neither of us liked the Moldova song. She had the same initial reaction to the Ukrainian song as I had, that the singer's voice is quite harsh, but she was tapping her toe along to the eat by the time it got to the fast part at the end (which is the part I really like!) While I still find the song from Cyprus very catchy (it still gets in my head once in a while), the vocals weren't as strong as I remembered, same with UK (though that one was never a favourite, but somehow the live performance was worse than I remembered? although I still like the horn section of the song kind of)
I had also been listening to "Fallen Angel" from Norway quite a bit between the first time I watched the final and when I watched with my mom, and I think it's higher up on my list of preferences than I had initially realized! I've been listening to it a lot. I think I appreciated it even more than I already did when I learned the story behind it. I even started to explore TIX's other songs. Some of them I liked, but there are also some of his songs I REALLY don't like. I enjoy his personality when I watch him in interviews and stuff, though. Have you seen this live performance of the song he recently did in Norway (I think it's a yearly summer concert they have on TV there)? I liked the arrangement of the song, and all the kids who are fans in the audience are adorable!


 

Last edited by Yitzock (July 7, 2021 2:49 pm)

Yes, I have seen that video! Really sweet. And her vocal is very pretty.
My mom didn't single out one favourite when I asked her, I just told her which ones I liked best as we went along and afterwards she said she pretty much liked the same ones I did. The ones she said outright she liked were Malta ("This one's fun"), Iceland and Norway (about 30 seconds in she said "I like the song").  She said Måneskin reminded her of the movie Sound of Metal, which we had watched a few days before, which means I don't think they were to her taste (though, as I said before, I think there performance was good even though I don't love the lyrics) I can't remember any more of her comments, as it was a couple of weeks ago, haha.

Yes, I definitely think I will be watching next year! At first I figured I wouldn't because I had a specific reason to watch this year. But I ended up enjoying several other songs (and started following several of the artists) and a lot of the stuff going on in the leadup, and the show itself was fun. I can't imagine not continuing to follow it.

Last edited by Yitzock (July 7, 2021 9:57 pm)