I was looking a bit at the points breakdown on Wikipedia today, actually. It's interesting to see how the jury votes and televotes differ, and also how many 12 points Ukraine got. I think I read in one article that it's a record number of points received by any Eurovision performer, which is pretty cool. I agree, I don't think the response to Ukraine would have been the same if the song wasn't as good or interesting as it is.
I don't know if Ireland was the wrong mood. It has a bit of an Olivia Rodrigo kind of mood, especially the spoken part, and she's been very successful in the past year. Don't know how much her audience overlaps with the Eurovision audience, though. But it also reminded me a bit of the message of Malta's song last year (which was a good song) and there's one part of the choreography that reminded me of Azerbaijan, the part where the girls are standing in line, bent over resting on each other's back. Probably not intentional or necessarily a bad thing, though, in my opinion.

That's funny about your son not enjoying the slow songs. To some extent I get it, as I like a lot of the more high-energy ones, the fun ones, with some exceptions. But usually I can still appreciate them, and this year one of the slower ones, Poland, was one that I really liked. Somehow that reminded me of how I found slow songs boring when I was a little kid, but then as I grew up I started to appreciate slow songs more. But your son's an adult, so that doesn't have anything to do with his thoughts!

I saw a video of the press room during Moldova's performance on Tumblr earlier today, but it was shaky because it was filmed by someone actually in the line. I like that video at Heathrow. Cool that he's wearing a pink bucket hat like the rapper from Kalush Orchestra.

Here's a fun little video backstage with Sam Ryder that YouTube recommended to me a few minutes ago, in which he found himself in a bit of a predicament. If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been quite the moment!


 

Last edited by Yitzock (May 16, 2022 10:10 pm)

I just looked up that Drag Race performance. Haha! I guess that move, or similar version of it, is popular at the moment. 

I also thought Poland would do better, too. But maybe because a lot of people were disappointed by how many slow songs qualified (though there's a lot of intensity to the song) that they didn't want to vote for him. I thought his vocals were very impressive.
As much as Chanel seems to have a nice personality and is a decent dancer, I was surprised just how many votes she got. I get that it was kind of fun, but musically I didn't like it as much as a lot of the other songs. It doesn't really stay in my head like some others.
I was also surprised how well Italy did. During their final performance, I thought some of their harmonizing sounded a bit icky, like one of them was hitting an off note. Not the most interesting song to me, either. But maybe that's just me.

I thought the mistakes in the production of the final were kind of frustrating at times. The "Holland" thing was unfortunate, but I'm glad he apologized. There were a few moments when the wrong camera angle was shown during the show. The most annoying for me was when they showed the German delegation after the recap of Ukraine's performance, and then Germany's recap came right after and they just showed the German delegation again. I suppose the fact that Ukraine won means that didn't make a difference, and we got to see them all when they won and then performed again, but I still didn't think it was very nice. 

I keep meaning to go back and watch Mika's performance. I skipped it at the time I watched the final because it was already the day after and I wanted to get to the results.

I haven't decided yet how closely I'll follow it before the final next year. I think the length of the show hit me more this year than last year, maybe because there were more songs I liked last year, or because last year was my first time so there was more novelty to it. I have considered just watching the performance videos after the fact, based on the score and any favourites I have in the leadup, if I'm following it. Since I'm subscribed to the official YouTube channel, I'll probably still end up listening to many of the songs before the competition, like I did this year. It's hard not to look when you know it's there. I'm also curious how they will do the postcards and everything next year, with Ukraine hosting. Hopefully things will be better in Ukraine by then, but the latest developments are not making me very hopeful. Eurovision isn't supposed to be political, but if they made a point of showing what various places in Ukraine looked like before and after the war, maybe that would have a strong impact for the audience. But they would probably want to keep things celebratory, and only show places that still look nice the way they did historically, or places that have been rebuilt. So I think I'll want to at least see part of the show to see how they handle things.

I don't think I'd have time or patience for the national finals, but I might keep an eye on MGP just to see if Subwoolfer performs the same song or a new one (I don't know if they have any plans to record any other songs other than the Eurovision one or if we'll even know they're identities by next year). The winner usually performs either their Eurovision song or a new song of theirs, and this year's group is pretty unusual and was created for Eurovision.

Last edited by Yitzock (May 19, 2022 5:19 pm)

I agree, I find it unlikely that they will be able to shoulder the cost without the help of another country. I've seen some discussion of the possibility of Poland helping them by co-hosting, or perhaps it will be some other nearby country.

Yes, they have returned to Ukraine now. I saw a video of them singing for a small crowd that had gathered to welcome them back. I hope they will be able to stay safe, though of course even though I know it is probably impossible, I hope everyone still in Ukraine can stay safe and stay alive.

I had just assumed it was technical difficulties that they couldn't have all the juries present their own. Hmm...
I just did a quick Google search, since I hadn't already seen anything about this, and here's what I found. I apologize if this just repeats what you already know. Before this, the only voting "scandal" of any kind I had seen was a headline expressing surprise that Poland's jury hadn't given any points to Ukraine despite all the help they had been given Ukrainians since Russia's invasion. But this is different, but makes me wonder if it's related...

https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/here-is-the-proof-of-the-eurovision-voting-scandal-six-juries-cheated-and-voted-for-each-other

It says Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and San Marino were detected as having irregular voting patterns for the second semi-final and when they compared it with the other juries' votes, they could tell that those 6 countries seemed to have agreed to vote for each other. I find this interesting, considering only some of them made it to the final. The article above includes the voting data that's been released.
They explain also that the juries' votes were replaced with an aggregated result, which the article explains that this is calculated based on the jury result of a pre-selected group of countries. Apparently they are drawn from the same pot that the semi-final allocation draw is taken from.

I wonder if this is going to mean that there will be more reconsideration about whether to keep the juries as they are or not. 

https://wiwibloggs.com/2022/05/19/eurovision-2022-six-national-juries-swapped-votes-during-semi-final-2-according-to-ebu-statement/272535/
This article from Wiwibloggs includes the full statement released by the EBU, as well as the tables also in the other article. It also says the EBU has given the countries involved the opportunity to investigate what happened with each of their juries. I like that this article explains a bit more about how irregular voting patterns are detected.

I wonder if the way things turned out will go to show for future years that cheating in this way isn't guaranteed to get you very far. Of the countries who seem to have colluded, only Azerbaijan and Poland made it to the final.

Last edited by Yitzock (May 21, 2022 5:58 pm)

https://wiwibloggs.com/2022/05/20/romania-tvr-threatens-eurovision-withdrawal-and-legal-action-against-ebu-amid-jury-voting-scandal/272558/

It says here they are threatening to leave, with Romania's broadcaster saying they believe the algorithm for detecting irregular voting patterns is not transparent and there is a double standard. The article points out that Belgium, Sweden, and Australia voted for each other, but this wasn't flagged as irregular, perhaps because all those countries did well even if you exclude those votes.

I'm not sure what to think. I don't think certain countries should be unfairly targeted, and on the one hand it is a bit suspicious that all of those countries voted for each other. But unless we can somehow determine for sure that it was collusion, how do we know it wasn't just a coincidence, that that's just what those juries liked?

You're right, Belgium didn't give them 12 points. As for the group subject to the investigation, on the one hand I get that if they were trying to cheat by agreeing to vote for each other, this should be pointed out, but since many of them didn't make it to the final anyway, was there really any harm caused? Would they have given more points to another artist who didn't make it? I don't know if it would have been enough to make a big difference either way, considering how things turned out.

Pretty duet! Thank you for sharing!

I hadn't heard of the second chance competition until this year. The clips in that video don't tell you very much, but it's still kind of interesting to hear the different styles. The rock song from Slovenia sounded good. The Croatian singer kind of sounds like Shawn Mendes. I think "Turn This Around" and Northkid's songs are the only two I have heard in full before. I think I will check out the French and German songs. North Macedonia also looks like it might be fun! The Serbian singer's costume reminds me a lot of Efendi last year.

Did you see Sam Ryer's performance at the Platinum Jubilee concert? I watched the concert on Saturday, but it was broadcast from an American TV network and they edited out some of the performances, including his. But luckily BBC uploaded the video of Sam's performance, since it was the only one I was looking forward to that I didn't get to see on TV.




I thought the sound quality and reverb made it seem like his voice was disembodied from his body at the beginning. Kind of interesting to see the song performed with a bunch of dancers, since in Eurovision you don't have that.

Last edited by Yitzock (June 6, 2022 4:30 pm)

I think if NBC aired the concert, they would have left him in because they aired Eurovision on their streaming platform. But it was ABC, and they edited the concert down to fit into an hour-long time slot, including commercial breaks. I'm glad his segment weas one BBC put up on YouTube, because I enjoyed it and was looking forward to it.
I enjoyed Elton John. I hadn't thought of it, but hearing Sam cover one of his songs would have been cool. The metaphor of the lonely astronaut is something they've both used in their songs (as have David Bowie and Brian May. I think his song fits nicely in that British music tradition). My mom said she read an article that some radio station (maybe Radio 2? I can't remember) held an audience vote to select which song Rod Stewart would perform, and Sweet Caroline was the winner. I didn't think he sounded that great, but the audience seemed to be enjoying it (William and George were singing along and waving their flags). My dad can't stand Rod Stewart, so he was complaining lol. At first I thought Diana Ross really was singing, but there was one moment where I was wondering if she was lip-synching, when she seemed to stop singing but the vocal track kept going.

Last edited by Yitzock (June 7, 2022 3:07 pm)

No, last year's would have been a different vibe. Considering he came in last place, I don't know if he would have been included in the Jubilee concert.