So, what can I say? I definitely enjoyed this Eurovision season (everything, national finals, internal selections, the contest itself) much more than the last year. Yeah, even including all the drama, it's something that has never happened before, has been very intense, fastly changing and ended up pretty well (no serious damage, Israel still not winning). Finally, the favorite in odds an in the eurovisionworld poll didn't win, there were a lot of unexpected results, events, amazing contestants' stories. So, almost everything is positive.
There's still something on the negative side too, obviously. Last year, at least the 2nd televote place won the whole contest (even though the margin from the 1st one was huuuge). This year, it's BLOODY FIFTH. In an amazing even unpredictable year, juries still found a way to rank one country a lot of points higher than all the others, with even more points than Loreen got last year with the same amount of participating countries (even though the margin from the 2nd place is just a bit less this year). Probably, it's the highest percentage of jury points anyone has ever got, I need to do calculations. That's not it, juries, just not it. Last year there was an excuse that Loreen had an interstellar staging, vocals, scoring tens of times more streams in spotify and others. This year... what's the reason of this huge agreement on one song that is a crazy mix of genres, has operatic parts that juries usually hate, sang by a very specific artist?
Plus, there's still a bit of that feeling that plastic world won again, and a big corporation won over a simple person again too. Norway taking a risk and finishing last (randomly increasing their big number of finishing last in the final) with no support either from juries or from the televoters (Blanca Paloma at least had the jury support last year). Spain finishing too low, despite the crowd reaction, message of the song, the delivery (Manizha managed to finish 8th with also a divisive song in a native language in 2021). 2 out of 3 televote scores over 300 points are heavily influenced by the politics and/or diaspora, while the 3rd one being the simple humble bedroom-musician guy from a not successful country that came through a movie-worthy way from an unkown guy randomly applying to the national final, appearing there from the reserve list, winning it and becoming an national hero, still winning the televote here... and that fairytale story being ended by that random another country's landslide from the juries robbing him. And that country being a big, expensive one again.
So, Israel didn't win but the drama is not over, I guess. After juries being good guys for eurofans in 2022, they're now HUGE villains for the 2nd year in a row. I've always though that Eurovision is coming to changing the voting system to the one Norway uses in their national final, 40% juries and 60% televoters. But I thought they would consider it in like 5-7 years. I see this one shortening to like 3-5 years.
EDIT: To people that think I'm crying because of Croatia - no, you can check my top before the show, I had Croatia 3rd and Switzerland 2nd, so I would be OK with any outcome. I just respect the televoters' opinion more, you know me.
And if someone is gonna like the juries for tanking Israel - IT WASN'T NEEDED, Israel winning the televote with over 400 points or with 50-100 margin just didn't happen, moreover, they even lost to Croatia in the televote! So juries just pushed Switzerland to the win in a Loreen way, that's ALL they did.
This Eurovision year started as one of the most even and unpredictable ones, then had a confident favorite after the rehearsals... and there's another twist just after the 2nd semi. It turns out that fans and bookies once again forgot about that televoters can't vote against entries, only for. Before the semi, Israel somehow was around 8th-9th in the overall winning odds AND televote ones. Only "accidental" leak of Italian televotes made them jump in both odds. Well, it was obviously not accidental, it's either Italy tried to warn people about the situation or even EBU themselves told them to do that. If this "leak" didn't happen, Israel would still climb in the odds but less, so people wouldn't worry. But now, a lot of people are gonna vote strategically for Croatia or Switzerland, maybe juries will not vote heavily for Israel and will not tank Croatia too much (I guess, they weren't gonna put them lower than 4th-5th anyway, just like Netta & Maneskin).
So, I would say the twist is exciting, movie worthy, just like the whole Baby Lasagna story, but I guess it won't end up with this kind of "sensation". Just too many people don't want that to happen and are warned now (including EBU putting Israel to perform 6th while Switzerland and Croatia very late in the show).
Moreover, I'm not sure the televoting picture will be like Italy's one in many different countries at the same time
So, there were 2 scenarios for Latvia in the 2nd semi - either it's completely lost in the upbeat songs or suddenly really stands out in them (especially with a weaker performance from Belgium). Like 90% of people saw the 1st one happening and damn, the 2nd one happened. Have we ever had anyone qualifying from the last place in the bookies though?
And Eurovision public seems to enjoy slow songs this year, because of their standing out again, I guess. Juries will have much more "friendly" songs to vote in the final than expected lol
San Marino with the song 11:11 getting 10th spot in the official running order where we don't count automatic qualifiers France and Spain performing in between... and it's the 12th spot if we do count them. I see what you did here, EBU.
At least, they didn't intentionally ignore the other thing they could do with San Marino - putting them next to Spain by the obvious reason (multilayered one, I would say).
I just hope we won't get another year with Ireland, Georgia, Latvia and San Marino all being non-qualifiers again. From my view, unlike previous year, kinda all of them more or less deserve to Q this year for different reasons.
While if only Georgia qualifiers out of all these... it kinda won't make thing less sad.
A random poll. As a Eurovision fan, how much of a Eurovision juror and televoter you are, in your opinion? It's not about voting systems, it's about how would you describe yourself and your preferences in those percentages based on what Eurovision juries and televoters usually put higher/voted for or put lower/ignored over the years.
Eurofans on YouTube kinda need to decide, if Eurovision is political for them or not. You can't really be in between here, "that political aspect I approve, this one I don't". If Eurovision isn't political for you and shouldn't be, then you shouldn't care about which countries participate at all. Literally. Any country in any political situation can participate at the same level with others, since it's no politics for you. Only music, that's all. When you blame countries for bringing politics into a no politics contest and then form your opinions about their songs biased on that, decide not to rank or ignore some of them... then you break your own no politics rules. It suddenly becomes you who bring politics into the contest in that situation, that's a funny thing.
Or you should accept that Eurovision has a lot of room for politics. Not because some evil countries that intentionally bring it, but by the definition. It's goddamn countries who participate, with their flags everywhere, with delegations from those countries and their opinions, with 12 points going not to a song or an artist, but to a country, with their crazy fans that support their countries by short comments with loud words, some of which are also political (just one example).
The funniest thing I've see today is the leaving Israel unranked "to not promote it" or "due to morals". You just show it with the XX instead of a number, Come on! Where's not promoting? And the thinking you can influence something here just by making your precious tops with XX, that's a self esteem I can only dream of. And the morals... that just shows how overly emotional people are and that... doesn't always work well. They just judge such complicated things by the most recent events, not looking at anything else.
P.S. If we talk about me, I'm not gonna play any games like this, I will rank everyone. Israel will be low anyway, the song is not my thing, very X factor and artificial (of course, they had to rewrite it so many times).
I guess, this evening will be remembered in terms of music winning over politics or something, for fans who care about that. I mean, both Bashar Murad and Breskvica losing. And juries are the main "heroes" here again, at least with Serbia (we will have to see the Iceland detailed results to judge there)
Iceland showing us what the superfinal is for again, especially with only 2 songs, not eve 3 like in Lithuania or Estonia. When you have 5 songs and 3 of them are girlbops, the votes for this kind of song are split between them. But when you leave only one of them and put it next to a song of absolutely different genre in the superfinal of 2 songs, all the votes for girlbops go straight for it. It will be interesting to see the detailed results since Iceland uses a complicated voting system here, the superfinal top 2 keeps all the votes (jury & televote) from the 1st round and then the superfinal votes are just added to this. Nothing is reset or lost. So, there might be a lot of scenarios here.
Actually, if to go with a girlbop... was Hera Bjork really the best one?
I like how the final of the Icelandic selection turned out to be almost the definition of polarazing. Basically, it was the selection of girl bops to begin with, and then almost all of them went through, plus Vaeb (which kinda could've been sung by a girl too)... and Bashar Murad with an atmospheric mid tempo country pop song with an appropriate staging and an interesting meaning. Other alternative/different songs didn't qualify.
So, now Bashar is your first or last, there's literally no other option. Maybe only I could put him 3rd or something, knowing my liking of finding the golden middle. If you really like any girl bops, then that's just a dream final for you, with Vaeb barely fitting the vibe and Bashar completely spoiling the whole party. Definitely your last. Or if you're afraid of any kinds of politics, even if it's just his nationality and what is happening in the world right now, nothing about the song (I mean, the meaning here is basically an other take about migration for finding a better life, just like Rim Tim Tagi Dim). Then it's also easily your last, ideologically. Or maybe you just like it the least, also an option.
But if you look for something standing out, it's easily your first. In the sea of upbeat Vaeb and girl bops, this is so standing out, I can't. In terms of everything, every single part. Or again, if you're just into particularly this kind of song, performance and vibe.
Welcome to my YouTube channel, I'm a random Eurovision fan from Eastern Europe with an opinion that can be different from the others sometimes.