🇺🇦🇬🇧 Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool, United Kingdom 🇬🇧🇺🇦

[mamo 15,716]

Just now, bionic said:

why get so hung up on what anyone is posting? its not like we if people keep posting kaarija won then itll manifest it into existence

loreen won no matter what the users of a lady gaga fansite say

i'm not getting hungup.mp3 on anything bionic honey x

i was merely just pointing out a contradicting statement. 

[bionic 37,892]

Just now, mamo said:

i'm not getting hungup.mp3 on anything bionic honey x

i was merely just pointing out a contradicting statement. 

ur pointed tone suggests otherwise 

[mamo 15,716]

3 minutes ago, bionic said:

ur pointed tone suggests otherwise 

you know...

today i'm feeling a little out of control 

is this me? 

you wanna get crazy? CAUSE IDGA AHHH

[StrawberryBlond 13,286]

17 hours ago, LoliLux said:

The balance was indeed a problem. Last year I advocated to relocate the ESC to Cracow or Warsaw, nearer to the Ukrainian border (so that Ukrainians can benefit more form it!), and not UK because air traffic is restricted from Ukraine (b/c of war) and it is hard to get there directly to the UK, especially since as a non EU-country, it is more bureaucratic to get into it than Poland (that has special EU permits for Ukrainians). If it had been in Poland, people could have gone there by car or train within some hours.This way, they had to go by train to a Polish airport or Rumanian airport, fly from there to London, change in London and fly or go by train from there to Liverpool.... A complicated trip with many burderns that probably lots of Ukrainians choose not to undertake.  UK, as a northwestern-most country is very remote from Ukraine and was not a good choice for Ukraine

It had unequal balance, mostly because of the TV presenters. There were FOUR TV presenters, THREE of them British, only ONE Ukrainian and when the results were presented, and they took a LONG time (and therefore a BIG protion of the show!), TWO (and all of them) were British. Why ?????? I cannot imagine Ukraine volunarily agreed to this, the BBC kinda overvoted them,  and acted in their own will. The TV presenters mattered a lot, they give the feeling to the show. There should have been ONE British and ONE Ukrainian TV presenter for everything. The beginning was equal, but in the end, it was very British.

 

Also when the tower, beachers, islands, were presented... it felt done twice, too much, overloaded, each time three diffenrt info were given. In 2/3 of all cases they should have just used singing country+Ukraine emblems, and in the remaining 1/3 singing country+British country. also when they have shown the big/erries wheel... I was like: what ??? That's a very British thing, it has no value to Ukrainians... It felt like it was chosen by the BBC solely.

 

By the way, I have nothing against Britain but when English is taught as foreign langauge at schools, it all starts with England and I've seen and read countless times about the sights and attractions in London, and elsewhere England; Europe already knows soooo MUCH about England, it probably is the best and most known country in Europe and what the ESC does to the winning country as "advertising exposure", the English books do daily in continental Europe. I felt like this was a chance to portray better a lesser known country, like Ukraine.

 

I totally DISLIKEd the fact that when the country results were presented, that it were JURY results because they created the illusion that the country has voted for that singer, but in fact it hasn't been the country, just 5 people, it has totally not been rperesentative. Like why ??? the juries are overrated and their power should be lowered from 50% to 30 or 20%.

They should have presented first the PUBLIC PEOPLES vote results and in the end the jury results. You know what I mean???? because this way we don't really know what ocuntry voted for what. I just feel kinda... PERPLEXED and negatively surprised that they decided to give 45 FULL MINUTES to the Jury votes in a long procedure and just 10 minutes to the public votes- It should have been vice versa. I have seen 37 coutnries voting but in fact I know now from 0 country the exact voting esults b/c it has only been the jury whose opinion os less improtant to me than the opinion of, maybe 1 ,5 million-15 milliion people of a nation who  casted their vote.

 

IMO, Loreen was only mediocre and I don't understand the hype for her, I'm OK and accept her as a winner, I'm watching it for fun and not for the winner, so it's OK but bionic adresses an important issue: Finland is the democratic winner. I feel like the juries are easily manipulated and vote for a hyped artist more likely than the people of country. Actually, to me Loreens face was like "Oh, actually I know that I was about to win. But I have to act that I am surprised. But I already have won one once. Do you really want me to win again? My aim was to reach a high position but i feel like another country should be a winner and not me again". I felt like she didn't wanted to be a winner again at all costs, just wanted to score a high position.

 

This year we could not observe Belarus giving douze points to Russia

As a Brit, I completely disagree about the problem with balance. When it all came down to it, the UK funded basically all of this. Wikipedia states: "The budget is contributed to by Liverpool City Council and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (£2 million), the British government (£10 million), and the BBC (£8 million to £17 million)." If we've put this much money into it and its being held in our country, we should hold the majority of representation. And we did give Ukraine a lot of attention, putting previous contestants into a performance, having a Ukranian host, incorporating Ukrainan scenary for half of each contestant's intro, essentially dedicating Liverpool's anthem to Ukraine. What more could they feasibly have? And it was held in the UK because we were the second place finisher, it's the only fair decision. It seemed the obvious solution if the winner for whatever reason can't do it, just like in other competitions, it's not about who's closest to the original winner. Poland finished 12th, so how would they have earned that honour, no matter how close they were to Ukraine? Also, so many Ukranians were taken in by the UK and Ukraine's jury and people gave 12 points to the UK, so it seemed far more fitting. *Edit, I think I've misunderstood how this was phrased on Wikipedia. But the Ukraine jury gave the UK 12 points and the UK jury gave Ukraine 12 points, I know for sure.

And as for the representation of our landmarks - you say Europe already knows "England" but England is just one part of the UK, we are made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and there were images shown all over our country, not just England. Maybe the fact that you referred to all of this as "England" is proof that it isn't taught as widely as you say. We're definitely aware that so many Americans still refer to us as England (and some English people have even made the same mistake of just referring to themselves when they mean the entire country). It's similar to how Netherlands gets referred to as Holland by people who don't know any better. I'm sure people have become a lot more clued-up about how Ukraine looks in the last year, for obvious reasons. Considering that it's being held in the UK, the focus should be on us and we did split it 50/50 so what's the problem?

And as for the juries, I really am in the minority opinion here but I support them. Don't always agree with their actual choices but they provide a much needed sense of quality control. Thanks to them, I'm now a lot more supportive of the eventual outcome of the results. In the past, it was all about political voting and countries giving their ultimate support to their closest neighbour, which defeats the whole point of the contest. Juries were brought in to eliminate that and it's great now to see the results come in and not to see the country's closest neighbour be at the top anymore and sometimes not even on their points list at all. For all that people are saying that Finland is the democratic winner, Sweden is leading in the charts afterwards, so what does that tell you? The whole idea of "most countries gave 12 points to ______, though!" is so overrated. There is a mere 2 point difference between 10 and 12 points, yet we don't find out about the many 10 points Sweden got throughout. And by the way, the newly founded idea of non-European voters went in a different direction. "The rest of the world" gave their 12 points to Israel. I don't know about you but the rest of the world is pretty significant. Yet, no ones complaining how Israel was robbed.

Edited May 14, 2023 by StrawberryBlond

[Phantomhive 1,870]

1 hour ago, MelbHawker said:

What do you have against male singers? 

My gay ass will always gravitate towards female singers

[Admin 24,441]

18 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

For all that people are saying that Finland is the democratic winner, Sweden is leading in the charts afterwards, so what does that tell you?

Today’s Spotify:

Finland:
#68 with 1.765M steams

Sweden:
#46 with 2.132M streams 

Sweden is a pop song in English by an established artist with multiple hits, Finland is an experimental song by an unknown artist that had never charted, yet they are doing comparable numbers.

Sweden’s song is also featured in some of Spotify’s biggest playlists (including Pop Rising and just hits), while Finland’s isn’t.

18 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

There is a mere 2 point difference between 10 and 12 points, yet we don't find out about the many 10 points Sweden got throughout.

Um… it’s not a mere 2 point difference. Two songs can get 10 million votes and 10 thousand votes and that would still be 12 and 10 points respectively. The fact that Finland got 18 (!!!) twelve points, and Sweden got ZERO suggests that it wasn’t even close.

[StrawberryBlond 13,286]

1 minute ago, Admin said:

Today’s Spotify:

Finland:
#68 with 1.765M steams

Sweden:
#46 with 2.132M streams 

Sweden is a pop song in English by an established artist with multiple hits, Finland is an experimental song by an unknown artist that had never charted, yet they are doing comparable numbers.

 

Um… it’s not a mere 2 point difference. Two songs can get 10 million votes and 10 thousand votes and that would still be 12 and 10 points respectively. The fact that Finland got 18 (!!!) twelve points, and Sweden got ZERO suggests that it wasn’t even close.

But Sweden is still getting higher chart positions and streams, so it's winning the long game. It doesn't really matter that Loreen was cruising on the name recognition of a previous win. To most people outside Sweden, they don't know her at all or if they did know her, they never followed any of her work apart from supporting Euphoria. In fact, that's the case of most of the acts at Eurovision. The majority of winners have a successful winner's song but don't go on to have international careers afterwards and just go back to localised success in their own country and neighbouring countries. Maneskin have broken the mould with that recently but it's unlikely it'll be the same for every winner. So, it doesn't truly matter about Loreen's history with the show. The public just connected with a good song and it certainly stood out with its volume and emotion, so it's no surprise it did well. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but I don't think it mattered who was singing it, it would have garnered the same reactions. And also, songs that do well at Eurovision are typically not the songs that regularly chart. This is why something more experimental like Cha Cha Cha can do well on this show but would unlikely take the charts by storm if it was released without being attached to Eurovision. Tattoo, on the other hand, sounds like something that would be successful on the charts on any given day, which seems more representative of what the public in general want from music right now.

Well, regardless of the way of looking at it, how about viewing it as 2 winners - the jury's champion and the public's champion? Then we get more out of Eurovision. There was more support for Spain and the UK from the juries last year (both countries received 12 points from 8 juries, the most popular jury opinion) than for the public's winner, Ukraine (28 countries televoters gave them 12 points). It looks like there will always be a imbalance between jury and public if we continue this system. Clearly, it's going to pose a problem when the public don't get their champion. I'd just prefer the juries to maintain quality control. And as I said, the non-European voters gave their 12 points to Israel and we haven't seen a breakdown of how many votes "rest of the world" represented nor have we seen any real outrage from that angle.

[Juanlittlem 31,421]

23 minutes ago, Admin said:

multiple hits

Are the multiple hits in the room with us?

[Admin 24,441]

41 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

But Sweden is still getting higher chart positions and streams, so it's winning the long game. It doesn't really matter that Loreen was cruising on the name recognition of a previous win. To most people outside Sweden, they don't know her at all or if they did know her, they never followed any of her work apart from supporting Euphoria. In fact, that's the case of most of the acts at Eurovision.

Your point was that Finland is not a “democratic winner” because “Sweden is leading in the charts” and I pointed out that Sweden is only leading slightly because it is in English, by an established act, and in plenty of Spotify playlists. Finland’s song is doing just as well if not better chart-wise all things considered.

[Admin 24,441]

37 minutes ago, Juanlittlem said:

Are the multiple hits in the room with us?

I meant in their home countries, of course. Loreen has multiple Top 20 hits in Sweden and is an established act, while the Finnish guy had never charted anywhere, and has virtually 0 following, yet his song is doing just as well chart-wise.

[Juanlittlem 31,421]

1 minute ago, Admin said:

I meant in their home countries, of course. Loreen has multiple Top 20 hits in Sweden and is an established act, while the Finnish guy had never charted anywhere, and has virtually 0 following, yet his song is doing just as well chart-wise.

Again, Spotify streams mean nothing with Eurovision wins. Italy has the most streamed song every year, and last year Spain (first song ever) outstreamed Kalush Orchestra, signed with Def Jam.

[Admin 24,441]

2 minutes ago, Juanlittlem said:

Again, Spotify streams mean nothing with Eurovision wins. Italy has the most streamed song every year, and last year Spain (first song ever) outstreamed Kalush Orchestra, signed with Def Jam.

I never said they do, I was just responding to this:

1 hour ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Sweden is leading in the charts afterwards, so what does that tell you?

 

[StrawberryBlond 13,286]

8 minutes ago, Admin said:

I meant in their home countries, of course. Loreen has multiple Top 20 hits in Sweden and is an established act, while the Finnish guy had never charted anywhere, and has virtually 0 following, yet his song is doing just as well chart-wise.

He did win the public vote, I won't deny that, my point is that perhaps the public is actually supporting Loreen now the contest is over when they realise that Tattoo sounds more like a song they'll listen to in day-to-day life as opposed to the one night of Eurovision fun that Cha Cha Cha provided. People can get carried away with the party atmosphere on the night but realise the next day that they'd prefer something that sounds more in line with the music they listen to on the regular. And I'm sure its being supported by Spotify hits playlists because it does sound like current music that would do well in the charts with or without Eurovision. I'm sure more experimental Eurovision tunes weren't put on major hits playlists previously either. It being in English helped in a big way, naturally, but Ukraine won last year with a Ukrainian song and Italy won 2 years ago with an Italian song, as is the case with many previous winners. And obviously, the UK sings in English every year and it hasn't won since 1997. You also have to realise how few people actually vote. I know I didn't. We don't know what non-voters views are on the songs and the news of the winner today will result in an influx of people who don't even watch Eurovision checking it out and supporting it. 

Kaarija has clearly had a massive boost due to this and he didn't need to win to make his song a hit. If you have public support, you will make something of yourself. Plenty of singers don't go to #1 but that doesn't mean they and their song will be forgotten. Who knows, maybe rules involving juries might change because of this? Some kind of proportionate algorithm or something?

[Dutch 87,089]

Stop the drama, start playing.

 

[bionic 37,892]

The semi-final results are crazy.

• Finland won the first-semi final, Sweden in second (mirrored the public vote in the grand final)
• Austria was 2nd place in the second semi-final (with more points than Loreen got in her semi) and then went on to be 4th last in the grand final public vote. Similar result for Australia who won the second semi-final then only got 21 points from televote in the final
• In the second semi-final, Greece got 12 points from Cyprus, 2 points from Armenia and nothing else. Denmark got 6 points from Iceland and nothing else. Romania and San Marino got nil points (said in French accent).
• The average qualifying score from semi-final two was much higher than that for semi-final 1. The lowest qualifying score from SF1 was 37 (Serbia). In SF2 the lowest qualifying score was double that at 74 (Estonia).