Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Basel, Switzerland

[AyeshaErotica 1,640]

57 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

With the fact that you can now vote for your fave at any time, the running order no longer matters as much or risks people getting overshadowed.

 I don't see why this can't be provided with every contestant from here on out. If you don't want to look at them, just don't.  The catchiness of Sweden's got me but knowing the lyrics were just about saunas actually ruined it for me!

It's funny, our commentator said that the videos of each contestant involved them visiting an iconic place in Switzerland but a lot of them were very random as there aren't many iconic places so most of them were just out in forests!

Don't you think it is unfair when people can call from the start? I  feel it gives unfair advantage to early poistions and disadvantage to the ending positions. I think it was better years ago when voting was only allowed AFTER all songs were known. This is just NOT FAIR as Lilly Allen would say!

 

Well, in science it is said one needs to survey at least 150 people to get a representative representation of a general opinion. The jury has how many people - 5,6? So of course there will be a HUGE discrepancy.

5-6 people is highly individualistic and never representative.

Typically 25%-50% of a song doesn't make big sense, the second sentence is often chosen so desperately that it rhymes with the first sentence and is often odd, for example from Madonna's I love New York:

"I don't like cities, but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby, you can keep"

It's obvious that the word "dork" was chosen only to rhyme with York, and if York didn't appear, no one would think of using "dork." And even the grammar is changed to make it rhyme by force.

And if you translate this from English to any other language, York and dork won't rhyme, sleep and keep neither, and it will sound strange and odd in the other language and one would question the sense. But it sounds less strange and makes most sense in English, in the original, because the words are chosen to rhyme, same as Baller makes sense in its original but less in its translation, than it feels like Madonnas song.

By relying on translation, it heavily devalues the song.

Also Italy only got 97 points from the public, less than Poland's foreign language song, less than Estonia which was also in Italian without subtitles and did better, less than Israel which was partially foreign language, less than Finnland in Finnish, and less than Swedish. So I don't think that one can say "subtitles paid off", as there is counter-evidence that it does not. The juries know the songs in advance, so they can translate if they want in advance.

You wrote

" I don't see why this can't be provided with every contestant from here on out. If you don't want to look at them, just don't.  The catchiness of Sweden's got me but knowing the lyrics were just about saunas actually ruined it for me! "

Well, you answered it for yourself - lyrics can ruin the feeling, so this is a good reason NOT to provide them.  You yourself ruined the Swedish song for you with the silly translation. I however, without any translation, I fully enjoyed the song. Some songs can sound better without knowing their lyrics. They should not be provided, because they distract, once they are displayed, they are too annoying to be ignored, I liked italy less because of it. I didn't read them, but they distracted me and made the performance worse.

I agree they did not show many iconic places and that Switzerland doesn't have many of them. Did I miss something, they didn't show the Rheinfall, did they?

Spoiler

Our commentator by the way lied to us. He said Finlands Song will be in German. But only the songtitle and catchphrase was.

 

Edited yesterday at 07:36 PM by AyeshaErotica

[StrawberryBlond 14,650]

3 hours ago, AyeshaErotica said:

Don't you think it is unfair when people can call from the start? I  feel it gives unfair advantage to early poistions and disadvantage to the ending positions. I think it was better years ago when voting was only allowed AFTER all songs were known. This is just NOT FAIR as Lilly Allen would say!

 

Well, in science it is said one needs to survey at least 150 people to get a representative representation of a general opinion. The jury has how many people - 5,6? So of course there will be a HUGE discrepancy.

5-6 people is highly individualistic and never representative.

Typically 25%-50% of a song doesn't make big sense, the second sentence is often chosen so desperately that it rhymes with the first sentence and is often odd, for example from Madonna's I love New York:

"I don't like cities, but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby, you can keep"

It's obvious that the word "dork" was chosen only to rhyme with York, and if York didn't appear, no one would think of using "dork." And even the grammar is changed to make it rhyme by force.

And if you translate this from English to any other language, York and dork won't rhyme, sleep and keep neither, and it will sound strange and odd in the other language and one would question the sense. But it sounds less strange and makes most sense in English, in the original, because the words are chosen to rhyme, same as Baller makes sense in its original but less in its translation, than it feels like Madonnas song.

By relying on translation, it heavily devalues the song.

Also Italy only got 97 points from the public, less than Poland's foreign language song, less than Estonia which was also in Italian without subtitles and did better, less than Israel which was partially foreign language, less than Finnland in Finnish, and less than Swedish. So I don't think that one can say "subtitles paid off", as there is counter-evidence that it does not. The juries know the songs in advance, so they can translate if they want in advance.

You wrote

" I don't see why this can't be provided with every contestant from here on out. If you don't want to look at them, just don't.  The catchiness of Sweden's got me but knowing the lyrics were just about saunas actually ruined it for me! "

Well, you answered it for yourself - lyrics can ruin the feeling, so this is a good reason NOT to provide them.  You yourself ruined the Swedish song for you with the silly translation. I however, without any translation, I fully enjoyed the song. Some songs can sound better without knowing their lyrics. They should not be provided, because they distract, once they are displayed, they are too annoying to be ignored, I liked italy less because of it. I didn't read them, but they distracted me and made the performance worse.

I agree they did not show many iconic places and that Switzerland doesn't have many of them. Did I miss something, they didn't show the Rheinfall, did they?

  Reveal hidden contents

Our commentator by the way lied to us. He said Finlands Song will be in German. But only the songtitle and catchphrase was.

 

Well, of course the idea of it is unfair but it gives more credence to the idea that the most beloved songs will definitely get as many votes as possible and most fans will have heard all the songs previously so no song will be new to them. Most casual ESC viewers don't vote, it's seen as a fan-centred thing, so everyone who's into voting will already have their faves all ready to vote for and won't have their minds changed on the night.

Of course a lot of words won't rhyme when translated into other languages (most rhyming words in English definitely don't rhyme when translated into French and Spanish so I'm sure that's true across the board) which is why dubbed songs can have quite different lyrics, some of which may even be better than the original. But if all 26 countries sing in their native language, we can hardly become fluent in all of them, so subtitles do the work for us. I like to know what the song's about and what the singer's artistic intention is. It's very hard for me to appreciate the content of a song if I have no clue what the words mean. 

Most of the time, translations do help, this is one of the rare instances where it didn't. If I feel the presentation of the song was sending a message but the translation tells you otherwise, it's a bit of a bummer when that happens, but it's rare. What put me off Italy originally was their overly long and weird music video (one of the few countries that bothered with a proper music video and not just a live performance) but to see the song performed so simply and the lyrics laid out before me made me see the value in it so much more. But the actual instrumental did nothing for me, sounds like a really dated 60's/70's production that's very bland. Without the translation to shine light on a language I don't speak, I would've got nothing out of it lyrically or instrumentally. As someone who likes to sing, I'm just a big believer in actually listening to the lyrics to know what you're singing and supporting. The amount of people who just listen to the music but not the words always make me shake my head. If the lyrics to a song aren't good, I just check out. So I need to know what it's about to know if I'm invested or not.

Not any waterfalls, so far as I could see. Mostly outdoor activities or making food in kitchens. But I think most videos of the singers in the country look something like this. It's just a chance to put your country on the map and increase tourism.

[AyeshaErotica 1,640]

22 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

 And due to the rules about not sending massively successful acts, we can't send someone like Adele as that wouldn't be fair.

 

Are you really sure that such rules exist? I asked artifical intelligence and it said there is no ban on ultra-famous singers for participating in the ESC. If Adele wanted, she could take part in the UK selection process, but she does not do it because she already is very famous and she fears she could get a mediocre or bad place or have too high expectations and be unhappy with anything below top 5 because fame does not automatically gurarantuee a high position or does not want to take away the chance for someone else, so she does not want to take the risk and maybe it is better this way, so that new British artists get attention. I don't think she would win or be top 3 but certainly not last 3 either. But there is no ban. The UK is just not so desperate that it has to resort on global-famous acts.

 

You know, when Loreen won the first time,

during the first time she was full of joy and really happy,

and for the second time it wasn't the same anymore, she was like she knew she could win but actually did not want to win so that another new winner would be a first-time winner, her face was restrained like "Oh, I have taken the victory position for someone else. Was that fair? But well, if Europe wants me to win, I have to accept my victory. It is what it is"

Edited 5 hours ago by AyeshaErotica

[Bellatrix 34,688]

22 minutes ago, AyeshaErotica said:

The UK is just not so desperate that it has to resort on global-famous acts.

They did send Bonnie Tyler though 

No shade, I'm not saying it was a desperate move. I love Bonnie and I loved UK for sending her. It was just a shame that the song didn't live up to the expectations imo.

[AyeshaErotica 1,640]

16 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Well, of course the idea of it is unfair but it gives more credence to the idea that the most beloved songs will definitely get as many votes as possible and most fans will have heard all the songs previously so no song will be new to them. Most casual ESC viewers don't vote, it's seen as a fan-centred thing, so everyone who's into voting will already have their faves all ready to vote for and won't have their minds changed on the night.

 

While I agree that the % share of fans who vote and know the acts inadvance will be much higher than the % share of casual ESC viewers, I still do believe that casual ESC viewers votes who do not know the acts in advance massively outnumber fans, and that there is somehow an empiric advantage for early starting positions.

Why?

Actually I do not know any number but another GagaDaily user posted on the previous page some numbers that I quote:

So Spain cast 10x more votes in the final than in the first semi-final. Now I have no numbers for other countries and it isn't perfectly scientiifc approach but I will extrapolate form Spain to Europe in general. It may be true that other countries have less discrepancy between final and semi-final because Spain is automatically qualified.

Most ESC fans probaby have watched and voted the first semi-final, too, while most casual ESC viewers joined later for the final.

Now some ESC fans will have not watched the semi-finales either and joined later, like I did. Because I want all the songs to be new and not spoil them in advance, otherwise they will be no surprise and the final will not feel like Christmas if I knew the songs in advance. And honestly, this year the songs in average were less good than last year and if I had listened to them in advance, I would feel no joy and excitement for the final. So I think my decision is alright and wise. Also my country is always automatically qualified for the final.

I watch the semi-finals afterwards for the remaining acts. I recognize that I am here in the minority of the ESC fans and the vast majority knows them in advance.

anyway, since the number of cast votes is 10x higher in the final than in the semi-final but the majority of ESC fans is already watching the semi-finals, we have to assume that about 90% of all cast votes do NOT come from ESC fans but rather casual ESC viewers.

Maybe the number is 80% if we assume some fans will vote more in the final. But the acts are new and there is no deep fan connection between the singers and the people, so I don't think fans vote that much often. I voted 3x, 1x Spain, 2x Iceland.

So, in the end, the general casual ESC viewers decide the winner.

 

Edited 5 hours ago by AyeshaErotica