Yay! EuroVision 2023!

[Kalel]

The crazy european song contest is here. I'm always interested to see non-american music and their creativity!

I have no idea who to chose this year but i'm happy to see Loren again!

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

We should keep on mind that the event is only in the UK as backup location, because there is still war going on in Ukraine. Otherwise it would be in a Ukranian city like Lviv or Kyiv.

 

[Sid]

The Netherlands has a terrible song this year IMHO. Very complicated to sing.
Om top of that the responsible broadcaster AVRO/TROS has selected 2 totally unexperienced singers to form a duet.
The two have never sang before more than 250 people at once.

Last month there were a few pre-festival shows. One in Spain, one in The Netherlands.
Here are the two singing the song live (mind you the Eurovision contest is a live event too. Even Auto-tune is not allowed).
Just listen in to one (the other one went as bad):



The team behind this song has now made a few changes. They sing it in another key and there are a few live background singers added.
It sounds reasonable now. But man .... we are about to make fools out of ourselves.
Thank the forces that this will never pass the semi finals.

As it was recorded:

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

This is the German entry this year, a song called "Blood&Glitter" from dark rock band "Lord of the Lost" from Hamburg.

 

[Sid]

The Rammstein fans will like it.

 

[Tirellia]

Eurovision is always funny. It's terrible music but great entertainment.

 

[Soen Eber]

Of the collected 30 second clips vid, I liked the Irish entry the most. The Moldavian one with the 20 seconds of folk chanting in the preview was also pretty decent, and the Swedish entry wasn't bad either.

 

[Sid]

A lot of people around here predict that Sweden is going to win.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

A lot of people around here predict that Sweden is going to win.

I've found out that Loreen is an ESC veteran, she was the winner of the 2012 contest with the song "Euphoria." Actually now that I've listened to both songs, "Tattoo" sounds especially during the chorus too much like a cousin from Euphoria. Former winners entering the contest happens all the time, but only one so far ever managed to win actually twice, and that's Johnny Logan. I really doubt that "Tattoo" is different enough to win.

 

[Sid]

This years Dutch entry is written and produced by the guy that won the contest in 2019 for NL: Duncan Laurence.
The duo that presents the song is his initiative as well.

The ESC is a tricky business. The more established artists and songwriters don't really line up to participate. We have far better and more experienced artists than those who participate most of the time. But participation is considered to be too risky for ones career when a bit more established.
The ESC has put itself too much in the corner of the geeks over the years IMHO.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well yes, ESC is geeky due to the audience votes. I really miss the older times. I mean audience votes are always the more eastern countries extremely cuddly with each other, which is quite annoying sometimes.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Of the collected 30 second clips vid, I liked the Irish entry the most. The Moldavian one with the 20 seconds of folk chanting in the preview was also pretty decent, and the Swedish entry wasn't bad either.

I had been hoping that PIL would represent Ireland. This is up there in John Lydon's best work.

 

[Lexxi]

Hmms.

 

[Lexxi]

Surprised how often Luxembourg won. And that the Canadian Celine Dion won for Switzerland.

This is my favorite of the winners (won in 1995):

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Hmms.

Looks like a strange mix between Mario Bros. Nazis and the Village People.

 

[Sid]

The Netherlands didn't make it into the finals this year, just as I expected.

If you like a freak and geek show with a lot of smoke mirrors and even a midget playing his flute, don't forget to tune in to watch the finals.
Unbelievable, but this three day contest is at least a 25 million euro production, plus every contesting country has to shell out somewhere around half a million for their own production expenses.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

And the winner this year is Loreen from Sweden! Loreen won the jury voting, while Käärijä from Finland won the public viewer voting with Loreen being second.

Well, in the net some viewers are not so convinced about what's going on with the jury with comments like this:

Loreen won because everyone already respected her from Euphoria times. But to win with almost the same song twice, both in performance and in sound, is beyond me. Imo those who already won in the past shouldn't be allowed to participate again because they already had their moment of glory!

or

And it's not her last Eurovision win She'll be back in a few years with Euphoria 3.

Furthermore and more importantly some people are now arguing that Loreen's song is in big parts a copy of Ukraine's 2005 entry named "V Plenu." Question is now what happened here, because if this should be a real cover this is clearly against ESC regulations.

 

[Sid]

It is mainly a freak show with a lot of colors, light effects, camera tricks and eccentric stage performances. It has very little to do with the songs itself.
Song festivals should be about songs, not about acts.

Sweden had a predictable winners cocktail this year. So Sweden won once more.
Sid Nagy for the whole contest in today's form: zero points.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

It would be interesting to know which sign language he was interpreting to, because most countries do have their own version. There are e.g. big differences between French and German sign language.