Eurovision Song Contest 2010 - The Grand Final (Saturday 29th May 2009)

[Corki]

Final Results

 

1. Germany - 246

2. Turkey - 170

3. Romania - 162

4. Denamrk - 149

5. Azerbaijan - 145

6. Belgium - 143

7. Armenia - 141

8. Greece - 140

9. Georgia - 136

10. Ukraine - 108

11. Russia - 90

12. France - 82

13. Serbia - 72

14. Israel - 71

15. Spain - 68

16. Albania - 62

17. Bosnia and Herzegovina - 51

18. Portugal - 43

19. Iceland - 41

20. Norway - 35

21. Cyprus - 27

22. Moldova - 27

23. Ireland - 25

24. Belarus - 18

25. United Kingdom - 10

[Mystica]

this was a very amusing thread to read. I especially enjoyed Corki's fits at Belgium *gigglesnorts*

 

Though I think my taste is completely off from all of yours (and Europe, for that matter) because my two favorites (by far) were Georgia and Iceland (and I'll never understand Malta not making it to the finals). None of the ones that made it in the top really did it for me much and I really didn't like the German one. *shrugs*

 

I agree with Corki though, the block voting won't change because they suddenly use a jury. The old days are gone, too much politics has gone into the competition. Plus there's a gazillion times more spread out nationalities over the different countries than there was in the old days, making the voting results much more 'polluted' (by lack of a different word). I doubt that will ever change again.

[Corki]

It only gets worse, as I found out Belgium won their semi-final. I am beyond speechless at that.

[Mystica]

rofl *patpats* there there, MG. It could be worse even more. We could have 'bought' our way into the finals. But we left that honor to the UK. :P

[Majsju]

While bloc voting never will completely go away, it has lost much of its impact. And I would say that a lot of this so-called bloc voting is mostly myth, coming from an arrogance in the western countries who believe that our music is so much better than in the new countries. Where the reality is that for people on Balkan, it is a lot easier to relate to songs from their neighbours, by artists they might be familiar with, than with some Swedish bimbo stuttering her way through some crappy ballad not even Swedens neighbours can stand.

[Thorum]

And Greeks and Cypriots are the same people.

 

As are Turks and Azerbeiji.

 

Danes and Norwegians and Swedes and Icelanders.

 

As a lot of people in Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania are Russians.

 

As the Flemish were probably the only people who understood the Dutch song.

 

...

[Mystica]

While I agree with your assessment about the Balkan people relating more to their neighbour's songs, I don't agree with your remark about our arrogance thinking we're so much better, Maj. if anything the western folks are much harder on both themselves and other western countries where it comes to 'judging' ourselves. We are much more likely to be hard on our own, even to the point where it's unfair. Precisely because we have a strong desire 'not' to appear cockey and arrogant. Well, at least that's my 4 decades of experience in Flanders. A tolerance in to the extreme for others combined with a harshness towards our own seems to be a common thread in all aspects of a Flemish' life. I'm not sure if this is the same in other WE countries, but it seems that the Brits can be really brutal towards their own artists from the various shows I've seen from them. The French and Dutch seem to be the most loyal to their own, from my experience, though I can't really compare to other WE countries as I don't have as much experience with those.

 

As far as the UK goes, there can only be one reason they sent that boy to the competition. They wanted to make sure they didn't win. With all those fabulous singers and groups that country has produced in the past, I'm not buying it for one second they couldn't send a much better group or artist.

 

I don't know how harsh/tolerant the northern WE countries are towards their own though, so maybe your perception is different in that from mine. But to generalise it to all WE countries seems to be a bit simplistic to me.

[Corki]

I'm not sure if this is the same in other WE countries, but it seems that the Brits can be really brutal towards their own artists from the various shows I've seen from them. The French and Dutch seem to be the most loyal to their own, from my experience, though I can't really compare to other WE countries as I don't have as much experience with those.

 

As far as the UK goes, there can only be one reason they sent that boy to the competition. They wanted to make sure they didn't win. With all those fabulous singers and groups that country has produced in the past, I'm not buying it for one second they couldn't send a much better group or artist.

 

Looking at things, last year was a blip. We had a top singer, and Lord Lloyd-Webber was the driving force behind the song. Despite the song being similar to few last year, Jade stood out as she has a great voice - it is just a shame she has since joined the Sugarbabes ::). I was quite pleased with the song we submitted last year. And our 5th place was well deserved.

 

But this year, it was worse than a car crash. He was totally talentless. He had nothing. And he was the best we had in our national final. And that is saying a lot. However, the UK has many talented big name artists. But the big fear for them seems to be that they will flop at Eurovision, and it will be a black mark in their careers going forward. Our past entries include Sir Cliff Richard (we were robbed!), Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Olivia Newton-John, The Shadows, Michael Ball, Black Lace and many more. I don't know how many people in the UK would have heard of Josh Dubovie (that was our entry) before he won our "talent" contest to represent Britain, let alone Europe. The fact that only 2.9m people tuned in shows the problem, compared to the 6.9m the previous year.

 

Most countries seem to be sending well-known to big names to Eurovision. Look at Turkey this year - they were a MTV award winning group. Germany's entry has performed well in many European charts. I am sure you can list many, many countries over the last few years that have done the same. And while the UK watches and fund Eurovision, it seems we no longer take it seriously (apart from last year). As this BBC article shows, we stuck to the past and failed. It is now beyond doubt that the UK needs to look at itself for Eurovision. We have been the laughing stock for many years now.

[Majsju]

Myst, being harsh on your own artists is one thing. But when it comes to comparing the own artist to others, there is a huge difference in what is being said when comparing with other WE artists, and comparing with EE artists. There is still an attitude of "How can these weird countries with their weird music be so successful?". An attitude that thankfully is changing though, the last couple of songs from EE coutries that has won has actually recieved more points from us, than from their bloc.

 

As for England sending crappy artists, how many of their real stars would actually be interested if they were asked? Morrissey joked about participating a few years ago, but I really can not see an artist on that level actually participating.

 

Sweden is very much the same, most artists in the qualifiers are people from Idol, who does not have real careers they would put at risk.

[Mystica]

True, but Maj, that just shows the same behavior as the one you attribute to the EE voting for each other. People like that which they are most familiar with, or can best relate to (to use the way you call it). That isn't necessarily arrogance. You call the WE countries arrogant for doing exactly the same as the EE except that with them you call it 'being able to relate to it better'. Which kind of proves my point that we in the WE are much harsher towards our own than we are toward others. Where you use a mild and tolerant manner of describing the behavior for the EE countries, you hammer down the same behavior in the WE countries as arrogance. Yes, we all judge based on our own familiarities and based on what we relate to best. If you accept it as a normal human behavior from the EE countries, then you need to accept it as the same from the WE ones. But to do so would feel too much like tooting our own horn, so we feel totally uncomfortable doing that and so we bash down our own, while being tolerant for the exact same thing coming from others.

 

 

Good point about the better known artists, though. But surely, Brittain must have much better than this? I mean.... I follow Brittain's got talent sometimes, and even among those that don't win that competition there are some pretty amazing artists in there. Each year at least a couple are quite stunning. I dunno, I guess I just don't get it. *shrugs*

 

 

[Talya]

The problem here is that people see the Eurovision as cheesey, and probably believe that we are better than it (not everyone, but there are some). I enjoy this show, I love to see what other countries come up with, some good some bad and some fun etc. We, I believe, tend to have this thing that we need to almost construct the people and songs that go in for it rather than have people write the songs and sing them because they want to. It's all a little too staged and so we fall flat.

 

I think too many artists see Eurovision as below them, they don't think they need to try and make it in Europe so why bother. I'm sure that some of the bands round would do quite well in this competition if they weren't so far up themselves.

 

There will always be block voting, and sorry Maj, I don't agree that it's because they believe that they just know the artists or similar kind of music, it does go on and it's a little frustrating at times, but I think that at the end of the day, this doesn't effect the score too much. It's certainly not as bad as it was when they first joined. And I think in time it will lesson. But the fact that Germany won, Norway won last year, shows that it isn't having such a big effect on things now. It will always happen, but it isn't so strong at all.

 

I have to say that I really quite like the songs that have a bit of flavour of their country, it's why I quite liked the Greek one. But I did like Turkey and wouldn't have known that was where they were from.

 

I loved the idea of the webcams and having a Eurovision party, may think ablout that next year, I bet it would be fun, which at the end of the is what this is all abpout, enjoying the talent of other countries in Europe and having fun in the process.