Eurovision 2022 thread

Last year Barbara Pravi ended as the runner up.

 

I knew they'd had at least one good song recently! This year's song was definitely not good.

 

Yep. Superdry - Wikipedia

Indeed!

 

She sings in Dutch because that is what she has done most of her career so far. It is the language that is closest to her heart, and the best way for her to describe what she feels and what she wants to tell. She is incredibly young but already has had a very troubled life. As a child she has spent time in a psychiatric hospital due to several psychotic episodes. But she has overcome all of that and doggedly carved out her career. She literally sent out a tweet last year asking her followers how she could arrange to become next year’s Dutch entry and lo and behold she was asked if she had a song. She dreams big and then is able to deliver the goods.

 

France came second last year. I agree about Germany though, they send such crap. They came 4th in 2018 though so that was a good result.

Poor Spain haven’t won it since 1969.

 

You really have no clue what people think over here. The fact that U.K. is a big supporter of Ukraine hardly registers on anyone’s radar. What we are interested in is what our own country does and what we personally can do to help. Same for the whole Brexit thing. The only people affected by it are those who have family or do business with the U.K. For all the others it is something you decided for yourselves and it is you who have to deal with it. We don’t suffer the consequences directly so it isn’t on our minds whatsoever and certainly not in relation to Eurovision. Yes, some tourists behave badly but that is usually only confined to a tourist hotspot like Amsterdam. Whenever I encounter U.K. tourists in other parts of our country they are usually very nice people. Again, we can separate the behaviour of individuals from our general opinion of a country.

 

A lot of people in the UK labour under the misapprehension that the rest of the world spends a lot more time thinking about the UK than it actually does. A bit like the USA.

 

it’s true, we have a very overinflated opinion of how we’re perceived internationally. Nobody really cares.

Particularly with the public vote at Eurovision, nobody is sat at home intentionally not voting for the UK. People are at home voting for songs they like and that stood out.

 

Where does this stuff come from? No-one here thinks that, at least no-one that I know. We're quite aware we have no particular relevance on the global stage. We are not the British empire any more. It's like I posted earlier, there are no Brits - at least that I know - thinking we should win everything or that we even compete anymore. We don't deserve any special status.

Most people I know are aware of the fact that we mean little or nothing in the great scheme of things - but it seems that there's some Brits who are adamant that we're obsessed with our outdated status. We're not - most of us aren't. But those who keep going on about it clearly are. They're the ones holding us back. So we need to shut up and move on, as a participant in the global community, one not obsessed with our past, our identity and our fragile national self-esteem.

 

Of course. And it was refreshing to see/hear her sing in her own language. I just wish she'd do a version in mine so I can enjoy it more

 

The first half of that statement is patently false. It seems we're doing worse in recent times than in the early days. (The white line indicates the worst position possible.)

I think we're really trying and the public is generally involved... but often enough what's popular with German audiences doesn't translate at all to other countries (we did get a few points this time from, surprise, Austria and Switzerland).

We made #8 and #4 after Lena and both of those songs were good - although Roman Lob's "Standing Still" was the better one despite the "worse" result. It was written by Jamie Cullum!

On its own it wasn't bad but it ruined the song's momentum. In fact Jendrik's entry last time suffered (among other things) from a similar mix of singing and half-hearted rapping. I hope that our next entry is rap-free.

 

I think I must be alone in quite enjoying France's entry this year. Gypsy Disco? Weird. Yay!

 

It depends on which demographic you ask!

 

Absolutely. It does. I was aware of that when I was writing my post, but chose to ignore its as it's so complicated, and because I hoped I wouldn't get called out on it. But I did!

There isn't such a thing as a single national identity anymore, if there ever was. And thank **** for that. We are all, everyone on these forums, in our own self-defined worlds, with self-determined borders, which are informed by the global, connected world that we participate with every day - and we have our own view of the world which might differ completely from the person standing right next to us at the bar. Admittedly, there are still demographics that don't have the privilege of internet access that we have though, and that restricts freedom and means there's still an unequal footing - so it's key to ensure that everyone has the same access to information as anyone else.

The concept of national identity and nationalism is dated - one day these constructs will be prehistoric. We need to look outwards, not inwards. But where does that leave something like the Eurovision Song Contest?

 

In the week upto the final I watched an earlier performance (from French tv I guess) and I really liked it. But the tv direction was appalling in the final, camera shots came like machine gun shots, you hardly had a chance to actually see the performance.

 

... sung in Breton into the bargain.

 

I would have expected more from Eurovision Jury.....!

 

Correct. Thank you.

 

This year was quite the mixed bag - lots of variation in what entries people liked and didn't, with a lot of middle ground entries.

Of the top ten: I've no problem with Ukraine winning and I enjoyed the UK entry a lot, too. I don't get the hype over Spain at all - other than the sexualized response seen in this thread (purely about the outfit/dance moves and nothing to do with the song itself). Sweden's Bonnie Tyler impersonator was enjoyable, but it didn't deserve to win. I loved the Italian entry, but the performance on the night was pretty terrible and completely off-key for half the song. Serbia and Norway sent typical Eurovision WTF-ery but were both pretty catchy. Moldova did absolutely nothing for me. Greece and Portugal were both good entries.

After that, most tracks start to blur a bit without much standing out, although I really liked Lithuania and France. I have also caught myself constantly singing excerpts from two songs over the last couple of days - lots of me going "hola, mi bébébé... llámame, llámame..." and "Jezebeeeeeeelllll". Maybe not the most amazing entries, but definitely catchy!

I loved it! It was never going to win or even be in the top five/ten, but I really thought it would do a good bit better than second-last. There were far worse songs for me.

 

how about the Irish entry? That's Rich. I thought it was pretty catchy pop dance, in fact it was stuck in my head for some time

 

I was really disappointed we didn't make it to the Grand Final with That's Rich - while it's a relatively straightforward, mainstream track, it was exceedingly catchy, the staging in the semi- looked great, and I thought she performed really well. For once, I thought we had a really good chance of advancing to the final. But I guess Europe still just hasn't got over our '90s dominance...

 

I see the list of cities willing to host it next year are in. My city is amongst those interested in staging the event, but I feel it will go to Manchester as the BBC has a big base there.

Early 70s, Giles has his say.

 

The anti London agenda at the moment is all a bit silly. Given London had The O2 and Wembley Arena - it’s nonsense to exclude it.

All the arenas have existing events scheduled, at least in London you could move these everts to the other arena and not screw fans over. In other cities, those everts will need to be cancelled or moved to other cities.

 

I hate to burst your bubble but that happens in other host countries as well. Usually a hosting city is selected in the summer or early autumn and then there is about 6 to 9 months time to the ESC. That is not a lot of time and I reckon events get cancelled / rescheduled every year to accomodate for it.

Regarding the U.K. host next year: what I have seen about Glasgow when it comes to the location and the surrounding facilities makes it a strong contender IMHO.

 

it’s not bursting a bubble - and it’s not something I would go to.

It’s just logical to strongly consider London - but it’s not being considered because of this ‘positive discrimination’ that’s fashionable at the moment.

On every metric except ‘furthest from London’ it would be considered one of, if not the best options.