Eurovision 2017

[FastFreddy2]

Better own up straight away, I'm a big fan. Watch every song (some of it anyway) of every entrant. I compile my own short list having giving the initial run, marks on a first listen. I'm sometime astounded as to why some great singers with great songs don't get in the final, but politics have sadly, always been a big part of Eurovision.

In recent years, some odd things have happened. Australia is now a part of the competition, and (rightly) very nearly won it the first year they participated. Israel is in Asia, as are several of the ex-Soviet Bloc countries that now participate. "Rumours" abound that America want's in, because the networking provides unprecedented revenue opportunities. The Eurovision audience is ENORMOUS. 

2017 is a special year for the British entry. Firstly, our singer can sing! She has the voice and range that would give Idina Menzel a run for her money. She's the real deal, and I will add a link below of her first TV performance that got her started in the career she has now.

Secondly, the song is good. Not just good, but an anthem. (You Luddites will have no idea what that means, but it's a good thing. This song/performance will live on for years.) The timing in the song is such it lends itself to being remixed for playing at nightclubs. I'll also add a link to a remix. I'm sure many remixes will follow, especially if it does well in the competition.

From the politics point-of-view, the UK has never been Mr or Mrs Popular around Europe. Eastern Bloc countries tend to vote for each other, and Eurovision has done what it can to prevent that, but it PLAINLY goes on. Russia still gets undeserved support from satellite and ex-satellite countries, and it has sometimes been blatant. I'm proud to say, we Brits have never been involved in politiking with Eurovision. If a song is good, we give points, if not, we don't. For around 10 years, maybe 15 our entries have been fairly weak. Not as weak as our point score would have you believe though. There is a general consensus that a UK entry could be best on offer, and still end up in the bottom 5. This year will be a test of that belief.

Our song is a "top-five" product. Many -me included- would have preferred the remix version being offered in the competition, but our song is still good and sung by someone that can sing without 'auto-tune' hitting the right notes for them.

Sadly, I have to report that Denmark's song is better. I haven't heard every song, as the original Euro group get automatic passes to the final. These include (but not limited to) Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK. I've heard Germany's offering, and they don't have us beat. The other 3 countries are amongst the most resistant to using English for their lyrics, unlike the bulk of the other entrants who have worked out English produces more votes than host languages than almost no-one else will understand.

 

Video's ..... These are music video's and they should be listened to with either decent headphones, or decent speakers with some base. Laptop speakers will just not do any of these justice. Nor are they likely "office safe", so expect loud sounds. If there are no loud sounds, you don't have your volume set high enough. 

 

Lucie Jones X-Factor audition, 2009. Nervous 18 year old from Welsh village with one shop, makes debut TV appearance. Cracking voice, and the judges know it. I think she went on to win the competition that year. What a surprise .... not.

Skip to 2.00 for the actual song. 

 

Video from the BBC competition for the UK entry. (Actually brings me out in goose bumps.)

 

 

The 'dance' version, played around Europe that won't hurt our chances of a high placement this year. I have to say, when listening to the original, I always thought the timing would ramp up to this, it was almost 'made' for it. 

 

 

And just to complete the line-up ..... The Denmark entry. It's good. Maybe not an anthem, but it could be a winner.

 

 

Of course it goes without saying, you Brits are expected to watch the whole 'camp' fiasco this weekend ..... 

Edited May 12, 2017 by FastFreddy2

[euchrid]

if 'we' do win this year, it will be amusing having to host the 2018 show when we're divorced from the EU.

we won't win of course, good song or not, as the political bullshit that goes on makes the entire thing a bit of a farce.

I watch Eurovision for a bit of camp nostalgic fun.  it can't be taken seriously at all and the better songs rarely win.  not that a win achieves much anyway.

The days when a Eurovision win would jump-start a music career (cf. Bucks Fizz) have long passed.

[euchrid]

oh, and there's guaranteed to be some gorgeous foreign totty on show, many of them in stilettos  

[Shyheels]

Given that Australia and countries from Central Asia now participate it wouldn't be a big deal, I shouldn't think, for Europeans to hop across the twenty miles of water that separates Great Britain from the Continent and compete in a non-EU Britain.

[FastFreddy2]

3 hours ago, Shyheels said:

Given that Australia and countries from Central Asia now participate it wouldn't be a big deal, I shouldn't think, for Europeans to hop across the twenty miles of water that separates Great Britain from the Continent and compete in a non-EU Britain.

As Euchrid rightly says .....

 

12 hours ago, euchrid said:

we won't win of course, good song or not, as the political bullshit that goes on makes the entire thing a bit of a farce.

I watch Eurovision for a bit of camp nostalgic fun.  it can't be taken seriously at all and the better songs rarely win.  not that a win achieves much anyway.

There is no danger of a UK win, even if we had the best entrant by some margin.  We are (politically) too close to America, and the ex-Soviet Bloc countries have been trained (rightly or wrongly) to hate America. We are 'tarred with the same brush', and given the history of one political leader, that should surprise no-one.

We start the competition then handicapped by our political position. Brexit may or may not affect the points awarded too, though I doubt we'll be getting any off the French or Germans. 

 

Like Euchrid, I too watch the Eurovision for purely entertainment value. It's been some time since I've listened to more than the first couple of bars of the UK entrant, since they have been so dire. This was typified by the revamped 2007 selection process when this **** became our entrant:

 

 

Over this near masterpiece .... (Which is a 'dance' cross-over.)

 

 

I've not read a comment anywhere, that didn't confirm the "Scooch" BBC selection winner, was a mistake. Even if the Big Brovas entry wasn't selected, the Scooch song was always too camp, even for Eurovision.

 

And while on the subject of things past, do any of you remember, or know of Frank Ifield and the Yodelling Song?

Well, Romania's 2017 Eurovision entry .... (shakes head in despair)

 

 

  I'm looking forward to tonight. 

 

[Puffer]

Fortunately, I have a prior engagement tonight.   But if otherwise I would be watching some paint dry.   And, yes, I do remember Frank Ifield - and Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson, Bryan Johnson, Ronnie Carroll ...  from the time when 'popular music' was worth listening to (and women knew how to dress, on or off stage).

[Shyheels]

I too shall miss the whole thing. Indeed I was unaware of it until I read this thread. Talent shows just don't do it for me.

[FastFreddy2]

5 hours ago, Puffer said:

Fortunately, I have a prior engagement tonight.   But if otherwise I would be watching some paint dry.   And, yes, I do remember Frank Ifield - and Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson, Bryan Johnson, Ronnie Carroll ...  from the time when 'popular music' was worth listening to (and women knew how to dress, on or off stage).

 

No need to lament the loss of such stunning entertainment. The whole show will be available on iPlayer. 

 

3 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I too shall miss the whole thing. Indeed I was unaware of it until I read this thread. Talent shows just don't do it for me.

 

"Talent" show? Talent show? 200,000,000 viewers, 'talent' show?   It's an international  >> this << show.

[FastFreddy2]

Unsurprisingly, the UK didn't win, but came 15th (of 26 on the night). A good way from the bottom, but not as good as Team GB deserved.

The winner, with SEVEN TIMES the votes the UK entrant received ......

 

 

Un-bel-iev-able.  

Portugal has waited 53 years for a win. Overdue, and GB are allies with them, but .... 

[Shyheels]

A talent show with 200,000,000 viewers is still a talent show - it just has 200,000,000 viewers! 

Congratulations to Portugal. 

From what you say they had a long wait

 

Edited May 14, 2017 by Shyheels

[Puffer]

My 'prior engagement' (supra) was a family friend's 60th birthday party, held in a rather crowded private room at a local golf club.   Better than usual for such an event (although very few notable heels), with a competent male 'Elvis and Shakin' Stevens' tribute act, singing to recorded tracks of those and other artistes, particularly of the late 50s/early 60s.   A pleasant change from the 1970s+ pop rubbish that is invariably dished out by some spotty DJ at such functions.  

But I had had enough by 10.30 and made the short journey home where I inadvertently found the tail end of Eurovision voting was in progress, which my wife insisted on watching and I reluctantly joined her before my now-overdue bedtime.   I haven't a clue how the system (?) worked but it seemed that loads of votes were coming in at the end from somewhere to change the positions of many of the countries, albeit not Portugal as winner.    I still don't understand any of it or how the winnining entry (which appeared to have no discernable substance) got there.   But, if it (just) keeps WW3 at bay ...  

Talent show?   I saw more talent in the tribute act at the party. 

[FastFreddy2]

 

1 hour ago, Puffer said:

But I had had enough by 10.30 and made the short journey home where I inadvertently found the tail end of Eurovision voting was in progress, which my wife insisted on watching and I reluctantly joined her before my now-overdue bedtime.   I haven't a clue how the system (?) worked but it seemed that loads of votes were coming in at the end from somewhere to change the positions of many of the countries, albeit not Portugal as winner.    I still don't understand any of it or how the winnining entry (which appeared to have no discernable substance) got there.   But, if it (just) keeps WW3 at bay ...  

In the "old days", points for each song/act were awarded by a panel of "judges" representing each participant country. There had been some criticism regarding cronyism (as mentioned previously) and phone-in votes were introduced to (i) make some extra money and (ii) introduce some audience participation. The single criteria for voting, is that you can't vote for your own country.

The voting ALWAYS makes me cross, because I seldom feel it represents what is actually going on in the competition. (In fact one of the best acts of the night, was one of the interval acts. A local mob doing some sort of mash-up with a musical ensemble more typical of their cultural roots.) Consequently I don't watch the scoring announcements, and it's a veeeeeeeeeeeeery slow process ...... It seems the panel votes are given first, and the phone votes are added later. The phone votes are anonymous, so that process is much faster.

As I have a little bit of background in statistics, I took a look at the UK's points, and where they came from. These are available in detail, but I won't bother including a link, because it won't get used.   

The 'executive summary' is this: While we got votes from several panels, we got almost no telephone votes. Put another way, we may have benefited a little from political voting (thank you Australia), just as we might have suffered from it. However, we got almost no telephone votes, and the ones we did get, look to have been from ex-pats living abroad. (Thank you Australia, again.)

Our outgoing telephone votes, told an interesting story. The MOST phone votes (12) from the UK went to Bulgaria, a song performed by a young good looking lad (only just 17) but some of which was off-key on the night ..... There's either a lot of young girls in the UK with the hots for what even to them, might be considered a youngster .... Or a lot of ex-pats from Bulgaria in residence here. Certainly, the song as performed did better than I had expected (looking at my score sheet). They got maximum points for panel (12) and tele voting (12) from .... Macedonia, a country on its borders. It got maximum points (24 total) from Belarus too .... Then Hungary, with 22 points ... Hard not to notice a pattern here? And possibly explains why Romania's yodelling song did so well?  Still, it's only statistics.  

 

Sore loser? Me?

I'll get over it. Until next year.  

[Puffer]

51 minutes ago, FastFreddy2 said:

...

As I have a little bit of background in statistics ...

But not, I trust, in 'lies and damned lies ...', as Disraeli opined ...  

[FastFreddy2]

34 minutes ago, Puffer said:

But not, I trust, in 'lies and damned lies ...', as Disraeli opined ...  

I certainly know how to 'twist' them. 

A classic is using a slice of data. Say I had 1000 respondents on the taste of a new beer. It was unusually bitter, and the overall results suggested young people didn't like the bitter taste. It might surprise no-one, as younger prefer sweeter.  So how do I promote this new beer using my 'test' results? I just use the data for the over 40's group, and reduce the number of the declared test group. Or I redo the test data, but disqualify anyone under the age of 40 (or 50 if the stats say they are to be avoided). This is a clumsy example, but it indicates just how straightforward getting a result to support a specific claim, can be done. 

"Wholly accurate" feedback data is supposed to be made across a wide range of ages, both sexes, all income groups and wide geographical locations. Minimum respondents is 1000, but 4000 would be a more 'honest' group. Sounds expensive? Oh yeeeees.

Maybe why "8 out of 10 cats preferred" was never 800 out of 1000 cats...

Some promo adverts for women's hair care products have unusual test group numbers, but you have to be quick to read them when screened on TV.  

 

My background in stats wasn't marketing, but production BTW.