Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by EXTspotter »

Good Evening Europe (and Australia...)!

May is just around the corner and the majority of countries are currently in the process of choosing their entries.

The UK's national selection is tomorrow night and as normal, everyone is dismal.

Melodifestivalen's first Semi-Final was on Saturday and was better, if only for the inclusion of proper old-school Eurovision insanity - Unicorns, Magic Tricks, Pyrotechnic Saxophones and all in one performance! Those entries obviously didn't get through but were very entertaining in a way that a lot of the entries which did get through were bland, middle-of-the-road contemporary music.





Who else is excited and what have you made of the entries so far?
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Redirect Left »

Will be a big one this year, 43 competitors, which equals the record high, Russia is returning after their absence last year and they often score highly. Also for first time in a while now, there are no withdrawing countries.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Chrill »

Why do you create a topic merely to shame me? The two highlighted songs were poor, not to mention Panzerkampf (or whatever her name was) is entering a song released in 2010. Which is very much not permitted.

None of the songs shown on Melodifestivalen last weekend were winners, although John Lundvik can definitely sing. He's a former pro athlete too, winning medals in national competitions but never winning on the international stage.

Hoping for more in the coming weeks!
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Redirect Left »

So the UK have decided, and this is going to be our song and performer.



Tommorow i am off to the local betting shop to see what the odds are on us being on the bottom five, and probably betting on that. It's been 21 years since Katrina & The Waves scored us a victory with Love Shine A Light, and we seem to be doing everything possible to not win again...
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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The selection was pretty poor. Not one person sang in key for their entire song. Of the 6; the one that won and two others were slightly better than the other three; that being said, all of the entries were worse than any random Melodifestivalen semi-final.

Our last year's entry was significantly better and could at least hold a tune pretty well and she still came 15th!
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Perhaps my Melodifestivalen favorite so far (only 25% of songs have been performed yet, keep that in mind!), but I am not a fan of ballad style entries:

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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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I’m also not a ballad fan but it was the best of the bunch - although anything is better than that smarmy-faced child Benjamin Ingrosso.

I’m a bit concerned it’s going to be a ballad-heavy year as a ballad won last year; anything to keep it up-tempo is a good thing.

Hopefully something better will show up before the end of the semi finals.

I love SVT play; it works with my chromecast and both myself and my partner, as well as our pro-Eurovision friends watch melodofestivalen on a Saturday night. We also started watching På Spåret and Så Ska Det Låta. When I recognised Wiktoria’s entry from melodifestivalen last year on Så ska det låta last week I realised I was definitely far from normal.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Chrill »

You watch På Spåret? Like, actually? Wouldn't you need to speak rather fluent Swedish for that? :P It's my absolute favourite show. Så ska det låta has grown quite tiresome over the years, it's way past its prime.

I don't mind Ingrosso, but then again I used to know him when we were kids. He's the son of a famous 80s singer in Sweden, Pernilla Wahlgren. She came close to representing Sweden herself back in 1985 with this catchy tune:



Couldn't find a decent video from the original performance, so you'll have to make do with this modern rendition. :P
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Så ska det låta may be past it's prime, but there isn't anything like it on TV here. The only music programmes on TV in the UK are ripoff reality show singing competitions. Plus I like Sarah Dawn Finer.

På Spåret is actually quite easy to comprehend if not understand fully. I've never learned Swedish or another language in the same family - the closest I know is English. That being said, if you've learned a language through immersion (as I did with Spanish), the skill for that is innate across every language. You pick up on words you hear a lot and quickly work out what they mean; combine it with cognates and loan words from English and it gives you a lot of the context and you can work around it.

The other reason these two shows are easier to comprehend than the average is because they both involve cues that aren't language or word related - films and objects for På Spåret and music for Så ska det låta; all these cues are used for helping learn things more easily than words alone as they engage a greater proportion of the neurons in your brain when you are learning, hence they're more likely to stick each time you encounter a word or phrase. That being said, don't ask me to communicate in Swedish otherwise you'll immediately be able to tell that I haven't got a clue.

My partner said about Pernilla Wahlgren being his mum, but then after looking it up on wikipedia found out that his dad was one of the backing dancers for Piccadilly Circus - they definitely have some questionable moves!
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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I'm very impressed. På Spåret usually offers rather intricate clues and they do love a bit of wordplay. Then again, the main feature is guessing where they travel and that might be rather difficult since they frequently offer obscure Swedish references.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Right. We've now seen all the entries of the year. One of these songs will have to win. I'm not too thrilled about that, I haven't really found one I like yet. There are maybe 3 songs that are more or less OK, and one comedy entry which I quite like because it makes fun of the genre dansband which is hugely popular in very rural areas of Sweden.



I'd quite like it if Sweden did not take this too seriously this year. Do something stupid instead of trying real hard to win.

Other than this one, my favorite two songs are these:





And bookies are backing this one heavily:

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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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I haven't seen this week's one yet, but from the few seconds of the new ones I have seen, none of them are very strong. I prefer Mariette, but her song from last year was MUCH BETTER than this.

Slightly off-topic, but yesterday I saw Conchita Wurst in concert with her band and the 60-piece BBC Concert Orchestra and it was INCREDIBLE. She's super talented and very funny. No-one I've seen so far for this year's Eurovision could hold a candle to her.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Chrill »

I prefer Mariette's song this year over her previous effort, however her very best entry was also her debut back in 2015. She finished third behind Måns Zelmerlöw's Heroes. In hindsight choosing him was a good pick.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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From what I've seen so far. None of the songs at Melodifestivalen this year come close to Måns Zelmerlöw & Frans of 2015 & 2016, or Loreen back in 2012.
Also yes, I'm aware a lot of Swedes turned out to not be too keen on Frans. But I thought he was fantastic, so there :p

I'm not sure who even represented Sweden for 2013/2014 and last year. So obviously I wasn't too overwhelmed them years comparatively...
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by EXTspotter »

There are a few from the last 10 or so years that I remember relatively well; the ones other than the obvious Loreen and Mans are Robin Bengtsson from last year, Sanna Nielsen - Undo, Eric Saade - Popular and Malena Ernmann - La Voix.

Sanna and Eric both came third at Eurovision, I saw Melodifestivalen for the first time last year so I remember Robin's song because I saw it so many times and I remember Malena Ernmann because her performance at the Eurovision final was insane. The weird intense eye contact thing is very memorable. She was on På Spåret a few weeks ago and sung the Diva Song from The Fifth Element which was just hilarious and she was still doing the intense staring thing.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Redirect Left »

EXTspotter wrote:Eric Saade - Popular.
ooh, now there is another one I do recall and remember. For me, Norway & Sweden are by far the ones I remember the most over the years.
Must be something in those Scandinavian waters, as I remember many of Denmarks songs too.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Chrill »

Well, get used to Benjamin Ingrosso too. I'm not at all excited about his song but I expect it to win in two weeks time.

We use a 50-50 system in Melodifestivalen where the Swedish voters represent 50% of the grand total of points, and the other 50% is handed out by international juries. These juries tend to go for songs like Benjamin Ingrosso - boring but safe. I'm not sure he will receive the highest number of votes from the people, but probably from the jury. We'll see if that is enough.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Well, I'm not very hopeful for our song. I find it a bit slow and serious. We're good at that, and that is often not what gets you in the top 10 in Eurovision. That song by Benjamin is quite catchy, even if it is a little average, which is probably what will get it points, both at Melodifestivalen and Eurovision.

I also love how lots of people keep asking about Eurovision after Brexit. Clueless people :P
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Chrill »

Picking a slow song after that Portuguese entry last year is a mistake. Surely an uptempo song will take the honours.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Post by Redirect Left »

Swedens Rolandz is very Eurovision. Catchy tune, the stage presence is large and loud, very glam rock too. I'd give that a much higher shot of winning than Benjamin.
I hope Rolandz wins Melodifestivalen over Benjamin
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