Eurovision Song Contest, 2021

[Chrill]

Well. If Portugal shocks to win, I'll be happy. They've definitely grown on me.

[kamnet]

Overall pretty decent. A lot of the songs I ranked in the middle sounded pretty similar. The Afrojack video was also pretty nice.

My votes:
1. Cyprus
2. Israel
3. Albania
4. Malta
5. Portugal
6. Netherlands
7. Moldova
8. Finland
9. Italy
10. Switzerland
11. Norway
12. Sweden
13. San Marino
14. United Kingdom
15. Spain
16, Serbia
17. Bulgaria
18. Belgium
19. Ukraine
20. Russia
21. Azerbaijan
22. Germany (very quirky)
23. Lithuania
24. France
I25. celand (because of those ugly costumes!)
26. Greece (purely because of stage performance, UGH)

[Redirect Left]

So we're at the interval now, my personal top 5 is Sweden, Iceland, Germany, San Marino & Finland. My top 5 predictions for the evening are Iceland, San Marino, Italy, France & Malta, when separated from my personal loves.

Honorable mention for Norway, really enjoyed it, narrowly missed out on my top 5.

[kamnet]

Final results:

524: 206/318 - Italy
499: 248/251 - France
432: 267/165 - Switzerland
378: 198/180 - Iceland
364: 097/267 - Ukraine
301: 083/280 - Finland
255: 208/047 - Malta
220: 055/165 - Lithuania
204: 104/100 - Russia
170: 140/030 - Bulgaria
170: 091/079 - Greece
153: 126/027 - Portugal
115: 000/062 - Moldova
109: 046/063 - Sweden
102: 020/082 - Serbia
094: 060/044 - Cyprus
093: 073/020 - Israel
075: 015/060 - Norway
074: 071/003 - Belgium
065: 032/033 - Azerbaijan
057: 035/022 - Albania
050: 037/013 - San Marino
011: 011/000 - Netherlands
006: 006/000 - Span
003: 003/000 - Germany
000: 000/000 - United Kingdom

[Chrill]

I'm definitely happy with Italy winning, more so than if Switzerland or France would have won it. And Ukraine coming 2nd in televoting sits nicely with me. See you all in Italy in 2022.

[kamnet]

This year's contestants all seemed to be pretty decent. I was really disrespectful to Iceland I suppose, maybe some rebound effect from the Eurovision mocumentary from last year (which I really did not enjoy)? I didn't get to see the semi-finals, but I have seen several of my friend call the first semi-final "the round of death", too many good songs and not enough slots.

Portugal and Italy were pretty solid, and particularly stood out for me. But I wasn't counting on either being as high as they were because they were definitely not pop music, and it's hard for a non-pop song to break through.

[Chrill]

Like the singer of Måneskin said, "ROCK AND ROLL NEVER DIES!". I guess it just hibernates from time to time.

Lordi win 15ish years ago, Måneskin now. Really looking forward to the 2036 Eurovision Song Contest.

[Redirect Left]

Ultimately I think Italy deserved to win on the night, although I am really gutted for Sweden, that has to be their lowest for a while. Meanwhile in the UK, it seems to be a collective "well, expected that", possibly slightly caused by Brexit finally coming into full effect in Jan this year, plus our singer struggled to hit the keys needed, was a bit dull.
Sad we won't get to visit Iceland next year, would have been another worthy winner.

Meanwhile, the Italian delegation were caught doing something odd looking on video, which led to speculation of them doing a drug of some sorts, the EBU have now drug tested the lead singer, and have dispelled those rumours, as he was entirely clean.

[Chrill]

The Swedish song really wasn't strong enough, it did not stand out in this field. Not to mention we've sent pretty much the same thing every year since Loreen won.

2011: Eric Saade - Popular, a polished pop song by a young male (3rd)
2012: Loreen - Euphoria, a polished pop song by a young female (winner!)
2013: Robin Stjernberg - You, a polished pop song by a young male (14th)
2014: Sanna Nielsen - Undo, a powerful ballad by a 30-ish female (3rd)
2015: Måns Zelmerlöw - Heroes, a polished pop song by a young male (winner!)
2016: Frans - If I Were Sorry, a polished pop song by a young male (5th)
2017: Robin Bengtsson - I Can't Go On, a polished pop song by a young male (5th)
2018: Benjamin Ingrosso - Dance You Off, a polished pop song by a young male (7th)
2019: John Lundvik - Too Late for Love, a polished pop song by a 30-ish male (5th)
2021: Tusse - Voices, a polished pop song by a young male (14th)

Kind of starting to see a trend here. We need to send something different. Maybe in Swedish. Maybe including the joik. Maybe not a well polished pop song.

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From those entries, I have still have Frans, Benjamin Ingrosso, Måns Zelmerlöw & John Lundvik on regular play. I had Loreen & Eric Saade's entries before too, although fell off the regular lists for me now.

I really hope this tournament isn't the last we see of Iceland's Daði og Gagnamagnið. Both of their songs could have easily won on the night, this years entry were up against some fierce competition, but on another year I could have seen it clear the board, and I still think 2020's competition would have been a race between Iceland & Russia to the top.

Eurovision.tv have recently released some interesting factoids of the night. These involve;
It's the first time since 1995 that all of the final top 3 were songs not sung in English,
Italy achieved their first win since 1990, giving them 3 wins total, equalling Norway & Denmark
France achieved their best result since all the way back in 1991.
This was Icelands best result since 2009, despite the singers not being available to sing live due to a positive COVID result.
Ukraine is now the only country to have a 100% qualification record.
Finland achieved their highest ever placing, after their one-time win by Lordi in 2006.
Russia has continued its top 10 streak that started in 2012.

Also revealed was that Denmark and their entry by Fyr og Flamme came 11th on their qualifying round, which is a shame, I think it'd have done quite well on the night, missed out by just 1 spot short of top 10.

[Chrill]

Yeah. And with some rather incriminating rumours claiming Moldova's "Sugar" snuck their way in by not entirely honest voting patterns, Denmark could have qualified 10th on the night.

[Redirect Left]

Yeah. And with some rather incriminating rumours claiming Moldova's "Sugar" snuck their way in by not entirely honest voting patterns, Denmark could have qualified 10th on the night.

Theree has been quite a few interesting developments this year. Ignoring the whole Italy accused of doing drugs off the green room table, as that was definitively disproven by the EBU themselves after a drug test. For example, Malta has been reported as using tax payers money to place bets on their own song to artificially inflate the odds on their act, making it appear they may have been higher favourites than actually were. Not sure what they hoped to achieve here, possibly hoping that humans would do a sheep herd act and all vote for it as its so good because look at the odds! Malta would have made quite a bit of dough had their act won, its a tiny country that already heavily relies on tourism.
It's also come to light this may have occurred during the 2019 tournament too.

In lighter news, the viewing figures are out, the show was watched by 183 million people across all 3 shows, according to eurovision.tv. A larger audience than some of the countries taking parts entire population.

[Chrill]

In lighter news, the viewing figures are out, the show was watched by 183 million people across all 3 shows, according to eurovision.tv. A larger audience than some of the countries taking parts entire population.

Did this article just state that 99.9% of Iceland watched Eurovision? I doubt 99.9% of Iceland has opted to own a TV

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In lighter news, the viewing figures are out, the show was watched by 183 million people across all 3 shows, according to eurovision.tv. A larger audience than some of the countries taking parts entire population.

Did this article just state that 99.9% of Iceland watched Eurovision? I doubt 99.9% of Iceland has opted to own a TV

I'm going to assume from the wording 'viewing share', it means everyone who was viewing something at the time were watching Eurovision. Else Iceland has probably the highest uptake of TVs in world!
The Icelandic presenter for the votes from Iceland was certainly... something too.

[Chrill]

It was the actor from the movie, no? I appreciated him. Very rarely do "comedic" presenters work.

[Redirect Left]

So I was driving around the 'Westgate Run', a roughly kilometre stretch in the city I live in that is just pubs, clubs, and kebab shops. One of the gay clubs were blasting out our nul point of the year James Newman - Embers. Europe may not have wanted it, but I am glad to see it has found itself a nice little home. I'll have to swing by next time I am not focusing on trying to not run over drunks in the middle of the road.

[Taschi]

Why listen to Diet Lewis Capaldi if you could listen to real Lewis Capaldi instead? Not that I like either of them.

[Chrill]

I saw a funny video of Netta, the Israeli singer who won back in 2018.

Netta, 2018: "See you in Jerusalem!"
2019, hosted in Tel Aviv.

Netta, 2019: "We're going to Amsterdam"
2020, cancelled.
2021, hosted in Rotterdam.

Netta, 2021: "Guess we'll meet in Rome!"
2022, hosted in Turin.

At least she knows her capital cities.