Eurovision Song Contest, 2022

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With plenty of countries already confirming their songs, I guess that means Eurovision is appearing in the horizon! This year it will take place on the 14th May, with the 2 semi-finals being on the 10th & 12th.

This year 41 countries are confirmed, Armenia & Montenegro grace us with their presence, after dropping out last year. With the contest being held in Turin, Italy after their hard rock song "Zitti e buoni" took the crown last year.

Personally, my favourite song so far is "SloMo" by the Spanish entrant "Chanel", although I also enjoy the Bulgarian entry of "Intention. Italy have decided to go for an entirely different genre to what won last year, with "Brividi". Tomorrow, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine & Estonia are due to reveal their songs, with Malta, Croatia, Slovenia & San Marino, which will almost certainly not feature Flo Rida this year, revealing their songs a week after on the 19th of this month.

It's also Melodifestivalen time, and of course I've been paying attention to that. Heat 1 was last Saturday, and at least for me, my personal favourite from that heat didn't fare too well at all, I was rather fond of Omar Rudberg's - Moving Like That.

So that's the end of a wall of text, but I love Eurovision that much! Do you have any early likes or dislikes from the songs we have so far?

[Chrill]

It's also Melodifestivalen time, and of course I've been paying attention to that. Heat 1 was last Saturday, and at least for me, my personal favourite from that heat didn't fare too well at all, I was rather fond of Omar Rudberg's - Moving Like That.

Oh I did not like Omar much. Cornelia Jakobs was OK I suppose, but I'm hoping for a better showing this and next week.

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Oh I did not like Omar much. Cornelia Jakobs was OK I suppose, but I'm hoping for a better showing this and next week.

Indeed, me too. Whilst I enjoyed Omar's, it didn't have nothing over a lot of Swedens other entries the past decade, so hopefully we have some stronger showings still to come.

[Chrill]

I'm keen on the 3rd heat of Melodifestivalen where Anders Bagge is performing. He's a 50-something slightly chubby man, most famous in Sweden for being a jury member on Swedish Idol. But internationally, he's an acclaimed song writer (which Swede isn't?) with music for Madonna, Westlife, Jennifer Lopez, and a lot of other 90s-00s artists.

He's always been too afraid to go on stage himself, but he joined Masked Singer Sweden and was actually pretty good. Let's see if he can pull this off now. He's a fairly popular figure here, and if we could send a middle-aged man with a ballad maybe we'll get points simply for doing something different to what we usually send.

[orudge]

If we could at least manage a point this year, it’s be nice.

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If we could at least manage a point this year, it’s be nice.

I did feel a little bad for our entry last year. I genuinely found the song to be not too bad, unfortunately, as we often do on the big day, it was sung a little bit flat, like he was struggling with doing both staging & singing, instead of just singing. In the pre-recorded version on Spotify, and on the official music video, it's such a much more powerful song. We Brits do have a habit of sending really flat performers. Who could remember, or rather for some, who could forget, the tragedy that we entered in 2003, possibly the flattest singing I've heard in all of Eurovision!

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So this weekend, a few more songs got announced as countries selected them.
My personal favourite out of them all is the Norwegian entry, which sees them feeding bananas to... wolves.
Poland are entering 'River' by Ochman, which is another really great one I find - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcDCYb0gt48
Another recent reveal is Latvia, encouraging you to eat your salad; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nQMRuVwzhY

I think this year is going to be a year of quite a few odd ones, which I love the idea of!

[Chrill]

Instead of meat, I eat veggies and...

Latvia is fun for two seconds, and the rest is a really weak song. I do fancy the Norwegian. Is it Ylvis, is it Alan Walker, is it the guys from A1? Is it Rybak? We may never know.

I'm keen on the 3rd heat of Melodifestivalen where Anders Bagge is performing. He's a 50-something slightly chubby man, most famous in Sweden for being a jury member on Swedish Idol. But internationally, he's an acclaimed song writer (which Swede isn't?) with music for Madonna, Westlife, Jennifer Lopez, and a lot of other 90s-00s artists.

He's always been too afraid to go on stage himself, but he joined Masked Singer Sweden and was actually pretty good. Let's see if he can pull this off now. He's a fairly popular figure here, and if we could send a middle-aged man with a ballad maybe we'll get points simply for doing something different to what we usually send.

Here's his performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NXVEfnkGjk

It's not a great song, really, but he's sweet! You can see around the 2 minute mark he completely misses a note and just goes "hmm" and stops singing for a bit. After they announced he made it through to the finals of Melodifestivalen, he broke down in tears talking about having no self confidence and so on.

[Chrill]

Well, now we've heard all the Melodifestivalen entries this year. I think Cornelia Jakobs is my favourite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmAcQeudaZw

It's a great song, lots of emotion and just dramatic enough. It's not a Eurovision winner, but could maybe do top 10 if they work on the stage a bit.

My 2nd favourite is probably Medina:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGEbONJ7mkc

It's a childish little party anthem with some almost Russian influences.

[orudge]

Apparently The Rasmus will be representing Finland - that’s a name I’ve not really heard in 20 years!

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Apparently The Rasmus will be representing Finland - that’s a name I’ve not really heard in 20 years!

Crikey, that is indeed a throwback. I wonder if they're hoping the name from the past will see them good with the fans across the continent (and Australia)

I remember us trying it back in 2011, with the former star boyband 'Blue' that used to be fairly big in several countries, at a staggering... uh 11th on the night. It's one of our better showings of this millennium...

[Chrill]

I remember us trying it back in 2011, with the former star boyband 'Blue' that used to be fairly big in several countries, at a staggering... uh 11th on the night. It's one of our better showings of this millennium...

And then you went with Engelbert Humperdinck and Bonnie Tyler. Those throwbacks threw back too far.

The Rasmus song is really weak, and I think they are there for their name only. Arguably not even the best song in the Finnish UMK this year.

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And then you went with Engelbert Humperdinck and Bonnie Tyler. Those throwbacks threw back too far.

Indeed. I felt so bad for Engelbert, he amazingly still had the voice for it in 2012, he didn't deserve that level of disappointment at that stage of his life, dang. Bonnie Tyler was a bit everywhere vocally by the time of Eurovision. In looking up the results for those songs to refresh myself, we decided to do throwbacks 3x in a row (2011 to 2013), I'm glad after doing it thrice in a row, whoever does the decisions went "ok so that isn't working" finally. So we switched to other things, that did not work. In 2013 Germany also tried a similar thing, sending former Eurodance star Cascada, which I think many of us will have danced to one of her songs at some point in a club in our younger years, it didn't work for Germany either, coming even lower than Bonnie Tyler that year.

It's a bit of a bad track record for using former superstars, will The Rasmus break that curse? With their song I've seen so far, it's a bit weak so i hope they bring out a good performance and amp up the staging.

[Chrill]

Using old artists works if people want to see more of those artists. Have you really been longing for more of the Rasmus? I haven't.

Now, if someone like Paul McCartney got up on stage with Ringo Starr, Sean Lennon and Dhani Harrison, that could work right?

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Have you really been longing for more of the Rasmus? I haven't.

I had forgot their existence until they decided to compete in Eurovision. I suspect i won't be the only one, so probably not longing for more there!

A day ago, Eurovision's youtube announced that Estonia had selected STEFAN & Hope. Another not bad song, but fairly middling. It may do well on the night, or it may not, who knows!
Going back another several days, was the announcement of San Marino's song, sung by Achille Lauro and titled Stripper. Which is probably the one I'm liking the least so far.
Speaking of, that reminds me of their attempt to bring back some early 2010s nostalgia with Flo Rida last year, which as with the others we were speaking of, went... rather poorly. He probably won't be visiting San Marino again for a while.

[Chrill]

Speaking of, that reminds me of their attempt to bring back some early 2010s nostalgia with Flo Rida last year, which as with the others we were speaking of, went... rather poorly. He probably won't be visiting San Marino again for a while.

Did it though? It was their second best finish of all time, second only to my favourite:



Sure, they had higher hoped, but Senhit reached the finals and finished ahead of four countries.

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Did it though? It was their second best finish of all time, second only to my favourite:

Now I'm just sad for San Marino that 23 of 26 is their second best

With a population of about 34,000, I'd love to see San Marino win. The amount of people visiting around Eurovision would likely exceed their population, hah.

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The songs are coming in fast at present.
Germany have finished their selection process, and out popped Malik Harris - Rockstars. I like it, definitely and improvement on last year, the lyrics will probably 'speak' to certain people too. i don't think it'll be a top 5 on the night, but i personally like it, which if anything in recent years has meant it definitely won't do well...
Montnegro's entry is Vladana - Breathe - For me its a bit of a miss, especially the slow start, but after about 1 minute 20 when it picks up, it becomes an alright song.
Albania selected Ronela Hajati with Sekret - This is another one I do like, it mixes Albanian & English very well to great effect. I hope the audience respond to it at least see it to the finals and beyond the semi-finals.

coming up, it won't be too long until we know the Swedish entry, today is semi-finals day (which I don't recall them doing in the past?), with the final next weekend. There isn't any still in the race i'd consider exceptionally 'bad', Sweden is doing its usual pretty good tournament. By the end of today, Denmark & France is expected to have selected its song, with Cyprus, the UK, Belgium & Switzerland expected to announce theirs within the next week too. I'll be keeping my eyes firmly on the Eurovision youtube channel. If only to see what car crash us Brits decide to throw in this time around, I do kind of wish we'd go back to national selection instead of some bigwigs (presumably) in the BBC doing it themselves, their track record is... not that good.

[kamnet]

With a population of about 34,000, I'd love to see San Marino win. The amount of people visiting around Eurovision would likely exceed their population, hah.

It would surely have to be hosted in/by Italy, because there's no way they could afford this on their own, right?

[Chrill]

It would surely have to be hosted in/by Italy, because there's no way they could afford this on their own, right?

Most likely yes. They don't have a venue suitable for it. Their biggest indoor venue is a basketball arena with a capacity of 1500 people. Unless the university has a massive auditorium?

coming up, it won't be too long until we know the Swedish entry, today is semi-finals day (which I don't recall them doing in the past?), with the final next weekend. There isn't any still in the race i'd consider exceptionally 'bad', Sweden is doing its usual pretty good tournament.

We've done it for many years actually, but it has been rebranded. We had the Andra Chansen (Second Chance) for many years, this is the same. Songs placed 3rd and 4th in their respective heats compete for the last few spots in the final. Mediocre round as usual, because these are already the competitors we've said no to!

I do think Cornelia Jakobs will win it for Sweden, but Anders Bagge is wildly popular here. He'll likely not be as popular with the juries though, so that could well swing it away from him.

Sweden will finish 13th on the night, you heard it here first!

Still, my personal favourite is Medina. Such a bop!