So, I figured I'd make a thread about this.

A list of links to the acts in the grand final :

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVy3rTNSN4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwF9DI89q1w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB8eSLyffsI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT2DcpqvorI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfnhDfy8AjU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS5TB2XUdgs

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AIPrVchJN8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHDHi37bboE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aLPsiyavcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87BBmxm7IJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ymFX91HwM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idUxTqmCFR0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1wS7NNCo38

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e94dst20C9Y

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QUM-_EbE2o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-2Lt7zzlBU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-rnM-MwRHY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58YS5m3EYVY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rviE2-9eiTI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xuPYt5i5cE

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL066Rp7J7k

It seemed really weird voting-wise this year. Quite controversial how Russia got the majority of the public vote, but Ukraine still won in the end. It feels highly politically charged tbh, in spite of everyone's assurances that it's not.

It also shows how little we actually vote in Western Europe (I didn't vote for example). I've just finished watching it on the BBC iPlayer.

Very bizarre overall.

As for the acts, they were pretty great. A varied bunch as per usual. Germany seemed very tryhard Eurovision-bait.

As for any Americans out there, looks like you'll be seeing more of Eurovision in the future. I agree with Graham Norton's assessment that after Justin Timberlake showed up this year, it's going to sink-in that this is the equivalent of Europe's "Superbowl" with an audience of over 200 million (at the time of broadcast, not counting people like me who watch it later online) throughout over 40 countries.

Anyway, it's all been very interesting and, like usual, the politicisation of the voting (surprisingly the public vote, not the official juries) is a major issue for the competition.

Personally, I liked quite a few of the acts. Did anyone else watch it?

While according the rules politics have no place in the competition, the most political song won regardless this year. Australia had very significant lead after jury vote but after the public vote was counted Ukraine took the lead and won. Australia should have won, best song and best performance.

Just my opinion.

nah, it's gotten so oddball over the years, watching it for more than 3 minutes gives me that strange urge to roll in dirt, cut a tree and scare a couple ducks just to make sure i'm still within the realm of planet earth and 3 dimensions.

and, just to exclude misunderstandings, i'm totally _not_ talking about the "gay" aspects of the whole event.

there's just nothing else even close to so totally out of touch with any aspect of the real world whatsoever. not even disney world on lsd.

...and about the "politics", banning politics and, at the same time, every single vote being the voter's attempt to express their political opinions towards the participant's country? really now?

...and don't even start me about the obscurity of the "music" - i mean, what IS this stuff??? NOBODY writes, let alone listens to or buys anything like this all the rest of the year, do they have a secret manual on how to write the fully functional song contest .. uh.. thing? it's like 12dimensional elevator music.

and none of this is even touching the most important question - WHY?

...and now they're planning on going worldwide.

beware, world.

your doom is sealed.

I was at a school reunion where I was rapidly becoming deaf and pre-hungover, so I missed it. But I'm not really sure if I would've watched anyway: whether or not the acts are any good, for such a long time there's been no real connection between the performances and the votes because it's so politically charged. In the UK's case it's hardly worth us bothering (though for many years it's not like we have anyway) as we'll get no votes anyway because they all hate us. It was kinda fun in the '70s and early '80s, but all that fun seems to have gone out of it now. Of course maybe I only liked it back then because I was younger...

you mean the (precisely) 2 times when abba resp. bucks fizz participated?

At the end of the day, I don't care who wins, and I really don't care if the UK do well or not. I watch it for the acts and the atmosphere. Some of the acts are pure comedy gold, and we should totally submit a joke entry seeing as almost everyone in Europe seems to hate the UK anyway.

@Kirottu : I liked Cyprus the best. I was so happy when Lordi won in 2006.

This year was seriously one of the best in recent times imo. Some excellent performances, some hilariously overproduced staging and really fantastic commentary. I look forward to it every year, and this year certainly did not disappoint.

I couldn't possibly comment. Though I do think it seemed more enjoyable in general back then. It seemed more fun, but I think it became too slick, competitive and commercial (even without the obvious political posturing). Though it's possible I've just turned into a cynical old cow.

Lmao Romania was disqualified only a few days before the semifinals due to $21 million debt.

Updated the OP with links.

I think Spain was my favourite this year, although they were all pretty good.

Russia was good, but i think a lot of that is due to it's extremely impressive special effects, definitely better than Ukraine's (although i support Ukraine politically, they shouldn't have used a song that was obviously political).

UK was decent enough, but it just lacked a certain oomphh, can't place my finger on what it lacked atm.

Meh, the UK usually pumps out some crap for Eurovision, I'm not fussed about it tbh.

Spain was pretty good, but Russia seemed like it was trying to win. I mean, you saw those effects. It was like they were trying to "one up" on M?ns Zelmerl?w from last year.

And I agree, I support Ukraine politically, but I really don't care about the politics of it at all.

The Czech Republic got 0 points from the public vote, which was criminal imo. They deserved a lot better than that.

Bizarrely, looking through the results of the public vote in the UK, you'll see a lot of votes for Poland, Russia etc. I mean, that's just kinda weird imo. Either no-one from the UK is voting (so our immigrant population is deciding the outcome) or something fishy is going on.

It's fine either way, I guess, but something worth taking note of for subsequent years.

definitely not.

i mean, not that i could provide any relevant information about your current species or degree of cynism, but definitely none of any such eventual transmutations is causing your esc perception...

i've asked myself all this, is it just because i've grown older (born 1970), my musical tastes have developed or i've seen any imaginable glam show gadget more times than my stomach can handle, but it's none of these.

but a quick browse through the top something since somewhen in the mid 60ies (way before i was born or watched my first esc (78 iirc) brought the answer:

take the 60ies as a start. titles like sandy shaw's "puppet on a string" and the likes: the entries back then were deeply rooted and tied to, say, slightly provincial commercial mainstream pop (the german word for this (which has itself heavily eroded since then) was "schlager").

it was straight what folks actually listened to and bought back then. and just these roots and ties got loser and loser over the years, until at some point, from mid 80ies on latest, evolutions of "song contest music" and "pop as played on actual radios" went entirely separate ways, and meanwhile grown so far apart they hardly have anything to do with eachother.

"song contest", that's it's whole own genre. this type of music just doesn't exist outside the esc, nor would anybody deliberately listen to (or even get the idea to write) anything like this (and with this "anybody", i cover even the worst commercial folk horror (and be assured that, in german speaking countries, we got the worst that the planet has to offer in that - if you don't believe it, hit up youtube with "musikantenstadl" (one of the most popular genre shows). i really _have_ heard it all .

it's an own branch that has split from real music way back, with hardly any recognizable resemblys left, and took it's whole own (d)evolution since. song contest, that's kind of the wicked wombat of commercial folk...

This bit in particular resonates with me. I'd say it was part of a broader problem in that, in the UK at least, the mid '80s is when pop music died, pretty much. I've wondered about that a lot and suspect it's an unfortunate side-effect of the whole Band-/Live-Aid thing: the more cynical producers saw it as a formula for making money rather than making music. Okay, that's always been the case to a degree, but I think at that point it was taken to extremes. What was pop music became very fractured as a result, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised if the same happened elsewhere, and if one of those elsewheres was the ESC.

And folk music was always a special part of it! I think the UK should've kept to the spirit of things and sent Lindisfarne every year.

3 names:

stock

aitken

waterman

:-P

the boonediggers of -80ies pop.

and austria should send a ghetto blaster that plays a "merci cheri" tape

You know, you seem to harbour some kind of cultural elitism and snobbery towards the Eurovision.

It's the same argument against VGM and the"Who on Earth would actually listen to this?!" faux outrage.

It's your problem and you're talking like a "high and mighty" music critic straight from the pages of Wire or some such crap.

If you don't like it, that's fair enough, but don't try to legitimise your opinion by claiming that's it's objectively inferior to "real music", because that's only your opinion and nothing more.

Poland was disappointing this year. You can usually rely on them to show a bit of skin.

nah.

i didn't say any of this.

i harbour much bigger "cultural elitism and snobbery" towards lots of other stuff, like that "musikantenstadl" example i explicitely listed.

nothing i said was about inferiority (though most of the material is, but that's a separate discussion (that we can put up any time if you feel like))

i said "not real", not "inferior than real". like in "surreal" or "not part of or connected with reality". said it and explained it, and not just one time.

so, should we actually have a case of "cultural elitism and snobbery" here, it's apparently more one towards good tastes, and not on my side... =)