To think Eurovision is no longer about the talent

[misszebra]

Following from a discussion seen in lots of threads. I was so disappointed at the clear political motive behind the jury and popularity votes this year. Switzerland did fantastic, but IMO the image of Switzerland as the 'neutral' country might have been behind a lot of the jury votes at least, although I am glad he won over some others.
Germany were the best by miles I felt, Isaak has such fantastic raw talent and didn't need the circus around him to prove it.

Does anyone else think a lot of the votes were due to politics?

Its a shame to see clear talent pushed under the rug...

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙂😂😂😂😂😂
Did you actually watch it??!

Are you nuts? I very much watched it.

Well I wasn't overly impressed with Switzerland. Loved Croatia though. They can always be relied upon to bring the bat shit crazy

Well putting two corpses and Ringo Starr would be different...

🤣 did you miss someone out?!

glad someone else has their head straight! Switzerland did great however not going to comment on the rest of the top 5

I think its politics which stopped Germany from winning the show to be honest

What, like having Australia enter? 😂

People who say that it's all political are as wrong as those who say it IS all about the music. It's a mixture of both, and has always been.

As we saw with Sam Ryder, a truly outstanding song and performance will do well. As for asking why we always get nil points, the sad fact is that we normally send in any old entry whilst other countries spend the entire year meticulously planning and preparing every single detail.

If anything, we should be doubly ashamed to send in a lacklustre entry, considering our historical (and current) place on the world popular music stage. We are one of the two countries that have guided and dominated world pop music far more than any others over decades, so when a country like Armenia - not known for their multiple international pop stars - can send in an infinitely better song and performance than we apparently can, there's something seriously wrong with us.

Also, I think a lot of people consistently fail to understand that not a single person or country is 'giving us zero points'. People are voting for their favourites, and those favourites clearly don't include us. If you always go to a handful of your favourite restaurants, that absolutely does not in any way mean that you hate all the others that don't quite make the cut for you.

When the votes are counted up for each country, they give points to their ten most-enjoyed songs, so we could be every single person's 11th favourite - not a bad showing at all out of 26 (or 25), well above average - and that would still earn us zero points.

Yes, this very much - if there's one thing that nobody can deny about Eurovision, it's that the shows are currently far, far too short

I agree - and its embarrassing that as a country with countless hugely talented and successful singers, we seem to (other than with sam Ryder) send some dreadful acts into the competition!

Why do people assume that people don't like the UK? Sam Ryder was very good.
Maybe the last two years we didn't have great songs and lack lustre singers.

I'm not even sure that the mighty ABBA would necessarily do all that well if they were entering as a new, unknown young group now.

Even if Benny wore a dress, Bjorn had his bum fully out on display and the women claimed to be demi-sexual furries.

I know Eurovision has always been very camp and very LGBTQ friendly but in the last 5-8 years or so it's almost become the competition's whole raison d'etre, to be as outrageously camp and shocking as possible, and it's becoming tedious.

I think Ollie Alexander's dancers' performance last night was just too explicit and that's probably why he didn't get any public votes. And his vocals were a bit dodgy because his routine was too physically taxing for him to sing properly.

Spain didn't do so well and neither did Finland's man with no pants. It seems the audience do actually prefer a great song to the sight of virtually naked men writhing around with oiled buttons like they are at an ancient greek orgy.

Many of the voting countries like Azerbaijan, Albania, Poland etc are still quite socially conservative compared to us, and the populations are somewhat homophobic or prudish by comparison. I imagine people think twice about letting young children watch Eurovision now, it's no longer suitable.

France was the best. A good song, really well sung. No gimmicks.

As for Ireland. WTAF was that? Just utterly terrible.

Eurovision begrudgingly likes the UK. If the song is decent, they'll like us. But they'll do no favours otherwise.

I honestly can't remember which one was Germany's song.

I was surprised France did so well (I did enjoy) last night because many are still up in arms over the napoleonic war.
Germany didn't get the public vote due to the Second World War and sadly some people still can't move on from it.

yes we don't get the sympathy vote, but get credit where credit due

@misszebra It never had been.

I agree - how dare we send in a boring song, sung in a very mediocre way, staged in a public bog, and then complain that people are not voting for it because they don't like us as a country.

I understand Israel did complain about Bambie's performance not being 'appropriate' (because of the 'adult' and scary content, not because of the pro-Palestine messages) - I don't know if that got anywhere, if true.

Slightly off-topic, but I'm always amazed that the contest doesn't start until 9pm and then goes on until 1am, in the vast majority of Europe. I wonder who first decided on that?

I've just realised I typed men with 'oiled buttons.' Obviously I meant buttocks.

France was the best. A good song, really well sung. No gimmicks.

Amen to that. And I also liked Latvia for the same sort of reasons.

It was literally never about the talent?

This was Germany. Nothing special. I voted France. But liked all the top 5 songs.

Yabu for only just realising - it's been this way for close to 20 years.