Eurovision voting begins 2021

[JaquelineSequinWindmachine]

Thread 3 for the 2021 contest

Who has been our best entry recently? Englebert Humperdinck?

Its funny because if you ask any of the people saying 'the uk was robbed' who previous uk entries were in recent years, I bet they would struggle to sing the songs.

Yet they would know Heroes. Or at least the chorus/tune for Conchita Wurst's entry. Or know the Verka Serduchka song.

The problem with the voting is that if you aren't going to get into the left of the board by being in the top 12 - 18 places then you are going to get votes where you get zero from at least a number of countries so it starts to get very distorted.

Its kind of irrelevant at that point. Your song is not going to win. Its not good enough.

I thought our entry was ok until I heard other countries. Then I just thought it meh. Then I saw him perform it. He looked like a badly dancing spud. He clearly isn't naturally gifted at giving a performance for that kind of setting. And given that he can't move in a way which doesn't look like a sack of shit, we are already disadvantaging ourselves.

There was no fun.

And our staging was two big fucking trumpets. I mean who thought that was a good idea versus ice skating and hamster wheels and the burning pianos of the past.

Think about it.

My favourite one recently was Douwe Bob - fabulous song

I just wonder if we got e.g. Elton John or Mark Knopfler would we win ?

It just feels like voting goes along political / country lines.

No matter - it is a laugh.

I have a Douwe Bob album....

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams

Who has been our best entry recently? Englebert Humperdinck?

Blue. But they still fucked up on the night.

1. You don't need thigh high boots to win.
2. You don't need a teeny sequinned dress to win.
3. You need a good sound, well performed, well staged and with passion.
4. Edith Piaf in the corset top did surprisingly well.
5. The Mumsnet love for Iceland did not translate to victory

Our best entry in recent years was Lucie Jones in 2017. I actually think she deserved to do better than she did. She’s the one U.K. act who might be able to complain about Brexit politics affecting her scoreboard position.

We just don't put our minds to it on a whole. We're like this at times and I don't know why. British music across all genres often dominates the world it's quite amazing. We have a hell of a lot of talented young quirky, edgy artists, some are bigger abroad than they are here... but every year we insist on sending a bog standard person. I mean why? At this point it has to be intentional. Is it that we don't want the expense of hosting it? Although the last time we did host it, I personally thought we did an amazing job.

Do people still think Elton John can sing? I heard his latest single on the radio this week and thought who's this awful pub singer they've allowed on the playlist.

I didn't think the British entry was markedly worse than the others BUT most were quite colourful in a way that ours wasn't. Plus it wasn't a Eurovision type song (more Rag n Bone Man). We are clearly a social pariah country these days though.

Generally, I thought the entries were more on an equal footing than they often are. I didn't think the winning Italian song was 'stand out', although visually it was quite a performance (I preferred the Finnish heavy metal song though!).

Perhaps the issue with British songs is that we do take our music (in its many forms) very seriously. Eurovision is just not the type of milieu that many artists would want to be identified with?

Its funny because if you ask any of the people saying 'the uk was robbed' who previous uk entries were in recent years, I bet they would struggle to sing the songs.

I've realised I can sing one — the sort of electroswing one "I'm Still In Love With You". Was it sung by a teacher who has cystic fibrosis or something like that?

I'd completely forgotten about Lucie Jones. She's in Les Mis at the moment.

It would be an interesting experiment to see if we sent Take That with a classic Gary Barlow number and high production values, would it do well? I think it probably would. Our problem is our best musicians wouldn't touch Eurovision with barge pole.

The UK entry wasn't great, but it wasn't Nul Point bad!

That result was entirely political! We Brits really aren't popular at this moment in time, are we? And no one even felt any need to bung as a 2, not Ireland or Australia 😬

I wanted Iceland to do better but I much preferred their 2020 entry.

I wondered whether Poland not getting through this year made a difference to anybody. They have one of the biggest diasporic populations in Europe, so presumably pick up quite a lot of votes from their expats that would have gone to other countries this year.

I've remembered another one that I can hum, but sadly that didn't do very well either — "Flying the Flag". Too camp even for Eurovision?

Didn't think it was bad bad!! Not exciting or memorable but not terrible..I dont think it helped it was all a bit bland. The staging was simple and just didn't work.

The Netherlands (host country!) and Germany also got zero points, and Belgium only got 3.

I wondered whether Poland not getting through this year made a difference to anybody. They have one of the biggest diasporic populations in Europe, so presumably pick up quite a lot of votes from their expats that would have gone to other countries this year.

I’m not sure I understand your point. Poland haven’t got through to the final for a while. They certainly didn’t in 2018 or 2019. So there is no particular reason that 2021 should be different in regard to the Polish diaspora vote.

Just idle musing really Oubliette.

It was sparked by thinking that you only actually give points to a limited number of countries, and nought to everyone else. I was thinking about how we always give Ireland (and more recently Australia) some points, so some countries got points from us this year who wouldn't have done if they'd made the final.

Then I wondered which 'missing' country would make the biggest difference, so looked up who had lots of expats in other countries that take part.

I'm sure I remember one year seeing a complete breakdown of the voting - it was on some downloadable Excel spreadsheet. But, you could see exactly how many actual votes each song got from the public. Do any Eurovision data geeks know when/where that data is released?

We need to find a way of putting in more effort while not taking it so seriously that the resulting performance lacks that certain Eurovision-ness.

My favourite recent Eurovision songs were Norway's from 2019 (completely robbed by the jury) and San Marino's from the same year (everyone was sniffy about it but the public loved it). I can still sing them two years later but I can't remember anything about the UK song last night apart from the amateurishness.

Bill Bailey has offered to represent the UK next year. That would be brilliant.

As an ancient git, I stopped watching this when Katrina and the Waves won it with the best euro song ever... imo of course... "Love Shine a Light". Wogan snuffing out also was the end for me. The national sport of taking the piss out of the rest of Europe was no more.

And why the hell was Australia in there??

And why the hell was Australia in there??

Australia has been competing in Eurovision since 2015. They've actually placed quite well in previous years.

In order to compete you have to be invited and you have to be part of the European Broadcasting Union, which SBS (Australian TV) joined in 1979.

Looking at , I think some of the problem might be promotion rather than the actual songs.

Like 2010 — nice normal looking young man, quite smiley, nice cheerful song with a chorus that's easy to pick up. Not earth-shattering, but a few television interviews, few appearances at things, easy joke with "12 points? That sounds good to me!" could have done a lot.

I think we're just not very memorable sometimes, sadly!

I believe there is a campaign to do a welsh language uk entry.

Why the hell not!

Bill Bailey could really bomb. Or be really good.