Eurovision 2023 Grand Final - thread 4

[GrandTheftWalrus]

Just incase anyone wants to carry on the chat.

Estonia blew me away in the arena. They were definitely one of the better acts we saw. It just wasn't necessarily my taste. I am really glad it finished 10th though.

I'm always underwhelmed when I hear who is on the UK jury. This year included Heidi from the Sugababes and Shaznay from All Saints. It's not as if they've got Kate Bush and Jacques Brel on there or people who are up with the current music scene. If they are going to keep the jury vote, I wonder if the composition of the juries themselves needs a bit of a shake up to include people who are more relevant or impressive or leftfield?

Esma

Underwhelmed is sadly about right.

Or people from diverse musical backgrounds? Did I hear correctly that there are only five on the jury or am I imagining it?

Some info. Looks like over the years they've had a decent spread and the juries can't just vote for what they like - they have set criteria to use.

There are five members

• A Jury must be appointed by the broadcaster to vote in the semi finals and the final. It must consist of five members from the music industry (singer, DJ, composer, lyricist or producer) and must have a fair balance of age, gender and profession.
• Jurors cannot be employees of their national broadcasters, and cannot have any direct connection to the songs and/or artists in order to uphold complete independence and impartiality.
• All members of the National Juries shall be citizens of the country they represent.
• Jury members shall not have not been a part of a national jury in the preceding two years. Meaning, for example, if someone served on a jury for the 2015 contest, they cannot do so for the 2016 or 2017 events.
• Jury members are to rank the songs from 1 to 25/26 (in the Final - it varies for the Semis). Abstentions are forbidden, except that the song of the participating broadcaster will be excluded from the vote. (For example, an Estonian Jury member is not allowed to vote for Estonia.)
• Juries are asked to focus their vote on 4 main sets of criteria:
• Vocal capacity of the artist(s)
• Performance on stage
• Composition and originality of the song
• Overall impression of the act
• The jurors shall not be known until the EBU publishes them on May 1st before the Contest begins.

2014

• Carrie Grant (jury chairperson) – vocal coach, television presenter, public speaker, represented the United Kingdom in the 1983 contest as member of Sweet Dreams
• Stephen Allen – music producer, keyboard player, musical director, arranger
• Candice McKenzie – DJ, Radio Presenter
• Gus Gowland – writer, actor, composer
• Laura Wright – mezzo soprano

2015
David Arch (jury chairperson) – musical director, musician, composer, arranger
Mark De-Lisser – vocal coach
Thomas Blaize – singer, songwriter, composer
Yvie Burnett – singer, mezzo-soprano, vocal coach
Pandora Christie – radio/TV presenter
2016
Vocal coach CeCe Sammy, singer-songwriter Bea Munro, DJ and record label owner Seamus Haji, singer-producer Sean McGhee and music producer Kiran Thakrar

2017
Mary Hammond (jury chairperson) – singing teacher, singer
Emma Stevens – singer, songwriter
Rokhsan Heydari – songwriter
Mark Eldridge (Kipper) – producer, musician
Jay London – radio DJ

2018
Richard Beadle (jury chairperson) – musical director, orchestrator, composer
Michelle Escoffery – singer-songwriter
Natalie Shay – singer-songwriter
Toby Lawrence – club and radio DJ
Eady Crawford – singer

2019
Pete Watson (jury chairperson) – musical director
Jai Ramage – vocal coach
Adele Roberts – BBC Radio 1 DJ
AJ Bentley – singer, actor
George Ure – actor

2021
Nicki Chapman – Radio DJ, broadcaster, TV presenter
Tom Aspaul – singer-songwriter
Ross Gautreau – record label owner, producer
Michelle Gayle – singer-songwriter, actress
Aisha Jawando – actress, musician

2022 jury
Adam Hunter, Denise Pearson (5 star), Eliot Kennedy (song writer and producer), Matthew Xia aka Excalibah (theatre producer, DJ, producer, directo, song writer), and Helen George (Actress musical theatre)

2023
Jack Hawitt, Jim Spencer, Theo Johnson, Heidi Partakis and Shaznay Lewis.

Heidi may have been because she's from Liverpool. Shaznay wrote some great songs for All Saints. I think she's a credible jurist.

I couldn't stand All Saints and especially "a few questions that I need to know ". It's answers you're looking for Shaznay.

Shaznay is an award winning song writer who had numerous chart singles. She's credible as a juror. She just happened to be in a girl band.

Looking down the list there is a fair range of people from the music industry and from different areas.

Jury members are to rank the songs from 1 to 25/26 (in the Final - it varies for the Semis).

Why do they rank them all when only 10 get points? What purpose do numbers 1 - 16 serve?

To show they are being fair?

To show they've listened to and considered each song? Rather than just the first 10?

I don't know, but I'm sure it's all very controlled.

Juror! Of course. My mind went blank.

Impressive research, Red. Fascinating.

To show they are being fair and for transparency. All above board.

It wouldn't prove anything - if they wanted to be lazy, they could just allocate all the rankings at random.

I’m not convinced that isn’t how some of the voting happens tbh!

😅

Presumably the final position is a combo of all 5 jurors though, so if two put Finland 3rd, one 2nd and two 1st, Finland ends up second with the whole jury.

Na not impressive. Just copied and pasted from wiki cos I didn't know and was curious myself and thought I'd share!!!

I'm currently reading about where it's likely to go next year and how the EBU likes small venues but Stockholm favours an arena with 60k capacity but want to do it for 30k but the resident football teams are less than impressed. The smaller Stockholm venue is due for renovation next year so looks out. I want Malmö.

Too true @90stalgia

They have to rank them all so that overall places can be aggregated. They won’t all have the same top 10 so they need to have scored the whole field for comparisons to be made.

It wouldn't prove anything - if they wanted to be lazy, they could just allocate all the rankings at random.
🤣

This will be it.

It's logical :) I liked reading the twitter thread, @SwedishEdith interesting and he is right about the dominance of winning songs in minor keys.

Looks like he's done another song by song analysis for this year @FuzzyCaoraDhubh, so I will have to read later.

And just spotted this about the Australian lead singer 😃