Eurovision Song Contest 2023 #4

[UnknownTattler]

After checking Ticketmaster every five minutes last week I finally managed to get tickets for the final rehearsal on Saturday afternoon, and made the trek down to Liverpool which was just covered in Eurovision, there was a really good atmosphere in the city.
After Sweden performed I thought 'that's the winner', but then the crowd went mad for Finland and I thought 'if anyone is going to beat Sweden Finland will'. There was a huge reaction for Mae too of course, and she sounded fine in the arena, it's a shame it didn't come over as well on the screen.
The Liverpool songbook interval was really good, I've never been a huge fan of You'll Never Walk Alone, but it was a really moving moment.
Now to catch up on the last two threads

 

[Jadejones9596]

Sonia

 

[Merpedy]

Mae sounded out of breath and out of tune on the televised performance, very disappointing considering how great it sounded on the radio. Some people are just not cut out for live performances without the help of all the studio jjggery pokery.

Given that everyone hyped her up as being a great live singer… disappointing

In all fairness, she does actually seem to be a decent live singer but not with these types of songs. I don’t know why her label or someone didn’t say “maybe submit another song that you can actually sing live well”.

I also found her personality really unlikable in general. She was trying too hard to become a bit of a “meme” and I think the mic in the grand performance was turned down to let the crowd’s energy carry her which clearly didn’t work very well
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I was looking at the voting breakdown and quite a few jury votes gave Finland nothing (including UK) yet every public vote gave Finland points. Reflects how out of touch some juries are. We had shaznay Lewis and Heidi from sugar babes on our jury as well.

In all fairness to the jury, they’re judging on a different criteria to the public. The public vote is basically “I liked it” whereas the jury should have a more critical perspective

Songs that didn’t seem to go down well with the public (such as Spain) should be saved a bit by the jury. I wasn’t a fan of the song but overall it was an experience and her vocals were undoubtedly impressive. The problem is that the jury seem to reflect on their personal tastes a lot and what they deem to be “radio friendly” and it’s disappointing because you end up with very cookie cutter songs in most cases

 

[Mrs Fluff]

How many jury members are there out of interest?

 

[Merpedy]

How many jury members are there out of interest?

5 per country it seems:

Grand Final of Liverpool 2023 - Eurovision Song Contest

Official website of the Eurovision Song Contest. The latest news, photos, videos, participant info, voting results, the Contest's rich history and much more.

eurovision.tv

There should be a breakdown by each juror too somewhere. Brooke has confirmed that she was juror D (because they do it anonymously when ranking) for Ireland

 

[Falkor]

Given that everyone hyped her up as being a great live singer… disappointing

In all fairness, she does actually seem to be a decent live singer but not with these types of songs. I don’t know why her label or someone didn’t say “maybe submit another song that you can actually sing live well”.

I also found her personality really unlikable in general. She was trying too hard to become a bit of a “meme” and I think the mic in the grand performance was turned down to let the crowd’s energy carry her which clearly didn’t work very well
---

In all fairness to the jury, they’re judging on a different criteria to the public. The public vote is basically “I liked it” whereas the jury should have a more critical perspective

Songs that didn’t seem to go down well with the public (such as Spain) should be saved a bit by the jury. I wasn’t a fan of the song but overall it was an experience and her vocals were undoubtedly impressive. The problem is that the jury seem to reflect on their personal tastes a lot and what they deem to be “radio friendly” and it’s disappointing because you end up with very cookie cutter songs in most cases

Also in all fairness to the jury, they're watching a completely different performance the night before and marking that, so someone could have a storming performance there and then blow it on the televised night.

 

[Mrs Fluff]

5 per country it seems:

Grand Final of Liverpool 2023 - Eurovision Song Contest

Official website of the Eurovision Song Contest. The latest news, photos, videos, participant info, voting results, the Contest's rich history and much more.

eurovision.tv

There should be a breakdown by each juror too somewhere. Brooke has confirmed that she was juror D (because they do it anonymously when ranking) for Ireland

I'm actually a bit pissed off with the Irish jury for giving Sweden 12

 

[Yel]

In all fairness to the jury, they’re judging on a different criteria to the public. The public vote is basically “I liked it” whereas the jury should have a more critical perspective

Agree. I never really get the argument that the jury shouldn't exist because it's often got a different opinion to the public. Like that's the whole point of them.

Sure it's not perfect, but the jury isn't supposed to mirror the public. The show is all the better with the two separate set of votes, kinda like a 2nd chamber.

I don't trust the public to vote on anything, boaty mc boatface and all that.

 

[IndominusRex]

Mans nailed it on the bbc Eurovision podcast - Eurovision isn’t about producing a radio friendly bop, it’s about producing a perfect three minute performance. Mae couldn’t do that and it showed.
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I still say the result was a fix. I phoned the voting line, and voted for Israel but according to Graham Norton, I voted for Cyprus. Thanks for that Graham!

I voted Australia and Graham said ‘thank you for voting for germany’

 

[Pipsy]

Changed my mind, Mae probably did deserve to be at the bottom. I focus too much on song and not vocal performance.

What is the Beeb trying to say here? That it was not "Eurovision" enough or Europeans just couldn't groove with us? Sounds so condescending.

Why did the UK do so badly at Eurovision?
In retrospect, there's also a peculiar Britishness to I Wrote A Song that might not have translated outside the UK.

It's a pithy, sarcastic track about taking revenge on an ex-boyfriend - not by trashing their car or burning their house down, but by writing an excoriating song about how rubbish they are.

In a contest where the top songs all featured sincere, straightforward messages about overcoming adversity and standing up for love, Mae's post-modern, meta-textual lyrics failed to find an audience.

 

[Merpedy]

Solo did well with the public despite being on the same wave as Mae’s song and the Polish girl has been bullied the whole season because of some nepotism controversy and poor pronunciation which turned into a meme

The idea that the song was just too British doesn’t float at all

 

[Yel]

In a contest where the top songs all featured sincere, straightforward messages about overcoming adversity and standing up for love, Mae's post-modern, meta-textual lyrics failed to find an audience.

They're not totally wrong, but it's so pretentious the way they put it across.

Yes it needs to be in your face what the message of the song is and no one will get it on one listen with barely audible vocals. Not about it being too British though. Dua with "new rules" and "I don't give a duck" charted everywhere.

 

[DanDanTheIceCreamMan]

They're not totally wrong, but it's so pretentious the way they put it across.

Yes it needs to be in your face what the message of the song is and no one will get it on one listen with barely audible vocals. Not about it being too British though. Dua with "new rules" and "I don't give a duck" charted everywhere.

Yeah we never go big enough... The staging needs to be full on in your face to get attention. Look at Croatia, an absolute travesty of a song, but UNFORGETTABLE in every bloody way. With Sam Ryder, I still think the staging was tit but he had the stage presence to carry it through.

Eurovision is very much about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, go big or go home.

I did wonder earlier, what would happen if we sent an opera singer (do a France). Big voice, big dress, just needs to stand on a podium while staging happens around them....

 

[Gym&Tonic]

Apparently it was the most watched Eurovision final ever with eleven million viewers.

 

[Millennial Pink]

Changed my mind, Mae probably did deserve to be at the bottom. I focus too much on song and not vocal performance.

What is the Beeb trying to say here? That it was not "Eurovision" enough or Europeans just couldn't groove with us? Sounds so condescending.

Why did the UK do so badly at Eurovision?
In retrospect, there's also a peculiar Britishness to I Wrote A Song that might not have translated outside the UK.

It's a pithy, sarcastic track about taking revenge on an ex-boyfriend - not by trashing their car or burning their house down, but by writing an excoriating song about how rubbish they are.

In a contest where the top songs all featured sincere, straightforward messages about overcoming adversity and standing up for love, Mae's post-modern, meta-textual lyrics failed to find an audience.

I read it as the song was too high concept and required more than a single 3 minute listen to get the point across. However, I don't really buy that either. The song that came second was in Finnish, which I'm guessing most of Europe won't understand but did well because it was fun and had a catchy hook. It could be argued that Mae's song was also fun and had a catchy hook so why didn't it do better? I still think the vocal and staging were the issue, along with the fact there were a lot of solo female pop songs this year, so it just got lost.

In terms of sending an opera singer, Estonia sent a great opera entry in 2018 with a fantastic dress and it came 8th. Hardly a bad result, but I'm not sure Europe is into opera enough any more for it to be a winner.

 

[Merpedy]

I’ve seen some interesting suggestions that we should try to go down the cultural route with Wales, Scotland or NI. It would be interesting to see but I don’t think it would happen

I think the staging was fine (at least prop wise). Mae not being able to dance and sing, or just control her breathing + the outfit is where the problem lies I think

The song is also not great or wasn’t very well promoted. The polish song has charted in some countries and had radio play, plus the prediction is that it may go viral as a summer bop

 

[inyo]

They had several weeks to iron out the audio issues but did nothing.

I don't think it would've done well regardless but they still let her down.

BBC accused of ruining Mae Muller's Eurovision chances

Viewers complained they struggled to hear UK entry over her backing music

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Hannahebee]

I still say the result was a fix. I phoned the voting line, and voted for Israel but according to Graham Norton, I voted for Cyprus. Thanks for that Graham!

I tried voting numerous times but I constantly got the busy signal and in the end I only managed to get through twice before the busy signal came back.

 

[Pipsy]

I’ve seen some interesting suggestions that we should try to go down the cultural route with Wales, Scotland or NI. It would be interesting to see but I don’t think it would happen

I think the staging was fine (at least prop wise). Mae not being able to dance and sing, or just control her breathing + the outfit is where the problem lies I think

The song is also not great or wasn’t very well promoted. The polish song has charted in some countries and had radio play, plus the prediction is that it may go viral as a summer bop

Sorry for being dim, but what do you mean by cultural route? Traditional music from those countries or no longer enter as the UK?

 

[DanDanTheIceCreamMan]

Sorry for being dim, but what do you mean by cultural route? Traditional music from those countries or no longer enter as the UK?

I've seen a few comments elsewhere about us sending someone singing in welsh etc so I'm assuming that. It would be nice to show we have other languages in the UK.