I Won't Sleep Tonight
So, I got 9 of 10 qualifiers in the 2nd semifinal (missed Lithuania for Ireland) and 17 of 20 total qualifiers. Calling this not bad.
I went to the jury final last night and it's hard to call a winner from that because I could barely see. Sweden has the most visually stunning performance but it's hard to get if you're not at the right angle - luckily everyone at home is. Israel was the crowd's favorite but it's a very fan favorite sort of song.
As for a winner prediction, it's probably Sweden for a combination of visuals plus accessible song. Right now I don't care who wins, as long as Slovenia gets their best result ever and France gets their best result in 5 years.
Good luck to everyone competing and let's hope the rain clears up by the time everyone has to leave the Wiener Stadthalle!
posted by Goggle @ 1:49 PM
3 Comments:
Took the last couple of years off - tired of the producers increasing interference in the show (determining the performance order, and rigging the order in which the votes are revealed). I think the latter actually DECREASES suspense. It was clear to me the minute the voting order was revealed that Sweden had won the jury vote (and would likely win).
When I first looked at the Wikipedia page for this year's contest last week and saw Australia, I thought "somebody has vandalized the Eurovision Wikipedia page again." I didn't hear a single song until the first semi-final, but it was a relatively easy year to predict (for the semi-finals, I made my predictions after watching the performances, but before the voting). I made my finals predictions before the show, so while I had seen and heard most of the entries during the semi-finals, I had not seen or heard the complete songs for the pre-qualified finalists (I used the brief clips of them shown during the semi-finals).
01 Sweden
02 Italy
03 Russia
04 Australia
05 Norway
06 Estonia
07 Belgium
08 Serbia
09 Georgia
10 Slovenia
11 Israel
12 Romania
13 Hungary
14 Azerbaijan
15 Germany
16 Montenegro
17 France
18 Greece
19 Albania
20 Latvia
21 Austria
22 Armenia
23 Spain
24 Cyprus
25 Lithuania
26 Poland
27 United Kingdom
I can see why Sweden won, and have no complaints (other than the fact that Christer Bjorkman will be able to hang around on the reference group for a few more years - UGH!!!!!, that guy is a menace).
Underestimated Belgium a bit (I don't get it, but I have seen it compared to "Royals," and I never got that song either). The worst miss was Latvia (projected finish 20th, actual finish 6th) I don't understand the appeal of that song at all.
So I ended up with eight of the top ten. Other than Latvia, I was close on most of them, and my predictions 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 finished 10, 11, 14, 9, and 15 respectively. and some of the results in that area of the table were pretty tight on the table (10th 53 points, 11th 51 points, and 12th 49 points).
Absolutely shocked that Germany (and Austria) ended up with null points. I didn't see (or hear) anything wrong with those performances (and they both seemed like decent songs). Germany was my second worse miss. The last zero score in a final (UK 2003) happened mostly because the female vocals were some of the most out of tune I have ever seen at Eurovision.
Countries tended to vote the same way this year (which is required to have two songs top 300 points, and two to finish with nothing).
A lot of people said that France had a great song (and performer). Maybe they did, but it obviously wasn't relevant to Eurovision voters.
Also, there are clearly problems elsewhere in the big five (I am looking at you, United Kingdom).
As for the show itself, the level of production seemed quite high. Really liked the postcards (they were over-edited, though, with some having more than fifty scenes in a less than forty-five second clip). One thing I didn't like though was the length (especially at the beginning- it took over twenty-one minutes from Te Deum until we heard the first note from a contestant), - the show ended just seconds before the four hour mark, a truly butt-numbing length of time. Both times are far too long. These shows are becoming like the Olympic opening ceremonies (with a parade of entrants, no less).
The most annoying thing for me though, is that the political correctness (already running amok) just keeps getting worse and worse. Now we have promises of being "green" (brning more than 10,000 people from all over the world there - really?), and Melodifestivalen has now introduced a rule that half the songs have to be written by female composers / lyricists. I may come back to watch the final and semi-finals in future years, but probably won't be following any of the buildup or national selections going forward.
Hope you enjoyed being there (2009, the year I went, was a lot of fun).
Just for the record - my preferences (this year based on a very limited number of listens, though), listed alphabetically within groups, as usual:
Australia
Estonia
Ireland
Germany
Norway
Russia
Serbia
Slovenia
Azerbaijan
Hungary
Georgia
Israel
Italy
Montenegro
Romania
Sweden
Armenia
Austria
Albania
Belgium
Cyprus
France
Macedonia
Portugal
Belarus
Denmark
Greece
Iceland
Latvia
Malta
Poland
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Finland
Lithuania
Moldova
Netherlands
San Marino
Spain
United Kingdom
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