Eurovision 2011

[YI]

I came into the show with a clean slate of not knowing anything (besides the Lena and Blue songs).

Thoughts;

"Peter is smart, he knows each European country by heart". The night peaked early with that 'gem'. Finland's James Blunt was a bit shit.

Denmark's answer to The Feeling/Scouting For Girls were actually pretty good good.

I have no idea what was 'retro' about Hungary's shitty dance tune. The singer was utterly horrendous to. Whoever did the shitty ballad before her had a giant arse to accompany her shitty song.

Jedward are atrocious, but the song is pretty fucking good, someone get a cover going soon. Loved the costume party Legion Of Doom look too. The lack of coordination was beyond hilarious too.

Sweden was so fucking funny/terrible. It was YIDDISH ELECTRO!! The key change into the chorus, the chord progressions, the final key change towards the end, all it was missing was step by step rising towards the end and it'd have been pure Jew territory. The bloke looked like a bellend and his American accent was annoying.

Estonia started with so much promise. Pretty girl, cool 'trip-hop'-ish verse, but the straight up rubbishy dance chorus really didn't work. A shame, because I was really liking it until then.

The Greasers from Russia were a bit bland, wasn't it part-written by the guy who did "Poker Face"? Or at least that's what Graham Norton was waffling on about. You could tell as soon as the chorus came in.

France. Thought this would do well actually. But sort of glad it didn't. Watching it with my dad and he pretty much felt the need to constantly hammer home that "At what he does, he's not actually that good".

Greece, I have no idea what the fuck went on.

Italy were AMAZING! (in Eurovision terms) So happy they did well, my favourite song. His 'nervous breakdowns' leading into the dodgy plunger muted trumpet parts were hilarious.

Switzerland were so god damn boring. Girl was pretty, but not surprised it came last, typical 'Switzerland', so middle of the road. Also, weird that the singer wound it up for a big last chorus, but the accompanyment stayed at the same level, was weird and didn't work.

Blue did a terrible performance. What the hell was with having Simon Webbe play the part of "Stereotypical black man" and just saying shit like "YEAH!", "LET'S GO!" every now and then. Verse vocals sounded strained as hell and like they were out of breath all the time. Wasn't impressed.

The eccentric ska-punk from Moldova was AWESOME! It just sounded like the last Big D & The Kids Table album (only probably a bit better). Would totally listen to this normally.

Lena was probably the best in all honesty. Brilliant song, performed perfectly as well. Hot as fuck too.

I wanted to like the bloke from County Durham representng Romania, but just didn't get into it.

Austria was dull.

Azerbaijan was always going to win once I'd heard it. Middle of the road, but perfect Eurovision material. It was a song written to win, and it did.

Slovenia was horrendous. She was so 'harsh', not even her stupid 'Aguilera wobblings' that 15-year old girls do when they try to 'sing properly' (although they were shite), it was more she always had harsh sounds when coming off words, really distracting. I would though.

Iceland. How come nobody sings in 'home accents'? Rubbish song too, got as far as it did for 'sobness' factor.

Thought nothing of Spain.

Ukraine was naff. Just watched the sand woman and didn't pay attention to the song for the most part, which I'm sure everyone else must have done for it to come 4th.

Serbia was quite good, a breath of fresh air as after Germany the show had really tailed off in quality.

Georgia, holy fuck, it's Limp Bizkit! With a girl.

So

Italy, Germany and Moldova. Probably the three I'd happily listen to/listen to more from. I found the verse of Estonia and Denmark okay, but they'd annoy me after a while I imagine.

Edited May 15, 2011 by YI

[GA!]

I had no idea why Graham Norton thought Italy's song being 2nd was a shocker. It was a legitimately great song. Germany and Austria were also good if quite dull (sounded like half of Germany's backing track was missing). I still voted for Moldova and Jedward, mind you.

[Herr Matzat]

To those who wanted scooter from germany, the actualy were in for germany but got voted of. Max Mutzke won instead.

[Jimmy]

No one votes out Scooter!

[Herr Matzat]

No one votes out Scooter!

They actualy were in the finale two and got voted of like 97% to 3%.

Thats the song they entered with.

Westbam also entert that year.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Michael Matzat on a Plane

[Jimmy]

Germans have no taste.

[lanky316]

"ones to watch"

Azerbaijan,

Sweden,

Okay so a couple of them bombed, Estonia shocked me more than the French favourite in the end as my one reservations was that opera may not get the public vote. It scored a lot of 1s and 2s so I'll suspect the judges liked it but the vote just wasn't there while I couldn't think of why Estonia wouldn't have some sort of spark there. Italy were a strange spanner in the works as no one thought it'd actually get there. I can retrospectively see why it did well but still surprised at the top 3 finish.

More shockingly the semi-results... Greece actually beat the Azerbaijan entry to qualify.

[Liam]

I backed Denmark and Estonia. Was going to go Azerbaijan (especially as the bookie was talking about it being the 'hot tip'), but they were too short for me.

[lanky316]

It depended when you got in. At one stage they were at around 16s yesterday which I think was the start of the money going on which is when I quickly got an each way punt on. Good call with the Danes though I'd missed them, think I was blinded by the 30 Seconds To Mars similarities too much to think it'd go anywhere. Unlucky with Estonia, can't figure quite why it scored so lowly but turns out it only scraped through the semi, mind you it DID beat the Moldova ska-punk awesomesauce then.

[Liam]

I picked out Denmark primarily because I quite liked the song, but even at the time, I didn't think it was Eurovision-y enough.

When I placed my bet, Azerbaijan were 5/1.

[Mongrel]

Man, I thought Azerbaijan and Italy were fucking terrible.

Sweden did pretty well, and didn't mind the Danes or the Romanians. Actually, Romania's song was catchy as fuck.

[Herr Matzat]

What was that song? Denmark ot something? Common girls.... common boys.... lalalalala.... i can´t get it out of my had.

[Liam]

Denmark.

C'mon boys, c'mon girls, it's a crazy crazy world.

Something like that.

[therockbox]

YOU'RE THE DIAMOND YOU'RE THE PEARLS

[Liam]

LETS MAKE A NEW TOMORROW

EWB Singalong!

Edited May 15, 2011 by Liam

[Sam]

The Azerbaijan song was vintage Eurovision, it deserved to win. I really disliked the Greece song though and don't understand how they got so many points. I think the Spanish song deserved to do better than what it did.

[Herr Matzat]

Ok, it´s actualy not that good in one pice. But still very nice.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Michael Matzat on a Plane

[Katsuya]

So, the jury/televoting results have been announced now. Azerbaijan won the televote and came 2nd in the jury vote, which means it's the first time since the split results came back that the winner didn't get 1st in both televote and jury. Italy demolished everyone in the jury vote, which reeks a little bit of pandering to the Italians to keep them happy and around for a while.

Blue came 5th in the televote but were 22nd in the jury, which is apparently about right since their jury performance was meant to be god awful and worse than they were on the night itself. Jedward did better with the juries than they did the televoting, too. The televote also helped Greece and Sweden massively. It's also a bit depressing to see Russia came 7th in the televote but 25th and last in the jury; it wasn't *that* bad but I suppose if you wanna show some eastern european bias, it's there. Certainly the televote top 10 was split between East & West though, so it's not like it's still an obvious thing.

[Herr Matzat]

I think they need jurys in the Eurovision Country selections, so there is no shitty act being pushed to the finales by the media or a tv show hype. But wen it comes to the finales and lot´s of people vote on lot´s of stuff they barly ever heard before i don´t see the point of five people jury taking 50% of each countrys vote.