It occurs to me, nearly one week on, that I haven't written about this year's Eurovision Song Contest; held in Moscow.
Sadly, since it's been a few days I don't think I'll be able to comment on perhaps some of the more obscure acts of the contest. Saying that however, I don't recall it being an overly bizarre event.
Perhaps I have just established some kind of mental block, eliminating the poor and shameful acts from my consciousness but I do believe that the Eurovision Song Contest is becoming more serious. Nations are taking it more seriously - and so are we in the UK. Or at least we did this year.
I'm very pleased to be able to write that we did very well in this competition. Every time I have reviewed the event in the past, I have had to make reference to the poor performance of the UK entry. This time however; thanks to Jade's performance and Andrew Lloyd Webber on the piano; our nation ranked 5th out of 25 countries.
In order to eliminate some of the political voting that has marred the contest for so many years, this time jury voting was introduced which accounted for 50% of a countries score. The other 50% still being made up by the public telephone vote. On the face of it, one might consider that this is why we did well and indeed it did help. Looking at an unofficial source of results however, shows that with only the telephone vote, our song would still have scored 7th. Yes the jury vote has helped us, but not by such a significant margin as one might imagine.
To me though, this result really does prove that by putting in a lot of effort in using a talented singer, known song-writer and heavy European marketing; we can still do well.
Now the mission is to do the same again next year. On the back of a good result, can we entice performers that are well known in Europe to get involved? It is important to build on what went well this year, and improve our weaker points. Then maybe (but just maybe) we will be hosting the Eurovision Song Contest.
Sadly, since it's been a few days I don't think I'll be able to comment on perhaps some of the more obscure acts of the contest. Saying that however, I don't recall it being an overly bizarre event.
Perhaps I have just established some kind of mental block, eliminating the poor and shameful acts from my consciousness but I do believe that the Eurovision Song Contest is becoming more serious. Nations are taking it more seriously - and so are we in the UK. Or at least we did this year.
I'm very pleased to be able to write that we did very well in this competition. Every time I have reviewed the event in the past, I have had to make reference to the poor performance of the UK entry. This time however; thanks to Jade's performance and Andrew Lloyd Webber on the piano; our nation ranked 5th out of 25 countries.
In order to eliminate some of the political voting that has marred the contest for so many years, this time jury voting was introduced which accounted for 50% of a countries score. The other 50% still being made up by the public telephone vote. On the face of it, one might consider that this is why we did well and indeed it did help. Looking at an unofficial source of results however, shows that with only the telephone vote, our song would still have scored 7th. Yes the jury vote has helped us, but not by such a significant margin as one might imagine.
To me though, this result really does prove that by putting in a lot of effort in using a talented singer, known song-writer and heavy European marketing; we can still do well.
Now the mission is to do the same again next year. On the back of a good result, can we entice performers that are well known in Europe to get involved? It is important to build on what went well this year, and improve our weaker points. Then maybe (but just maybe) we will be hosting the Eurovision Song Contest.
The UK entry for this year's Eurovision song contest was decided just a short while ago, voted for by the British public on the BBC One show "Eurovision: Your Country Needs You".
For the last 5 weeks, potential performers have been auditioning for the chance to represent the nation in Moscow; tonight for the first time, the final three performed the song penned by the Diane Warren and Andrew Lloyd Webber - "My Time".
Out of all of the hopefuls, the winning singer - Jade Ewen - was the right choice, clearly having talent above that of the others. Which is not to say that all others were bad although some were. However, the song itself was maybe not the show-stopper that the hype had built up.
It's no real surprise that it's a theatrical song. It is a ballad, although that may be in our favour since our recent entries have been cheesy, poppy and upbeat. However, it is very repetitive. Whether that just means it'll stick in the minds of the voters in May or not remains to be seen but at the moment I am slightly sceptical but happy to be proved wrong.
When it comes to May, I'm not looking for the UK to win the competition; I think that it's just a little too much to ask considering our recent record. All I would like is to see us obtain a more respectable position. Perhaps if we can at least get halfway up the scoreboard then it's a positive sign that - just possibly - we could be making our way out of our Eurovision slump.
For the last 5 weeks, potential performers have been auditioning for the chance to represent the nation in Moscow; tonight for the first time, the final three performed the song penned by the Diane Warren and Andrew Lloyd Webber - "My Time".
Out of all of the hopefuls, the winning singer - Jade Ewen - was the right choice, clearly having talent above that of the others. Which is not to say that all others were bad although some were. However, the song itself was maybe not the show-stopper that the hype had built up.
It's no real surprise that it's a theatrical song. It is a ballad, although that may be in our favour since our recent entries have been cheesy, poppy and upbeat. However, it is very repetitive. Whether that just means it'll stick in the minds of the voters in May or not remains to be seen but at the moment I am slightly sceptical but happy to be proved wrong.
When it comes to May, I'm not looking for the UK to win the competition; I think that it's just a little too much to ask considering our recent record. All I would like is to see us obtain a more respectable position. Perhaps if we can at least get halfway up the scoreboard then it's a positive sign that - just possibly - we could be making our way out of our Eurovision slump.
Well it wasn't really a surprise that the United Kingdom didn't win this years contest (again), but it was disappointing that we came joint last along with Poland and Germany. It feels that we increasingly have little chance of winning other contest, let alone feature in the top 10.
I'd like to restate my idea of re-vamping the contest to make it fairer. It's no secret that there is political voting going on in the competition, which makes it a bit daft to call it a song contest.
The idea, which I raised back in 2007, was to keep all songs secret until the night of the performance. The songs should all be sung in the same language which can change randomly each year, or be chosen by a draw. When the songs are performed, no clue is given to which country the song is representing meaning the song, performers or stage set cannot give this information away. Scoring is by way of a top 10. When the voting is over, only then can the countries be revealed.
Another issue that Charlie and I discussed, was that maybe the UK has become complacent due to the fact that it is guaranteed a place in the final each year since we contribute to the funding on the contest. Maybe it's time we stopped this funding. We would therefore need to qualify each year, including competing in the semi-finals. If we were knocked out in the semi-finals a few times, we might start considering putting more effort into our entries.
Now, I don't want anyone to think that I thought our entry this year was bad. There were plenty of poor songs in the show, and according to the scores that Charlie, Kate and myself came up with, we weren't one of them. However, I think consideration needs to be given to the fact that our performer (Andy Abrahams) is an unknown, not just in Europe but in the UK as well. Compare that to Russia's performer Dima Bilan who, according to BBC News is a well known performer not only in Russia but outside of it's borders. Apparently he has also won an MTV Award.
Maybe we need to put forward a performer who is known in at least a few European countries. The trouble is, would we be able to find such an artist in the UK where the opinion is often that once a Eurovision performer, that's it for the career?
I don't want to sound like a sore loser, but something needs to be done to make this contest fairer and to allow the scoreboard to truly reflect the best song in Europe.
All that said though, I do still love Eurovision!
I'd like to restate my idea of re-vamping the contest to make it fairer. It's no secret that there is political voting going on in the competition, which makes it a bit daft to call it a song contest.
The idea, which I raised back in 2007, was to keep all songs secret until the night of the performance. The songs should all be sung in the same language which can change randomly each year, or be chosen by a draw. When the songs are performed, no clue is given to which country the song is representing meaning the song, performers or stage set cannot give this information away. Scoring is by way of a top 10. When the voting is over, only then can the countries be revealed.
Another issue that Charlie and I discussed, was that maybe the UK has become complacent due to the fact that it is guaranteed a place in the final each year since we contribute to the funding on the contest. Maybe it's time we stopped this funding. We would therefore need to qualify each year, including competing in the semi-finals. If we were knocked out in the semi-finals a few times, we might start considering putting more effort into our entries.
Now, I don't want anyone to think that I thought our entry this year was bad. There were plenty of poor songs in the show, and according to the scores that Charlie, Kate and myself came up with, we weren't one of them. However, I think consideration needs to be given to the fact that our performer (Andy Abrahams) is an unknown, not just in Europe but in the UK as well. Compare that to Russia's performer Dima Bilan who, according to BBC News is a well known performer not only in Russia but outside of it's borders. Apparently he has also won an MTV Award.
Maybe we need to put forward a performer who is known in at least a few European countries. The trouble is, would we be able to find such an artist in the UK where the opinion is often that once a Eurovision performer, that's it for the career?
I don't want to sound like a sore loser, but something needs to be done to make this contest fairer and to allow the scoreboard to truly reflect the best song in Europe.
All that said though, I do still love Eurovision!
This year's Eurovision Song Contest is a bit of a marathon (and all the better for it) with 2 semi finals, the first held last Tuesday, and the second held this evening to determine 20 songs (10 per semi) which will compete in the final on Saturday.
To get in the spirit of the occasion, I scored all songs even though the UK was not permitted to vote on Tuesday (something to do with not voting for your neighbour. Ireland was in it, so we couldn't vote).
I had a fairly simple scoring system, based on what was done in last years final. Each country was judged on the following categories:
Each category could score between 1-4 points, with 4 being the best giving a maximum total of 16 points by the end of the main performances.
Then, to try and break any possible deadlock, the countries were scored again during the recap without reference to the previous scores. This time, there was only one category - overall impression - again scored out of 4. This was added to the total score giving a rating out of 20.
I then ordered my results. In a tie situation, the earlier performer took the higher position. The top ten songs became my choices to go through to the final.
So lets look at my scores for both semi finals:
TuesdayThursday
These scores resulted in the following charts:
TuesdayThursday
In my opinion, tonights show featured a much better quality of song with much fewer daft songs of the sort that Ireland performed on Tuesday (which I must admit I did rather enjoy)
In the above charts, in my opinion the songs below those which are underlined should have been the ones to go out assuming I'm talking fair and letting the best go through. I did have the thought though that maybe I should have been favouring the worst in order to give our song the best chance on Saturday night.
In actual fact, the countries that are in bold are the ones that did go through to the final and will be competing on Saturday night. Actually my scoring tonight wasn't too bad - only two wrong.
And what of the UK's chances this year? Well I think our song stands up well with those that went through. I think it beats the socks off the songs put forward by the other four automatic qualifiers (France, Spain, Germany and Serbia). I don't know that it will stand out enough to win (we're performing second - the voters need to remember it), but hopefully it will do reasonably well.
To get in the spirit of the occasion, I scored all songs even though the UK was not permitted to vote on Tuesday (something to do with not voting for your neighbour. Ireland was in it, so we couldn't vote).
I had a fairly simple scoring system, based on what was done in last years final. Each country was judged on the following categories:
- Song - how good is the tune
- Performance - how well could the performer actually sing
- Dance - dance routine and general stage presence including lighting and pyrotechnics
- Outfit - How well did the costume work with the performance
Each category could score between 1-4 points, with 4 being the best giving a maximum total of 16 points by the end of the main performances.
Then, to try and break any possible deadlock, the countries were scored again during the recap without reference to the previous scores. This time, there was only one category - overall impression - again scored out of 4. This was added to the total score giving a rating out of 20.
I then ordered my results. In a tie situation, the earlier performer took the higher position. The top ten songs became my choices to go through to the final.
So lets look at my scores for both semi finals:
TuesdayThursday
- Montenegro:3,3,2,2,2 = 12
- Israel:2,2,1,2,2 = 09
- Estonia:3,3,2,2,3 = 13
- Moldova:2,2,1,1,1 = 07
- San Marino:2,3,2,1,1 = 09
- Belgium:3,3,1,2,3 = 12
- Azerbaijan:2,3,2,3,3 = 13
- Slovenia:3,3,3,3,4 = 16
- Norway:4,4,3,2,3 = 16
- Poland:3,4,2,3,2 = 14
- Ireland:4,2,4,4,2 = 16
- Andorra:3,3,3,3,4 = 16
- Boznia & Herzegovina:3,1,1,1,2 = 08
- Armenia:3,2,3,3,2 = 13
- Netherlands:4,3,3,3,3 = 16
- Finland:4,4,3,3,4 = 18
- Romania:3,2,1,2,1 = 09
- Russia:3,2,3,1,2 = 11
- Greece:3,3,4,3,3 = 16
- Iceland:4,3,2,2,3 = 14
- Sweden:4,4,3,2,3 = 16
- Turkey:4,3,3,3,2 = 15
- Ukraine:4,4,4,3,4 = 19
- Lithuania2,2,1,2,1 = 08
- Albania3,2,2,2,2 = 11
- Switzerland3,2,3,2,3 = 13
- Czech Republic3,2,3,3,2 = 13
- Belarus2,1,3,3,2 = 11
- Latvia:3,2,3,4,3 = 15
- Croatia:3,4,2,3,3 = 15
- Bulgaria3,3,4,3,3 = 16
- Denmark4,4,3,3,4 = 18
- Georgia4,4,3,3,3 = 17
- Hungary3,3,2,2,2 = 12
- Malta3,3,3,3,3 = 15
- Cyprus2,2,3,3,1 = 11
- FYR Macedonia2,2,3,2,2 = 11
- Portugal2,2,2,3,2 = 11
These scores resulted in the following charts:
TuesdayThursday
- Finland (18pts)
- Slovenia (16pts)Norway (16pts)Ireland (16pts)Andorra (16pts)Netherlands (16pts)Greece (16pts)
- Poland (14pts)
- Estonia (13pts)Azerbaijan (13pts)
- Montenegro (12pts)Belgium (12pts)
- Russia (11pts)
- Israel (9pts)San Marino (9pts)Romania (9pts)
- Boznia & Herzegovina (8pts)
- Moldova (7pts)
- Ukraine (19pts)
- Denmark (18pts)
- Georgia (17pts)
- Sweden (16pts)Bulgaria (16pts)
- Turkey (15pts)Latvia (15pts)Croatia (15pts)Malta (15pts)
- Iceland (14pts)
- Switzerland (13pts)Czech Republic (13pts)
- Hungary (12pts)
- Albania (11pts)Belarus (11pts)Cyprus (11pts)FYR Macedonia (11pts)Portugal (11pts)
- Lithuania (8pts)
In my opinion, tonights show featured a much better quality of song with much fewer daft songs of the sort that Ireland performed on Tuesday (which I must admit I did rather enjoy)
In the above charts, in my opinion the songs below those which are underlined should have been the ones to go out assuming I'm talking fair and letting the best go through. I did have the thought though that maybe I should have been favouring the worst in order to give our song the best chance on Saturday night.
In actual fact, the countries that are in bold are the ones that did go through to the final and will be competing on Saturday night. Actually my scoring tonight wasn't too bad - only two wrong.
And what of the UK's chances this year? Well I think our song stands up well with those that went through. I think it beats the socks off the songs put forward by the other four automatic qualifiers (France, Spain, Germany and Serbia). I don't know that it will stand out enough to win (we're performing second - the voters need to remember it), but hopefully it will do reasonably well.
On Saturday, the BBC hosted it's annual programme dedicated to choosing the song that would represent us in the Eurovision Song Contest later this year.
The line up of artists, to be frank, was pitiful. All of them (with the exception of Michelle Gayle?) were runners-up to some TV talent competition including X-Factor and "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?". Unsuprisingly, the majority of these acts were awful.
The 6 acts in question were:
Lovshy (has anybody heard of them before now???) simply could not sing. I don't know how they managed to wangle their way onto a BBC stage, but they may as well have been two people picked at random from the local karaoke bar. To give them airtime was simply an embarassment.
The revelations were marginally better, but still there were problems getting some of those notes in tune. They also sounded like they were shouting. The song was a throw back to the 60's style motown girl bands. Not impressed.
Rob McVeigh, although a loseing contestant in "Any Dream Will Do", he could actually hold a note - well most of them, and in comparison to the previous two was flipping marvelous. His song was a ballad though, and although that's not necessarily a problem, it was quite unmemorable.
I don't know what Simona Armstrong was wearing, but it wasn't pretty. Neither was her song. She described it as pop rock. I don't think it quite managed to rock bit. The song was boring and she was weird.
Andy Abrahams was my favourite. He wrote his own song, and held a good tune. His performance could have been stronger with more going on on-stage, but the song was more memorable most of the others. He got my vote - twice!
I expected to like Michelle Gayle, and to be fair when the song started, it seemed okay. When it got into the chorus though, that's when it went out of the window for me. She was being a bit too mad, and couldn't stay in front of the microphone meaning the sound was horrible. I know it could just be a technical problem but I'm not convinced.
I'm quite glad that for once the great British public sided with me and voted for the best performer by a long way - Andy Abrahams. He won the competition and will be performing at this years Eurovision. Whether it'll be enough to win, I don't know but we'll hopefully beat Ireland at least - who have a weird puppet chicken on stage!
The line up of artists, to be frank, was pitiful. All of them (with the exception of Michelle Gayle?) were runners-up to some TV talent competition including X-Factor and "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?". Unsuprisingly, the majority of these acts were awful.
The 6 acts in question were:
- Loveshy (YouTube)
- The Revelations (YouTube)
- Rob McVeigh (YouTube)
- Simona Armstrong (YouTube)
- Andy Abraham (YouTube)
- Michelle Gayle (YouTube)
Lovshy (has anybody heard of them before now???) simply could not sing. I don't know how they managed to wangle their way onto a BBC stage, but they may as well have been two people picked at random from the local karaoke bar. To give them airtime was simply an embarassment.
The revelations were marginally better, but still there were problems getting some of those notes in tune. They also sounded like they were shouting. The song was a throw back to the 60's style motown girl bands. Not impressed.
Rob McVeigh, although a loseing contestant in "Any Dream Will Do", he could actually hold a note - well most of them, and in comparison to the previous two was flipping marvelous. His song was a ballad though, and although that's not necessarily a problem, it was quite unmemorable.
I don't know what Simona Armstrong was wearing, but it wasn't pretty. Neither was her song. She described it as pop rock. I don't think it quite managed to rock bit. The song was boring and she was weird.
Andy Abrahams was my favourite. He wrote his own song, and held a good tune. His performance could have been stronger with more going on on-stage, but the song was more memorable most of the others. He got my vote - twice!
I expected to like Michelle Gayle, and to be fair when the song started, it seemed okay. When it got into the chorus though, that's when it went out of the window for me. She was being a bit too mad, and couldn't stay in front of the microphone meaning the sound was horrible. I know it could just be a technical problem but I'm not convinced.
I'm quite glad that for once the great British public sided with me and voted for the best performer by a long way - Andy Abrahams. He won the competition and will be performing at this years Eurovision. Whether it'll be enough to win, I don't know but we'll hopefully beat Ireland at least - who have a weird puppet chicken on stage!