Eurovision Reaction Thread

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have been arguing about it for half an hour at work. :(

Comments

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an hour well spent!

It didn't start until 11pm locally so I didn't even watch it this year. Shameful, I am, shameful. (Of course, I've already had years to live with Vera Serduchka.)

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

We may be seeing more of Verka (in the UK at least) - (s)he's currently sitting at no. 14 in the iTunes download chart, so there's a chance it could sneak into the top 40 this week thanks to the new chart rules here. I don't remember a non-winning song actually charting in the UK before, at least since I've been aware of the contest.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Reaction in Slovenia was weird (I was in Ljubljana for a long weekend and watched it in a bar in the centre of the city). The Slovenes generally don't get along that well with their Balkan neighbours, and generally, there was booing of the performances by Serbia and Bosnia. Yet when the voting was announced, Slovenia gave Serbia 12 points, which confused me. Personally, I'm very disappointed that Ukraine didn't win, with the most camp Eurovision song since Dana International, whilst I also had high hopes for Germany's swing effort, and was thoroughly annoyed with Malta and Ireland for ruining our own nil points attempt.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I thought Germany's effort was horrible. That whole rat pack re-creation thing gives me the creeps at the best of times and it was like they'd purposefully ratcheted up the creepiness even further. Plus the lyrics were horrendously misogynistic.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Germany was terrible! Almost as bad as Ireland!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I text-voted for Romania and Georgia. Other highlights: Ukraine, Sweden, Romanian entries on youtube that didn't make it (one called "Dracula, My Love (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-BxdC3-l0Y)" is SO AWESOME...)

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

Ooh I liked Georgia too! There were some ACE frocks on display also.

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

I actually watched Eurovision for the first time and got really into it! Paul, flatmate K and I were betting on who we THOUGHT was going to win. I wanted to vote Serbia but K got in there first, so I had Ukraine (who I actually liked best of them all) and Paul had Russia. AND THEY WERE THE TOP 3! I am impressed with our collective Eurovision nous.

I larffed non-stop at Sweden and all the GOTHS.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Haha barrysarll has three of their albums:)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

The Ark make some good music so I don't really understand why they submitted something which was like T-Rex if T-Rex were a boring covers band of themselves in 2007? :(

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I really have no idea why Sweden placed in the bottom half, their song was excellent. Similarly I have no idea why that emo-ballad, above all the others, got so many points (far more than can be explained by just tribalism).

Early on, when it appeared to be between Ukraine, Serbia, Latvia (I think? The mental drumming one) and Turkey, we were saying "anyone but Turkey", but naturally after it thinned out we were rooting for the Ukraine.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Latvia was the rubbish opera Il Divo one. Bulgaria was mental drumming IIRC.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Bulgaria was the mental drumming one - my favourite! And I felt vindicated when G3ir Hongr0 called it the worst song in the contest on The Bad Place. Percussion plus goth plus eurotrance - WINNER.

Ukraine I was disappointed with - tried too hard and too cynically somehow - but at least their mentalist had a streak of actual menace in him.

ALSO: Best pre-voting entertainment ever! We've come a long way since Riverdance?

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Also to hell with all of you, the real winner is and remains Terry Wogan.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i have located the real actual tribalism

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I thought Wogan was rubbish - bored and boring. But today a colleague has already run the 'he's the only good thing about it' line at me. UNRTUEST THING EVAH.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

I was gutted when Andorra's Busted copycat band didn't make it out of the semis personally, once they'd gone it all seemed less fun.

Can't even remember how the Serbia entry went, I can still picture the Zammo-a-like singer but that's about it.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

This has been here ages and nobody's noticed my deliberate mistake! Or pointed it out, anyway.

I'm thinking of Roland, not Zammo, obviously.

A question for the oldsters

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

When did the perception of Eurovision as 'camp' get so entrenched here?

The most unedifying aspect of the post-match reaction here hasn't been the "oh it's all bloc voting" stuff (which explains which countries are likely to win but not why specific winners and losers do well or badly) but angry reactions about how voters who hated Scooch "don't understand" what Eurovision is "about".

Looking at the last two years, I think we need a return to the jury system, said jury to consist of jel_bugle and NO OTHER.

the tipping (the velvet) point

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

= dana international surely?

(wasn't that the first year of viewer-voting? which made it clear "who" was listening)

one MASSIVE thing in favour of serbia -- the song itself WASN'T camp, it was an impassioned, very well-performed power ballad --- "I CAN'T LIE TO GOD"

scooch got exactly what they deserved, seeing as their song screamed "you gheys you will vote for anything" -- maybe they placed one higher than they should, as the irish entry was i think less cynical, and (once you strip out understandable weariuness at dilddly diddly celticry) better

(also just tactically: "MY SONG IT WILL RECREATE THE AMBIENCE OF A TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT" = who the hell is going to think mmm lovely transatlantic flight)

"mrs wogan"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

mein host for the evening PTEE mentioned this personage and i was astonished: it had never occurred to me that wogan was not a wannabe swinging bachelor who never actually landed a date

i think his tenure is deeply related to the SATANIC REIGN of THE WRONG CAMP -- i hope the scooch debalce has ended NORTON'S chances of continuing the bad

Re: "mrs wogan"

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I thought he was more in the Clarkson 'probably completely whipped when he's at home' category.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

My mother says there were "far too many women who looked like they ought to be on Conan the Barbarian."

I didn't watch it so can't tell whether this is some previously unrevealed tendency towards racial slurs or whether this was actually true.

SCOOCH OF THE ANTARCTIC

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the thing wogan&ilk never adverts to is that the NEWER entrants, from Expanded Europe, actually care and mind how they do and put some FUCKING WORK into their entries, and are thus voting for one another on decent mututally respectful craft-skills terms as much as anything

cf "amundsen's norwegians ALREADY KNEW HOW TO SKI the big cheats"

Re: SCOOCH OF THE ANTARCTIC

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The analogy I used at work is how, if the London Marathon had been the first modern marathon, we would be consistently entering men dressed as furry animals into all the other ones and then complaining when we came last.

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

i dont like rat pack as musicians or actors (i do like them as pimps and thugs), and find most of the simulacra fairly annoying, this included. However, i still have a soft spot for Robbie Williams attempt

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

why did you think the ukrainains were cynical, the dressing up, the randomness, the sheer camp and even the menace were similar to dana international or lordi

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

i think that the idea that you cannot watch it for camp, and pure enjoyment is a falsehood. geoff parkes (queen g) writes eloquenlty about that in his lj. i mean i watch eurovision for similar reasons to liking liza minelli and musical theater, because it does have a kind of queer gaze to it...but that queer gaze is one of genuine love and bemusement not cynical detachment.

the queen is dead

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

whatever happened to the rumours that moz was going to perform?