Eurovision 2010(Norway)

[fanoff]

Tomorrow is the firstr semi final!

[little_polar_bear]

Yes, Iceland!!! If not on Saturday, Hera Björk's gonna be number one tonight - at least for me, even though they've killed the original instrumental...

Edit: Woohoo, never have I liked a semi final end result better. Iceland was 'randomly' picked at the very end - so Hera got most likely most of the votes. NICE!

[spyretto]

dont get your hopes too high , all the better songs are in the second semi, the winner will be from there.

[fanoff]

And most likely Azerbaijan will be the winner.

[little_polar_bear]

Well, I didn't say Iceland will win the whole contest, but I'm simply happy the people seemed to like the song. Hera got a rather bad spot in the final after the Albanian Madonna-woman which is up-beat too...
Portugal and Belgium were nice surprises yesterday.

It was horrible to see that Serbia has qualified :/

Azerbaijan has stairs (seldom looks great in heels) and the girl doesn't really look happy when she's singing. If she won't change that, I can't see her winning. Maybe we'll have a surprise this year after last year's obvious Rybak. Would be good.

[spyretto]

So the 2nd semi final was fun but its now over, the remaining ten countries to qualify are:

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Denmark
Cyprus
Ireland
Israel
Romania
Turkey
Ukraine

Huge surprise with the odds that Sweden and Croatia are out, but I didn't think they were particularly good on the night, especially Croatia. Their songs weren't particularly good either. Ukraine deserved it, was slightly surprised about Cyprus though, boring song.

Azerbaijan, a winning performance? The opinions vary, I personally don't think it's a winning performance but I gotta see it again. On the other hand I was surprised at how good Georgia was, very tough to be singing and doing choreography at the same time but she was flawless.

Good luck to all contestants for the final.

[little_polar_bear]

My personal top ten for the final (from the big five, I might like Spain the most). Not sure if this order will survive the final...

Iceland
Turkey
Ukraine
Portugal
Israel
Albania
Armenia
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Moldova

[Argos]

Quite a lot of disappointment this year. Just a few interesting songs, mostly uninspired performances. I can widely agree with the choice of the finalists. Personally I liked only Alyosha Kucher from Ukraine so far. Without her I would say, the top hit music of the ESC week is the Eurovision hymn.

[little_polar_bear]

Yes, this year is pretty weak but I did expect it to be even worse... Norway, the UK, France and Germany will be awful enough...

Argos, I agree with you that the Ukraine is the only country that stood out because they did something unusual - not a pop song but catchy somehow and emotionally very strong. Great voice and the performance was convincing too.

[spyretto]

I'm struggling to find a personal top 10 among the finalists, in fact I only really like four songs which are unsurprisingly amongst the favourites: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia. After those I'm faintly liking France - it's got a soccer fest vibe to it, so its seasonal and catchy - but I saw the rehearsals and they're truly awful...after that, hmm it's a real struggle, perhaps Albania? Germany? just for its quirkiness and I really hope she doesn't win. Ukraine? I really like the performance but I can't warm up to the song still. The other ballads all sound the same to me. Equally strong songs at the top but overall a mediocre year.

Oh well if I really had to push myself for a top 10 I could easily add up Iceland, Moldova ( similar songs ) and Denmark as an alternate and there you have a pretty respectable but unremarkable top 10-11. The ballads didn't do it for me this season.

I'm curious to see how Russia will do

[thegurgi]

i usually have a lot of fun with Eurovision each year, but this year? Oh my... what a weak showing! These countries must've exhausted their efforts last year with Moscow (maybe this is remnant of cold war sentiments when countries felt they need to show off to Russia to prove themselves) but i'm not sure. The only songs I can really get through are Estonia, Azerbaijan, Germany and like maybe 2 others. And with the exception of Estonia, i'm going to follow this band, there's really nothing i even wanted to win. of course, Estonia's song was just in a different league and was looked over, i missed the performance too but it didn't seem as energetic as it was during the Estonian final. So... i'm gonna root for Portugal. Decent song, great voice, charismatic performance. Portugal's been in the contest for like 40 years or something and has no wins. So, go Portugal!

i'm so baffled by the UK entry ... that guy has the same on screen chemistry as a bag of sweets. Maybe in the right light you'll get a reflection off the plastic bag but for the most part it's just dull with empty calories.

Offtop:
not sure where that metaphor came from at all...

[spyretto]

I take it all back about the bottom 3, I don't like Iceland and I don't like this rubbish Germany at all

I'd put Ukraine, Belgium, Cyprus and Portugal in the bottom of the top 4

[Argos]

Let me first name my most cruel performances of the day:
My favourite - France: this soccer cheerleader performance was really aaaawful.
Then we have - Russia: Peter Nalich was simply ridiculous.
The third place - a tie between Norway and Israel. Do those guys really think that this blubbering has to do with music?
Another favourite of mine was Byelorus. Not only the performance with the butterfly thingie was ridiculous, but the music was horrible too, and guess who was the composer! You won't believe it. The great Maksim Fadeev!

Well, to the best ones: The only song which touched me, was Alyosha's, I told it before. I can remember Romania and Georgia for a good performance, Safura from Azerbeidjan had a decent song and wasn't bad as singer. Greek Alkaios was somehow not bad as a performer too (though his song was not so good), the rest ... don't remember.

And as I see some of the most dispensable songs will fight for the victory!

[robbie]

Lena from Germany was amazing! I love the song. MP3, please?

[spyretto]

Looks like the Eurovision song contest was bailed out because Germany was the only country in Europe not in recession and who would therefore be able to host the show. Too bad they chose such a mediocre song and such an uncharismatic performer to do it. RIP Eurovision, welcome Eurotrash.

[little_polar_bear]

Wow, I am surprised I can call myself really alternative now LOL.
No one has yet mentioned Armenia - this woman just looked hot. Can't say more right now because I have never felt this strong urge to laugh out loud after the winner was announced. I don't get Europe and I take this as a very good sign.

[sakuya]

Originally Posted by robbie

Lena from Germany was amazing! I love the song. MP3, please?

here you go ))

[robbie]

sakuya, spasiba!

[Argos]

Not even an average song, not even an average singer, not even an average perfomance, but won. You may blame it on the poor taste of the 'European' people, who voted, but we have a 50% professionals' vote too, and the huge winning margin makes it hard to believe that artistical criteria played a major role in the 'professional' rating. I'm with you, Spy, this smells fishily like collusion or at least 'commercial' decision.

Funny to imagine the EBU officials to run from one participarting country to the other, asking whether they are willing or not to organize the next ESC and then incanting the juries to vote appropriately. So since the voting system has been changed to allow such manipulations, we may have always potent organizers in the future, but which country will put all it's efforts into a competitive song, if the winner is mediated beforehand? I hope it won't lower the quality of the competition, or was this year's poor overall artistical value already the adaption to the new 'climate'?

Just to remind you of the best of ESC 2010 - Alyosha rules!

[little_polar_bear]

It really must look as if Germany were the only country able and willing to pay for a "good" show next year. I strongly agree that it is not only a subordinative decision. Lena of course stood out because she is strange and therefore unusual as such. If she sang and if she pronounced an understandable English, nobody would have recognized her.

So good that Germans are so happy now having Lena all over the place that all the essential questions are put on hold.