oh well, perhaps next year the Azerbaijanis will finally learn how to sing their song properly cause those vocals at the end were embarrassing. But well done to them.
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It's a better idea if they divide the semis between East and West instead of all those restrictions they have currently imposed and get 10 songs from each "bloc," then in the final we'll have a fairer representation of Europe. And for that they will have to do away with the "big 5" nonsense or add Russia to make it big 6 and get the winner of the previous year to automatically qualify. The basis of having 5 big rich Western European countries going straight to the final is fundamentally wrong. Italy was out of the competition for 14 years, they couldn't be bothered and then you qualify them automatically?
So I would propose: 1)Divide Europe into 2 blocs for the semi's , one Eastern and "Asian" countries, the other West and Scandinavia and lift ALL restrictions with regards to voting - except for the own country restriction of course. 2)Do away with the big 5 concept or if that is not possible for the contest to be viable, add Russia and the winner of the previous year to automatically qualify. Russia is a rich country, yes? 3) Keep the same format for the final, let them do their neighbouring voting, it would be embarrassing for them to see a top 10 comprised of all the Eastern countries in the final, and they will eventually mend their ways, especially if we make the "big 5" thing more fair for the Eastern Europe 4) get rid of the nonsense jury voting, it was a load of bollocks in the first place. It's a democracy, let the people of Europe decide again. Now is that Lithuanian guy still around to pass him my recommendations? Another thing, it would be interesting to see how they can stop this from being a karaoke show, I mean you don't have to have a big orchestra but if the Italian guy wants to play his piano, let him. It's embarrassing to see air guitars and air pianos in the contest |
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Well, in reality nothing has changed for the better. This year saw the biggest amount of block voting of all time. Good singers were rare because they already knew from the last 2 ESCs that good singing doesn't get you more points from the jury. The good singers were hopelessly behind. What the jury voting brought: good singers are less, interesting show performances are less, mainstream pop gets the bigger points (no wonder, jury members are mainstream pop people), neighbour voting has increased in west and central Europe. Quote:
Well, I made some statistics and there are a few interesting results. - In a west-only voting Ireland would have won. - The ranking of the western as well as that of the eastern side of Europe each had 7 of their own among their top 10. - The UK entry though was more favoured in central and eastern Europe. - There's a clear sign of political voting in the west. Except for Azerbaijan (swedish song) and Moldova (more considered Romanian than Russian) the ex- Soviet countries had the last places in western votes, without counting Switzerland, which got into the mud too. - the ex-Soviet countries 'boycotted' the Balkans. Never before seen so few points from them. Another observation concerns the foreign workers votings. Turkey got into a semifinal group where they could not get points from the rich countries, where many Turkish workers live. Consequently they had no chance to reach the final with their not so ESC-fit candidate. Bosnia on the other hand could draw on opulent ressources. 57% of their semi-final points (and 48% of the final) came from their guest countries. |
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It's also gonna be interesting to get the best of the East v the best of the West in the final. It'll be a bit like a boxing fight, a bit like the playoffs in American sports, East v West ;) Do you think the current pool system, with its fascist-like restrictions does a better job? Who can't vote for what? To me it looks like a total joke. Quote:
As for the jury: what is the point of "correcting" what the public thinks? To me it seems standoffish, and arrogant, if the public likes something because it's got flashing lights, let them vote for it...give the choice back to the people, this is what it is all about. Juries follow the rehearsals and already have cast their vote before the final night, isn't that a bit rigged? :p We got our politicians to decide for our lives we don't need them to decide what to vote for Eurovision either. But if you think the juries is a good idea how about reinstating them completely rather than have it half and half? Cheesy pop and instruments , is what you meant to say? Why not? or , by the same token, why live voices and fake music? Lets do it by playback, then they can mime while doing acrobatics at the same time. It's a musical extravaganza, Argos and I would like to have seen the Italian guy play his piano, or Rybak play his violin, or Ruslana play her tribal drums for real. What's wrong with having some live music back to it? Let me remind you that this competition used to include live singing and music for a few decades, a jury from each country that would decide upon the voting. We did away with the music, we turned it into a karaoke competition. We did away with the jury but we let the people decide. Now we're bringing the jury back because supposedly we're not fair enough and they can correct us. I don't like it. And we had a kind of elitist show where Eastern Europe - the ones who were participating anyway back in the day - could hardly get a break due to the partisan voting from the West, now we went the other way and the East is taking its revenge on the West...but we still rubbing it off and having the big 5 who all together can't amass enough points to save their lives. Since we can't stop the political, neighbouring voting lets embrace it totally! It's reverse psychology, my dear. |
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But if you remember, there was a time where they were doing it...it's not always cheesy pop, we had jazz this year, we have had folk winning in the past, I was talking about those cases where the instrument plays a leading part, of course. Quote:
-I think the jury voting had a lot to do with that when it comes to that parity. As you said, they favor traditional pop and who does that the most? the West. Normally the West does not collude so blatantly, perhaps even because their musical tastes differ from country to country...see? it's not just political voting. Ireland only gave the UK 6 points and it's been like that almost every year, it's not a given at all that Ireland will vote for the UK or the UK for Ireland. Then we had Zdob si Zdub, another example: the BBC commentators hated it with a passion, that Mills guy was like "you gotta be kidding me x3" when it made the final, Norton was saying "Europe, really? Then lots of people in the UK simply loved them. You see, musical tastes in such a big, cosmopolitan region like the UK can vary tremendously. What did Norton like instead? Denmark :bum: - Well, the situation with Balkan and ex-Soviets is volatile, I think. See what happened to Turkey? There's no guarantee that the ex-Soviets will vote for the Balkans or the Balkans for the ex-Soviets. Actually the Balkan countries seem to suffer a lot due to the new rules, for instance Bulgaria couldn't get much love from anybody. There are many neighbours in the region. Greece on the other hand - which has good ties and diaspora in pretty much everywhere and can do both East and West at the same time - faired pretty well. - So Bosnia got most of its votes from neutral countries? Strange, considering that the German audience were hating them, booing them every time they got points. I can't imagine the West getting behind such a song, they have their own aging folk singers :p |
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Damn it, I wanna see Zdob si Zdub win it the 3rd time. Just get a better song and a big preposterous party on stage! Quote:
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With the non-votables being carried into the final? It will complicate things a lot, people won't know who they are supposed to vote for. I don't know, it's a little bit like what the EBU has in place at the moment, isn't it? Historical data to segregate each country into a special "non-voting" zone. There could be alternatives but this simple East -West thing for the semi could sort things once and for all. How about a language barrier for the final? Restrictions put upon each country's first language, for example Russia can't vote for Ukraine and vice versa. We can do away with half of the neighbouring voting straight up. It's not very fair, of course, but it will eliminate a lot of the tit-for-tat scenarios, especially the annoying Greece/Cyprus thing, but not only that. |
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This is what I think about the final: A single restriction, based primarily on native languages ( so we got Greece/Cyprus (amen!) Austria/Germany, Belgium/France, UK/Ireland, Russia/Ukraine, Spain/Andorra, Croatia/Serbia? is that right? etc etc ) and if that doesn't apply b) a single restriction based on the country they historically give most points to - because we somehow have to stop the Scandinavians from what they're doing for several years now, voting for each other, then pretending they're fair while the East is not ;) ). There will still be considerable neighbouring voting of course, but at least 50% could be eliminated eventually. That's the only thing I can think of that wouldn't drastically alter the nature of the voting, while still ensuring a more fair representation. |
Guys, what you do is just great!! But, it's the Eastern Europe countries that take ESC much more seriously than the Western. It's also not that Western countries can not win, Finland, Norway and Germany won it recently. I thought that Azerbaijan had a decent song and a good show that is enough to win this competition, I have no problems with the winner. I wouldn't be sad if Italy won, because they had a decent song too and the background was just good.
My votes for the night were for: Ireland, Bosnia, the UK, Germany, Azerbaijan, Slovenia |
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Trust me, they take it seriously in the UK, otherwise 6 million people wouldn't tune in for the final while their entries are getting thrashed year after year, otherwise the BBC wouldn't show both semis live and then a rerun in the early morning - I mean seriously, what do they care, if they don't take it seriously.
And did you see the reaction of the German audience last night? I haven't seen such positive reaction to EVERY participant before. It's a big party, and they loved it. I think the rigged voting IS a bit of a issue fanoff, it's not such a big deal but lets just say that a country from the West goes into the show with a bit of a disadvantage. Having said that, a song destined to appeal to a large democratic with a good performer can certainly win. The UK situation is pretty much that they are left a little behind the times- it's not so much a patriotic issue for them. The English are the rulers on this island they are in a position to dictate things, if we allowed Wales and Scotland to participate as individual countries you'd probably see a more patriotic approach to the whole thing and possibly some better acts. |
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Western semi: Slovenia, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Austria, San Marino just 14 countries Eastern semi: Albania, Bosnia H, Croatia, F Macedonia, Serbia, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Israel, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia. 23 countries!!! The semi would take forever! We need to divide the East into 2 semis :bum: However you see it with the East bloc spreading all the way to Syria and Iran, the divide remains the same :lol: It's just not feasible. |
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East Mediterranean in the West group: Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and Albania (yes, they are/vote more Levante than Balkan, as well as Bulgaria - WTF!) |
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Since there will be no Russia to vote for, we might as well, you know Turkey in Western Europe :lol: |
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