Eurovision 2007 (Finland)

[forre]

Eurovision is still the most watched non-sports event in the world and with all new countries, which pay the annual fee to EBU, there's hardly any risk of the contest to die. Even if BBC drops out, there are another 47 countries that are in the contest and the rating in those countries is high. I think Russia had over 50% audience share. If UK doesn't want to share their culture using the contest, then so be it. What did they expect by sending this rotten pop performed by Scooch this year? Their argument was that it was a typical Eurovision song. But hey, wake up UK. Eurovision's trends are changing with the time. There's a better music than that in UK!

[spyretto]

Yeah, it's similar in the UK as in France, the semi is shown by the BBC3, the final by BBC1

The final had 11 million viewers in the UK, more than 1/10 of all ESC viewers in Europe ( yeah, even in this all-time low). So it would be a blow for EBU if the UK didn't reach the final, or withdrew.

[Argos]

The moaning of the 'Big 4' is really ridiculous and pathetic. Let's look, how the western countries voted for their own candidates (out of 58 possible points):

Germany 1 point (Finland)
Belgium 3 points (Spain)
Spain 5 points (Germany)
France 6 points (Spain)
Holland 6 points (Germany)
Austria 7 points (Germany)
Ireland 7 points (UK)
Portugal 8 pints (Spain)
UK 8 points (Sweden, Germany)

The core EU countries gave the fewest points to their western partners. Now the most western friendly:

Albania!!! 27 points
Iceland 24 points
Andorra 22 points
Denmark 21 points

Conclusion:
1. Western songs were so weak, that even western countries refused to vote for them. If you eliminate the neighbour votings, you get practically the same 'zeroes' as from the eastern countries.
2. The interest in voting in the western countries is so low, that the foreign people decide their votings (with biggest advantages for countries like Serbia, Bosnia and Turkey).
3. If western countries want to have a chance for the top positions they have to change many things: better quality of the songs, more effective competition for the candidates, better modes of selection, more interest of the people for their own participants, effective advertising.

There is no need to change the modus of the ESC, the western countries have to change their attitude to the competition. As in many other fields: The west can no more change the rules everywhere, just to give them an advantage over their opponents.

[spyretto]

How about better performers as well? Most of the Western countries choose either washed-out acts ( like Schooch ) or failures of tv "Pop academy" style shows.

And since the contest is nowadays reduced to nothing more than a flashy - and fleshy - karaoke competition, the better/more impressive vocalists usually get higher marks, even if the songs are not that good.
This is very evident for Serbia this year.

[Станко394]

It is really odd: UK's artist are famous all around the world, they make excellent succes, but UK never [not literally] sends some artists that make that grate succes.

They could win if they try harder..
Maybe a bit harder..

[haku]

Originally Posted by Argos

The moaning of the 'Big 4' is really ridiculous and pathetic.

It's not just the West though, from what i've read, the Russian press has been copiously dragging the Serbian winner in the mud and is pretty outraged at Russia's 3rd place, claiming that there was a plot to make Russia lose, that the girls stage outfits were sabotaged, and that the girls were sexually harrassed by some other female contestants…

[la aurora]

Originally Posted by haku

It's not just the West though, from what i've read, the Russian press has been copiously dragging the Serbian winner in the mud and is pretty outraged at Russia's 3rd place, claiming that there was a plot to make Russia lose, that the girls stage outfits were sabotaged, and that the girls were sexually harrassed by some other female contestants…

Yeah and on After-ESC show Gasparyan sang his 'Serdyuchka GoodBye' song Live. There are idiots everywhere but overall we behave well this year, I'd say. Most consider 3rd place a good result, most are happy for girls and we aren't even half as mad with the winner as we were last year for example. We've suddenly remembered Serbians are our brothers and went celebrating all slavic thriumph at Eurovision.

Information about problems in dressing room came from Fadeev and girls themselves as far as I remember. They just said they found chairs and floor being in something like glue and some parts of outfits were stollen. But they didn't stress it much, it was more like 'well some people are sad' thing. Nothing more. I take it that the accident didn't take place on the final night as they mentioned 'something nasty' happening without giving details in earlier reports from Helsinki.

Harrasment story involved only Lena, as far as I know and it's really hard to judge here. On one hand she got quite a shower from Russian media with those boobs pics and so-called interviews with her parents and ex-husband. She said she felt like killing a lot of journalists when she gets back for making her mother to drink so much valedole. But at the same time she herself was never known as a person who could keep the mouth shut and she often does act more sexual than she realizes. This combination is a garanteed way to get into trouble. I bet this story is not something press came up with on their own. Probably some missunderstanding happened but Lena did comment on sexual orientation of some female singer when Malakhov had them live from Helsinki after the show and she didn't sound that happy.

With all this said, the big picture is ok. Most reports were either neutral or positive in comparision with previous years. No hysteria

[dradeel]

I'm wondering ... this is supposed to be a friendly contest that brings europe together. It's not supposed to make countries go all "judo-chop" on each other! People here talk about the eastern dominance in the ESC now, and some are angry for some winners and some are angry for not winning/qualifying.

I think it's nice that eastern countries have been able to join up and rival the "old biggies". And honestly, it's not like the west hasn't been winning. Finland won last year, and Denmark in 2000. Allthough there have only been eastern winners (I dunno what you want to call Greece. Iron belt-wise it's a western country tho ) between these two years, there would be very few eastern winners only 10 years ago. And during these last 10 years there have been alotta changes and many more countries have joined up. I think it's good that the competition is getting more varied. It's not something people should get so fuzzy about. Hehe. (only thing I find kinda weird is that a lot of none-european countries are in/are joining. But oh well. Hehehe).

Western countries just have to get their acts together and actually send something decent next year. I'm voting for Kamelot or Dimmu Borgir for Norway! (as if that'll ever happen. Haha)

[haku]

Originally Posted by dradeel

I dunno what you want to call Greece. Iron belt-wise it's a western country tho

The modern East-West divide does not perfectly follow the Cold War divide which was only based on political systems, now it's more a cultural divide and Greece falls on the East side because it's clearly a Balkan country. The East-West divide we've seen roughly follows the Baltic Sea, goes from the German-Polish border to the Italian-Slovene border, and then follows the Adriatic Sea.

That being said, that East-West divide is not natural for Europe and the continent is slowly going back to what existed before WWII.

Before WWII, there was such a thing as Central Europe, it basically covered the area from the Baltic Sea to the Alps, East of the Rhine and West of the Russian Empire, today it corresponds to Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland. There are clear signs that Central Europe is culturally re-emerging with those states rebuilding their historical links within the EU.

Western Europe was the area West of the Rhine, South of the Alps, and West of the Adriatic Sea, basically the 4 main Latinate countries (Italy, France, Spain, Portugal) which together used to form the Western Roman Empire.

South and East of those 2 areas was Balkanic Europe.

Northern Europe included not only Scandinavia but also the Baltic states and the British Isles.

Finally, Eastern Europe was the area East of Balkanic, Central, and Northern Europe. The divide between Balkanic/Central Europe and Eastern Europe was basically the Kaliningrad-Odessa line, that line between the Baltic and Black Seas where the European continent becomes much narrower, it has always acted as a natural limit.
It's no coincidence that the border of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union roughly followed that line, and it's no coincidence that the EU's Eastern border today also roughly follows that line, Western/Northern/Central/Balkanic Europe is or will be in the EU while Eastern Europe will most probably remain in the Russian sphere.

Now that the Cold War divide is behind us, the traditional Western/Northern/Central/Balkanic cultural areas are clearly re-emerging within the EU, and the old "Soviet block" reflex will eventually recede so Eastern Europe is back to being what's East of the Kaliningrad-Odessa line.

[Talyubittu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9rJLtz64Hg

LMFAO - The dancing from 10-13 is effing hilarious. I really want Forre and Igor to allow animated avatars so I can make one out of it. "Tanzen"! It's hilarious. This is definately my favorite Eurovision performance out of ANY. The music is amazing - it's such a great combo of Russian/Ukranian Folk Music and upbeat pop music. Simply amazing! I love the use of all the differen't languages as well. It's so cool! Though I do feel that Molitva was a more difficult song - I am kind of swaying in my oppinion of who deserved 1st. While the Serbian song was much more difficult - this is one hell of a show and represents what Eurovision is all about. So I guess I'm changing my opinion...?

- Does anyone have the actual promo MP3 of this song? I really want to put it on my iPod.


Not sure if this has been posted but...Verka without his makeup & outfit | His real name is Andriy Danylko

[the unforgiven]

Originally Posted by Talyubittu

Verka without his makeup & outfit | His real name is Andriy Danylko

yummy
that's all I have to say *sorry*

[forre]

A bigger pic of Verka (here to the right, to the left is a Russian photographer)

Originally Posted by Talyubittu

I really want Forre and Igor to allow animated avatars so I can make one out of it.

I think they are to be switched on.

[mulder]

Verka Serdyuchka - Dancing mp3

http://mistereo.10gb.ru/mp3/dancing.mp3

(right click - save as)

[Станко394]

Originally Posted by Talyubittu

Verka without his makeup & outfit | His real name is Andriy Danylko

omgz, he looks really normal!! I can't belive it's the same person! *shock*

Mulder, lolz, dancing is not his better side!

[Talyubittu]

Originally Posted by forre

A bigger pic of Verka (here to the right, to the left is a Russian photographer)

I think they are to be switched on.

Ohh! Do you know when?

[QueenBee]

Sorry for being so late but tell that Andrey guy that I think he's hot

Thanks for the song!

[spyretto]

Marijia Serifovic is having a mini tour in Greece this weekend and here some of the one-liners from her press-conference:

"Eurovision is a gay contest"
"My song is a love song about normal people"
"If I were to watch, I'd sit on my couch, eat chips and vote for Ukraine"
"I don't interest myself in Albanian singers" ( about her song's melody being a copy of an old Albanian song )

I'll watch the full recorded program later, I didn't catch all of it.

By the way, her song ( and also Sarbel's ) will be a new entry this week in the UK Top 100 - I'm not sure whether it's from the downloads charts only and whether there will be a physical cd single release of the song but Sarbel is expected to hit top 75 and Molitva is expected to be around #80.
Not sure when Virka will release her song but I'd expect a top 20 hit if the song is released in the charts proper.

[QueenBee]

"My song is a love song about normal people"

Is that like "Lesbians are normal!" or like "Lesbians? My song is not about lesbians. It's about normal people."?

[Станко394]

Originally Posted by QueenBee

Is that like "Lesbians are normal!" or like "Lesbians? My song is not about lesbians. It's about normal people."?

I'm not sure that normal is about sexual orientation, maybe she was trying to say something like Casual people, but I'm not sure.. I mean, before ESC she didn't talk about orientation at all, and this song is made before we knew it is going to ESC.
But again, I'm not sure, I didn't watch this press-conference.

And about that albanian thing, I don't believe she stole someone's melody, and it's not a coincidence that it's "albanian", they wanted to irritate her because of this Kosovo-thing.

[spyretto]

They didn't steal the song, of course, it's all pure nonsense. The Sun has a video on their website that compares the two songs, and you can check it out if you want. Very little similarity.
Why would they go and steal somebody else's song from Albania? I mean when they do that they usually plagiarize classical composers. They're dead and they'll have little or no trouble with legal issues even if people spot it.

I'll make a full report when I see the whole program, some of the stuff was conveyed by the Greek presenters and may not be accurate. They said she was largerly bored and uninterested ( but that doesn't mean a thing given the overall style of those programs, lol )