Eurovision Song Contest 2022

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Rhys Benjamin
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Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

The bookies’ favourite is Ukraine… really!? I mean, it wasn’t doing great in the odds until Vlad the Terrible showed up and the song is a bit naff…

I have therefore put five quid on Italy.

Predictions for the semi finals:

SF1: Albania, Switzerland, Ukraine, The Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Iceland, Greece, Norway, Armenia.

Could easily throw in Portugal and Moldova there. Croatia an outside bet. Ukraine, Austria, Greece, Norway, and Armenia are dead certs I would have thought. Latvia (whose opening lyric is “instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy”), Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria no chance.

SF2: Finland, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Malta, Australia, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania, Sweden, Czech Republic.

Genuinely surprised Sweden won the OGAE poll, think it is just yet another Swedish power ballad that is nothing special. Serbia and Estonia could easily make it, although it’s hard to say who that’s instead of. North Macedonia, Poland, and Montenegro all outside bets. Much as I love Israel’s supergay performance that’s got no chance. Nor does Georgia or San Marino.

I don’t think my ratings have ever been so out of touch with the usual fan polls: United Kingdom is doing really well, apparently 3rd favourite in the usual metrics, and the rehearsal clip trended at #1 on Twitter (and is already our highest-charting entry for MANY years) but I don’t like it - it is still a tad Radio 2 rather than Radio 1 to be successful. Top 5 would be a serious result; I’d settle for top half.

In fact, most of the big 5 have really brought their A game this year (not unlike 2011, they have all remembered you can actually win this thing as a big 5 country) and in fact Germany is the only one letting the side down. Spain and France are also contenders, apparently.

If I had to pick a top 10 for the final, in no particular order: Italy, Ukraine, France, Spain, Romania, Sweden, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Norway, Greece.
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Gavin Chipper
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

If Ukraine win, I'm looking forward to it being held in a wasteland next year.
Tom S
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Tom S »

Put money down on Iceland and Slovenia qualifying (though I think the latter is unlikely). Fairly confident that Latvia will make it through, and as much as I like the Austrian song, I'm having my doubts about its chances after seeing the live....
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Dave Robjohns »

Think I got three wrong there, would've swapped out Switzerland, Iceland and Moldova for Austria, Albania and Latvia in my predictions.

Switzerland had one of the most impressive/impactful stagings on the night and Moldova is a banger and classic eurovision so only really surprised by Iceland - the song does nothing for me tbh - but I guess I underestimate how much europe likes slow songs every year so should've clocked on here!

Of the three NQs, most surprised about Albania. Not a massive fan myself due to the excessive random aggressive grunting but the song had one of the most vocal & large fanbases so seemed a cert. I'm sad for Austria, the studio version is excellent but the live performances never quite matched it. I maintain that Latvia would've qualified had Jānis continued his pattern of stage diving and jumped into the fountain/waterfall thing :P Iconic.
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Rhys Benjamin
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

7/10 for me, I had Denmark, Austria, and Albania in and Moldova, Lithuania, and Portugal out. I mean, Moldova I can understand, but the other two!?
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Marc Meakin »

Watched a snippet of Norway entry on HIGNIFY,
Its so bonkers I want it to win
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

7/10 for me on Thursday night as well - missed Poland, Belgium, Estonia.

William Lee Adams of Wiwibloggs now says anything other than top 5 is a disappointment for the UK!
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Dave Robjohns
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Dave Robjohns »

UK bookies favourites to win the jury vote after last nights performance - but it's tight. Ukraine overwhelming favourites to cruise the televote & so overall, still. Nice having a final where there are still several genuine contenders - been a while!
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Dan Byrom »

Watching the final having not heard the songs before. Honestly feel like it's been a really dull year, with no songs standing out as special, and lacking variety with a bunch of ballads and generic pop songs and not much rock, metal, jazzy stuff, drum and bass or any crazy eurovision specials. As a musician, the musical preferences of the general population are always a complete mystery to me, and my opinions never seem to correlate with votes, so will be interested to see how my views compare to the final results, but as I was watching I made a list of my favourites:

France
Portugal
Czech Republic
Ukraine
UK
Azerbaijan
Belgium
Sweden
Poland
Lithuania
Greece
Spain
Estonia
Finland
Netherlands
Italy
Iceland
Switzerland
Norway
Finland
Australia
Germany
Armenia
Romania
Serbia
Moldova

But tbh hard to separate anything from Spain downwards as all of it was equally bland.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I thought they were mostly fairly weak. The UK's song is actually my favourite. Second goes to Moldova though and given that it was basically a joke song, I think that says something. Spain I gave 0 out of 10 to. Complete nothing.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Why's everyone giving Spain top points? Is this a joke?
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Mark James »

Good luck hosting it next year.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Dave Robjohns »

Interesting looking into the "voting irregularities" - six dodgy votes out of 21 countries voting in SF2 is insane. They've now published the detailed jury results (exact ranks) but left out details for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania & San Marino - who also didn't have full voting details in the final.

These countries are then given estimated results based on similar countries (they're put into 6 pots for similar regions/voting habits) and in some of these pots, they had three countries in the semi final but two involved in voting irregularities - so the one legit jury vote has basically ended up being counted 3 times! (Israel counting for themselves, Azerbaijan and Georgia and also Estonia counting for themselves, Poland and Romania).

It's a bit less dodgy in the final with only 6 countries out of 40 but still - may have had a big impact on the final results, although no doubt less than had these dodgy results stood... Three of these countries presumably deny all involvement and hence had "technical issues" meaning Martin Osterdahl had to announce their results. We'll probably hear nothing about this again, but it's interesting that as much as a third of the jury vote can be just EBU estimates.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

^^^ That's insane.

Anyway, on further reflection, I would say that the UK song was the best and it's not even close so it's good that it came second behind the obvious winners. But it was still very close with the bland offerings from Spain and Sweden and with a relatively low televote for the UK, it suggests that other countries might still hate us to some extent.

As for Ukraine, I thought it was one of the better songs anyway, so if a song has to win for political reasons, I don't mind it being that one. Spain's song had nothing about it and I'm genuinely baffled that anyone would give it a single vote. Sweden's was weak. It sounded like they had the pieces for a catchy tune but they put them together in the wrong order or something. It didn't come together.

As for novelty songs, I don't know why Serbia's did so well. Hilarious - she's washing her hands. The song was dull. Moldova's was fun and upbeat. Deserved to do well. Norway's wolf song probably tried too hard to be weird but it was still way better and more catchy than e.g. Spain, Sweden and Serbia anyway.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Marc Meakin »

Am I the only one that was irked because the public vote figures did not count down from a pot so in the end you knew by the last that the UK couldn't win
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Elliott Mellor »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 6:34 am ^^^ That's insane.

Anyway, on further reflection, I would say that the UK song was the best and it's not even close so it's good that it came second behind the obvious winners. But it was still very close with the bland offerings from Spain and Sweden and with a relatively low televote for the UK, it suggests that other countries might still hate us to some extent.

As for Ukraine, I thought it was one of the better songs anyway, so if a song has to win for political reasons, I don't mind it being that one. Spain's song had nothing about it and I'm genuinely baffled that anyone would give it a single vote. Sweden's was weak. It sounded like they had the pieces for a catchy tune but they put them together in the wrong order or something. It didn't come together.

As for novelty songs, I don't know why Serbia's did so well. Hilarious - she's washing her hands. The song was dull. Moldova's was fun and upbeat. Deserved to do well. Norway's wolf song probably tried too hard to be weird but it was still way better and more catchy than e.g. Spain, Sweden and Serbia anyway.
Not often I agree with Gevin in virtual entirety, but...yeah, this is a decent summary. I was a huge fan of Moldova and Norway for the pure quirkiness and upbeat nature (and especially with Moldova, you cannot listen to that song without feeling really uplifted). I didn't especially dislike Sweden's song, but it certainly wasn't nearly as impressive as many things that they have sent previously, and I reckon they got quite a number of points because of the "Sweden effect" - people expect them to send a really good act, so their song ends up sounding better to people than it really is as they look at it through rose-tinted spectacles. I absolutely share the strong dislike of Spain's entry and I'm baffled that it was anywhere even close to the top, let alone 3rd place!

Ukraine was nailed on to win - you only have to look at the televote results to see that there was clearly an awful lot of sympathy voting, but it was quite a nice song in fairness and I certainly can't begrudge Ukraine the win, even if it is for political reasons.

I think Serbia did well because of the actual meaning of the song, as opposed to necessarily the song itself. It was some sort of indictment about privatisation of healthcare, and the global ideology that private healthcare is putting outward appearance and reputation before the actual care of patients (or at least, that's how it was explained to me).

Norway was exceptionally well choreographed, it has to be said - all perfectly in sync with one another!
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Also I'd question the time they put this on. It finished at midnight, which would be 1am across most of Europe. I watched this years ago when I was younger, and there's no way I would have been allowed to if it went on this late so I'm not sure why this has happened. It doesn't work well as family viewing at this time.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Ian Fitzpatrick »

It looked to me like there was an awful lot of miming going on, especially with the musicians amongst the performers.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Tom S »

I did think that Ukraine were amongst the best on Saturday night, whilst the UK had one of the best overall performances. Don't think that the "we're hated argument" is applicable considering that we received points from 34 out of 39 countries in the public vote. I do think that the main reason why we fared well was down to Sam, though.

Thought that Spain deserved their placement- the song was catchy and it was very well performed considering the amount of dancing that she did. Was also a fan of the Swedish entry, too.

Thought that France were very underrated, and couldn't quite see why the song from Azerbaijan deserved the amount of points that it got from the juries.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Tom S wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 10:31 am I did think that Ukraine were amongst the best on Saturday night, whilst the UK had one of the best overall performances. Don't think that the "we're hated argument" is applicable considering that we received points from 34 out of 39 countries in the public vote. I do think that the main reason why we fared well was down to Sam, though.
I think the "we're hated" thing is open to exaggeration. It's not all or nothing. People vote for a variety of reasons, including preference of country. So it's not like everyone hates the UK and we have to produce the best song ever in order to get any points, but it is the case that some countries tend to vote for other specific countries on average, and the UK is probably overall at a disadvantage in that respect compared to the average country.
Thought that Spain deserved their placement- the song was catchy and it was very well performed considering the amount of dancing that she did. Was also a fan of the Swedish entry, too.
I suppose people have different tastes. I didn't "get" the Spanish entry at all. I couldn't hum it or recall it in anyway. To me it was essentially just noise. Sweden wasn't quite like that for me - it was just a bit weak I felt. Edit - I have actually listened to the Spanish entry a few times since to see if it grows on me. Maybe it has a minuscule amount, but I still think it's pretty bad and in any case, I think a Eurovision song has to be one that gets you on a first listening because a lot of the audience will be listening to these songs for the first time. A Eurovision song is not supposed to be a grower. (Not that the Spanish entry really is for me. It's gone from a 0 out of 10 to maybe a 3 or 4.)
Thought that France were very underrated, and couldn't quite see why the song from Azerbaijan deserved the amount of points that it got from the juries.
I didn't mind the French entry - though it was more of something you'd have for a ritual sacrifice than a Eurovision song. Azerbaijan didn't do anything for me either. Just had to relisten to remind me which one it was. I'd probably put it on the same sort of level as Sweden actually. Something trying to be a powerful song but missing the mark.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Sam Ryder has narrowly lost to Harry Styles for this week’s #1, which confirms what I’ve been saying for a while: UK chart performance is a barometer for our Eurovision performance.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Ian Volante »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 5:58 pm Sam Ryder has narrowly lost to Harry Styles for this week’s #1, which confirms what I’ve been saying for a while: UK chart performance is a barometer for our Eurovision performance.
I suspect it's the other way round.
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Rhys Benjamin
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Even before the contest I believe we were at 28 in the chart, the highest we’d been for many years.
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Re: Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 11:13 am
Tom S wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 10:31 am I did think that Ukraine were amongst the best on Saturday night, whilst the UK had one of the best overall performances. Don't think that the "we're hated argument" is applicable considering that we received points from 34 out of 39 countries in the public vote. I do think that the main reason why we fared well was down to Sam, though.
I think the "we're hated" thing is open to exaggeration. It's not all or nothing. People vote for a variety of reasons, including preference of country. So it's not like everyone hates the UK and we have to produce the best song ever in order to get any points, but it is the case that some countries tend to vote for other specific countries on average, and the UK is probably overall at a disadvantage in that respect compared to the average country.
I meant to post this ages ago, but it seems I forgot. On this subject, I think the UK were probably more popular in the 90s and could get away with more. The last time "we" won was in 1997 with Love Shine A Light, which was a good Eurovision song, so people go back to that and say we could win if we have a good song. However, the next year in 1998, the UK were actually close to winning with Where Are You by Imaani, and with the best will in the world, it is a hecka weak song. The UK would not be able to get away with that quality nowadays and expect to get anywhere near. The obvious conclusion is that the UK is less popular now.
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