This is fast turning into another -gate :D

Edited December 31, 201212 yr by パーベル

WOW, missed this discussion but I didn't miss the subtle shade earlier! 'The Rontvian effect' has definitely worn off this year if there ever was one then! So who's supposed to have benefitted from the 'I'm friends with them so I'll allow their entries more chance to grow on me' effect this year then? With the discussion, I really don't think it's people voting for their friends, I think it's the fact that there are only really 10 really decent 'hipster' songs and 10 really decent pop songs per contest usually so people who like those genres will tend to flock for the best of their favourite genre. I would say I'm one of these people that's in the middle which can be a help or a hindrance as sometimes it means that you find something with huge crossover appeal due to it being bang in the middle of both tastes (Delta Goodrem - Hunters and The Wolves/Mr Little Jeans - Runaway), or sometimes you'll find something erring more on one side than the other due to your mixed tastes which doesn't appeal at all to the other crowd (i.e. ATB - Never Give Up/Frida Amundsen - Rush). To look at my variety of votes this year, purely for my own interest, here are my top three for each contest during 2012;

 

41: Marigold - You & I Know/Tone Damli - Look Back/Nightwish - Turn Loose The Mermaids = indie-pop/Scandipop/goth-metal

42: Emma Hewitt - Colours/Laleh - Some Die Young/Butterfly Boucher - Not Fooling Around = Dance/Scandi-indie-pop/indie-pop

43: Morgan Page - Bodywork/iamamiwhoami - Play/Paulina Rubio - Boys Will Be Boys = Electro-pop-dance/indie/Latin-pop

44: Meiko - Leave The Lights On/Above & Beyond - Love Is Not Enough/Nina Nesbit - The Apple Tree = Pop/Trance/Singer-songwriter

45: Tal - Le Sens De La Vie/Woodkid - Run Boy Run/Mary N'Diaye - Big Dreamer = French-pop/indie/pop

46: Charlotte Qvale - Beginning Of The End/Phase & Spin - Let You Go/Years Away - Starting Fires = Scandi-indie-pop/dance/pop

47: Masden - Lass De Musik An/Trust - Sulk/Kristyna Miles - I'm Not Going Back = German rock/indie-dance/pop

48: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Only In My Dreams/Saint Lou Lou - Maybe You/Unicorn Kid - Need U - indie/electro-ballad/dance

49: Whigfield - 4Ever/Fibes, Oh Fibes feat Icona Pop - Cerahtonia/CHVRCHES - The Mother We Share - Scandipop/Scandi-indie-pop/indie-pop

50: Ailee - I Will Show You/Lukas Graham - Better Than Yourself/Frida Sundemo - Indigo = K-pop/indie-pop/Scandipop

 

Fair to say my votes are relatively unpredictable, an honorary WTF to the contrasts between my BJSC 47 top three :lol: I really couldn't give a flying fuck about the genre or the person sending it, I vote only ever for my absolute favourites. Granted a few nations appear in here more than once - Numayania, Ashton, Caerfyrddia, Seyetana, but hey I gave Kylienips 12 points twice this year and that's probably more than I gave them in 2007-2011 combined! The point is, I have a similar music taste to these nations and hence their entries over the course of the year tend to appeal to me more, that's all there is to it. Budtar could have sent 4Ever or You & I Know and I'd have still given them 12 points.

Well, I may not be the right person to judge considering I've been here for all of five minutes but looking through the years at some of these results and listening to some of the winners, I'd say BJSC is DEFINITELY at the best its ever been - I don't think any year has been quite as diverse as this one and I've made a lot of wonderful discoveries. I think the current mix of countries is a very good mix of tastes...and as others have said more often than not, people can be relatively diverse.

 

As for me, I'm very much in between - you won't see me championing some shite like Bomb or Paparazzi over the likes of moan, but give me Let It Go over play any day. Hence I try to send something new every month (this hasn't REALLY worked well so far I'm aware).

 

I feel the 'friends' vote isn't necessarily a problem, but I think some are still sceptical to it as with a lot of friendship groups in the contest, its become easier than ever to know what people are sending, so there's always a chance you could let that entry grow on you more, have more of a chance to get used to it etc. I'm certainly not opposed to this (I've used help via PM before) but I do feel its worth noting.

Edited December 31, 201212 yr by Auld Lang Wombat

I have to agree with those who said earlier in the thread that the 'vanilla's' (AWFUL term, but sadly applicable here) tend to vote less for things outside their comfort zone musically than the 'hipsters'. Not all the time, and not all of them, but I would say a statistically significant portion of scores would fall within said 'comfort zone'.

 

As for people voting for their friends over the song, I haven't see much of that personally. People do tend to gravitate towards people with similar tastes and in a song competition such as this 2/3 friends are more likely to enter songs they mutually enjoy and therefore exchange points. Nothing more, nothing less.

IZ I DO NOT CHANGE MY ENTRY GENRE IN ACCORDANCE TO WHAT DID WELL LAST CONTEST.

 

Because Fail In Love is like IDENTICAL to Cerahtonia, OBVIOUSLY.

When compiling the stats thread I do notice some fairly significant trends between some countries who vote for the same countries over and over again regardless of the genre that's being sent. Hendinia, as an example, changes the genre of their entries quite often (nothing wrong with that) yet obtains a similar proportion of their points from the same countries time and time again. I'm not forcing any blame anyone in particular here, it's just an example of an interesting trend to note and it's one of a few that have not gone unnoticed.

i don't mean to make anything about me really but i do hope i'm not guilty of being predictable with my votes (aside from ndntn but if chris stopped sending good songs then yanno)

 

i wonder if there's enough of a problem for there to be a CRACKDOWN on voting (which would be ridiculous but if people are guilty then by all means~)

Bring back BJUSC!!! The forum description on the main page wouldn't need updating since it STILL hasn't been changed back anyway.

I haven't noticed dead obvious voting patterns, but there are some who do vote for me quite regularly even with the change of genre, I do suppose.

 

I could be seen as being guilty of this sort of thing, with Aquafina. But, then about 5 of the songs he's entered this year were on my shortlist, so I'm obviously gonna love them. I like to think that I'm not like what you're saying, voting for certain countries. I've given ISCONIA my 12pts TWICE this year - I don't think I've ever spoken to Grebo, and he's certainly not the typical genre of country I usually vote for.

The only way to enforce a crackdown would be to make entries anonymous (I find it interesting how the one time we did that, we had a completely different country winning) but it would be pretty much impossible to enforce a crackdown on voting because if people do vote for countries/members over songs then they can easily find out who is sending what via PM, MSN etc. rendering the whole concept pointless. Also the concept does spoil the enjoyment of the contest for a vast majority of participants.

 

We've just got to hope that those who vote based on songs continue to do so and those who vote for members change their ways, or of course that these trends are nothing more than a coincidence.

I think largely, it is just a matter of people having the same taste.

 

I'm one of the more prominent people who you'd probably connect with 'moaning about indie', but at the end of the day, I don't think it's just because friends are voting for one another - it just has a wide appeal with the people in the contest at the moment. For the past like 40 contests, pop has largely dominated and people's voting patterns weren't questioned, so I think it's a little odd that this debate has been brought up now of all times.

 

Personally, maybe because I'm not completely cynical, I think MOST people do just try and vote for what they like. There'll always be the case that is a bit like the Rontvian effect, where you pay more attention because they're a popular country. It was sort of like Aeroche when they were winning, you were intrigued what they had to offer next after their success, so I suppose you pay more attention.

 

On the whole though, I really don't think a change/crackdown in the contest is needed, as I think the majority do just vote for their favourites, and this is all being blown out of proportion.

Didn't the same countries still vote for the same countries even when it was BJUSC anyway?

BJUSC as an experiment to prove that people were voting for certain countries because of reasons other than how much they like the song was made null and void when my entry finished a close second (back in the days when I was doing well fairly consistently :lol:). I honestly don't believe that making things anonymous again would change anything, you can't stop people conferring in secret via PM or messenger. Plus BJUSC was irritating as I had to cover up the song in my personal chart for ages, which was a pain!

I've given ISCONIA my 12pts TWICE this year - I don't think I've ever spoken to Grebo, and he's certainly not the typical genre of country I usually vote for.

 

It's not so much a problem with 12 point scores, it's more a trend where people are giving 6, 7 and 8 points to the same countries every time even though the genres of each entry are completely different. It could well be that these people like the same range of genres, but it's just an interesting trend to note and something I'll be looking more closely at in 2013 since it was only really the latter half of 2012 that I noticed these patterns occurring more frequently.

 

The point raised about prominent countries is an interesting one too, especially when Aeroche were onto a successful streak. There was one set of votes in particular I remember from one country where 9 of their top 10 songs were pure pop/dance-pop entries and then randomly thrown into the mix was Unicorn Kid which didn't match with the rest of the votes from that country (Nor was something I'd ever expect that person to like). That suggested to me perhaps another instance where people might be voting for countries over songs. Of course, it could just be that that person really liked Unicorn Kid as a one off, but it was certainly an interesting example to notice.

 

 

For the record, I'm not suggesting a crackdown needs to happen, it's just someone mentioned it and I thought I'd share my views on it.

OK that mighta been me! Need U's a good song and it was a pretty weak contest.

I personally would never vote for a song just because a poster I'm friends with sent it. I do admit that the thing the identity of the poster behind a track influences is the order in which I initially listen to the entries, when the entries go up I always go through the 'interesting' ones first and that's usually either an artist I like/know/recognise or a country that consistently impresses me.

Edited December 31, 201212 yr by Liаm

OK that mighta been me! Need U's a good song and it was a pretty weak contest.

 

It wasn't you.

 

It doesn't really matter who it was, it was just one of a number of instances that I spotted that seemed a rather unusual.

at least we know it wasn't johnkm (SO MUCH SHADE @ U.K. STILL!!)

 

is it only me who listens to a song first sometimes coz the name of the artist / song is cool??? i get INTRIGUED

is it only me who listens to a song first sometimes coz the name of the artist / song is cool??? i get INTRIGUED

YES haha. It didn't save Love Stuck from being super bad though.

it's just that lew sends the best songs WOT

 

and i do think this whole voting thing comes a lot down to letting the songs grow like someone else said. pop songs are designed to be instant and catchy so if you only listen to each song 2 or 3 times you're obviously gonna vote for more pop songs cos the more 'indie' songs often take more time to grow