can't ever see us doing well again

5th in 2009.

I've been saying it for months but the problem really was that it was so much of a safe and bland song that, especially on the televote, few people at all had it in their top few of their priorities to vote for. To do well at Eurovision you need to either take a risk and go for something that is really out there and memorable (like Ukraine and I guess Bulgaria too) or pick whatever genre you're doing and do it/perform it faultlessly (basically all of the rest of the top 5, even Poland in an 80s pastiche way but performed within an inch of its life) and we just didn't do that. You can't just send something in and expect it to do well just because it's the UK and it's not terrible.

 

All the predictable 'it's all political' bull just reeks of entitled colonialist xenophobia, so if you are planning to or have already tried to do that, kindly make your way HERE xox

Basically all of this. Jesus I regret reading this thread after every final because of the idiots who whine about how badly the UK did despite having no affection whatsoever for whatever entry they'd sent in that year. Can we have a single Eurovision where people don't spam the final thread with idiotic conspiracy theories? It's the same people every year too.

I'm not sure people would actively decide not to vote for the UK :unsure: If we sent Adele and she had a great song, she'd do very well because she's the biggest star in the world. People won't be like "I love that Adele song but I'm not voting for the UK". I think Lex is right in that You're Not Alone, as much as I like it, is generally not a big fave type of song. Televoters will likely only vote for their top 3 faves maybe, so they lost out there. It's a shame but it's nothing to do with us being the UK.

 

 

You're not really getting what I'm saying.. (Plus, isn't it written somewhere that every Adele song is great?)

 

I'm saying that people like yourself say that Europe doesn't think the UK take the contest seriously enough etc..

So it would be interesting to see if we did send someone like Adele how we would do, to put those thoughts to the test.

 

Also, Dami won Australian X Factor but she's not a huge star. One #1 hit and a few top 40's.. but she was seen as Australia taking it seriously and came second.

But what would happen if we sent 'Sound of Silence' by someone that won our X Factor? Wouldn't that be just spun as us sending an X Factor reject and not taking it seriously?

I agree with the above. maybe if we didn't send faceless, ok at best songs and then perform the song with a bit more oomph, maybe we would do better. You can't blame politics when we never send amazing songs.

I can't take Sound Of Silence off repeat, what an utterly fantastic song.

Kudos to France too on that note, years and years of disappointments and national embarrassment (their success levels seem to really coincide with ours, last got a top 10 in 2009 and did okay but disappointed after a big overhype in 2011) but they sent something really strong, picked a charming and natural performer who sounds like what current French pop music is like and they get their best result since Natasha St. Pier in 2001* - lessons for the UK lie in their result I feel.

 

*pending a fact check but it's still a long time

Kudos to France too on that note, years and years of disappointments and national embarrassment (their success levels seem to really coincide with ours, last got a top 10 in 2009 and did okay but disappointed after a big overhype in 2011) but they sent something really strong, picked a charming and natural performer who sounds like what current French pop music is like and they get their best result since Natasha St. Pier in 2001* - lessons for the UK lie in their result I feel.

 

*pending a fact check but it's still a long time

Best result since 5th in 2002 I think. Agreed massively though, and the song is so big in France now. Really bodes well for the future as long as a) people aren't too disappointed with 6th and b) they don't have a result so bad next year that it completely undoes the benefits of this success.

Indeed, for France, and Bulgaria (who, incidentally are doing incredibly on the getting top 10 or bust thing), tonight was a pretty sudden renaissance for them, because they sent a great song that people actually liked and put it among their favourites. I'll be very keen to see where the French go from here.

 

On contrast, as soon as our national finalists were revealed, I knew we were onto nothing special - nobody predicted us higher than 15th so can you really be surprised that we do as badly position-wise as last year with a song whose strongest quality for most people is 'competent'?

I've been saying it for months but the problem really was that it was so much of a safe and bland song that, especially on the televote, few people at all had it in their top few of their priorities to vote for. To do well at Eurovision you need to either take a risk and go for something that is really out there and memorable (like Ukraine and I guess Bulgaria too) or pick whatever genre you're doing and do it/perform it faultlessly (basically all of the rest of the top 5, even Poland in an 80s pastiche way but performed within an inch of its life) and we just didn't do that. You can't just send something in and expect it to do well just because it's the UK and it's not terrible.

 

All the predictable 'it's all political' bull just reeks of entitled colonialist xenophobia, so if you are planning to or have already tried to do that, kindly make your way HERE xox

 

 

I'm not saying it's political or trying to stir up anything but responses like this are just as infuriating as those that say it's political IMO.

I agree with you when you say that the song was safe but I don't think it was bland, that's in your opinion.

 

You have to remember that the majority of viewers aren't avid Eurovision fans, they don't follow stats etc. They watch one 3 & a half hour show, once a year.

It's going to be even more prevalent this year when people clearly see the difference between the jury vote and the televote.

The jury vote showed that okay, it wasn't amazing but it was a decent enough entry and was mid/low table and we then scored 8 points in the televote.

So jurors from around the world thought the song was okay but when it came to joe public from around the world, they didn't pick up the phone to vote.

And that's okay.. they're allowed to not like it if it's a bad song. But if it was a bad song, wouldn't all of the jurors from around the world have said so?

They had the same amount of songs to choose from. Germany had a memorable song and performance.. for the wrong reasons. But that was reflected in both the juror & televote.

That's how it can seem political to someone that doesn't take a great deal of interest in the song contest.

 

Nobody's saying the song should have won and I think we can all agree that there were much stronger songs & performances on the whole.

But I also think it's fair to say that it shouldn't have come 24th.

5th in 2009.

 

Which is a complete anomaly in itself, and also 7 years ago. We've not done well since the 90s and I don't expect us to. It's quite right, we don't take the contest as it's grown to become. But I actually thought the UK entry was good this year, it was a nice pop song. No way did it deserve to finish where it did.

 

I don't think it's political (or not entirely at least), but you've gotta see the sense of irony in that a song that is absolute crap, albeit with a strong political message, wins Eurovision. Certainly doesn't help the 'it's all political' argument. (and the UK giving 10 points to Poland, I'm sure because it was such a great song!)

Jury votes are added up differently though in that they give their marks on all of the songs, so a middling 'I quite liked that' score actually counts for something where we got, in the end, a middling jury score. The public though usually only go for their top 1 or at a push 2/3 of their favourites. That's why there was a mismatch I think (somebody can check the data if this stacks up or not).

The juries are a small subset of people who pay close attention to and rank every song on their criteria. In that configuration, a safe song like ours tonight should manage to come about just less than halfway up the board. And it can also have a few anomalies because of how small it is.

 

However with the televoters voting on their very favourite performances only and with considerably less average attention spans, who would have had a 'safe' song in their top 1-5? That's the difference - there's no difference between bad songs and decent songs for the public. It's so passe I'm tired of saying it but Europe does not hate us, we're just shit at the being competitive side of things - and to be competitive one needs to stand out a lot more than that entry did.

People don't vote for the UK because the songs are pretty much always average at best. That's it. I cannot stand when people come in and moan that "people don't like the UK!!!111!!1", I can't imagine someone making a concrete decision if they loved a song not to vote for us. We just never make the effort and we get out what we deserve, really. We've done well with the likes of Blue an Jade Ewen in recent years, it's not "because we're the UK" at all. This year any attention that might have been accidentally paid to them would hav been blown as soon as Iveta slayed right after.

 

 

As for the winner, as much as I'm gutted that Dami came so close and I bet on her but not Jamala, a winner that wasn't Australia or Russia was somewhat of a shock and it was an utterly stunning performance with so much emotion and pain packed in, I cannot argue with it. The annoying thing is I was going to bet on them like when it was first announced because it felt so striking right away, but I thought that it was too early to bet and then by the time I came to bet I'd lost that feeling and Ukraine were lost in lots of other countries' hype, but oh well that's how things go. I'm so so happy with the result though, socially it's bold and as I said it was just such a strikingly emotive song that really made me feel everything it was meant to. It's refreshing and exciting for a song like this to win that actually represents a country and means something, rather than a generic pop song like Heroes for example (as much as I absolutely stan Euphoria for example by the same token).

Oh my god. UK simply didn't get enough points because it didn't stand out at all. It was a mor okay pop song. Especially going before Armenia, nobody will care in the slightest.

 

I don't see how Britain 'deserved' to be higher than 24th given hardly any effort was made to bring anything new or exciting to the table. It's time to stop acting as if the world owes you something perhaps? Or and stopping the whining thing would also be quite good.

Not even sure how to take in these results. Ukraine is a shock but congratulations to Jamala, it's a grower musically and I respect her message. That said, it's my least favourite winner since 2011 personally.

 

Poland...maybe poor Margaret wouldn't have done any better! :lol: I just don't get the public's love for that whatsoever.

 

Elated for Poli, and she was clearly so happy about it. I had a gut feeling it would do well...it was far too good to flop. On the flip side Sergey's realisation that his televote points weren't enough to topple Ukraine was quite amazing. D'oh! Amazed Australia finished only 4th with the public too! Below Poland :/ (sorry but I just don't get that at all).

 

Really sad for Joe and Jake, 8 points from the public is such a shame. I hope the UK can regroup quickly and look at the results of countries like France and Bulgaria and realise that a GREAT pop song can equal a top ten finish but a merely very good one might result in a flop, such is the high quality these days. Still...62 points is certainly not bad for that low down the scoreboard. Poor Germany coming last again but everything about that was beyond tragic.

 

Oh well, SVT did a blinding job again and the voting was immense. It's quite odd to see a song that didn't top either the public vote or the jury vote winning overall but it appealed largely to both so well done to Ukraine. I can't envisage me going next year though.

Edited May 15, 20169 yr by gooddelta

guys, don't wanna be offensive but the last UK entry I remember is Jade Ewen's It's My Time, other ones were quite forgettable and bland (sorry). As for Ukraine, the song seems interesting, but it's very hard to singalong, so I wouldn't predicted this to win. Also Ukraine got that strange hype in Europe these days so maybe it's time to relief it with ESC triumph?

UK duo Joe and Jake heavily resembles Russian duo SMASH!! which doesn't exist for already 10 years as boys went solo career (one of the boys is - BAM! - Sergey Lazarev).

Bulgaria and Armenia shouldn't be THAT high imo -_-

YAY for Poland to go Top 3 by televoting ^_^ such a Slavic Slayage lol

I wanted France to win, but due to politi...nah, i'm done.

Thanks everyone guys. Seeya in Kyiv.

And our 8 televoting points came from:

 

Malta (1 point)

Ireland (3 points)

Australia (4 points)

Europe does not hate us, we're just shit at the being competitive side of things - and to be competitive one needs to stand out a lot more than that entry did.

that's the annotation of these 30 pages. :rolleyes:

7 years ago.

France just got their best result since 2002.

 

it was a nice pop song

That description is exactly why it came 23rd.

 

a song that is absolute crap, albeit with a strong political message

'1944' is a very popular on BuzzJack. Why are you assuming your opinion on music is worth so much in a contest watched by hundreds of millions?

I understand the UK result myself,like our own entry I found it forgettable and didn't thehave any sing along element to it. In general Iffound it a weak year overall as I only liked about 5 songs. Delighted how well Bulgaria did as it was a great song.