Is that how the hype around Kristian is being justified? I've always thought that he was getting hype due to him being a discount Troye...

Beautiful Mess and Kristian ticked all the boxes: modern song with James Arthur vibes, eastern instrumental touches for that pan-European appeal, very strong singer made even more impressive by his young age and youthful looks, he's well-known in the former Soviet countries due to The Voice Kids, one of the best staging packages masterminded by Eurovision's stage director of the moment Sacha Jean-Baptiste, excellent running order draw, sensational all around effort from his team at BNT and Virginia Records!

 

Bulgaria would've been a rightful runaway winner if this one of a kind Portugal steam train hadn't arrived in the contest this year!

Is that how the hype around Kristian is being justified? I've always thought that he was getting hype due to him being a discount Troye...

Well, I highly doubt most people even know who Troye is (me included), especially families.

I hadn't even thought to compare the Kristian track to Troye Sivan but it'd fit in perfectly to "Blue Neighbourhood" - no wonder I like it so much!

Have just rewatched Lucie's performance, she really did deserve more than she got, but the same can be said for several other performances in what was another high quality contest - what on earth happened to Armenia's support? The televote was so top heavy in that top 10 compared to the rest, nearly every country must have had pretty much the same top 10 - further proof songs are winning over regional alliances (the odd Greece-Cyprus and Moldova-Romania has a negligible effect in the grand scheme of things and even they haven't swapped constant 12s in recent years). However, looking at the voting breakdowns - it seems that the public are just fed up of ballads.

 

Ballads in the televoting:

1. Portugal - 376

2. Bulgaria - 337

12. Poland - 41

19. The Netherlands - 15

20. United Kingdom - 12

21. Denmark - 8

25. Australia - 2

26. Austria - 0 (Staged as a ballad so counting it and Croatia doesn't fit in this category :P)

 

If you take out the 17 points from UK & Ireland for Poland that were diaspora-aided, that makes for very sorry reading for our female balladeers in particular. The only televoting points Anja got in the WHOLE contest were from Australia - all 5 of her televote points in the semi and all 8 in the final were from her other homeland. All the ballad fans seems to swoop to Portugal and Bulgaria.

 

I found Lucie's performance stunning but we have to remember that it was pretty much mutually agreed by us all that the song wasn't up to much when we first heard it. We've heard it several times as it has gone through its revamp and in the build-up to the contest, and songs like these are very much growers. Unfortunately it just wasn't an instant song, but credit to the BBC and Lucie for doing everything they possibly could to elevate this out of what looked like a near certain bottom 5 result when it was picked! It really was this year's Made of Stars, and OG3NE fitted into exactly the same boat and Anja to a lesser extent. It wasn't televote hate for just the UK, it was televote hate for female ballads.

 

Realised I'm answering an argument no-one has started, but just a few thoughts about it all! And the UK scored points from 25 countries out of a possible 41, that's pretty impressive. We said all along that it was a song that would do well when averaging out complete rankings of jurors to get in many top 10s as you just can't deny the vocal quality but that it would be no-one's outright favourite at home - it was exactly the case!

Moral of the story, Anja should've won DMGP with Never Alone last year :kink:

 

(I think I slightly prefer Where I Am now but you really have to wonder what could have been, also I did slightly prefer Heart Shaped Hole by Simone to both and that's a female ballad)

Oh I know, Never Alone would surely have done so well! It ticked every single box and even in last year's contest which is the highest quality ever in my personal opinion I think it would've broken the top 10 at least. :(

 

I can see Anja back at DMGP in a few years though, hopefully with something more uptempo and anthemic! I'm a big fan of Where I Am too don't get me wrong but it was certainly never going to do as well as Never Alone could've done.

The public isn't fed up of ballads. No one cared about the rest because there were two clearly superior ones on offer.

I don't think you can completely take away the points from UK & Ireland to Poland, diaspora did affect but it's not all or nothing obviously

 

That's like saying that if someone is Swedish he/she is not allowed to vote for Sweden from another country, yet someone who's Finnish can. Not really fair isn't it

Edited May 17, 20178 yr by SKOB

The public isn't fed up of ballads. No one cared about the rest because there were two clearly superior ones on offer.

But that doesn't explain their semi final performance. It's Israel who fell 3-23.

Semi 1 was VERY standard ballad heavy. Anyone would lose their hope~ I guess I see why Finland was wiped off by the 'no ballads' current. It was very hard to stand out despite the song's amazingness.

And compared to Semi 2's more diverse nature I can see why so many ballads were sacrificed in Semi 1 but that doesn't mean people are tired of these songs in general.

Sadly ballads appear to be just about the only thing the UK can do well :lol: The uptempos in our national final were largely embarrassing, I'm guessing even the best uptempo, I Don't Wanna Fight, would have probably finished 3rd to last - nothing would be below the dismal Germany and Spain.

 

But apart from I Can, which was a great pastiche of Tinie Tempah's Written In The Stars derailed by Lee's poor attempt at reaching the high notes and the questionable staging, we have only done well this century with ballads. Our attempts at uptempos are usually horrendous at best, so if we must go down the ballad route again then it needs to be something modern and credible along the lines of Bulgaria.

 

I agree with Ryan, I'm elated with 15th for Lucie, it's never been one of my ultimate favourites in the contest and she did everything she possibly could to elevate a 'good' song into something special. With a really knockout song there's no reason we couldn't do very well, certainly with the juries and the public would get on board too if it was something outstanding.

Edited May 17, 20178 yr by gooddelta

I don't think you can completely take away the points from UK & Ireland to Poland, diaspora did affect but it's not all or nothing obviously

 

That's like saying that if someone is Swedish he/she is not allowed to vote for Sweden from another country, yet someone who's Finnish can. Not really fair isn't it

 

It was just for comparison's sake as Poland having 24 points rather than 41 brings them straight into the same category as the other 3 female ballads. In my opinion there's no way that Flashlight was worth double the points of the other 3 but once again in the grand scheme of things what I believe were diaspora aided votes didn't make a difference to the overall result bar a place or two.

 

I don't think Poland got more than 3 from anywhere else on the televote and Flashlight certainly isn't the typical UK vote grabber so I'd be surprised if all of those points weren't diaspora-aided and fair enough, the diaspora are a part of the country as you say and are free to vote for who they like and that may be different to the typical Brit who will tend to favour the more uptempo and novelty songs.

 

Definitely agreed that Portugal and Bulgaria deservedly swooped all the ballad votes!

The only televoting points Anja got in the WHOLE contest were from Australia - all 5 of her televote points in the semi and all 8 in the final were from her other homeland.

 

But Denmark were semi 2 and Australia were semi 1, no?

 

Oh yes, ESCForumers are lying to me again :o I should check their "facts" first shouldn't I!

 

They got 1 from The Netherlands and 4 from Norway :P