Totally agree that the song is not bad at all. I think it is radio-friendly and only through listening this song is better than a few songs in the grand final. It has a good instrumental hook. From the music itself this definitely does not deserve 0 points, and clearly a lot better than almost all the songs sent by the UK in the 2010s.

 

I think the big problem is the staging and the package. The song wasn't hyped or sold at all. Other countries were literally promoting their Eurovision entries like crazy and put a lot of thoughts to how they present the song on the stage. If the UK were to send the song that Sweden sent, I could imagine them butchering it completely and have the same fate as Embers. I really like the singer and the voice, and he is a great songwriter, but he is not selling it on stage. I believe the staging and costume team would have improved the presentation of James and the song massively. Good staging and idea helps elevate a song to another level, like what we saw with Portugal and Ukraine this year. This department needs the biggest overhaul out of all factors.

 

And then we have the uniqueness of the song. It is great to take risks and frankly speaking being in the grand final every time, it is always a good opportunity to showcase different unique styles of the country. This is how Italy and France stood out this year. Embers is a decent pop song but it falls flat because this is what we hear every day on radio. Like what a lot of people said before, an entry of rock, hip-hop, queer pop, metal, dance, ethnic pop would not hurt at all and UK is not just about UK pop. If we do something very different, even if the televoters hate us still, I'm sure we'll pick some points from the jury, which is what happened to Lucie Jones in 2017 though that song is still pretty common.

Edited May 25, 20214 yr by uhsting

I really think a mystical, half-modern, half-traditional Gaelic or Welsh entry - could we send something in Irish due to Northern Ireland, or not? - would go down an absolute STORM, be a huge risk, and really shock audiences across Europe. We compete as the UK ... and there's more than England in it.

Totally agree that the song is not bad at all. I think it is radio-friendly and only through listening this song is better than a few songs in the grand final. It has a good instrumental hook. From the music itself this definitely does not deserve 0 points, and clearly a lot better than almost all the songs sent by the UK in the 2010s.

 

Embers is a decent pop song .

 

Um, no it's not a decent pop song - Embers is a shockingly poor song, that goes nowhere, isn't instantly accessible, and is forgettable...and James was a terrible performer; for me, it was the worst song on the night and the worst performance too - and around 182 million people agree! I also disagree that it's better than most of the songs sent in the 2010s - not only is it the poorest performing, but it's also the worst for me. Just dreadful.

*cough*France*cough*

 

 

As long it doesn’t come last

The amount of correct predictions in this thread! *.*

It's obvious why UK got zero from the televote. It had to follow Serbia. B-)

Honestly I prefer his song over Italian winner.

Um, no it's not a decent pop song - Embers is a shockingly poor song, that goes nowhere, isn't instantly accessible, and is forgettable...and James was a terrible performer; for me, it was the worst song on the night and the worst performance too - and around 182 million people agree! I also disagree that it's better than most of the songs sent in the 2010s - not only is it the poorest performing, but it's also the worst for me. Just dreadful.

 

Agreed!

My local quiz asked people to name James Newman’s song at Eurovision this year and very few got it!

 

I still think it is a bit of a bop and one the best songs the UK has sent in recent years