Whose performances disappointed you?

Sweden's - she wasn't as pitch perfect as in the semis

Whose unexpecdetly impressed you?

Russia's - I don't think I've ever laughed so much at a Eurovision performance

Who did you think placed unfairly or surprisingly low?

Albania, Ukraine, Sweden, Portugal, Finland

And who exceeded your expectations on the final leaderboard?

Iceland, Armenia, Russia :kink:

Whose performances disappointed you?

 

Turkey. As others said, the woman was shouting in the final, much less so in the semi-final. I think someone told her to put more energy into the final performance, and it backfired.

 

Whose (unexpectedly) impressed you?

 

Azerbaijan improved from the semi-final to the final and really shined. And Iceland was solid in both.

 

Who did you think placed unfairly or surprisingly low?

 

Ukraine did not deserve to get almost no points from Russia (not to mention everybody else.)

 

And who exceeded your expectations on the final leaderboard?

 

Like most, I was surprised that Norway exceeded its hype. I expected it to be #1, not to smash records.

 

And anything else you wanna tell us :P

 

I'm most interested in learning the patterns here so that I won't make stupid bets in the future. One thing that seems to be the case is that block voting extends to the singer's place of birth and actually seems more important than neighborly voting. For example, Russia and Belarus gave 12's to Norway with its Belarussian singer, but they gave only 2 and 6, respectively, to neighbor and former comrade Ukraine. Of course, it's a little debatable, since Norway gathered so many 12's anyway, but personally I think it was a near automatic 12 from Belarus for the Belarussian singer, even if he had been mediocre. Ukraine gave an 8 to Russia and its Ukrainian singer, which, given the weakness of the song, was a lot. The only countries that gave more points to Russia were Estonia and Armenia, both neighbors of Russia. (Well, Georgia is between Armenia and Russia, but close enough.)

 

Another pattern is that although ballads can and do sometimes win Eurovision, they did poorly overall this year. Malta got trashed. UK sort of got trashed, considering the heavy guns they brought to bear to garner only fifth place. I can't remember who the other ballads were... that's how forgettable they were. :)

 

And it seems that those who mostly just stood there (Lithuania, Malta) got trashed, but then again over-the-top performances (Ukraine) did not necessarily do well either. Norway was lively enough, but had no half naked soldiers, half naked girls, or fireworks. If Estonia had been more lively (but not over the top), I think it could have gotten third.

 

I'm wondering if maybe the "amateurish" acts do better in Eurovision. If you compare Norway to UK or France, there's just a different feeling there. I mean, the Norwegian singer, Alexander Rybak, is clearly a professional, but he's so young and lively, not serious, that he comes across with a cute amateurism. It seems like bringing super serious professionals to the contest will lose you a few points here and there. And bringing outrageous professionals (Svetlana Loboda of Ukraine) seems to be even worse. I haven't watched all that many years of Eurovision, though, so maybe you guys can comment more.

Edited May 18, 200916 yr by FinalCylon

most of last years top 10 countries did well this year apart from russia and serbia i think???

6 countries remained in the top 10 from last year. Israel (16), Ukraine (12) and Russia (11) stayed in the Top 16, but Serbia didn't manage to qualify :(

 

It's quite an interesting fact! Some may think it's all about the block voting blah blah but it's all about the constant quality songs countries send and how Europe loves them :wub:

Poor Bosnia by the way... 11-10-9 :( TOO SLOW FOR MY FAVOURITE ESC COUNTRY :o

Not purposely I keep finding similarities between 2008 and 2009 :heehee: both winners had a VIOLIN in their performances :lol: :o