AdamAloud

Apologies for the huge delay! 10. Mariya Yaremchuk - Tick-Tock (2014) 7.03 Highest score: 9 (Izzy, Alex!, uhsting) Lowest score: 3 (Hide&Seek) slHboKF9PIQ And a man in a hamster wheel! One of the most iconic stage props of recent years alongside a pretty standard pop song for Ukraine's standards. 09. Gaitana - Be My Guest (2012) 7.1 Highest score: 11 (Mike Sugafan, Jahq) Lowest score: 4 (Ansel, JackJones, Jade) sLsTn_li5d8 The unofficial Euro 2012 anthem for the gays! The fact this came second to last in the televote in its semi, only beating the Georgian atrocity from that year is a disgrace!

Sorry guys but I'll have to pause results, I don't have my laptop with my spreadsheet on me and I'm isolating with covid, hopefully it won't be too long till I can resume.

12. Tina Karol - Show Me Your Love (2006) 6.85 Highest score: 11 (Nick F1) Lowest score: 3 (152chris, Jahq, Colm) mRqhkwTIuU8 Our first 11 score falls! 'Show Me Your Love' managed to finish 7th in both the semi final and the grand final, amazingly with just 1 point difference between the two. 11. Go_A - Solovey (2020) 6.9 Highest score: 10 (כן, Ansel) Lowest score: 0 (Colm) zNetXPSld50 Go_A nearly manage to have two entries in the top 10, but their first attempt narrowly misses out. 'Solovey' was the only entry to receive a 0 score.

14. Alyosha - Sweet People (2010) 5.9 Highest score: 10 (Alex!) Lowest score: 3 (Vulker, LexC) 20CPPV_uwmE The lyrics of this song seems to have taken on a new meaning in the past few months, coupled with the video that was filmed in the eerie abandoned city of Pripyat. It's by no means a classic, but I do really like this entry. The Ukrainian selection in 2010 was one of the most chaotic of all time by the way, well worth a read on Wikipedia if you're not familiar. 13. Mélovin - Under The Ladder (2018) 6.25 Highest score: 8 (Alex!) Lowest score: 3 (152chris) lhOuMYtQ94M It's been 4 years and I still don't think I know the actual lyrics to this. would've been a better choice I feel.

16. O.Torvald - Time (2017) 4.85 Highest score: 9 (Izzy) Lowest score: 3 (NickF1, JackJones, Colm) mogNLkIEI0k The Ukrainian host entry seems to have the not-so-successful formula of sending male rock bands, what will 2023 bring? 15. Mika Newton - Angel (2011) 5.6 Highest score: 10 (Alex!) Lowest score: 3 (Vulker) mx1wAj_oVdE I don't think many Eurofans have 2011 has a vintage year for the contest, certainly it had very strange results, including the Ukrainian entry from Mika Newton which I think can be best described as 'meh'. Moldova would go on to try and replicate Angel's fluck success in 2019 but to a far less rewarding result, failing to qualify to the final.

18. Oleksandr - Hasta la Vista (2003) 4.00 Highest score: 6 (goodelta, Shumzee) Lowest score: 1 (Vulker, 152chris) MK-SjFtMYUA So Ukraine didn't exactly have an amazing debut at the contest, although it of course wouldn't take them long to find their feet. 'Hasta la Vista' is pretty much your average early 2000s Eurovision-by-numbers entry. It managed 14th at the contest, narrowly beating out the Britney rip off from Croatia and the 'Sex Bomb' ripoff from Bosnia & Herzegovina. 17. GreenJolly - Razom nas bahato (2005) 4.47 Highest score: 8 (Izzy) Lowest score: 1 (MikeSugafan, JackJones) N5u6J_mbhLU A lot happened in Ukraine in the year of their first hosting in 2005. As such, their entry reflected the political landscape of the country at the time, being shoehorned in to the national selection at the final hour and beating out the competition after serving as somewhat of an anthem to the Orange Revolution. The song had to go under significant reworkings before the EBU allowed it to compete. An important and interesting entry for those who follow Eurovision's role in the politcial makeup of Europe, but perhaps less memorable for your casual viewer.

Sorry guys, had a bit of a hectic week but this is now closed (bar Jahq editing his missing two scores if he sees this in time!), with results starting tomorrow. Thanks for all the submissions!

A week left for any more rates!

05 2003: 'Hasta la Vista' by Oleksandr 10 2004: 'Wild Dances' by Ruslana 07 2005: 'Razom nas bahato' by GreenJolly 07 2006: 'Show Me Your Love' by Tina Karol 09 2007: 'Dancing Lasha Tumbai' by Verka Serduchka 10 2008: 'Shady Lady' by Ani Lorak 09 2009: 'Be My Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl)' by Svetlana Loboda 07 2010: 'Sweet People' by Alyosha 04 2011: 'Angel' by Mika Newton 08 2012: 'Be My Guest' by Gaitana 09 2013: 'Gravity' by Zlata Ognevich 07 2014: 'Tick-Tock' by Mariya Yaremchuk 11 2016: '1944' by Jamala 05 2017: 'Time' by O.Torvald 07 2018: 'Under The Ladder' by Mélovin 08 2020: 'Solovey' by Go_A 10 2021: 'Shum' by Go_A 10 2022: 'Stefania' by Kalush Orchestra It's wild to me that 'Angel' is their best non-top 3 entry, the 2011 results were bizarre.

To celebrate Ukraine's third victory at Eurovision last month, I thought it was time to revisit the back catalogue of arguably the powerhouse of modern Eurovision in a rate! Give each entry a score from 0-10 (.5 scores allowed but no other decimal places) with one entry being allowed the prestige of your 11, if you so wish. No minus scores please, a 0 is enough for a song you don't like. Do try and rate all 18 songs if you can, otherwise leave those entries blank rather than a default zero. I'll be leaving this open until Saturday 25th June, so plenty of time to discover the wonders of the Ukrainian Eurovision entry, or just to refresh yourselves! SBQ_72fJAVQ *Ignore Siren Song in this recap please x

2002 Jessica Garlick - Come Back 2014 Molly - Children Of The Universe 2022 Sam Ryder - SPACE MAN The holy trinity for me, hopefully it's not 2034 before we can add to this group! 2005 Javine - Touch My Fire 2011 Blue - I Can 2009 Jade Ewen - It's My Time 2001 Lindsay Dracass - No Dream Impossible 2017 Lucie Jones - Never Give Up On You The above average, apart from Jade they all deserved a bit more love in the final rankings. 2003 Jemini - Cry Baby 2007 Scooch - Flying The Flag (For You) 2000 Nicki French - Don't Play That Song Again Ironic stanning. 2020 James Newman - My Last Breath 2016 Joe & Jake - You're Not Alone 2018 SuRie - Storm 2021 James Newman - Embers 2008 Andy Abraham - Even If 2004 James Fox - Hold On To Our Love 2019 Michael Rice - Bigger Than Us 2012 Engelbert Humperdinck - Love Will Set You Free 2013 Bonnie Tyler - Believe In Me mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 2015 Electro Velvet - Still In Love With You 2006 Daz Sampson - Teenage Life I can't even ironically stan these, just embarrassments. 2010 Josh Dubovie - That Sounds Good To Me That the BBC would deem this an acceptable entry when it wouldn't have even passed the audition stages in Belarus or Moldova. Shockingly terrible.

I also wouldn't be mad at having the semi finals be 100% televote. The final really could've done with Albania & Cyprus this year to cut through those male ballads.

Obviously the past few days have been overshadowed by the jury voting scandal in 6 countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania & San Marino) whose scores were discounted by the EBU due to 'irregular voting patterns'. Their jury scores were then replaced by an aggregate score based on the votes from the countries in their allocation pot, who are decided based on historical voting patterns. This is not the first time we're seeing issues regarding the validity of the jury vote, countries have had their juries result thrown out before - Georgia in 2014 and Montenegro in 2015 spring to mind - and we of course had the Belarusian jury being disqualified for revealing their semi votes before the final in 2019. That was replaced by an aggregate score due to the voting system requiring 2 sets of scores, and of course a Twitter Eurofan infamously worked out that that aggregate score was the wrong way, causing huge embarrassment for the EBU. In 2022, we now have a situation where 6/40 jury results were, in effect, made up. The change in voting system back in 2016 requires each country to give out 2 sets of scores, one from the jury and one from the televote. The EBU would never allow a return to the pre-2016 style of voting as you cannot deny that since then the voting has been far more exciting and tension building, leading to better viewer engagement and a proper climax to the show, rather than people turning off half way through the voting sequence as it's already clear Norway cannot be caught for example. Firstly, there must be a rise in the number of jurors. It's a lot easier to say, get 2 out of 5 people to vote a certain way and this would have quite an impact on the result, than say if you're influencing 2 out of 10, 15 or even 20 people. I know smaller countries with less media industry professionals at their disposal would struggle, but I think it's absolutely crucial that the number of jurors goes up in 2023 more than anything. They also need to be completely independent. I don't know for sure the protocols in each country, but we've certainly seen evidence in the past that these jurors are in the same room and openly discussing the show/how they intend to vote. If you cannot separate them to guarantee independent voting, then there must be an auditor present in each country. I believe at the moment that they only visit a handful of countries each year unannounced, which has obviously proven to be not good enough in preventing or at least discouraging foul play, to have 15% of your national juries, allegedly, doing so this year. To address the need to replace a disqualified jury with an aggregate result. I do not agree with this either, there should be no place for what are, in essence, made-up votes being counted! To take San Marino as an example, they physically cannot have a televote so have theirs aggregated every year. Have a public jury in their case, or at least double the professional jury scores. Of course this is also tricky when their scores are thrown out too, meaning in 2022, both sets of points from San Marino came from a forumla in the computer spreadsheet. I've waffled on a bit there, but what do you think can be done to try and restore credibility to the jury vote next year?

Certainly Ukraine's overwhelming landslide on the televote was down to the fact Europe wanted to show their support and stand with Ukraine. The so-called 'political voting' we saw this year, which as a term especially in UK media, is seen to divide and separate us, was actually an incredible show of unity of the European public with Ukraine and against the very horrific threat to us all. I don't see how you can be disappointed with the result in that regard. In any way, if this terrible war had never happened, I honestly think Ukraine could have still won the televote this year, just obviously not with the numbers they did. 'Shum' came second on the televote last year and 'Stefania' is not a million miles away. It was always destined to be a top 5 contender, some people seem hellbent on trying to say that an obvious non-qualifier was handed the biggest victory of all time. In fact, in terms of the ranking of the winners based on the percentage of maximum possible points, 'Stefania' is 24th with 65.73%.

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