Ryan.

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

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!

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.

Well that's a great attitude from him, completely the opposite to Nicky Byrne last year who slagged the contest off at the first opportunity! Country/folk has a great track record in Eurovision in recent years mainly thanks to The Netherlands (Common Linnets, Douwe Bob) but also the likes of Firelight (Malta 2014), Naviband (Belarus 2017) and at a push Monika & Vaidas (Lithuania 2015). All of these made the final and I'm under the impression Ireland is a fan of this type of music from my limited knowledge of their industry (:kink:): Niall Horan, Una Healy, Nathan Carter. Didn't HomeTown themselves even have a couple of guitar-led/folky type singles? This is the avenue I want Ireland to go down, I think Brendan would suit this type of song and surely Una would be up for it all too after her album didn't scale too higher heights.

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!

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!

I noticed Emma Stevens had amazing taste putting Belarus in her top 3 if I remember rightly when I looked earlier! :heart:

Welcome to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest! 8, 10 & 12 May 2018 Click the countries to visit the national threads! 43 participants 43 artists selected 43 songs revealed 43 CONFIRMED Finalists 01. Ukraine MÉLOVIN - Under The Ladder 02. Spain Alfred & Amaia - Tu Canción 03. Slovenia Lea Sirk - Hvala, Ne! 04. Lithuania Ieva Zasimauskaitė - When We're Old 05. Austria Cesár Sampson - Nobody But You 06. Estonia Elina Nechayeva - La Forza 07. Norway Alexander Rybak - That's How You Write A Song 08. Portugal Cláudia Pascoal - O Jardim 09. United Kingdom SuRie - Storm 10. Serbia Sanja Ilić & Balkanika - Nova Deca 11. Germany Michael Schulte - You Let Me Walk Alone 12. Albania Eugent Bushpepa - Mall 13. France Madame Monsieur - Mercy 14. Czech Republic Mikolas Josef - Lie To Me 15. Denmark Rasmussen - Higher Ground 16. Australia Jessica Mauboy - We Got Love 17. Finland Saara Aalto - Monsters 18. Bulgaria EQUINOX - Bones 19. Moldova DoReDoS - My Lucky Day 20. Sweden Benjamin Ingrosso - Dance You Off 21. Hungary AWS - Viszlát nyár 22. Israel Netta - Toy 23. The Netherlands Waylon - Outlaw In 'Em 24. Ireland Ryan O'Shaughnessy - Together 25. Cyprus Eleni Foureira - Fuego 26. Italy Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - Non Mi Avente Fatto Niente Semi-Finalists Semi Final 1 01. Azerbaijan Aisel - X My Heart 02. Iceland Ari Ólafsson - Our Choice 03. Albania Eugent Bushpepa - Mall 04. Belgium Sennek - A Matter Of Time 05. Czech Republic Mikolas Josef - Lie To Me 06. Lithuania Ieva Zasimauskaitė - When We're Old 07. Israel Netta - TOY 08. Belarus ALEKSEEV - Forever 09. Estonia Elina Nechayeva - La Forza 10. Bulgaria EQUINOX - Bones 11. Macedonia Eye Cue - Lost & Found 12. Croatia Franka - Crazy 13. Austria Cesár Sampson - Nobody But You 14. Greece Yianna Terzi - Oniro Mou 15. Finland Saara Aalto - Monsters 16. Armenia Sevak Khanagyan - Qami 17. Switzerland ZiBBZ - Stones 18. Ireland Ryan O'Shaughnessy - Together 19. Cyprus Eleni Foureira - Fuego Semi Final 2 01. Norway Alexander Rybak - That's How You Write A Song 02. Romania The Humans - Goodbye 03. Serbia Sanja Ilić & Balkanika - Nova deca 04. San Marino Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - Who We Are 05. Denmark Rasmussen - Higher Ground 06. Russia Julia Samoylova - I Won't Break 07. Moldova DoReDoS - My Lucky Day 08. The Netherlands Waylon - Outlaw In 'Em 09. Australia Jessica Mauboy - We Got Love 10. Georgia Ethno-Jazz Band Iriao - For You 11. Poland Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - Light Me Up 12. Malta Christabelle - Taboo 13. Hungary AWS - Viszlát nyár 14. Latvia Laura Rizzotto - Funny Girl 15. Sweden Benjamin Ingrosso - Dance You Off 16. Montenegro Vanja Radovanović - Inje 17. Slovenia Lea Sirk - Hvala, ne! 18. Ukraine Mélovin - Under The Ladder --- Feel free to use this thread for general discussion around the entries, but you can find links to each country's national thread by clicking on the country name!

Just saving this for when I get Finland 2015 thrown in my face in the future :kink:

Enjoy tonight everyone! I feel like the last 5 months has built up to this moment, we've made it :heart: Would love Belgium to pull off a mini surprise, but I'm quite the fan of all the big 3 in their own ways. Think I'm team Bulgaria out of them though and I think he may just do it!

She did! Top 5 in 2012 was... 183 Sweden 88 Cyprus 83 Iceland 79 Spain 66 Italy

Very pleased to have qualified, thank you again for all of the votes! :heart: Echoing the shock at Hushkanukia, especially as they got my 12 points! :o That means they only got 37 points from elsewhere which I thought would've been easily achievable :(

Final predictions: GRAND FINAL Overall Prediction - Televote Prediction - Jury Prediction 01 02 02 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Bulgaria_zpsk1esazjf.png Bulgaria: Kristian Kostov - Beautiful Mess 02 01 03 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Italy_zpsnjxj2ot2.png Italy: Francesco Gabbani - Occidentali's Karma 03 03 01 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Portugal_zps7vkbxaog.png Portugal: Salvador Sobral - Amar Pelos Dois 04 04 04 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Belgium_zpsgqlbvvca.png Belgium: Blanche - City Lights 05 06 05 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Sweden_zpsnezpmv8t.png Sweden: Robin Bengtsson - I Can't Go On 06 07 06 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Armenia_zpsjiyrkjce.png Armenia: Artsvik - Fly With Me 07 09 09 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Hungary_zpsecmt8vsa.png Hungary: Joci Pápai - Origo 08 14 07 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/France_zpsifpoaeg1.png France: Alma - Requiem 09 05 21 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Romania_zpsltozjcj6.png Romania: Ilinca ft. Alex Florea - Yodel It! 10 12 15 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Moldova_zpskrmsiqs0.png Moldova: Sunstroke Project - Hey Mamma 11 17 11 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Azerbaijan_zpssqath9zp.png Azerbaijan: Dihaj - Skeletons 12 19 10 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Denmark_zps6s4bn5ae.png Denmark: Anja - Where I Am 13 15 14 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Belarus_zps0zigzyi1.png Belarus: Naviband - Story Of My Life 14 22 08 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/United%20Kingdom_zpspagh5abp.png United Kingdom: Lucie Jones - Never Give Up On You 15 08 23 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Croatia_zpsdc9ptlqf.png Croatia: Jacques Houdek - My Friend 16 13 18 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Ukraine_zps6omaoenc.png Ukraine: O.Torvald - Time 17 10 22 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Poland_zpsjexo9jyj.png Poland: Kasia Moś - Flashlight 18 21 12 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/The%20Netherlands_zpswvdcz8wq.png The Netherlands: OG3NE - Lights And Shadows 19 18 16 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Austria_zpscoqaobgf.png Austria: Nathan Trent - Running On Air 20 11 24 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Greece_zpsantwlpxn.png Greece: Demy - This Is Love 21 16 19 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Israel_zpsyievgvoi.png Israel: IMRI - I Feel Alive 22 23 13 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Australia_zps5o2nr036.png Australia: Isaiah - Don't Come Easy 23 20 20 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Cyprus_zpswtpv5guj.png Cyprus: Hovig - Gravity 24 24 17 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Norway_zpsgrplia4j.png Norway: JOWST - Grab The Moment 25 25 25 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Germany_zps1nqxwi7u.png Germany: Levina - Perfect Life 26 26 26 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Spain_zpsit1m3ddt.png Spain: Manel Navarro - Do It For Your Lover

That's true, jurors are real people and they could be fed up of them just as lots of Eurofans are!

For the first time since Francesco was selected, I now don't have Italy as my predicted winner. I think this is Bulgaria's to lose!

UK have been very lucky with their draws recently, and Sweden could do with coming after a break too flow-wise so I think they'll get preference over the UK. Saying that, they can easily put in another mini break wherever they want to for Sweden as it is just the UK that needs a good 2 minutes (before and after) so I could see the UK coming straight before Sweden in that 19-20 section.

This was SUCH a tough semi (I mean like 8 of my top 10 are all from this semi) I was bound to lose a favourite, was expecting it to be Belarus rather than Estonia though! :o Croatia qualifying is a bit annoying but otherwise those 9 were all deserving and I'd have liked another 3 or 4 through as well! Switzerland in particular did enough to challenge for the televote top 10 so the jury performance must have been as bad as was reported after all unfortunately :( Lucie's very lucky that most of the female ballads have been disposed of and the three that slipped through the net (Poland, Denmark, Netherlands) are all in the first half.

I'm sure San Marino make the same statement every year, they will participate as long as Ralph funds it!

Under the assumption that the main advert break will be between 13 and 14 and mini breaks after 7 and 19... 01 Moldova 02 Poland 03 Belarus 04 Croatia 05 Azerbaijan 06 Israel 07 Denmark 08 Hungary 09 Austria 10 The Netherlands 11 Italy 12 Armenia 13 Portugal 14 United Kingdom 15 Greece 16 Spain 17 Cyprus 18 Germany 19 Bulgaria 20 Sweden 21 Belgium 22 Ukraine 23 Norway 24 France 25 Australia 26 Romania Something like that maybe?!

Suddenly C-listed on BBC Radio 2 so may be getting a mini-push! How nice :o

Such a refreshing song, while I loved the Bangerz singles I'm so glad that my Miley is finally back without any attention seeking or pretentiousness - which I know probably wasn't really her and it was totally for headlines and sales which worked perfectly. And it's a completely new sound for her as well, but it feels natural. It's quite OneRepublic sounding to me, but with a Miley stamp through the country influences. Really really great, she's back! :heart:

I was in the arena for that in the jury final, it was quite remarkable how she managed to recompose herself in the space of just 60 seconds to restart and perform it perfectly! :o

That's another 6/4 split I've gone for, just as I did in semi 1 which meant I only got 9/10! But I'll stick with it now I've posted it, surely one day it'll happen?

Final predictions: SEMI-FINAL TWO Overall Prediction - Televote Prediction - Jury Prediction Certain Qualifiers 01 01 01 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Bulgaria_zpsk1esazjf.png Bulgaria: Kristian Kostov - Beautiful Mess 02 03 07 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Israel_zpsyievgvoi.png Israel: IMRI - I Feel Alive 03 06 05 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Estonia_zps3ufzgkx8.png Estonia: Koit Toome and Laura - Verona Likely Qualifiers 04 11 02 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Denmark_zps6s4bn5ae.png Denmark: Anja - Where I Am 05 04 10 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Austria_zpscoqaobgf.png Austria: Nathan Trent - Running On Air 06 05 09 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Hungary_zpsecmt8vsa.png Hungary: Joci Pápai - Origo Borderline Qualifiers 07 12 03 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/The%20Netherlands_zpswvdcz8wq.png The Netherlands: OG3NE - Lights And Shadows 08 08 08 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Serbia_zpsatium691.png Serbia: Tijana Bogićević - In Too Deep 09 02 16 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Romania_zpsltozjcj6.png Romania: Ilinca ft. Alex Florea - Yodel It! 10 07 11 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Belarus_zps0zigzyi1.png Belarus: Naviband - Story Of My Life 11 17 04 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Norway_zpsgrplia4j.png Norway: JOWST - Grab The Moment 12 09 12 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/F.Y.R.%20Macedonia_zpsyp4hiqjd.png F.Y.R. Macedonia: Jana Burčeska - Dance Alone Unlikely Qualifiers 13 18 06 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Malta_zpsgggu5dck.png Malta: Claudia Faniello - Breathlessly 14 10 17 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Croatia_zpsdc9ptlqf.png Croatia: Jacques Houdek - My Friend 15 13 14 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Switzerland_zpspu8xjwlq.png Switzerland: Timebelle - Apollo Certain Non-Qualifiers 16 15 13 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/San%20Marino_zpsx3s6g8dc.png San Marino: Valentina Monetta & Jimmie Wilson - Spirit Of The Night 17 16 15 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Ireland_zpswircvipr.png Ireland: Brendan Murray - Dying To Try 18 14 18 http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z369/RC741/Flag%20Icons/Lithuania_zpsiib7l7s3.png Lithuania: Fusedmarc - Rain Of Revolution Haven't seen a full run through unlike with semi one so I'm going off reports for Switzerland here. I've seen some of Austria's jury performance too which sounded quite off key for the money note but seems to have gone under the radar so I'm presuming it wasn't a big deal in the context of the whole performance, nevertheless I've marked his jury score lower than I would've done.

Seeing the jury final live (which included the recording of the Spain/UK/Italy performances that will be shown in the broadcast), the UK was the best performance of the whole night and I never thought I'd say that! The (fairly empty) arena were all clapping as soon as she hit the big note, even Italy felt a little flat coming after the UK. Now I'm not saying Lucie's coming top 5 or anything like that, the song just isn't strong enough to hook enough people in. But juries really should be putting this solidly inside the top 10 for vocal and performance ability and overall we should challenge to scrape into the top half.