Umi

I think it's possible to acknowledge that black people and traditionally black music in particular do tend to struggle at Eurovision while also recognising the fact that they sometimes do well. It's not necessarily just racism (conscious or subconscious), but also the fact that many of the participating countries just don't have familiarity with or appreciation for either the music or the topics of songs like 'Birth of a New Age'. I was very worried about that song, even after being blown away by the performance, because I just didn't see it landing with many people, particularly those in central and eastern Europe. I don't get the instinct to become defensive over this discussion.

A little bit random but Croatia, Slovenia and North Macedonia failing to qualify while Albania and Serbia underperform in the final has got me thinking about the health of western balkan participation in the contest at this point, and the participation of small + poor countries in general. Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina pulling out has seriously hurt that bloc and Croat and Slovene participation must be at least somewhat precarious at this point. Lose those countries and even Serbia would likely start to reconsider their options, which I think would be a seriously bad indictment of the contest's infrastructure. I'd really like a conversation to be had about the EBU supporting the smaller and poorer countries of the contest more, because I don't think it's a good look for broadcasters to pull out because they can't justify the expenditure. Eurovision feels like it's shrinking and it's consistently the smaller and poorer members leaving. These are often the countries that would most benefit from having Eurovision on their calendar, as they often struggle in sporting events, and those countries feeling pushed out by the price of entry feels rather harmful to the contest's goal of fostering friendly competition and cultural exchange on the continent. Of course, I'm sure Montenegro for example would still be here if they were consistently landing top 5s, but there will always be flop countries and I hate that a poor country going on a bad run instantly raises questions of whether or not they're going to keep competing. I really hope that changing this lands on the EBU's agenda someday.

I think the fact that Albania persistently send a really niche sound as a small country without too many friends is all the more reason that the draw constantly screwing them over is so sad. Like, give the little guys at least a chance at a feelgood moment - they deserve it for taking so many risks with their entries. How many balkan countries need to pull out before they start trying to keep the ones they have left? I'm already casting an eye at Croatia after Albina failing.

I'm not going to say that it explains the DNQ entirely but I felt like Croatia got the outfits so wrong. The theme of the staging was fine, but the national final and the music video were both so reliant on an attractive singer and attractive dancers, and the outfits distracted so much from that. Albina felt very anonymous under the clothes. She still should have qualified but I feel like one or two decisions being taken differently could have seen her through.

This was my thought too. If anyone had that as a borderline qualifier it surely has to be a DNQ now.

I think the song's flaws would still be very visible without 'Cleopatra' in everyone's mind, but it is true that the comparison makes it look a lot worse. There's just so much missing here that was there last year and it's all important stuff. 'Cleopatra' had so much more structure and this takes so many shortcuts in comparison.

I do wish they had put like, any effort into the lyrics for this song. It's still a banger, but it's hilarious how quickly the pretense of having a narrative is abandoned entirely here.

What you are missing in your comparison is that Lithuania without its gimmicks is still a very accessible dance song whereas the Icelandic song is far more niche in terms of appeal and is more clearly designed with its performance in mind. For that reason it makes perfect sense that a greater number of people are willing to shrug off the joke of the Lithuanian entry getting old - there's still a likeable song there without the humour. Less people will feel that way about Daði because their sound is less mainstream. I don't really know what explanation you're looking for here? Either there's a difference between the entries or we're just going to have to settle with "I guess people just hate Iceland now", which clearly isn't the answer. Boiling the situation down to "but Lithuania has a funny dance TOO!" isn't achieving anything.

One of the major selling points of 'Think About Things' was how different it was. Taking everything about that entry together (monotonous vocals, hideous outfits, embarrassing choreography), it was essentially a novelty entry. By releasing such a similar entry this year both musically and otherwise, Iceland are essentially doing novelty again. The problem with that is that "oh wow it's so different" doesn't really work when it's the second time you do it, and the humour of the entry is weaker when it's the second time you tell the joke as well. The comparisons to Bulgaria and Lithuania don't really hold up because uniqueness wasn't their main selling point (they were just good songs) and so they are less damaged by repetition. You don't get tired of well-produced dance music anywhere near as quickly as you get tired of "omg, they're dancing like nerds! lmao!". I'm sure they will still do well because their shtick will still be fresh to the public, and it's not like Eurovision fans have turned against them en masse anyway. They're just naturally going to be less inspiring to the people who followed them last year because their whole point was offering something new and this year they're not doing that.

This is soooooo bad.

Thank you guys!

Is 'Streets' not being sent to radio? This might be a stupid question, but I'm stunned that it's getting absolutely no play if it's actually being pushed.

Exactly. The beauty and importance of American Life is that it proposed a conversation that needed to be had, but its downfall was that nobody wanted to have it in 2003. It wasn't the most commercial era to begin with, but I don't think you can look at a song like 'Hollywood' and say it failed to chart on its own merits. People just didn't want to hear anything from Madonna at that point because "huh maybe America isn't great?" was precisely the thing that Americans couldn't stand to hear at the time. I'd love to call it a brave album but I've always thought that it was more of a miscalculation on Madonna's part than any knowing risk. I don't think she realised just how unwilling people in the US were to reflect on themselves and their country back then.

The only choice that matters in relation to the success of the singles run is the first one. 'American Life' defined the era and everything else had no real agency. As long as your plan has 'American Life' as the first single, I really don't see anything that follows charting.

Yeah this really did go on forever and the production did feel pretty low value. I was positively surprised by the quality overall though, as I expected it to be a really huge dive from Destination Eurovision.

36k in the US second week which is extremely impressive given the 60k opening. This album is so good, 'Gimme What I Want' is the best thing she's ever done.

We rank music by popularity primarily because it has utility to the music industry and its various stakeholders. Integrity is worth pursuing as long as it makes the chart more useful, but if it ever reduces the utility of the chart, it ought to and will be compromised. This is how we arrived at ACR in the first place, obviously. Maybe ACR isn't the right way to make the chart function in the streaming era but I don't think this conversation can be had from a place of "maximum integrity is inherently good". For you it's good because it makes the chart more interesting for you if it's more legitimate, but that is obviously personal. If we're to talk getting rid of ACR, we need to talk about who actually benefits from doing that. From my perspective it looks bad for labels and artists, bad for the OCC, bad for music industry stakeholders (e.g. radio), bad for music fans and controversial for chart fans. It looks difficult to argue in favour of the change based on that.

I'm kind of sad that this has attracted such controversy on here of all places. It's fine to have your own experience with the song but as Liam said, it's about being able to relate to and understand the needs of other people. This is a forum with a large LGBTQ+ community and it's a shame to see people advocate for that community's comfort in society to be deprioritised in order to gain ... nothing, really. I've not actually seen any argument for evading censorship in this case other than "Don't give into the snowflakes!" and the rather vacant "Don't erase history!" (why do we care about this in relation to 'Fairytale of New York'? let's go beyond far-right slogans). I think that is perhaps the most saddening thing - nobody is actually arguing that their enjoyment of the song is substantially reduced by the censorship. LGBTQ+ people are asked to deal with hearing slurs against them in exchange for nothing other than the majority group feeling the freedom to use slurs in what they deem acceptable contexts. It's not about offense, anyway. It's about inclusion. It's about being in a marginalised group and being expected to hear slurs directed at yourself for the enjoyment of the majority who couldn't even imagine what that feels like. "Deal with hearing f***** on the radio, snowflakes" being said by people who view being asked to avoid using a single word as an unconscionable assault on their life is a fine example of majority privilege. The argument that you're not meant to like or agree with the character in the song doesn't hold water either. No matter what context the song is dressed up in, it's a direct reminder to LGBTQ+ people of a time in the recent past when homophobic slurs were in mainstream discourse. It's a direct reminder of how little their societal comfort was worth to the majority until very recently. Why do we expect people of that community to enjoy this? Why do we care so much about having the right to force them to experience this? Why are they worth so little to us? To be honest, I am quite disappointed even with the people who are neutral on this. It's one thing to be outright bigoted (you don't expect homophobes to advocate for the gayz) but I don't know how you can be on the fence on a topic like "should we expect LGBTQ+ people to relive personal and in-group trauma so the majority that inflicted said trauma can have fun?". It's not appropriate. It's good that this particular example is on its way out.

I can't believe I'm just seeing this; I am absolutely paralysed with shock. I rarely spoke with Tyler so I feel almost guilty for having such a strong reaction to this but he was such a beacon and I had so much admiration for him. I wish I could thank him for the happiness he brought so many of us on here over the years. I know it's extremely late but I'm so sorry to everyone who was close to him and I really wish I could offer something more helpful than this. Thank you for writing this Jon (I can't imagine how difficult it was) and thank you for keeping this thread pinned - it's a nice way to respect Tyler and the impact he's had on so many of us.

'Gooba' missing #1 while both 'Say So' and 'Savage' make it is the literal ideal scenario.

I know it's not the end of the world in relation to everything else but what's distressing me so much right now is the hoarding. I am so tired of going into supermarkets recently and either finding them utterly empty or seeing queues out the door. I desperately don't want to be one of those people queueing up at 7am to get in and yet I'm starting to wonder how else I'm ever going to get pretty much any actual food. I'm trying to go at social hours and buy reasonable amounts but it's empty empty empty, and worse every day. You can't tell a virus not to kill people but we *can* control our attitude and the fact that the entire country is making a concerted effort to *not* be even remotely social is just so upsetting to me. Solitary confinement under a pandemic is stressful enough without adding in worrying about actually having food because people are filling entire freezers with anything they can find. Again, small thing, and I mean no disrespect to the disease that is hanging over all of our heads, but this situation would be at least slightly less disheartening if it wasn't bringing out the worst in eeeeeeeveryone. Seeing people act this way is just destroying me at the moment.

I like it. It lends itself to strong staging and it'll stand out more than 'Roots' would have, I think. Curious to see how it does.

France have given up, haven't they? It was nice while it lasted I suppose.

Honestly didn't mind Felix. Much better than his first entry and the production values on his performance are much better than most of tonight. The song is fine, at least it's a relevant topic.

This is awful.