Umi

So relieved. Thank you to the broadcasters who forced them into this position.

Shameful decision. I hope the other participants boycott over this. Letting Russia compete this year is a political stance just as much as kicking them out would be. You can't just pretend that politics doesn't exist, and allowing a country invading another European country in a contest about bringing Europe together is extraordinarily political.

This is fabulous and I'm very happy that we're going to see this kind of representation at Eurovision. I just hope Israel manage to find a way to get this to the final.

"You're what Adele should sound like" was absolutely iconic.

The way the Irish jury tried to tank her and then had to congratulate her on her winning *.*

I think Spain have made the right decision tonight. I loved Rigoberta too, but I was not confident in it translating in Turin, and I just don't think 'Terra' was going to have any appeal outside of Spain at all. Chanel winning despite being third on the televote is definitely an eyebrow-raiser, but I don't think 'Terra' would have topped the televote without the politics that surrounds it either, so...

This post is extremely callous and you would do well to be less proud of your total ignorance of a situation that causes hurt to so many. Here is an article explaining what blackfishing is. You can watch Jesy's music video on YouTube and draw your own conclusions as to whether or not she's guilty of it, and whether or not you think that blackfishing is actually problematic. What you cannot do, though, is dismiss the concerns of a marginalised group by pretending that they are absurd and laughable. It is really an extremely ugly thing to do. I am disappointed in general that this issue is even controversial on here because it's not been my experience elsewhere. I appreciate that a lot of you have affection for Jesy but there are people in here who are more angry at black people for being offended than they are at a white woman for having done something offensive. I absolutely sympathise with those who can condemn Jesy's actions while also worrying for the consequences of this on her mental health, but this woman literally went on an Instagram live with Nicki Minaj to incite a black aggressor vs innocent white victim narrative. It is indefensible.

I keep trying to write a lengthy post on this and I just can't get it right so I'm just going to boil my opinion down to a couple of bulletpoints. While there are issues with Labour leadership and situational issues that can be brought up as relevant, I believe that the issues the Labour party faces are structural to the left, and therefore the Labour party is simply playing a game that is rigged against them at this point. The left globally has gone through a schism, so you have (super-simplified) a side of the political spectrum populated with social progressives whose #1 priority is climate change, but also social conservatives who are still just pissed off that their coal mine was closed. To expect those to share a party is ludicrous, and that's fine in most places, but not a first past the post country. Labour is asking groups of voters who are fundamentally opposed to each other to share a party, while a healthier system would simply see the progressives vote for Greens/Lib Dems and then enter into a coalition with the more conservative Labour party.The easiest way to unify left-wing voters is "more money for the poor, less for the rich", but the left has no credibility on this subject in a post there-is-no-alternative world. Leftist politicians in the late 20th and early 21st century roundly failed to argue against the idea that an increasingly impotent state in the face of globalisation is inevitable and even desirable, and so they have ceded the definition of credible economic policy to the right. Corbyn is decried as a socialist for ideas that were mainstream right into the late 20th century, while Hollande cannot even get his ideas to pass after election. As such, you can't energise voters to vote for traditional leftist parties based on financial concerns, because there is no reason to believe that they will be better off under the left than under the right. This is particularly acute in the UK, where the most recent Labour prime minister is infamous for being "Tory-lite".Lots of relevant stuff has been brought up in this thread and in particular it's essential to note that the UK's press is stunningly biased politically to the point of being a huge elephant in the room when it comes to the health of British democracy. For me though, the core issue is that the Labour party is going through the same malaise that socdem parties are globally but without the release valve of smaller and more diverse leftist parties being able to pick up the votes that Labour drops. First past the post destroys everything but the most unified political fronts and it takes a Trumpian figure to unite the left in 2021. Labour had a number of years to reform the electoral process to avoid this and they did not do it, and they had years to establish themselves as a credible party of the poor and similarly failed to do that. The British left are just now paying for the mistakes of the past. My personal preference for the future of the party would be for them to establish a firm and consistent identity of basically being less vicious Conservatives, and leave the progressive agenda to the more natural fits in the British political system. It would guarantee Conservative government in perpetuity, but if every major leftist party argued passionately for vote reform in the face of that there may eventually be some meaningful change. Alternatively, if Labour can scam their way into government for a single mandate and reform the electoral system while there, I'm fine with that if they can somehow make it work. Broadly though, I have very little hope for any FPTP democracy at this point in history. It astounds me that the Democrats in the US barely scraped over the line against a comically evil and incompetent Trump in 2020 and yet they see no urgency to change the system. I am very concerned to see where both the US and the UK go in the future. On a lighter note, I learned recently that Ireland's electoral system was designed by the British to give fair representation simply to prevent the protestant minority from being totally disenfranchised politically. It is a fun quirk of history that the UK could give a colony a politically healthy system while locking itself into a system that would eventually lead to the corrosion of its democracy.

Is radio actually giving up on 'You Right' in favour of 'Kiss Me More' already or is this a random blip?

Not sure how to feel about increased awareness of and sympathy towards Britney's situation prompting the British public to put more money into the pockets of her abusers.

Are they getting any airplay or playlist support or is this all totally organic in the UK? I'm curious if there's anything to indicate career longevity in the UK or if they'll burn out as soon as the current hype fizzles.

Speaking of Malta (from a bit earlier in the thread), we've got a scandal emerging around the broadcaster paying foreign people to place bets on Malta to win to inflate Destiny's odds and therefore hype: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/je-m...rovision.874813 This isn't personally too shocking for me, as it reminds me of Ryan mentioning a couple of years back that the Maltese delegation was famed among the juries for being the nicest, and for bringing gifts to the juries. I often wondered if Malta's "underperformance on the televote" was actually a persistant and dodgy overperformance on the jury, and seeing blatant corruption like this brings me closer to the second hypothesis. Any thoughts?

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.