keefyweefy

This is beltin'. Starts a bit Groove Coverage, goes into Dinah Nah "La la la" and then full on Ice MC "Think About The Way". 3rd year in a row Austria have made me cream my knickers with their offerings only to let it go to shit on the night. Retro can do well if done correctly as with Gustaph last year. She looks great and is a fantastic dancer. Let's hope she can sing live.

You've hit the nail on the head - so much good will is thrown towards it to win because she was the underdog. Fans are almost blind-sighted by the fact it's just a 'good song' that unexpectedly won. I can't see it romping easily to victory but I can see it having both jury and televote potential. Even John L who land-slided the jury vote (in Mello in 2018) couldn't repeat the same feat at ESC. Cornelia didn't even score consistently top with juries in Mello this year. She did well with them, but it's non a foregone conclusion.

For the love of God I hope they have given Oscar a co-host or some lessons in TV presenting. Last week was painful, though I concede it was a difficult job with the technical issues. That aside, he was shite.

I really, really hope they get an entirely different host. Not being horrible or anything but he is effing useless. But the whole thing seems a bit clunky. MF is usually so polished and professional. Let's write the first one off..... things can only get better!

In the 15 years I have watched MF - this is the worst. The whole production feels unfinished - like I'm watching a dress rehearsal. I'd rather it be in the studio again. And as for the host - guaranteed he won't be asked back. It's one thing doing it in a studio setting - he doesn't seem quite at ease with an audience. Or maybe I am missing something? Dreadful.

The post mentioned 'racism' to which I responded with examples, including Loreen. You're trying to insinuate that I was responding to the fact they were black and not the word 'racism'. To make it clear, I was responding to the issue of racism, which covers people from multiple backgrounds.

Racism covers people from multiple ethnic / mixed backgrounds, not just black, hence Loreen was included. I didn't mention the word 'black' - you did.

Agreed. Exactly what benefit would it be for the UK to win? Zero, apart from the host city, and the BBC would have to foot the enormous bill. It's of no co-incidence that entries got big-time sh*te following the last time they had to pay for it!

It's not defensive, it's stepping back and looking at the facts in detail, not jumping to a conclusion and providing a different perspective. Not everyone who disagrees will be doing it because they are defensive. The argument can apply for all minority acts performing in Eurovision. DQ for Denmark failing to get past the semi and Sestre doing relatively poorly would suggest a potential problem with trans-performers but Dana International / Conchita winning outright proves otherwise. Vagisil (or whoever from North Macedonia this year) and the bloke with a long pony-tail failing to get out of the semis would suggest a issue with homosexuality but openly Bi / Gay Duncan Lawrence and the Serbian Lez winning suggests not. If you allow yourself to hastily overanalyse without taking a step back, it will often lead to the wrong conclusion and may influence others in their opinion - which is a little dangerous when the wrong conclusion is given. That's all.

In my opinion, that is almost as bad as butthurt Brits saying the reason we come last is because Europe hates UK. Yet we did well in 2009 and 2011 - so did Brit-hating-Europeans give us a year off those years? How nice of them! If anyone is going to make a sweeping comment that voting is in some way racist, you must cover all the facts. And whilst you can pick out the "she didn't do as well as expected" and "he underperformed", the facts don't add up to a consistently racist Europe. Imaani - 2nd place 1998 Dave Benton - 1st place (1 half of) in 2001. Jade Ewen - 5th in 2009 Blue - 11th in 2011 (5th place televote I think) (Simon Webbe) Jessy Matador - 8th place televote in 2010 Loreen - F***ING LANDSLIDE 2012 To name but a few. So, what happened to the racism towards Imaani or Loreen? A year off for racism those years was it? I think the answer lies in hysterical Gay men crying into their prosecco spritzers when their favourite act does not perform as well as expected, trying to look for a deeper meaning and coming to the wrong conclusion. Either Europe is racist or it's not. You cannot have it both ways when it suits you.

Ultimately, it comes down to BBC not caring about winning. They could flash the cash for ANY artist if they wanted to do well, but they don't. Think about it, they pay a few hundred grand a year for a 4 hour Saturday night ratings winner. All they need to do is be in the final. What other 4 hour show could you make for that money?? So why risk winning and having to spend millions? UK tourism doesn't need it, its music industry doesn't need it. Call me cynical.... but strangely Germany, Spain and (normally) France do exactly the same.

I agree. Even standing still he was struggling. I often think the same with Lesley Roy... she and James have good voices, but ones that need tweaking in a studio. Both were poor live.

Are you kidding? Do you not understand banter or a joke? I take it you are very young and haven't experienced true homophobia i.e getting the shit kicked out of you daily for being Gay. This sensitivity has honestly got to stop, chill the f*** out. They were having a bit of banter in an interview.

Are you joking? Exactly which of the past 10 years entries were "serviceable" radio songs?? Englebert? Electro Velvet?? Which radio station have you heard them on? Nulpoints FM? If you think that, you in total denial about the quality of our entries. Folk got excited for Molly, but it wasn't actually a decent song it was just that it wasn't AS cringe worthy as Josh Dubovie et al.

I don't think the responses are particularly THAT positive, more relief that we haven't sent an absolute embarrassment again. It gets better on the 3rd / 4th listen but as someone pointed out, the viewers don't get that on the night. It'll do about as well as Lucy. At least that wouldn't be bottom.

And his brother has already had a hand at writing a Eurovision song with Ireland's entry a couple of years back..... Shame he (John) couldn't put the recent collab on Galantis's album through. Hurriciane is a bit of a crowd pleaser.....

Aren't Ireland meant to be doing super Gay this year? Their people are apparently creaming their knickers at what they have chosen.

He has a point though, I love Steps, but they are not seen as credible. They just aren't, with the greatest will in the world - that'll never change, no matter their success. It all depends on which route you think UK should take - arguably we have done the Steps kinda route before by way of Scooch (high choreographed bubblegum pop) - it didn't go so well. But we send Andrew Lloyd-Webber / Diane Warren penned ballad and it did well. Despite what you think of the song itself, he / she were seen as credible. Times change, if we keep sending disposable pop - there will be very few artists that will be willing to take a shot at it in future through fear of association of the genre.

And this is the UK's (both professionals and fans) biggest problem with Eurovision - thinking that an ideal entry has got to be a dance-around-your-handbag, high NRG nod to Eurovision past. I loved that single but it ISN'T what we should send. We tried once (13 years ago) with something similar - look how well that turned out. It needs to be a song that wasn't (shudders) 'written with Eurovision in mind'. That's why Sweden does so well at it - they just send a pop song regardless of what genre it is... or if it's Eurovisiony enough. Even they got rid of the camp schlager when it stopped working so well for them and they realised it was out of date. We have to start having the same attitude.

But it's not necessarily their decision. They can't just wake up one day and decide they are doing it. Many people are involved from the record co. to the BBC. If someone doesn't think it's a good idea - it won't happen. It can hurt the careers of even the most bulletproof (woo woo) artist.

Yeah I missed out that point! "We don't like our song, but you should!" Of course, now some members disagree with your comment, it's quite easy to say it was a tongue-in-cheek comment. If you're going to jump on the bandwagon, at least bloody well stay on it for 5 seconds! And we haven't told Europe to f*ck off - we told the EU to f*ck off. There is a fundamental difference between the 2. If Brexit were to have had an impact - it would have been 2017 that took the brunt (fresh after we said goodbye to THE EU). Funnily enough we didn't do too badly that year (in respect of how bad we normally do).

I would assume the fan clubs are 99.9999999% full of homosexuals. Therefore the hot messes, handbag dance, good looking men and strong females tend to score quite highly. That's usually why the results differ so much on the night. its kinda biased!

I really don't understand that argument. Year after year after year we come up with another reason why we will do badly (Iraq War, the fact everyone sings in English now, Brexit, Europe hates us etc etc) apart from the blindingly obvious reason - we send shit. Is it just because we don't like admitting we are bad at something? Take Russia for example. The whole world is very well aware of their appalling human rights record, their horrific leader, annexing Crimea, rigging elections etc. They were boo'd shit in 2014 as a result of the hate - yet still pulled in votes. The following year they nearly won. And it's simply not a case that their votes just comes from Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia....... So, even if we were hated more than Russia (which is super unlikely), then that wouldn't necessarily mean we wouldn't get points. Portugal didn't ever win until recently and hardly had a glittering past in Eurovision. As soon as they send something half decent - they win. I bet they didn't throw their toys out of the pram year after year when they continued to perform badly. In fact, if memory serves me well, did they not almost poke fun at themselves in a sketch for sending poor entries in 2018? If we were despised as much as we say - we wouldn't have done half decent in 2009 and 2011. Or did we get a temporary reprieve those years from our British-hating European neighbours?

Poor Molly. Shite in comparison to last year.

What's even better is that the orchestra she recorded with was in..... Stockholm! Anything Swede-related is always a good thing!