I think the part where I scratch my head the most is not with the vocal abilities of Loreen or the performance itself because I think they were definitely worthy of jury rewarding them, but one of the judging criteria is "originality of composition". If your song has segments where it's accidentally picked the exact same melody line with at least four different songs, if your song has the same melody line for the verses and the chorus just an octave apart, if your song uses one of the most widely used chord progressions in pop music, if your song has no interesting instrumentation (aside from the bridge, all the instruments follow the main melody line and nothing else), is your song really "double the points to runner up" worthy?
That's the thing with pop music, the building blocks are so simple that a lot of it sounds very similar. Same goes for any song that's firmly tied to a genre. Based in "originality" I'd give the most points to Finland and Croatia. Finland blended 3-4 different genres and does a tonal 180 halfway through so while it's *similar* to other things out there, it's still new and exciting. And Croatia's act was so damn weird and fun that I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before
@@jamiemoody4962 As a consumer, I usually consider 4 points when talking about originality: 1. The sounds used in the song 2. Song structure 3. Cultural Representation 4. Concept/Meaning Based on that, EAEA is the most unique song to me since it does do well in three of those areas. Unicorn is a worthy runner-up purely because of the song structure. I can't even tell what the chorus is in Unicorn.
Finland is derivative as well, as someone who listens to that style frequently. The jurors never enforce this criteria very seriously, otherwise troll and novelty entries would be rewarded. Tattoo is a more compelling composition for a classically trained jury. Cha Cha Cha, while more creative, is unfocused and loses its uniqueness the more the song goes on. Since they’re older, their reaction to Cha Cha Cha is probably their equivalent of you listening to these horrendous hyperpop TikTok trends that kids love right now.
@@freshlypaintedPlus Cha Cha Cha and Queen of Kings, the other top contenders, were also highly copied from other songs. People singling out Tattoo here is hypocritical.
Holy crap you gave Croatia 3rd place ;; Thank you so much!!! I agree with you on the top 2, Finland first (I think Kaarija really won all our hearts) and Norway was the second place for me. I can't give my vote to Croatia because we can't vote for our own country, so I'd put Moldova third. It's really hard to decide which songs to put next so I'll just leave it as a top 3 hah. Anyway thank you for the video, it was interesting to see your opinions ^^
Germany last was absolute joke tbf. Norway was also robbed by the jury (IMO a lot more than Finland was), but got a lot of love from the televote, luckily. I personally voted for Italy, something I never thought going in to the final. Marcos performance blew me away, and I did not see it coming. Sweden winning was inevitable, she was the best performer of the night, with a very good staging. The song may be a little bit weaker than Euphoria, but it's still good and catchy (she did get second in the televote for a reason). As catchy and crowd pleasing as chachacha is, it is not a good vocal performance. This result was great though, as they will both come out of the competition as Eurovision legends.
With Sweden, I think the song is decent, it has a good chorus, but nothing about it is unique and the extremely short verses are a problem in my eyes, the staging is decent because, while it looked stunning, didn't really connect to the song and was limited to a very small area on the stage, her performing was decent considering the lack of movement and the only really outstanding thing about this entry was the vocal performance to me. And I think that's not enough for a winner, at least this year, especially not with that gap between 1st and 2nd place with the jury votes. We had an insanely strong line-up with a lot of at least equally good vocalists (Blanca Paloma, Alika, La Zarra, Iru, Mimicat, etc.), unique songs (Eaea, Unicorn, Cha Cha Cha, Samo Mi Se Spava, etc.) and innovative and conceptually insanely well executed performances (again, Eaea, Unicorn, Evidemment, My Sister's Crown, etc.). I'm not bashing Loreen or hating on her for winning (a 2nd time), but with THAT song? Come on...
Norway score with the jury was probably compromised because of a mistake she made in the rehearsal (which is when the jury gives its points), still I think she deserved better than what she got. Glad everything was ok in the finals and the viewers liked it
The televoting must be reformed. Here is an (extreme) example why: Germany's place in points: 24/26 Albania'a place in points: 10/26 Germany's place on average place per country: 16/26 Albania's place on average place per country: 22/26 So Germany got way more votes per country on average than Albania but received waaaay less points in total. These are the most extreme examples and Sweden and Finland for example are still 1 and 2. Funfact: Finland got an average placing of 2,0 while Sweden "only" got 4,5.
Nice reactions, with very good points and it's clear you've looked into the meaning of the songs (which surely a jury should have to do somehow as well). I just wanted to pick up on your question of previous contestants. Personally, I have no problem with it. Ireland won 3 times with the same singer. And this year there were 4 or 5 returning acts (not just Loreen - Pasha from Moldova, Monika from Lithuania, Gustaph was a backing singer for Hooverphonic and another Belgian entry, and Marco Mengoni - might have been another that I missed). Regardless, I have no issue, and also winners have returned too and not won again - Alexander Rybak - Norway 2009 + 2015 (I think) and Lena - Germany 2010 and 2011. So this narrative around Loreen returning is pretty unfair, especially when she entered the Swedish national selection back in 2017 I believe with a song that probably should have won the national selection called Statements - it's just another stick people are using to beat her with - and I actually wanted Finland, Norway or Serbia (totally unrealistically) to win the thing, so I'm not exactly her biggest fan, but I think we should keep the critics to the songs, vocals, staging and overall performance, and not anything irrelevant to the rules of Eurovision itself. My main criticism of this year is simply that the juries needs to be more transparent about how they score the countries from 1-26. They should be more accountable to someone...who, I have no idea, but the sheer amount of 12s for Sweden from the jury with zero 12s from the televote tells you something about how the juries stay safe with mainstream songs overall. And the Germany lack of votes was ridiculous, LOTL performed amazingly well (I was at the jury show in the arena and how it didn't come top 10 in pretty much any jury is beyond me). Maybe they know that Sweden generally doesn't do that well in the televote and so wanted to be super sure it won. But each jury is individual so I really don't know how they were so united in the 12s. They tend to punish out of the box songs, and I'd like to know why they do that (also, there should be some criteria for who is in the jury so there is a balance of music industry people between different genres etc and not so focused on pop and radio friendly songs). Anyway, my personal top 10 from the night of the live TV show (some shot up from my pre-show rankings) were: 1. Norway + 3 compared to my pre-show ranking 2. Spain = from pre-show 3. Belgium +2 from pre-show 4. Finland + 4 from pre-show 5. Australia -2 from pre-show 6. Serbia -5 from pre-show 7. Austria - 1 from pre-show 8. Sweden +1 from pre-show 9. Switzerland -2 from pre-show 10. Lithuania = from pre-show I'm so sad about the Spain televote, but actually hearing her live at the pre-parties it's clear she needed a smaller stage, more intimate venue to connect with the crowd. The staging didn't help the crowd connection in Liverpool. Pre-jury show it was my favourite to compete with Sweden for the jury vote. And then I saw the staging and the show and automatically dropped it down my predictions to between 5-10 with the juries. Vocals, amazing. Staging - didn't work, crowd - didn't connect. Belgium - when it was selected at the national final I was super happy but thought it didn't really stand much of a chance of doing well or even qualifying (see below comment on Slovenia - felt it was a similar category). But it just kept getting better, Gustaph is a pro, he improved in every live performance, he had total creative control over the staging which he did with his husband and a designer from Antwerp who did all his outfits, and he stuck with his close friends as backing singers, keeping a close knit group that just elevated that song to where it deserved to end up. I was so so so happy to see the final result for him. He really deserved that top 10 finish. And I love how everyone wrote him off (I won a few bets on qualification and got some nice treats in return for that) and he just nailed it every time. And bringing on the real voguing dancer in the final staging was a masterstroke. The crowd in Liverpool gave this almost as big a reaction as Finland, not quite, but Belgium, Finland and France got the best reactions at the jury show from the crowd (but also bear in mind the sound is actually good in the arena compared to how it comes across on TV - particularly France) Then, another one that didn't connect with the crowd - Slovenia - off camera the ones not in shot were working so hard to get everyone to cheer louder. I had always predicted it would be bottom half of the table - it's catchy, but not enough. It's like 2007 Sweden - the Ark, or even The Rasmus from Finland last year - it was giving me those vibes from the beginning. But their social media game was top so I think the fandom really expected a lot higher result for them. I didn't. Everyone loves them, just not enough to vote for them over a standout performer. All my votes went to Serbia and Switzerland (didn't make much difference as the Belgian televote gave neither of them points) :)
Problem with me Sweden winning was not Loreen's second attempt nor the performance nor the accusations of plagiarism. Initially it just sounded very unoriginal and calculated, having kind of the same song structure as Euphoria (and having also the same songwriters, so no wonder, because why change a successful song pattern - why repair something that is not broken). So it was targetted to the juries, very nicely I would say, but by jury action I just think it was a very over-rated song, if one of the main criteria judging the songs is their originality. Still you can love and enjoy the performance and how a brilliant performer Loreen is. My top three came out as Czechia, Australia, France/Norway. Could not really vote the song I would have probably voted for. You very rarely see progressive music in ESC, and I would place two songs under that category even if they are actually a bit different genre: Australia (clean progressive metal with a twist of electro) and Finland (fusion of rap, metal, pop and cha cha). And I do believe, if you are seeking for originality, that progressiveness should be something for juries to value. Right now it seems like juries value generic pop songs more, and majority of the songs are the kind of songs we have already heard. So by jury action it seems everything comes down to the "singing" and "performance" rathat than the song, and I would like to emphasize it is Eurovision SONG contest and has always been. So namely it is not a singing (X Factor), staging or performing (Talent) contest, but they are and have always been part of the it. And I guess this year, like in the past, the juries may have little lost or forgotten about the idea of the contest: song. Luckily there is an audience which has valued progression, campiness, fun over seriousness, modernism, some other genres than only pop.
Absolutely agree, and I'd add Serbia to that originality and progressiveness (he is actually an amazing live vocalist, but I think there was something off about the sound as mentioned in this video - the music was too loud for those who sang quite low in pitch, with Serbia arguably the biggest victims of this)
@@ESC_ChrisM Serbia was also one of my favourites, musically. The performances of Luke varied a little from Madrid, and at some point between Madrid and Liverpool, it kind of disappeared from my radar. But I guess it is not a song juries normally would value. But again, it could be a little too hard for wider audience as well. But unique and memorable, yes.
First of all: Really nice video and good reactions, you deserve more subscribers! Second of all: Yes, previous participants AND previous winners should be allowed to return to the contest. I mean why wouldn't they? It's up to them if they want to return and it would be unfair. Plus it doesn't even go that well for previous winners (except Loreen and Johnny Logan of course). So not letting people return to the contest would be dumb. In that case why don't we ban previous participants from the olympics to take part again? You see it wouldn't work.
" UNITED BY MUSIC " That was our 🇫🇮 Käärijä 's song about 💚 and people all over the world knows that. Winning is not the most important thing.. People loved Käärijä jyrys didn't
I very much love Loreen, I have since Euphoria, and I am happy she won. My fiance /girlfriend is also Swedish. I also want to see Petra hosting again. So I cannot claim an unbiased stance here, but no one can, it's music which is all about preference. It is also Eurovision which is *always* political and biased. I genuinely think it's spot in first place was deserved. That said, I loved Cha Cha Cha! I think it was a perfect second place and understand why people wanted it first. I really wish that the response everyone had was not to tear one another apart and be so blatantly rude and disrespectful to this level. I get to enjoy two different songs like someone presented me with a red velvet cake and a cheesecake and just have a good time. Since the rules have thusfar allowed winners to return- and it is often more a hindrance then a benefit honestly- there is nothing wrong with it. Nor should juries necessarily be abolished as they have been a longstanding tradition of eurovision and Sweden is far from the first winner to not win the tele. People need to chill I would say after Sweden and Finland, my other top tracks- not in order- were Ukraine, Belgium, Germany, France, Australia, Armenia, Spain, and Lithuiania (something about the 'Čiūto tūto' section gripped me so firmly).
18:55 Yes I don't see any problem with winning artist returning to Eurovision again. If Duncan Laurence came back to Eurovision and won again, I would be happy, if it is a good song of course. Alexander Rybak came back in 2018 after winning in 2009, and his song was also good.
Usually people make these types of videos and are totally biased but you did well in mixing your opinion and objectively acknowledging the good and the bad, I was sold after your review of Germany
Israel's song actually has meaning behind it. It's written from the "perspective" of Israel herself, and "you" is referring to her enemies. "History caught in a loop, don't you wanna change it?" Mostly represents Israel's ongoing struggle and conflict with its neighbor countries. "I won't look back, I won't look down" is a strong statement for confidence & showing Israel will go on and is trying for a better future. For a more historical point of view, we have: "No I'm not your enemy so if you're gonna do it, don't do it" stating that Israel isn't looking for conflict and saying she's just like you, and not an enemy to be fighting with. "Do you wanna check my DNA? Older stories tend to go away" representing the history of many Jews that couldn't 'prove' their Judaism & where they were from, since their history was deleted when their families had been murdered in the holocaust. Hope I got everything right
Honestly musically, the Croatian entry was the worst entry in like 20 years, for me personally. I can't understand how people can enjoy this song. I can understand the theme and the message, but for me it's 95% about the music. my Top 10 : 12 Finland 10 Austria 8 Spain 7 Australia 6 Estonia 5 Sweden 4 Germany 3 Norway 2 Belgium 1 France
One thing is most music we listen to today all sounds similar cuz they all use similar chord progressions but every song has something that makes them different
I like your top ten so much more than the real top ten - I'm not bothered about Albania and would sub Czechia in instead but technically that means you think them, Belgium and especially bloody Estonia were overated.
What I find interesting regarding people who react to Eurovision is that usually they don't get what the "power of the unicorn" means. Unicorns in mythology have the power of "stunning" (blinding) people with their horn (allegedly the horn projects a strong light that blinds people) so when you translate it into thee lyrics it makes sense. Unicorns are unique and what makes them unique is their horn, it's actually a pretty good lyric cuz if you know of that piece of info about Unicorns then you will get it instantly. x'D
@@gabrielstevens3884 yeah if she shouldn't have messed that act up that badly i think she would've even gotten top 3(more deserved than italy and israel imo)
I think loreen should not like Come back to eurovision bc she won already with "euphouria"idk did i spell everything correctly😅❤ and love from finland❤
My problem with UK entry were the lyrics. The theme could have worked, the problem is that we do not learn a single thing about the guy who broke her heart. Why was he such a piece of s*it? The beginning was strong: he made excuses regarding his mental health, and it turned out to be a scheme. She wrote a song... to what? Bash him? Where? The song is mostly about how she is dealing with the thing. "Instead I wrote a song about how you did me wrong". No, you didn't. I think it could have worked if the character got so caught in the writing the song: it has this structure, this or this word... so she forgot it was supposed to be about him. It would have a fun twist. She spends the song talking about how she is doing okay. It could have worked if she was clearly lying to herself, still not being okay. Because if she is, why should I care? I do not know what a piece of sh*t that ex was, she does not seem to miss him or hate him, it is so subpar. The melody is catchy, but not catchy enough to make me care. Other countries can make excuses regarding lyrics... but UK cannot. The performance did not safe it, obviously. It tanked. Say what you will about that unoriginal Polish entry... she got better and I really like the staging, the fact they rode the PR train. It tanked and it arguably should have tanked more, but I definitely cared more in the end. You do not read it seriously, it is a joke. The UK made me only cringe and feeling sorry.
Croatia song was clear last place for me even the line with traktora sounds familiar. Spain song would struggle every time in the televoting, but the jury heavily underrated that song. I am not very happy what the jury did, not only regarding Sweden and Finnland. I already expected that the jury will like Swedens song more than the Finnish, but twice that good, come on. Makes no sense. Based on the criterias I also can't understand 3 points for Germany and again not to mention Spain. The jury needs to be changed. something is wrong with it.
Completely agree, I hope ESC really needs to look at what/ why was the reasoning TRULY behind the jury's actions. They should if they want ESC to continue to be interesting and engaging. Now all people who televoted feel robbed of their money and this can be disastrous for the whole future of Eurovision, people are SO disappointed.
@@erikafinland2162 Yeah, in televoting can happen everything, but when the jury should make sense, they need to evaluate the songs more professionell. We have already some indicators what is wrong, i.e. it had a dominant part of people with pop music background. In the contest were all kind of genres. It seems plausible that at the end won a very generic pop song and ethnics songs, or rock song had a hart time. We also need more transparency with the jury. Who are they what are their qualifications?
no, it's because people don't appreciate metal music enough. probably like 90% of people in the audience listen to just pop, and they call metal music screamo.
Nah we don't hate you, but zack is probably right. No surprise, Finland gave you 5 points, we like metal. I voted for you. Actually I liked your song last year too and still enjoy it on my playlist.
@@schneeflocki it doesn't really matter, since they just really didn't appreciate all the work. the song was amazing though, my favorite from this year's eurovision
@@zack2419 yeah I do get your point however what's with all the last places since like 2013 that Germany keeps having. I rather talked about that, because I know that maybe people just didn't like the genre of blood and glitter. But nice to know that you liked the song:)
"Unicorn" has VERY meaningful lyrics! (This is my take as an Israeli, but as it is a work of art, it is open to different interpretations, so yours is valid as well! :)) Here are the main points to understand: The song is about the relations between Israel (The "I" in the song) and those who perceive her wrongfully as their enemy (The "You"). To all her neighboring countries, Israel stated time and time again "We are not your enemy!" (In the song "No, I'm not your enemy") Also, the fact that the Jewish ppl are originated from ancient Israel ("Do you want to check my DNA?"), and not a colonial foreign power, as falsely accused by its enemies. As you may know, There is a vicious cycle of violence going on in our region for more than a century that we must break and change ("History caught in a loop, Don't you wanna change it?"), cause Israel is attacked time and time again ("If you're gonna do it, don't do it", ) and is forced to respond. The music also contains elements of the Israeli national anthem - called "Hatikva" - The hope. One of the symbols of Unicorns is Hope and Success, and also strong healing powers. Notice also the colors in the Music Video, they are very meaningful as well! The ceiling is all-red, she wears all-black (Symbols of violence and grief) and switches to colorful outfits when she sings the Unicorn parts from black & white - Those parts represent the hopeful and successful future ("That I won't look back, I won't look down, I'm going up"). The fact that it's all upside-down! (Not a normal reality) They are all very symbolic! Hope all this helps to clarify the lyrics. 😊
The jury has a stranglehold on the competition. Why even bother participating in the televote if realistically the contest is already over at the jury voting phase? Might as well give the jury 100% of the voting power as things stand.
A) What a silly question to ask if it is ok to send an artist who have competed/won before. B) Complaining on Loreen’s pronauciation is soooo rude! I take it that your goal with your channel is to reach people all over Europe and not only the UK. Forget Europe, because your English is very very difficult to understand. Like too many of your countrymen, you never even bother to adjust your speaking, when talking to us ”foreigners”. Europe is ok with English being ”lingua franca ” as long as the Britons treat us with .respect, linguistically.
The reasona giving fir songs not doing well are very typical of someone who doesnt understand Eurovision and why people and juries do or do not rate songs. Maybe get involved next year earlier so you know all the songs going in? Also, you called loads of songs boring. Its a shamw your attention spam dant stretch to 3 minutes. Armenia was captivating. What was boring about it? Reasons required. Remo's voice was one of the strongest voices of the night. And Spain failed because her voice was slughtly drowned out? Thats hilarous. It came last qith the public vote. People just hated the song. Finqlly, saying Croatia is what Eurovision is about? Very traditional English and outdated view of the contest. Its not very camp anymore, and a lot of the songs that have got top 3 arent camp at all. We're all a bit sick of people that assume Eurovision is (and should be) a campfest. Your bias against ballads is kind of sad. Plus, there were hardly any ballads this year.
@@ceciliaslepmet4840 I think you'll find the vast majority of Eurovision fans disagree. We don't love the contest for shit music, we love it for the great music. And joke entries don't win anymore. Tattoo won and has been breaking Eurovision chart records across Europe and beyond.
I think the part where I scratch my head the most is not with the vocal abilities of Loreen or the performance itself because I think they were definitely worthy of jury rewarding them, but one of the judging criteria is "originality of composition". If your song has segments where it's accidentally picked the exact same melody line with at least four different songs, if your song has the same melody line for the verses and the chorus just an octave apart, if your song uses one of the most widely used chord progressions in pop music, if your song has no interesting instrumentation (aside from the bridge, all the instruments follow the main melody line and nothing else), is your song really "double the points to runner up" worthy?
That's the thing with pop music, the building blocks are so simple that a lot of it sounds very similar. Same goes for any song that's firmly tied to a genre. Based in "originality" I'd give the most points to Finland and Croatia. Finland blended 3-4 different genres and does a tonal 180 halfway through so while it's *similar* to other things out there, it's still new and exciting. And Croatia's act was so damn weird and fun that I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before
the thing is that none of the jurors was probably aware of the "stolen" melody line.
@@jamiemoody4962 As a consumer, I usually consider 4 points when talking about originality:
1. The sounds used in the song
2. Song structure
3. Cultural Representation
4. Concept/Meaning
Based on that, EAEA is the most unique song to me since it does do well in three of those areas. Unicorn is a worthy runner-up purely because of the song structure. I can't even tell what the chorus is in Unicorn.
Finland is derivative as well, as someone who listens to that style frequently. The jurors never enforce this criteria very seriously, otherwise troll and novelty entries would be rewarded. Tattoo is a more compelling composition for a classically trained jury. Cha Cha Cha, while more creative, is unfocused and loses its uniqueness the more the song goes on. Since they’re older, their reaction to Cha Cha Cha is probably their equivalent of you listening to these horrendous hyperpop TikTok trends that kids love right now.
@@freshlypaintedPlus Cha Cha Cha and Queen of Kings, the other top contenders, were also highly copied from other songs. People singling out Tattoo here is hypocritical.
Definitely agree with placing Slovenia in the top 10 and getting Finland to win! ❤
Holy crap you gave Croatia 3rd place ;; Thank you so much!!! I agree with you on the top 2, Finland first (I think Kaarija really won all our hearts) and Norway was the second place for me. I can't give my vote to Croatia because we can't vote for our own country, so I'd put Moldova third. It's really hard to decide which songs to put next so I'll just leave it as a top 3 hah.
Anyway thank you for the video, it was interesting to see your opinions ^^
I loved it! Croatia were awesome, the song was misunderstood by most unfortunately
Croatia deserved more as they made history
absolutely agree with you !!!! i love ur honest reaction and not like others, we like everything blabla..
Thank you I appreciate that :))
Germany last was absolute joke tbf. Norway was also robbed by the jury (IMO a lot more than Finland was), but got a lot of love from the televote, luckily.
I personally voted for Italy, something I never thought going in to the final. Marcos performance blew me away, and I did not see it coming.
Sweden winning was inevitable, she was the best performer of the night, with a very good staging. The song may be a little bit weaker than Euphoria, but it's still good and catchy (she did get second in the televote for a reason). As catchy and crowd pleasing as chachacha is, it is not a good vocal performance. This result was great though, as they will both come out of the competition as Eurovision legends.
No one Will remember that Sweden song In years to come.
With Sweden, I think the song is decent, it has a good chorus, but nothing about it is unique and the extremely short verses are a problem in my eyes, the staging is decent because, while it looked stunning, didn't really connect to the song and was limited to a very small area on the stage, her performing was decent considering the lack of movement and the only really outstanding thing about this entry was the vocal performance to me.
And I think that's not enough for a winner, at least this year, especially not with that gap between 1st and 2nd place with the jury votes. We had an insanely strong line-up with a lot of at least equally good vocalists (Blanca Paloma, Alika, La Zarra, Iru, Mimicat, etc.), unique songs (Eaea, Unicorn, Cha Cha Cha, Samo Mi Se Spava, etc.) and innovative and conceptually insanely well executed performances (again, Eaea, Unicorn, Evidemment, My Sister's Crown, etc.).
I'm not bashing Loreen or hating on her for winning (a 2nd time), but with THAT song? Come on...
Norway score with the jury was probably compromised because of a mistake she made in the rehearsal (which is when the jury gives its points), still I think she deserved better than what she got. Glad everything was ok in the finals and the viewers liked it
Or they knew they she had a stolen song.
@@Merecir What song? If you want to play that game, we can talk about the plagiarism accusations for "Tattoo".
@@kennet7837 Blah Blah Blah by Armin van Buuren
@@domiiinik4320 That's a stretch. Distinctively different melodies.
@@kennet7837 Literally the same concept for a drop
The televoting must be reformed. Here is an (extreme) example why:
Germany's place in points: 24/26
Albania'a place in points: 10/26
Germany's place on average place per country: 16/26
Albania's place on average place per country: 22/26
So Germany got way more votes per country on average than Albania but received waaaay less points in total. These are the most extreme examples and Sweden and Finland for example are still 1 and 2. Funfact: Finland got an average placing of 2,0 while Sweden "only" got 4,5.
Nice reactions, with very good points and it's clear you've looked into the meaning of the songs (which surely a jury should have to do somehow as well). I just wanted to pick up on your question of previous contestants. Personally, I have no problem with it. Ireland won 3 times with the same singer. And this year there were 4 or 5 returning acts (not just Loreen - Pasha from Moldova, Monika from Lithuania, Gustaph was a backing singer for Hooverphonic and another Belgian entry, and Marco Mengoni - might have been another that I missed). Regardless, I have no issue, and also winners have returned too and not won again - Alexander Rybak - Norway 2009 + 2015 (I think) and Lena - Germany 2010 and 2011. So this narrative around Loreen returning is pretty unfair, especially when she entered the Swedish national selection back in 2017 I believe with a song that probably should have won the national selection called Statements - it's just another stick people are using to beat her with - and I actually wanted Finland, Norway or Serbia (totally unrealistically) to win the thing, so I'm not exactly her biggest fan, but I think we should keep the critics to the songs, vocals, staging and overall performance, and not anything irrelevant to the rules of Eurovision itself.
My main criticism of this year is simply that the juries needs to be more transparent about how they score the countries from 1-26. They should be more accountable to someone...who, I have no idea, but the sheer amount of 12s for Sweden from the jury with zero 12s from the televote tells you something about how the juries stay safe with mainstream songs overall. And the Germany lack of votes was ridiculous, LOTL performed amazingly well (I was at the jury show in the arena and how it didn't come top 10 in pretty much any jury is beyond me). Maybe they know that Sweden generally doesn't do that well in the televote and so wanted to be super sure it won. But each jury is individual so I really don't know how they were so united in the 12s.
They tend to punish out of the box songs, and I'd like to know why they do that (also, there should be some criteria for who is in the jury so there is a balance of music industry people between different genres etc and not so focused on pop and radio friendly songs).
Anyway, my personal top 10 from the night of the live TV show (some shot up from my pre-show rankings) were:
1. Norway + 3 compared to my pre-show ranking
2. Spain = from pre-show
3. Belgium +2 from pre-show
4. Finland + 4 from pre-show
5. Australia -2 from pre-show
6. Serbia -5 from pre-show
7. Austria - 1 from pre-show
8. Sweden +1 from pre-show
9. Switzerland -2 from pre-show
10. Lithuania = from pre-show
I'm so sad about the Spain televote, but actually hearing her live at the pre-parties it's clear she needed a smaller stage, more intimate venue to connect with the crowd. The staging didn't help the crowd connection in Liverpool. Pre-jury show it was my favourite to compete with Sweden for the jury vote. And then I saw the staging and the show and automatically dropped it down my predictions to between 5-10 with the juries. Vocals, amazing. Staging - didn't work, crowd - didn't connect.
Belgium - when it was selected at the national final I was super happy but thought it didn't really stand much of a chance of doing well or even qualifying (see below comment on Slovenia - felt it was a similar category). But it just kept getting better, Gustaph is a pro, he improved in every live performance, he had total creative control over the staging which he did with his husband and a designer from Antwerp who did all his outfits, and he stuck with his close friends as backing singers, keeping a close knit group that just elevated that song to where it deserved to end up. I was so so so happy to see the final result for him. He really deserved that top 10 finish. And I love how everyone wrote him off (I won a few bets on qualification and got some nice treats in return for that) and he just nailed it every time. And bringing on the real voguing dancer in the final staging was a masterstroke. The crowd in Liverpool gave this almost as big a reaction as Finland, not quite, but Belgium, Finland and France got the best reactions at the jury show from the crowd (but also bear in mind the sound is actually good in the arena compared to how it comes across on TV - particularly France)
Then, another one that didn't connect with the crowd - Slovenia - off camera the ones not in shot were working so hard to get everyone to cheer louder. I had always predicted it would be bottom half of the table - it's catchy, but not enough. It's like 2007 Sweden - the Ark, or even The Rasmus from Finland last year - it was giving me those vibes from the beginning. But their social media game was top so I think the fandom really expected a lot higher result for them. I didn't. Everyone loves them, just not enough to vote for them over a standout performer. All my votes went to Serbia and Switzerland (didn't make much difference as the Belgian televote gave neither of them points) :)
Problem with me Sweden winning was not Loreen's second attempt nor the performance nor the accusations of plagiarism. Initially it just sounded very unoriginal and calculated, having kind of the same song structure as Euphoria (and having also the same songwriters, so no wonder, because why change a successful song pattern - why repair something that is not broken). So it was targetted to the juries, very nicely I would say, but by jury action I just think it was a very over-rated song, if one of the main criteria judging the songs is their originality. Still you can love and enjoy the performance and how a brilliant performer Loreen is.
My top three came out as Czechia, Australia, France/Norway. Could not really vote the song I would have probably voted for. You very rarely see progressive music in ESC, and I would place two songs under that category even if they are actually a bit different genre: Australia (clean progressive metal with a twist of electro) and Finland (fusion of rap, metal, pop and cha cha). And I do believe, if you are seeking for originality, that progressiveness should be something for juries to value. Right now it seems like juries value generic pop songs more, and majority of the songs are the kind of songs we have already heard. So by jury action it seems everything comes down to the "singing" and "performance" rathat than the song, and I would like to emphasize it is Eurovision SONG contest and has always been. So namely it is not a singing (X Factor), staging or performing (Talent) contest, but they are and have always been part of the it. And I guess this year, like in the past, the juries may have little lost or forgotten about the idea of the contest: song. Luckily there is an audience which has valued progression, campiness, fun over seriousness, modernism, some other genres than only pop.
Absolutely agree, and I'd add Serbia to that originality and progressiveness (he is actually an amazing live vocalist, but I think there was something off about the sound as mentioned in this video - the music was too loud for those who sang quite low in pitch, with Serbia arguably the biggest victims of this)
@@ESC_ChrisM Serbia was also one of my favourites, musically. The performances of Luke varied a little from Madrid, and at some point between Madrid and Liverpool, it kind of disappeared from my radar.
But I guess it is not a song juries normally would value. But again, it could be a little too hard for wider audience as well. But unique and memorable, yes.
I think juries should judge based on composition, it's a song contest. The audience are already judging on other factors like visuals.
his voice isn't strong enough? no hate but Remo was the best vocalist this season. GREAT VIDEO :)
First of all: Really nice video and good reactions, you deserve more subscribers!
Second of all: Yes, previous participants AND previous winners should be allowed to return to the contest. I mean why wouldn't they? It's up to them if they want to return and it would be unfair. Plus it doesn't even go that well for previous winners (except Loreen and Johnny Logan of course). So not letting people return to the contest would be dumb. In that case why don't we ban previous participants from the olympics to take part again? You see it wouldn't work.
" UNITED BY MUSIC " That was our 🇫🇮 Käärijä 's song about 💚 and people all over the world knows that. Winning is not the most important thing.. People loved Käärijä jyrys didn't
I very much love Loreen, I have since Euphoria, and I am happy she won. My fiance /girlfriend is also Swedish. I also want to see Petra hosting again. So I cannot claim an unbiased stance here, but no one can, it's music which is all about preference. It is also Eurovision which is *always* political and biased. I genuinely think it's spot in first place was deserved. That said, I loved Cha Cha Cha! I think it was a perfect second place and understand why people wanted it first. I really wish that the response everyone had was not to tear one another apart and be so blatantly rude and disrespectful to this level. I get to enjoy two different songs like someone presented me with a red velvet cake and a cheesecake and just have a good time.
Since the rules have thusfar allowed winners to return- and it is often more a hindrance then a benefit honestly- there is nothing wrong with it. Nor should juries necessarily be abolished as they have been a longstanding tradition of eurovision and Sweden is far from the first winner to not win the tele. People need to chill
I would say after Sweden and Finland, my other top tracks- not in order- were Ukraine, Belgium, Germany, France, Australia, Armenia, Spain, and Lithuiania (something about the 'Čiūto tūto' section gripped me so firmly).
18:55 Yes I don't see any problem with winning artist returning to Eurovision again.
If Duncan Laurence came back to Eurovision and won again, I would be happy, if it is a good song of course.
Alexander Rybak came back in 2018 after winning in 2009, and his song was also good.
Usually people make these types of videos and are totally biased but you did well in mixing your opinion and objectively acknowledging the good and the bad, I was sold after your review of Germany
Norway was my 1st pick. Alessandra is definitely a Queen.
Israel's song actually has meaning behind it.
It's written from the "perspective" of Israel herself, and "you" is referring to her enemies.
"History caught in a loop, don't you wanna change it?" Mostly represents Israel's ongoing struggle and conflict with its neighbor countries.
"I won't look back, I won't look down" is a strong statement for confidence & showing Israel will go on and is trying for a better future.
For a more historical point of view, we have:
"No I'm not your enemy so if you're gonna do it, don't do it" stating that Israel isn't looking for conflict and saying she's just like you, and not an enemy to be fighting with.
"Do you wanna check my DNA? Older stories tend to go away" representing the history of many Jews that couldn't 'prove' their Judaism & where they were from, since their history was deleted when their families had been murdered in the holocaust.
Hope I got everything right
Thank you for the context! How interesting, I wish I knew this beforehand. Great performance!
who tf are they struggling with lmao. Palestine?
@@ivanbilobrk4696 A bit of education will go a long way...
@@UnC23 israel should be banned honestly
@@ivanbilobrk4696 palestine, Lebanon, Iran. And in the past we had Jordan, Egypt and other arab countries
Honestly musically, the Croatian entry was the worst entry in like 20 years, for me personally. I can't understand how people can enjoy this song. I can understand the theme and the message, but for me it's 95% about the music.
my Top 10 :
12 Finland
10 Austria
8 Spain
7 Australia
6 Estonia
5 Sweden
4 Germany
3 Norway
2 Belgium
1 France
One thing is most music we listen to today all sounds similar cuz they all use similar chord progressions but every song has something that makes them different
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 love.
My list
1. Finland
2. Sweden
3. Norway
4. Belgium
5. Australia
6. Italy
7. Israel
8. Albania
9. Slovenia
10. Croatia
Amazing em loved it 👏🏼
Translate for the Hebrew part of unicorn "I'm not like everyone not like the whole world"
"I'm not like everyone, in front of the whole world"* is actually a more accurate translation
Thanks for translating, in hindsight I think I misunderstood the subtext of the song, much more meaningful than I thought!
Serbia, Portugal, Spain
💖💖💖
Loved this!!
0:43 that was the JURY criteria however, you watched them in the order in which they finished with the jury AND the televoting combined
I like your top ten so much more than the real top ten - I'm not bothered about Albania and would sub Czechia in instead but technically that means you think them, Belgium and especially bloody Estonia were overated.
Agree with you, 👍❤️ from 🇳🇴
love this
What I find interesting regarding people who react to Eurovision is that usually they don't get what the "power of the unicorn" means.
Unicorns in mythology have the power of "stunning" (blinding) people with their horn (allegedly the horn projects a strong light that blinds people) so when you translate it into thee lyrics it makes sense. Unicorns are unique and what makes them unique is their horn, it's actually a pretty good lyric cuz if you know of that piece of info about Unicorns then you will get it instantly. x'D
Love it ❤
I think Moldova brought us "Epic Flute Guy" this year. :)
There must be a hidden village of "Epic Instrumental Guys" somewhere in Moldova's wilderness
Totally agree with you about Croatia 🇭🇷!!
Yes Poland totally overrated! The fact they qualified in the 1st place when great songs like Latvia or Netherlands didn't, is already a joke.
Latvia, The Netherlands and perhaps even Georgia all deserved to qualify over Poland, no doubt about that.
i've no idea how Norway done so badly in the Jury Vote. For me it was a top 3 song but the jury scored it so badly.
watch the jury finals, you will easily tell the difference
1:29 caused her to probably lose all of her points
@@balticthegrapher i've just seen it. Such a shame because it's such a good song. Just shows you have nail both the jury final and grand final.
@@gabrielstevens3884 yeah if she shouldn't have messed that act up that badly i think she would've even gotten top 3(more deserved than italy and israel imo)
Taya and Selena are my QUEENS 🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹
I think it's a little late to forbid returning winners, no? Johnny Logan, ABBA, Carola, Lena, Charlotte Nilson (Pirelli), Alexander Rybak...
You should be on the Jury!!
I think loreen should not like Come back to eurovision bc she won already with "euphouria"idk did i spell everything correctly😅❤ and love from finland❤
My problem with UK entry were the lyrics. The theme could have worked, the problem is that we do not learn a single thing about the guy who broke her heart. Why was he such a piece of s*it? The beginning was strong: he made excuses regarding his mental health, and it turned out to be a scheme. She wrote a song... to what? Bash him? Where? The song is mostly about how she is dealing with the thing.
"Instead I wrote a song about how you did me wrong". No, you didn't.
I think it could have worked if the character got so caught in the writing the song: it has this structure, this or this word... so she forgot it was supposed to be about him. It would have a fun twist.
She spends the song talking about how she is doing okay. It could have worked if she was clearly lying to herself, still not being okay. Because if she is, why should I care? I do not know what a piece of sh*t that ex was, she does not seem to miss him or hate him, it is so subpar. The melody is catchy, but not catchy enough to make me care.
Other countries can make excuses regarding lyrics... but UK cannot. The performance did not safe it, obviously. It tanked. Say what you will about that unoriginal Polish entry... she got better and I really like the staging, the fact they rode the PR train. It tanked and it arguably should have tanked more, but I definitely cared more in the end. You do not read it seriously, it is a joke. The UK made me only cringe and feeling sorry.
Norway, Israel, Finland.
where is czechia?😢
Yeah, I would have placed Czechia in lieu of Croatia or Albania in that Top 10, but that's me... this is not my video.
Croatia song was clear last place for me even the line with traktora sounds familiar. Spain song would struggle every time in the televoting, but the jury heavily underrated that song.
I am not very happy what the jury did, not only regarding Sweden and Finnland. I already expected that the jury will like Swedens song more than the Finnish, but twice that good, come on. Makes no sense. Based on the criterias I also can't understand 3 points for Germany and again not to mention Spain. The jury needs to be changed. something is wrong with it.
Completely agree, I hope ESC really needs to look at what/ why was the reasoning TRULY behind the jury's actions. They should if they want ESC to continue to be interesting and engaging. Now all people who televoted feel robbed of their money and this can be disastrous for the whole future of Eurovision, people are SO disappointed.
@@erikafinland2162 Yeah, in televoting can happen everything, but when the jury should make sense, they need to evaluate the songs more professionell. We have already some indicators what is wrong, i.e. it had a dominant part of people with pop music background. In the contest were all kind of genres. It seems plausible that at the end won a very generic pop song and ethnics songs, or rock song had a hart time.
We also need more transparency with the jury. Who are they what are their qualifications?
The reason why germany is last, is because everyone hates us✨🙃
no, it's because people don't appreciate metal music enough. probably like 90% of people in the audience listen to just pop, and they call metal music screamo.
Nah we don't hate you, but zack is probably right. No surprise, Finland gave you 5 points, we like metal. I voted for you.
Actually I liked your song last year too and still enjoy it on my playlist.
@@RebeccaEd nice:)
Tho the only countries who gave us points in the jury voting were Czechia and Iceland👀
@@schneeflocki it doesn't really matter, since they just really didn't appreciate all the work. the song was amazing though, my favorite from this year's eurovision
@@zack2419 yeah I do get your point however what's with all the last places since like 2013 that Germany keeps having. I rather talked about that, because I know that maybe people just didn't like the genre of blood and glitter.
But nice to know that you liked the song:)
"Unicorn" has VERY meaningful lyrics! (This is my take as an Israeli, but as it is a work of art, it is open to different interpretations, so yours is valid as well! :))
Here are the main points to understand:
The song is about the relations between Israel (The "I" in the song) and those who perceive her wrongfully as their enemy (The "You").
To all her neighboring countries, Israel stated time and time again "We are not your enemy!" (In the song "No, I'm not your enemy")
Also, the fact that the Jewish ppl are originated from ancient Israel ("Do you want to check my DNA?"), and not a colonial foreign power, as falsely accused by its enemies.
As you may know, There is a vicious cycle of violence going on in our region for more than a century that we must break and change ("History caught in a loop, Don't you wanna change it?"), cause Israel is attacked time and time again ("If you're gonna do it, don't do it", ) and is forced to respond.
The music also contains elements of the Israeli national anthem - called "Hatikva" - The hope. One of the symbols of Unicorns is Hope and Success, and also strong healing powers.
Notice also the colors in the Music Video, they are very meaningful as well! The ceiling is all-red, she wears all-black (Symbols of violence and grief) and switches to colorful outfits when she sings the Unicorn parts from black & white - Those parts represent the hopeful and successful future ("That I won't look back, I won't look down, I'm going up").
The fact that it's all upside-down! (Not a normal reality) They are all very symbolic!
Hope all this helps to clarify the lyrics. 😊
Sorry but that makes it way worst. How can Isreal pretends to be innocent with what they're doing to Palestinians?
@@ceciliaslepmet4840 Be specific. Innocent about what? Doing what to the Palestinians?
The jury has a stranglehold on the competition. Why even bother participating in the televote if realistically the contest is already over at the jury voting phase? Might as well give the jury 100% of the voting power as things stand.
So basically you like all the weird staff
A) What a silly question to ask if it is ok to send an artist who have competed/won before.
B) Complaining on Loreen’s pronauciation is soooo rude! I take it that your goal with your channel is to reach people all over Europe and not only the UK. Forget Europe, because your English is very very difficult to understand. Like too many of your countrymen, you never even bother to adjust your speaking, when talking to us ”foreigners”. Europe is ok with English being ”lingua franca ” as long as the Britons treat us with .respect, linguistically.
The reasona giving fir songs not doing well are very typical of someone who doesnt understand Eurovision and why people and juries do or do not rate songs. Maybe get involved next year earlier so you know all the songs going in?
Also, you called loads of songs boring. Its a shamw your attention spam dant stretch to 3 minutes. Armenia was captivating. What was boring about it? Reasons required. Remo's voice was one of the strongest voices of the night. And Spain failed because her voice was slughtly drowned out? Thats hilarous. It came last qith the public vote. People just hated the song.
Finqlly, saying Croatia is what Eurovision is about? Very traditional English and outdated view of the contest. Its not very camp anymore, and a lot of the songs that have got top 3 arent camp at all. We're all a bit sick of people that assume Eurovision is (and should be) a campfest. Your bias against ballads is kind of sad. Plus, there were hardly any ballads this year.
Who's we? Because she's right. Croatia is definitely what eurovision is about
@@ceciliaslepmet4840 I think you'll find the vast majority of Eurovision fans disagree. We don't love the contest for shit music, we love it for the great music. And joke entries don't win anymore. Tattoo won and has been breaking Eurovision chart records across Europe and beyond.