Ooh Eurovision social media is a toxic place since last night
. Are the juries really out of touch? I'd say no, they're just looking at things from a professional point of view versus the public's opinion of what can be their first view/listen of a song on the night. In general, they do a good job of giving a bit of balance to the meme acts, or something that might have an unfortunate position in the running order on the night. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the craziness of Eurovision, but I think it's also important to maintain some credibility in the competition which they've worked so hard to build in the last decade or so. Having the juries help address that is a must in my view. Perhaps they may look at it being tweaked a little by giving them say a lower percentage of votes in future, as they do in the voting of some national finals - but overall they should stick around. And yes, this is coming from someone who also bloody loved KEiiNO!
Participating countries know how the contest is decided, so it's down to those countries to enter a song that suits that. In other words, a song has to walk that line of being attractive to both the juries
and the public. Now I loved Finland's entry, but knew that ultimately it was going to be heavily nerfed by juries. As exciting as the performance was, vocally it wasn't great and it was always going to be marked down as a result. Käärijä absolutely smashed Finland's national final (UMK) on the public vote, and while he also won the international jury vote (which accounts for only 25% versus 75% of the public vote) the spread of those jury votes was far wider. The signs were already there that it was a crowd pleaser, but nowhere near a jury pleaser on the same level:
Credit: EurovisionWorld
So I've seen a lot of people saying Finland were "robbed", but I don't buy that view - Sweden simply played the game as it's currently setup better. They walked that tightrope of jury and public pleaser and pipped them to the post. Yes, on the public vote he won, but then if we had a 100% public vote decided prior to the contest, we'd likely have had multiple countries sending completely different songs to suit that setup too.
I disagree that artists shouldn't be allowed to return after participating too, since it's difficult to draw a line as to where that ends. Should we then look at preventing other artists from entering because of their heavy viral social media following such as Sam Ryder? Should acts like Måneskin who had major success in some countries prior to the contest be prevented from entering?
Back to the rest of this year's contest though, gutted for Mimicat (Portugal) being in the death slot. One of the best vocals of the night, and always got a massive crowd reaction whenever she performed. Admittedly it was never going to win, but I expected to see a few more televote points. Austria was a surprise for the public vote too. I thought it would've been way, way higher based on the buzz and reactions around it. Staging and performance wise, it felt a bit flat though in comparison to the craziness of the music video, kicking off the contest didn't help either. There ended up being far more acts that I loved this year than there has been for a while. It ended up being a really strong lineup, there were even some non qualifiers in the semis that I really enjoyed - Iceland and Georgia being two that come to mind.
Now Mae Muller - sadly there's no dressing it up as anything else - regardless of the sound mixing she wasn't good enough live. A catchy enough song, but it's heavily studio produced so doesn't translate well onto a live stage. We simply have to have acts that are up to the really heavy rigours of Eurovision and can sing live with real power and stage presence. Endless press events, pre parties and rehearsals all leading up to the final. It's
incredibly difficult for any singer, never-mind someone who was vocally quite weak in the first place. It's crazy how we successfully demonstrated that formula last year, yet dropped back to same old same old this year.
So so glad I managed to get down to Liverpool for both semi finals, and manage to nab a last minute ticket for the afternoon preview of SF2. It was fantastic to see the setup in person after years of following the contest, absolutely fascinating to see what goes on behind the scenes while those postcards are rolling. Despite some crap weather on Thursday, it was amazing to see the buzz around the city and see some Eurovision acts past and present in the process too.
Now time for a few months off before the joys of national finals come round again. Roll on Sweden 2024, tempted to go do it all again in person!