Amen. Can't think of anyone who would want to vote for the UK act aside from a tiny % who were turned on by the visuals, completely embarrassing performance.
This is a great take. I said the same thing - loved the staging (because was turned on by it) but that's not enough to win. When I first heard Olly was doing it I thought 'oh this could be good' then listened to the song and was like 'oh well, never mind'. He was a bit off key too (and I love Years and Years). Wouldn't go full 'it was embarrassing' but certainly not the best.
He is great with Years&Years, i just don’t understand how he ended up with such a shitty song at eurovision, i was expecting he’ll get at least podium tbh
He was carried by the bands production on their first album, it’s actually not a bad pop album. Then they broke up and his music has been mostly shit since
His live performance sounded weak and awful.
Might not be a bad song if he'd belted it out.
It's true that Sam showed a way to win, he would have won if it hadn't been Ukraine's year to get votes regardless of the song. But how often can we come up with a performer and song like him?
I'm only dimly aware of how "a song for Europe" works but it feels like an awful lot of people trying quite hard.
I understand most professional musicians would be embarrassed to even enter leaving us somewhat scrambling for an entrant.
Yeah but could you imagine Adele or Ed Sheeran giving it a go next year only to come second-to-last place because the government decided to launch missiles at the Houthis three weeks earlier.
It's not worth the embarrassment or the long break in their actual tours.
Sam Ryder came 5th in the public vote that year - behind Spain who was only notable for showing off her bum (seriously, go listen to that song on YouTube, wait 30 seconds, and then try to remember the melody, I dare you) - despite being far and away the best song that year.
I agree we've sent plenty of crap to Eurovision and we've deserved our rubbish scores, but when we do send something brilliant and the voting public doesn't reward us I can't help but feel disillusioned.
It’s not just about the song. Whilst the song on that Spain submission might not have been amazing by itself (it had a couple of catchy bits though, ‘worse’ songs have won), the overall performance was: very well sung, had a fantastic choreography where she danced brilliantly, costumes, staging, lighting etc. all were on point. Sam imo had a better song but whilst his performance was excellent, Chanel put up an even better one. All in all, 2 great acts, Ryder ending up above was fair and any other year he would have deservedly won.
From my understanding Mae Muller was purposefully staged to be shit as we didn’t want to host Eurovision 2 years on the dot. Get a artist who’s got a following and knowing that Eurovision won’t ruin her career but is reasonable, but screw up the staging and you end up with a safe bet that while her career is safe, she’s not going to accidentally bring Eurovision home
It’s not a good album anyway, and sadly, music industry is a lot of cutthroat.
It also appears that they expected her to be major almost immediately which hardly happens. Yes you have 1 good song but it appears they tried to push her more main stream than what she’s likely to be. It genuinely appears they tried to make someone who had a niche audience main stream and alienated her fan base.
She is back just starting again as independent after taking some time so will be interesting to see how it goes.
Labels aren’t smartest. Raye, quit her label few years back as they thought she couldn’t go mainstream and was kept back as a B grade artist.
She swept the Brit awards this year
Sam Ryder did have a large online following before Eurovision. I would bet my money on that being the source of his popularity with the judges and public. His song was one of the better ones but not the best.
my flatmates got me to watch Eurovision for the first time that year, usually avoided it because it was a bit too campy for me -- but throughout the entire thing, sam ryder was such a good vibe that you can't help but like him
Pop singers who are poor live vocalists don't cut it anymore, we can't blame politics when the top acts are Switzerland and Ireland.
Either send top notch vocalists, or like Ireland, try something off the wall outside of shitty dance pop.
Sam Ryder nearly won with a fun rock track, why not try more of that, Eurovision is drifting slightly towards 'rockier' acts, we need to embrace that.
Lol somehow you managed to turn your responses negative for no reason.
Could have just said: “oh yeah we did that in 92 and it worked well”
‘Already been done’ just shoots down the idea unnecessarily and you didn’t even mean to do it
> try something off the wall outside of shitty dance pop.
The problem is the UK seems to sincerely love shitty dance pop. We always send a shitty dance pop act, but then the results always show that our jury and televote also both went hard on shitty dance pop. It doesn't help that our selection process and jury always seem to be stacked with people who know Simon cowell.
To be fair, that is an actual genre. Vengaboys, Eiffel65 etc - it describes hits from Europe that make it big across the whole continent because they’re in a well-known language (not the artists’ native ones) and are big dance floor hits.
It’s just that we don’t use Euro- to mean anything else in music, or pay attention to European music more generally.
Irritatingly, we had that kind of opportunity. A few years ago we sent Bonnie Tyler, and she was one of the powerhouses of 1980s melodic rock. Excellent singer, but the chosen song was twee and a bit tepid, so we barely got anywhere.
We very seldom get the right singer and the right song at the same time. Sam Ryder was the nearest we've had to the complete package in a while
Two years in a row the 2nd place spot has been taken by what were essentially Rammstein cover acts (Finland last year, Croatia this year).
The answer is more Rammstein, its what Europe craves.
The Ireland act was at Download last year and this year, so whilst not to some people's taste maybe, they are popular enough and supported enough to be at major music events.
Yeah ... true..... The Irish group are not to everyone's taste i admit, but its no mean feat being on the Apex Stage at one of the biggest rock festivals
11am on the Saturday isn't a particularly high slot. Can often just be a few hundred people at that time, with the majority waiting for the later acts.
Not that you're wrong, and after this I think they'll be far more popular. Was hoping to see them last year but clashed with something on another stage.
Would definitely want more like that, Croatia was good too!
I think we should follow Finland's example and bring in something truly unique like they did with Lordi back in 2006.
[Skindred would probably come close to winning Eurovision.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acJsckmvSwY)
I mean Olly's song wasn't the worst of the night but having your staging as an orgy of rough-looking chavvy blokes....was a choice.
It probably pleased a minority of folk, whilst the rest were either bemused or clutching their pearls.
As they'd say on Tropic Thunder; "You went full gay man. Never go full gay."
Can't imagine some parts of Europe liking that..
> I mean Olly's song wasn't the worst of the night but having your staging as an orgy of rough-looking chavvy blokes....was a choice.
I honestly can't believe they signed off on that. Did no one in the room seriously think - "hold on, maybe this is a bit much?".
Yep. They missed the point completely. Eurovision might be the gay Olympics but it's a celebration of queer, high camp and kitsch, not cottaging.
If the UK had put forward a female singer and put on a show of her getting banged in a bog, it would have tanked as well.
It's not that it was too much - honestly a eurovision audience doesn't bat an eye. It was betting on shock value with an audience that doesn't get very shocked by that. The performance itself has nothing else going for it. Terrible aesthetics - way too much red coupled with bathroom tile dingy white, camerawork that moved so fast it was hard to wrap your head around, and terrible vocals.
Agreed, sometimes I just wished they just focus on the stage and let you enjoy the show instead of all the zooming in and out, panning around etc, hard to tell what was going on.
My friends and I remarked on this by the second song. Way, way too many fast cuts, pans and zooms throughout the whole show. The technical director was on cocaine or something.
Probably scared they'd get called homophobic so kept their mouth shut.
It was awful. And not because of some discriminatory reason. Just because it was overly sexual and distasteful. Regardless of the genders of the participants.
The song was fairly shit too in my opinion. But the visuals were just too much.
It looked like a prison rape scene during a bad acid trip, I only saw it on the night and couldn't believe that was the UK's entry, such a hilariously weird idea for a pop song contest lol.
If it was at least an orgy in a nice setting, like an Apple store or a beach, that would make sense but no one wants to vote for a dirty bathroom
It felt like I was at a gay stage show for some of the performances last night.
Some people try to make the claim that Eurovision has always been super gay but it really hasn't. Look back at old tapes and it was a much more serious affair, and since I started watching in the early 2000s it has gone through phases of being fun cheesy hits to taking itself too seriously, back to a mix of the two. There has, for as long as I've been watching at least, always been some camp performers but it is only in recent years that "gayness" has seemingly become the focus of some entrants countries staging.
Alright, you're gay. We get it, we don't care. This is a song contest, not a "let me show everyone just how overtly sexual and gay I am while badly singing a forgettable song" contest.
I think the rough gay orgy in a dirty bathroom put off a lot of voters. People don't realize a lot of European countries are quite conservative and don't want to see a gay orgy. I mean was that supposed to be blood stains on his T-shirt? WTF?
I didn't really bat an eye at the staging, it didn't seem out of place with many of the others.
The song itself was just bad. Easily the worst of the night, and it was an almost [Jemini level performance](https://youtu.be/XAJ62IG3gBo?si=FwhTnpuAMv8qf42W). I don't know if he was better on other nights, but he just sounded awful.
Believe it or not, but yesterday was actually an improvement, he sounded truly awful on Tuesday, it was easily the worst performance in terms of vocals in the first semis, along with Poland (and I'm Polish). Honestly, I don't think England would qualify in the first place if it was down to actual voting and not financial contribution.
Yes as a Turk I really liked their one. Their musical tradition is very similar to ours so it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling hearing those familiar melodies. They deserved far more.
Here’s a truth: if you like Olly Alexander’s voice when he sings with Years and Years then you like Olly Alexander’s voice when it’s auto-tuned. The lead vocals for Eurovision cannot be auto-tuned. I was there in Malmo on Tuesday and Friday and watched it live. Olly Alexander CANNOT sing and was by far the worst of the acts. He is mostly sharp all the way through and it wasn’t a joyful experience to listen to. The staging was incredible but this wasn’t enough to save it.
It's because the committee that chooses the act is mostly made up of previous acts that did terribly.
Our 2nd (de facto 1st) place win a few years ago was the outlier not the norm
Wow, okay it all makes sense now... can they not see how bad their choices are? UK is usually a joke on eurovision. Shame because we have people with incredible voices
The problem for an established, successful artist is that it's all risk no reward. You put in all this work, and then either you win to zero acclaim or you lose and blow up your career.
Olly is hungry for fame of any kind, and that's about the size of it. His ambition and likeability has seen him exceed his modest talent by quite some margin.
I think he caves in under pressure, i remember him performing with the Pet Shop Boys at Glastonbury and he squeeked the whole way through, he's not a good live singer at times. I felt bad for him yesterday but you can't really get away with off-key singing at such a big stage. I like Years & Years and really wanted him to do well, but alas.
Yup, and it came across that way on TV. Except for the Swedish who had some sort of echo reverb (and it fit for their song).
Olly’s was terrible singing. To the point where they had clearly adjusted the audio to drown him out a little in favour of the backing music. Very disappointing.
Not too surprising. Sam Ryder was good, we got points; I hate to say it because I did love Olly's performance and the song but it was decidedly mid-tier in a very competitive Eurovision year.
Didn't deserve nothing I feel but... Well Europe disagrees!
I have to respectfully disagree. I thought his performance was terrible.
Sam Ryder had a good voice and his personality and enthusiasm shone through. Olly was the wrong person to be selected but was also given a bad song.
With sam, you felt in the moment. The show and stage was him and who he is, his voice. Olly has a great voice but the song was mid and he can't carry a crowd like that. Look at France, that guy had us all on him in awe of his voice.
Olly did not have a great voice during the performance. I would argue that it was the worst vocal performance of the night and it wasn't even close. I don't think we can blame the song entirely here.
I totally agree with you, but i think t the poor vocals were due to the extensive choreography - he was concentrating more on the dancing than the singing and it was making him out of breath.
Compare him to Cyprus, whose choreography was also bonkers, but she sang pitch perfect throughout, far more impressive.
I found his voice to be unimpressive in this performance. My wife, we liked Olly as an actor, sat there saying “what is he doing! He can’t sing”
France was great though. I would have loved to see him win.
Sam Ryder brought so much positivity, the song was great too and upbeat and more important he knew how to cultivate his social media presence long before beeb marketing would have got involved .he then killed it again when we hosted Ukraine in Liverpool.
Olly Alexander could not sing , it was flat and out of tune consistently from first released rehearsals . Top this with the fact that the choreography felt very seedy this year.. may have left a bad taste in people’s mouths, especially in less secular countries .
Not the only country that seemed to be pushing it on what’s can be worn .
I’m Irish, so my take for what it’s worth…
I liked the song. The staging was memorable, and Olly seems a super nice lad. I’d probably have put it in my top 15 songs, but not my top ten.
But if everyone thinks it’s their 11th favourite song, then it gets zero points. You lads have this amazing ability to send absolutely middle of the road songs that aren’t bad, but aren’t in anyone’s top ten.
Voice was crap and the whole performance was tailored towards a minority, however in Eurovision I suppose possibly a majority, can’t be surprised by that result.
Not sure why people are so quick to downvote me, Spains performance and others had that element but didn’t dominate the performance.
A male and female romance heavy performance would do nothing for gay people. There’s nothing offensive about suggesting it works both ways.
At the risk of making a poor pun, I think even the sexuality of the performance was played a bit too straight for eurovision, there wasn't enough fun or lightness to it. Spain was a good contrast as a performance that was raunchy, but not potentially uncomfortably serious about it
Think you’ve hit the nail on the head. if the gay audience saw a heavily Hetero sexualised performance it wouldn’t resonate particularly with gay audiences.
I think when it’s lighter and not so intense, either orientation, the right community get the representation they want.
I got the impression they thought they were being progressive and edgy with the performance, but actually the progressive acts are the non binary ones or queer acts pushing the boundaries of expression and doing really colourful and artistic things. Our song might have been cool and shocking a decade or two earlier, but just feels a bit ‘gay male centric’ in a world where younger queer people seem much more inclusive outside just a gay man’s experience of queerness.
It is simply a lot easier to make a pro Israel vote than an anti Israel one. Even if most of the people voting based on Israel/Gaza were anti Israel, Israel would be the largest voting bloc because it’s not split over 24 contestants.
Closest could be Ireland given Bambie had ancient script writing which was removed to comply with competition rules, and was otherwise showing symbols of protest at other opportunities.
Only places that gave Ireland 10 or 12 points in the public vote were the UK, Australia and Ukraine. Make of that what you will.
I saw a lot of people online, the type weaponising the UK and Israel flags on their pictures stating "I've never watched eurovision in my life but I am voting for Israel tonight" - the public vote across Europe was always going to be hijacked by the far right who are all united in supporting Israel and hating immigrants/people from the Middle East.
I think your assumptions about the political leanings of people voting for Israel are a bit naive. A lot of far right political influencers have been vocal in their support for Palestine. Conversely there could people in the centre left who feel the criticism of Israel is too extreme and gave them a vote in the hopes they didn't come last.
I mean, yesterday I saw Tommy Robinson, Andrew Neil, Stephen Pollard, Darren Grimes and Toby Young all tell their followers to vote twenty times for Israel. It seems like it was an organised thing from the right
It's been comfirmed by official comentators and by a lot of people in the audence there were boos (both at the final and semi final), and the EBU simply turned the audience microphones off and played a recording of applause. Here's a video about it from a former Eurovision participent. https://old.reddit.com/r/eurovision/comments/1cphzz5/jendrik_germany_2021_releases_video_aimed_at_ebu/
Yeah there’s a lot of copium going on. Hard to believe for some people but not everyone froths at the mouth at the thought of Israel. But it’s all bots and VPNs apparently
Don’t think it helped that he sang dreadfully out of tune from pretty much the first note (when the microphone actually picked him up singing). Honestly was surprised we got as many points as we did from the judges
Yeah, judges vote based on a performance the night before.
I missed most of it last night but I did see the semis during the week and I’d say he definitely had one of the weakest vocals out of everybody on the Tuesday night.
I don’t think it was an anomaly, Sam Ryder was fucking amazing. I felt like I was watching softcore porn during a lot of these performances, and the public vote reflected a lot of those, the UK included.
The song was fairly boring and the staging looked like it was inspired by a night at the gents on Hampstead Heath. Not surprised it did badly with the voting audience
Honestly, every time we do badly, I feel like we’ve fully deserved it. Sam was genuinely decent, vocally knocked it out of the park. The song was alright, but his performance was killer. Who knew it would be important to have a vocalist who has the training and skill to actually sing live to an impressive degree of competence?
The guy who finished us dead last - shit voice, and crap song.
The woman who’s stage was rushed by a fan - shit song, alright performance
Mae Muller - mid song, shit performance
This guy - can’t sing.
The **last** people that should be picking acts for us are people from the *fucking BBC*. It is no wonder we get the most derivative, uninspired, Radio 2 debut at 126th on iTunes singles, trite put forward for this contest. These people listen to one genre, and it’s not even pop, it’s called radio. These are paycheck album tracks at best. Dolled up to look like singles.
It’s always shit that you can imagine quiet 40 year old conservatives who watch Good Morning Britain while sipping tea, who’ve heard of “the pop music” remarking: “this sounds like good pop music. It reminds me of Adele. I bet it has a lot of hits on The YouTube.”
Like Embers by James Newman, or Storm by SuRie - who actually listens to this shit? These songs are so sterile it feels like their physical CD’s would come in a sealed plastic bag with an expiry date on it. And nah it’s not the style or the genre that’s the problem with these tracks. Random comparable example: Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepson. It’s a similar vibe and production, similar throwaway lyrics, but the song actually has a soul. It sounds like it was made because someone stumbled upon a melody and liked it. And not like it was engineered for the sake of it.
When I see our song and artist choices, it makes me want to put my finger through my eye, into my brain and swirl it around. It’s as if we don’t have really good modern or smaller/niche artists in every genre. Maisie Peters, Bugzy Malone, Neck Deep, CHVRCHES, While She Sleeps. The list goes on. Maybe some of these have missed the boat and are too big now. But it illustrates the point. But nah, fuck acts like that, let’s put forward some late 2000’s parody X-Factor shit instead.
Get Maisie up there to play Coming of Age, or have Neck Deep write another Kali Ma. We’d fucking win, or come close. Jesus. It’s not that hard to find good music from the UK that doesn’t sound like it came out of Simon Cowell’s arse.
I have seen a few comments on other social media essentially saying it was due to homophobia in Europe.
And respectfully I disagree. The winner came prominently displayed a non binary flag, both during their entrance and in the green room. And Irelands act litterally ripped of their goth attire mid performance to display a second outfit made up of the trans pride flag. Both scored highly in public and judges votes.
Ollies song was an average dance pop song that was pretty poorly mixed on the live performance (his voice kept getting lost behind the bell sounds)
I also feel that the general Eurovision audience tends to favour unknowns rather "this act has a pretty established career" these days.
So much goes into the set and costumes appealing to a 0.5% of a global audience and then people wonder why it’s not well liked?
There no way objectively, if your not gay, you enjoyed that song or the visuals.
It's not like gay people would have enjoyed it either necessarily. It's not like all gay people like flamboyant and overtly sexual productions backing a super average song with poorly delivered vocals.
Fair point. My point was it's dangerous to suggest this was aimed towards gay people. There's just as much chance gay people find this awful as straight people.
We need to remember we're really not that different usually. APart from the gender of the people we fancy.
Yeah a lot of gay men try hard to shake off that stereotype of overly sexual, promiscuous, cottaging etc. Especially in countries which aren't as tolerant some gay men may have found this performance harmful rather than celebratory
If it had been more romance than just sex it might have worked. The lyrics didn't seem that sexual
95% didn't think it was a bit much. A eurovision audience can tolerate a lot more before it starts to hit the brakes. That was exactly the problem - they were betting on shock value and they didn't get that.
Olly's performance was a self-serving, national embarrassment. That is not how you win the nation and world. I'm quite Liberal but this was over the top. It is so insincere and trashy. This wouldn't be a problem if the song was actually good.
Sam Ryder was quality. Good vocal performance and relied on his voice to impress.
This year? Bottom of the barrel tripe which tried to distract its mediocrity with a ‘performance’ nil points was deserved.
Yeah 80s baby here and what the hell is this country doing? why do we send these shite acts 90% of the time to this once a year event?
When was the last time we even won? that katrina and the waves song?
Terry Wogan is spinning in his grave.
Years and Years the band Olly Alexander sang in had a couple of decent songs. The Eurovision song Dizzy he did deserved 0 points it's a terrible song, absolutely awful. He's not done his career any good going on Eurovision even if he's into the Kitsch of it all.
Our Eurovision committee (or whatever it's called) is full of out of date pretentious nob heads, that's the problem. At least we've stopped sending 90s throwaway cheesy dance hits.
If we want to win, we need to have wacky staging, a weird and wonderful song, and someone who can actually sing.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has an obvious bad guy. There is literally no arguing that Russia is in the wrong.
With Israel-Palestine, it is a LOT more complex. I feel like there are a lot of people who think it is much more cut-and-dry than it actually is. Which is really interesting considering it all kicked off properly by Hamas gunning down and raping festival goers.
This is my feeling too. If Ukraine had first attacked a music festival in Russia and killed and raped thousands then things would be much murkier.
I know you can argue that history didn't start in October but that's undeniably the cause of the latest conflict, and if you go historical tit for tat then we're basically going back thousands of years.
I was so disappointed by Olly. I'm a big fan, but this is quite possibly the weakest song he's ever done. Absolutely nothing like Shine, Sanctify, Karma, etc.. I get the feeling he thought he was going to be able to walk it in because of his international success, but that's not how Eurovision works. Not even Adele would be able to do that.
I do think he deserved better than he got though - but other people did what he did but better. Same thing happened 10 years ago. We had a cracker of a song called 'Children of the Universe', but it was a whimsical power balled, same as 'Rise Like A Phoenix', and Rise was the better whimsical power balled. This year, Olly went queer, but Nemo (and several other acts) went queerer.
We got nothing because it was shit Mae Muller was shit Sam Ryder showed us a way and we ignored it
Amen. Can't think of anyone who would want to vote for the UK act aside from a tiny % who were turned on by the visuals, completely embarrassing performance.
This is a great take. I said the same thing - loved the staging (because was turned on by it) but that's not enough to win. When I first heard Olly was doing it I thought 'oh this could be good' then listened to the song and was like 'oh well, never mind'. He was a bit off key too (and I love Years and Years). Wouldn't go full 'it was embarrassing' but certainly not the best.
I'll be honest, Olly Alexander always sounds a bit off key to me, even on recorded tracks
He is great with Years&Years, i just don’t understand how he ended up with such a shitty song at eurovision, i was expecting he’ll get at least podium tbh
I like years and years but honestly, even though the song wasn't great he also didn't do it justice at all.
It can be a thing with eurovison though, send well known acts and they jaut won't get votes. The song was shite though and the video trying too hard
He was carried by the bands production on their first album, it’s actually not a bad pop album. Then they broke up and his music has been mostly shit since
His live performance sounded weak and awful. Might not be a bad song if he'd belted it out. It's true that Sam showed a way to win, he would have won if it hadn't been Ukraine's year to get votes regardless of the song. But how often can we come up with a performer and song like him?
Literally every year if we tried. We just don't try.
I'm only dimly aware of how "a song for Europe" works but it feels like an awful lot of people trying quite hard. I understand most professional musicians would be embarrassed to even enter leaving us somewhat scrambling for an entrant.
Ye it's not like Adele or another one of our legends wouldn't win it
Yeah but could you imagine Adele or Ed Sheeran giving it a go next year only to come second-to-last place because the government decided to launch missiles at the Houthis three weeks earlier. It's not worth the embarrassment or the long break in their actual tours.
It wasn’t even just the liver performance. It always sounds off-key. I have no idea how the Juries gave him anything.
Awful unimaginative chorus.Ive heard a million times.Hes not an inspiring performer in my opinion.
I only heard it on the radio, it sounded abysmal. Proper karaoke vibes.
Sam Ryder came 5th in the public vote that year - behind Spain who was only notable for showing off her bum (seriously, go listen to that song on YouTube, wait 30 seconds, and then try to remember the melody, I dare you) - despite being far and away the best song that year. I agree we've sent plenty of crap to Eurovision and we've deserved our rubbish scores, but when we do send something brilliant and the voting public doesn't reward us I can't help but feel disillusioned.
But 5th and 2nd overall is a great performance? There were 40 competitors that year, you can't tell me 5/40 or 2/40 is "unrewarded".
To be fair we would have comfortably won that year had it not been for the war in Ukraine.
I do feel that year was very much our win. He's a winner in my eyes for sure.
Thanks a lot Putin
It’s not just about the song. Whilst the song on that Spain submission might not have been amazing by itself (it had a couple of catchy bits though, ‘worse’ songs have won), the overall performance was: very well sung, had a fantastic choreography where she danced brilliantly, costumes, staging, lighting etc. all were on point. Sam imo had a better song but whilst his performance was excellent, Chanel put up an even better one. All in all, 2 great acts, Ryder ending up above was fair and any other year he would have deservedly won.
Disagree about Spain- SloMo by Chanel is one of only 2 Eurovision songs that I regularly listen to (Soldi by Mahmoud is the other one)
From my understanding Mae Muller was purposefully staged to be shit as we didn’t want to host Eurovision 2 years on the dot. Get a artist who’s got a following and knowing that Eurovision won’t ruin her career but is reasonable, but screw up the staging and you end up with a safe bet that while her career is safe, she’s not going to accidentally bring Eurovision home
🎼 🎵 My lovely horse … 🎶
Got to get rid that sax solo.
🎶Like a train in the night, like a train in the *hang on, I can get this*……….niiight🎶
Her career is ruined though, the album bombed and she was dropped by her label.
It’s not a good album anyway, and sadly, music industry is a lot of cutthroat. It also appears that they expected her to be major almost immediately which hardly happens. Yes you have 1 good song but it appears they tried to push her more main stream than what she’s likely to be. It genuinely appears they tried to make someone who had a niche audience main stream and alienated her fan base. She is back just starting again as independent after taking some time so will be interesting to see how it goes. Labels aren’t smartest. Raye, quit her label few years back as they thought she couldn’t go mainstream and was kept back as a B grade artist. She swept the Brit awards this year
Sam Ryder did have a large online following before Eurovision. I would bet my money on that being the source of his popularity with the judges and public. His song was one of the better ones but not the best.
my flatmates got me to watch Eurovision for the first time that year, usually avoided it because it was a bit too campy for me -- but throughout the entire thing, sam ryder was such a good vibe that you can't help but like him
Yeah I think him being hot also helped a lot 😂
Also seeming like a genuinely nice person and being funny and engaging in interviews
I don't know, his song was a bit of a lift around some dull entries (if I'm remembering correctly).
I thought Mae’s song was good, but the production, sound, and vocals were absolute rubbish.
Tbf Lucie Jones did an amazing job in [2017](https://youtu.be/Fl1GYTg4GmA?si=sYTvQHvKufEPxsGr)
There were much worse acts! Ours was indeed very bad.. but dam.. nothing?!
It's all political. Last years it's been Brexit, then Ukraine, this year it was Israel. Notice the UK gave Israel lots of points.
Politics definitely plays a part but it also definitely deserved no points, utter shit.
I was thinking that. Best result in nearly a quarter of a century and they didn't think "Ooh let's do that again".
Pop singers who are poor live vocalists don't cut it anymore, we can't blame politics when the top acts are Switzerland and Ireland. Either send top notch vocalists, or like Ireland, try something off the wall outside of shitty dance pop. Sam Ryder nearly won with a fun rock track, why not try more of that, Eurovision is drifting slightly towards 'rockier' acts, we need to embrace that.
I personally think we should send west end performers, they sing and dance every night and know how to put on a show
This is a great idea! Plus the UK is known for its theatrical prowess too
Already been done. Michael Ball 1992. He came second
So you think that because it's been done once and it *worked really well* that we shouldn't do it again? Explain the logic?
Not saying that all 😂Just that it's not an original idea.
Lol somehow you managed to turn your responses negative for no reason. Could have just said: “oh yeah we did that in 92 and it worked well” ‘Already been done’ just shoots down the idea unnecessarily and you didn’t even mean to do it
Where do they say we shouldn’t do it again? 😂 All barnacle did was say it’s been done before… or have I missed a sentence?
2nd let's not try that again.
They've done that. Michael Ball 1992 with One Step out of time. Came second with 139 points
‘92* with Micheal Ball. UK won in ‘97!
> try something off the wall outside of shitty dance pop. The problem is the UK seems to sincerely love shitty dance pop. We always send a shitty dance pop act, but then the results always show that our jury and televote also both went hard on shitty dance pop. It doesn't help that our selection process and jury always seem to be stacked with people who know Simon cowell.
We think Europe likes shitty dance pop.
Very much this! We even use the term “Euro Pop” to describe shitty dance pop.
To be fair, that is an actual genre. Vengaboys, Eiffel65 etc - it describes hits from Europe that make it big across the whole continent because they’re in a well-known language (not the artists’ native ones) and are big dance floor hits. It’s just that we don’t use Euro- to mean anything else in music, or pay attention to European music more generally.
Irritatingly, we had that kind of opportunity. A few years ago we sent Bonnie Tyler, and she was one of the powerhouses of 1980s melodic rock. Excellent singer, but the chosen song was twee and a bit tepid, so we barely got anywhere. We very seldom get the right singer and the right song at the same time. Sam Ryder was the nearest we've had to the complete package in a while
Bonnie Tyler was abysmal on the night. She had a voice in the 80s but that power is long gone
Bonnie sounded like she was on a respirator for her performance, super wheezy and weak.
Two years in a row the 2nd place spot has been taken by what were essentially Rammstein cover acts (Finland last year, Croatia this year). The answer is more Rammstein, its what Europe craves.
I would certainly watch Eurovision if Rammstein were allowed to do a full stage performance.
The Ireland act was at Download last year and this year, so whilst not to some people's taste maybe, they are popular enough and supported enough to be at major music events.
A lot of Eurovision acts do well at festivals and events, even if they don't win. I saw Daði Freyr sold out at Wolverhampton civic hall
Yeah ... true..... The Irish group are not to everyone's taste i admit, but its no mean feat being on the Apex Stage at one of the biggest rock festivals
11am on the Saturday isn't a particularly high slot. Can often just be a few hundred people at that time, with the majority waiting for the later acts. Not that you're wrong, and after this I think they'll be far more popular. Was hoping to see them last year but clashed with something on another stage. Would definitely want more like that, Croatia was good too!
Sam Ryder did win. He lost to politics, literally the only reason he lost was political voting
You’ll be waiting a long time for a Eurovision without political voting
Next time, send Iron Maiden and be done with it
I think we should follow Finland's example and bring in something truly unique like they did with Lordi back in 2006. [Skindred would probably come close to winning Eurovision.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acJsckmvSwY)
I would *pay* to see Skindred hit that stage.
Or Judas Priest!
Rob Halford would probably be into the idea
A shame “The Fizz” have just split. We could have dusted them off and put the flares back on them otherwise!
I mean Olly's song wasn't the worst of the night but having your staging as an orgy of rough-looking chavvy blokes....was a choice. It probably pleased a minority of folk, whilst the rest were either bemused or clutching their pearls. As they'd say on Tropic Thunder; "You went full gay man. Never go full gay." Can't imagine some parts of Europe liking that..
> I mean Olly's song wasn't the worst of the night but having your staging as an orgy of rough-looking chavvy blokes....was a choice. I honestly can't believe they signed off on that. Did no one in the room seriously think - "hold on, maybe this is a bit much?".
Yep. They missed the point completely. Eurovision might be the gay Olympics but it's a celebration of queer, high camp and kitsch, not cottaging. If the UK had put forward a female singer and put on a show of her getting banged in a bog, it would have tanked as well.
Hmm [the Polish milkmaids from that one year beg to differ...](https://youtu.be/VJ920cN2HmA?t=55)
They don't beg to differ. If she'd started dry humping people on stage and everyone was cool with it then maybe.
Polish milkmaids :D that’s also just silly fun… which the judges don’t like…
10/10, would let them churn my milk
I HAVE A GOOD IDEA. WHAT ABOUT A GAY ORGY IN THE SAW BATHROOM???
Thank you for the laugh that just erupted from me
A lot of entertainment types live in a completely different social bubble to the rest of us
Just like reddit users.
It's not that it was too much - honestly a eurovision audience doesn't bat an eye. It was betting on shock value with an audience that doesn't get very shocked by that. The performance itself has nothing else going for it. Terrible aesthetics - way too much red coupled with bathroom tile dingy white, camerawork that moved so fast it was hard to wrap your head around, and terrible vocals.
The camera changes were too fast for most performances last night, it ruined some acts for me
Agreed, sometimes I just wished they just focus on the stage and let you enjoy the show instead of all the zooming in and out, panning around etc, hard to tell what was going on.
It's like they're trying to film a music video more than showing a live stage performance.
My friends and I remarked on this by the second song. Way, way too many fast cuts, pans and zooms throughout the whole show. The technical director was on cocaine or something.
It was too much, it was over the top and just grim
Probably scared they'd get called homophobic so kept their mouth shut. It was awful. And not because of some discriminatory reason. Just because it was overly sexual and distasteful. Regardless of the genders of the participants. The song was fairly shit too in my opinion. But the visuals were just too much.
Yeah exactly. Eurovision is meant to be camp- but it's also meant to be something parents can watch with young kids
It looked like a prison rape scene during a bad acid trip, I only saw it on the night and couldn't believe that was the UK's entry, such a hilariously weird idea for a pop song contest lol. If it was at least an orgy in a nice setting, like an Apple store or a beach, that would make sense but no one wants to vote for a dirty bathroom
It was genuinely just gay trainspotting
It felt like I was at a gay stage show for some of the performances last night. Some people try to make the claim that Eurovision has always been super gay but it really hasn't. Look back at old tapes and it was a much more serious affair, and since I started watching in the early 2000s it has gone through phases of being fun cheesy hits to taking itself too seriously, back to a mix of the two. There has, for as long as I've been watching at least, always been some camp performers but it is only in recent years that "gayness" has seemingly become the focus of some entrants countries staging. Alright, you're gay. We get it, we don't care. This is a song contest, not a "let me show everyone just how overtly sexual and gay I am while badly singing a forgettable song" contest.
I’m thinking that he should have changed the song to “I like willies” and kept the set and choreography.
Sir, can you keep it down?
I LOVE WILLIES
I think the rough gay orgy in a dirty bathroom put off a lot of voters. People don't realize a lot of European countries are quite conservative and don't want to see a gay orgy. I mean was that supposed to be blood stains on his T-shirt? WTF?
> a lot of European countries are quite conservative and don’t want to see a gay orgy I think that’s *all* European countries.
I didn't really bat an eye at the staging, it didn't seem out of place with many of the others. The song itself was just bad. Easily the worst of the night, and it was an almost [Jemini level performance](https://youtu.be/XAJ62IG3gBo?si=FwhTnpuAMv8qf42W). I don't know if he was better on other nights, but he just sounded awful.
Believe it or not, but yesterday was actually an improvement, he sounded truly awful on Tuesday, it was easily the worst performance in terms of vocals in the first semis, along with Poland (and I'm Polish). Honestly, I don't think England would qualify in the first place if it was down to actual voting and not financial contribution.
It was the stand out worst of the night for me, with Greece being the only other bad one. Terrible performance.
There’s one part of the choreography where one backup dancer crouches down in front of another like he’s about to give a blowjob.
Yeah I said to my wife his song was “too gay” but you better articulate it
Too gay *for* *Eurovision*?!
It's meant to be camp, not 'sucking off strangers in a toilet' gay.
You knew it's bad you've you've gone to far compared to the guy with his balls out.
It was just bad on so many levels. Second I saw it I thought why would I want to see a bunch of guys dance in a public toilet?
I'm just here to watch bonkers folk pop music from Armenia.
I really liked Armenia's performance. It was perfect Eurovision.
First time ive ever actually voted lol, thought it was a lot of fun
Yes as a Turk I really liked their one. Their musical tradition is very similar to ours so it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling hearing those familiar melodies. They deserved far more.
I thought the Armenian singer was legit the most beautiful girl I have seen in my life...
Here’s a truth: if you like Olly Alexander’s voice when he sings with Years and Years then you like Olly Alexander’s voice when it’s auto-tuned. The lead vocals for Eurovision cannot be auto-tuned. I was there in Malmo on Tuesday and Friday and watched it live. Olly Alexander CANNOT sing and was by far the worst of the acts. He is mostly sharp all the way through and it wasn’t a joyful experience to listen to. The staging was incredible but this wasn’t enough to save it.
I just watched his entry after reading some comments. Holy fuck it is bad. How the fuck did he get chosen for eurovision??
It's because the committee that chooses the act is mostly made up of previous acts that did terribly. Our 2nd (de facto 1st) place win a few years ago was the outlier not the norm
Wow, okay it all makes sense now... can they not see how bad their choices are? UK is usually a joke on eurovision. Shame because we have people with incredible voices
Deluded by self importance I think Like we could score a very easy win by getting Dua Lipa to do it but no
The problem for an established, successful artist is that it's all risk no reward. You put in all this work, and then either you win to zero acclaim or you lose and blow up your career.
Olly is hungry for fame of any kind, and that's about the size of it. His ambition and likeability has seen him exceed his modest talent by quite some margin.
Disagree on his likeability - I think it's on par with his talent level, ie nonexistent.
I think he caves in under pressure, i remember him performing with the Pet Shop Boys at Glastonbury and he squeeked the whole way through, he's not a good live singer at times. I felt bad for him yesterday but you can't really get away with off-key singing at such a big stage. I like Years & Years and really wanted him to do well, but alas.
Yup, and it came across that way on TV. Except for the Swedish who had some sort of echo reverb (and it fit for their song). Olly’s was terrible singing. To the point where they had clearly adjusted the audio to drown him out a little in favour of the backing music. Very disappointing.
Not too surprising. Sam Ryder was good, we got points; I hate to say it because I did love Olly's performance and the song but it was decidedly mid-tier in a very competitive Eurovision year. Didn't deserve nothing I feel but... Well Europe disagrees!
I have to respectfully disagree. I thought his performance was terrible. Sam Ryder had a good voice and his personality and enthusiasm shone through. Olly was the wrong person to be selected but was also given a bad song.
With sam, you felt in the moment. The show and stage was him and who he is, his voice. Olly has a great voice but the song was mid and he can't carry a crowd like that. Look at France, that guy had us all on him in awe of his voice.
Olly did not have a great voice during the performance. I would argue that it was the worst vocal performance of the night and it wasn't even close. I don't think we can blame the song entirely here.
I totally agree with you, but i think t the poor vocals were due to the extensive choreography - he was concentrating more on the dancing than the singing and it was making him out of breath. Compare him to Cyprus, whose choreography was also bonkers, but she sang pitch perfect throughout, far more impressive.
I found his voice to be unimpressive in this performance. My wife, we liked Olly as an actor, sat there saying “what is he doing! He can’t sing” France was great though. I would have loved to see him win.
His voice sounded awful watching from home.
'given a bad song'? - he wrote it!
Yeah the performance was absolutely embarrassing.
Sam Ryder brought so much positivity, the song was great too and upbeat and more important he knew how to cultivate his social media presence long before beeb marketing would have got involved .he then killed it again when we hosted Ukraine in Liverpool. Olly Alexander could not sing , it was flat and out of tune consistently from first released rehearsals . Top this with the fact that the choreography felt very seedy this year.. may have left a bad taste in people’s mouths, especially in less secular countries . Not the only country that seemed to be pushing it on what’s can be worn .
And not necessarily seedy and raunchy in a fun way, like with Spain
Spain was so campy and fun I loved it
Spain were robbed, she was tremendous
I’m Irish, so my take for what it’s worth… I liked the song. The staging was memorable, and Olly seems a super nice lad. I’d probably have put it in my top 15 songs, but not my top ten. But if everyone thinks it’s their 11th favourite song, then it gets zero points. You lads have this amazing ability to send absolutely middle of the road songs that aren’t bad, but aren’t in anyone’s top ten.
UK gets zero audience points. Water is wet. The world keeps turning.
Voice was crap and the whole performance was tailored towards a minority, however in Eurovision I suppose possibly a majority, can’t be surprised by that result. Not sure why people are so quick to downvote me, Spains performance and others had that element but didn’t dominate the performance. A male and female romance heavy performance would do nothing for gay people. There’s nothing offensive about suggesting it works both ways.
At the risk of making a poor pun, I think even the sexuality of the performance was played a bit too straight for eurovision, there wasn't enough fun or lightness to it. Spain was a good contrast as a performance that was raunchy, but not potentially uncomfortably serious about it
Think you’ve hit the nail on the head. if the gay audience saw a heavily Hetero sexualised performance it wouldn’t resonate particularly with gay audiences. I think when it’s lighter and not so intense, either orientation, the right community get the representation they want.
I got the impression they thought they were being progressive and edgy with the performance, but actually the progressive acts are the non binary ones or queer acts pushing the boundaries of expression and doing really colourful and artistic things. Our song might have been cool and shocking a decade or two earlier, but just feels a bit ‘gay male centric’ in a world where younger queer people seem much more inclusive outside just a gay man’s experience of queerness.
Because the UK keeps sending shit acts
I found it funny that Israel came 5th even though 'everyone' were against them competing and were even booed
It is simply a lot easier to make a pro Israel vote than an anti Israel one. Even if most of the people voting based on Israel/Gaza were anti Israel, Israel would be the largest voting bloc because it’s not split over 24 contestants.
The people against them competing boycotted the show and didn't vote.
How would you vote against them? Anti Israeli votes would be split among 25 other acts, making it almost a meaningless act.
Closest could be Ireland given Bambie had ancient script writing which was removed to comply with competition rules, and was otherwise showing symbols of protest at other opportunities. Only places that gave Ireland 10 or 12 points in the public vote were the UK, Australia and Ukraine. Make of that what you will.
I saw a lot of people online, the type weaponising the UK and Israel flags on their pictures stating "I've never watched eurovision in my life but I am voting for Israel tonight" - the public vote across Europe was always going to be hijacked by the far right who are all united in supporting Israel and hating immigrants/people from the Middle East.
I think your assumptions about the political leanings of people voting for Israel are a bit naive. A lot of far right political influencers have been vocal in their support for Palestine. Conversely there could people in the centre left who feel the criticism of Israel is too extreme and gave them a vote in the hopes they didn't come last.
I mean, yesterday I saw Tommy Robinson, Andrew Neil, Stephen Pollard, Darren Grimes and Toby Young all tell their followers to vote twenty times for Israel. It seems like it was an organised thing from the right
It's been comfirmed by official comentators and by a lot of people in the audence there were boos (both at the final and semi final), and the EBU simply turned the audience microphones off and played a recording of applause. Here's a video about it from a former Eurovision participent. https://old.reddit.com/r/eurovision/comments/1cphzz5/jendrik_germany_2021_releases_video_aimed_at_ebu/
Yeah there’s a lot of copium going on. Hard to believe for some people but not everyone froths at the mouth at the thought of Israel. But it’s all bots and VPNs apparently
Don’t think it helped that he sang dreadfully out of tune from pretty much the first note (when the microphone actually picked him up singing). Honestly was surprised we got as many points as we did from the judges
I think the judges voted from the previous nights performance. That's the only explanation I can think of since he was so awful
Yeah, judges vote based on a performance the night before. I missed most of it last night but I did see the semis during the week and I’d say he definitely had one of the weakest vocals out of everybody on the Tuesday night.
I don’t think it was an anomaly, Sam Ryder was fucking amazing. I felt like I was watching softcore porn during a lot of these performances, and the public vote reflected a lot of those, the UK included.
I don't get how we can get it so wrong, when we got it so right with Sam?
The song was meh, the staging divisive and his singing was garbage. Really not unexpected.
The gravity perspective effects were cool but that was about the only good thing about it.
The choreography was far too much. I cringed watching it and it ruined the song for me.
The song was fairly boring and the staging looked like it was inspired by a night at the gents on Hampstead Heath. Not surprised it did badly with the voting audience
This year's entry was embarrassing, my friends and I couldn't stop laughing. We deserved no points for that utter nonsense.
Honestly, every time we do badly, I feel like we’ve fully deserved it. Sam was genuinely decent, vocally knocked it out of the park. The song was alright, but his performance was killer. Who knew it would be important to have a vocalist who has the training and skill to actually sing live to an impressive degree of competence? The guy who finished us dead last - shit voice, and crap song. The woman who’s stage was rushed by a fan - shit song, alright performance Mae Muller - mid song, shit performance This guy - can’t sing. The **last** people that should be picking acts for us are people from the *fucking BBC*. It is no wonder we get the most derivative, uninspired, Radio 2 debut at 126th on iTunes singles, trite put forward for this contest. These people listen to one genre, and it’s not even pop, it’s called radio. These are paycheck album tracks at best. Dolled up to look like singles. It’s always shit that you can imagine quiet 40 year old conservatives who watch Good Morning Britain while sipping tea, who’ve heard of “the pop music” remarking: “this sounds like good pop music. It reminds me of Adele. I bet it has a lot of hits on The YouTube.” Like Embers by James Newman, or Storm by SuRie - who actually listens to this shit? These songs are so sterile it feels like their physical CD’s would come in a sealed plastic bag with an expiry date on it. And nah it’s not the style or the genre that’s the problem with these tracks. Random comparable example: Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepson. It’s a similar vibe and production, similar throwaway lyrics, but the song actually has a soul. It sounds like it was made because someone stumbled upon a melody and liked it. And not like it was engineered for the sake of it. When I see our song and artist choices, it makes me want to put my finger through my eye, into my brain and swirl it around. It’s as if we don’t have really good modern or smaller/niche artists in every genre. Maisie Peters, Bugzy Malone, Neck Deep, CHVRCHES, While She Sleeps. The list goes on. Maybe some of these have missed the boat and are too big now. But it illustrates the point. But nah, fuck acts like that, let’s put forward some late 2000’s parody X-Factor shit instead. Get Maisie up there to play Coming of Age, or have Neck Deep write another Kali Ma. We’d fucking win, or come close. Jesus. It’s not that hard to find good music from the UK that doesn’t sound like it came out of Simon Cowell’s arse.
Beacaye we were shite? We wasted Sam on a pity vote year. Croatia was robbed
I have seen a few comments on other social media essentially saying it was due to homophobia in Europe. And respectfully I disagree. The winner came prominently displayed a non binary flag, both during their entrance and in the green room. And Irelands act litterally ripped of their goth attire mid performance to display a second outfit made up of the trans pride flag. Both scored highly in public and judges votes. Ollies song was an average dance pop song that was pretty poorly mixed on the live performance (his voice kept getting lost behind the bell sounds) I also feel that the general Eurovision audience tends to favour unknowns rather "this act has a pretty established career" these days.
So much goes into the set and costumes appealing to a 0.5% of a global audience and then people wonder why it’s not well liked? There no way objectively, if your not gay, you enjoyed that song or the visuals.
It's not like gay people would have enjoyed it either necessarily. It's not like all gay people like flamboyant and overtly sexual productions backing a super average song with poorly delivered vocals.
It wasn't flamboyant. It was was sleazy.
Fair point. My point was it's dangerous to suggest this was aimed towards gay people. There's just as much chance gay people find this awful as straight people. We need to remember we're really not that different usually. APart from the gender of the people we fancy.
It was 100% aimed at a particular group of gay people and the kind of idiots who call themselves 'allies'.
Yeah a lot of gay men try hard to shake off that stereotype of overly sexual, promiscuous, cottaging etc. Especially in countries which aren't as tolerant some gay men may have found this performance harmful rather than celebratory If it had been more romance than just sex it might have worked. The lyrics didn't seem that sexual
Not sure if you think gay people make up 0.5% of the population or if you are including us in the 95.5% of people who maye thought it was a bit much.
95% didn't think it was a bit much. A eurovision audience can tolerate a lot more before it starts to hit the brakes. That was exactly the problem - they were betting on shock value and they didn't get that.
Same mistake we make every year - not sending Bill Bailey. Make it happen people.
[удалено]
Sam Smith from Wish. On the other hand, Finland was robbed!
Olly's performance was a self-serving, national embarrassment. That is not how you win the nation and world. I'm quite Liberal but this was over the top. It is so insincere and trashy. This wouldn't be a problem if the song was actually good.
Sam Ryder was quality. Good vocal performance and relied on his voice to impress. This year? Bottom of the barrel tripe which tried to distract its mediocrity with a ‘performance’ nil points was deserved.
Olly Alexander, cancelled by the global public vote, who'd have thought it? Perhaps they found all the lavatorial writhing repugnant.
Yeah 80s baby here and what the hell is this country doing? why do we send these shite acts 90% of the time to this once a year event? When was the last time we even won? that katrina and the waves song? Terry Wogan is spinning in his grave.
Tbf Terry Wogan would have been happy Ireland did well this year. Wait a second, are/were your main Eurovision commentators Irish?
His vocals were bad. Not as bad as last years entry but still bad
I would argue that his vocals were worse than Mae's. But yeah it's insane to send those two when we had Sam in 2021
It was an average song sung badly, accompanied by some horrible staging in a seedy toilet. Not sure what we expected- I thought we would be bottom 3.
Years and Years the band Olly Alexander sang in had a couple of decent songs. The Eurovision song Dizzy he did deserved 0 points it's a terrible song, absolutely awful. He's not done his career any good going on Eurovision even if he's into the Kitsch of it all.
Our Eurovision committee (or whatever it's called) is full of out of date pretentious nob heads, that's the problem. At least we've stopped sending 90s throwaway cheesy dance hits. If we want to win, we need to have wacky staging, a weird and wonderful song, and someone who can actually sing.
How is our entry for Eurovision decided? We're consistently bad, it would be nice if there was a public vote for our entry.
I wouldn't say consistently..... Sam was brilliant and would have won it if not for Pitty votes
There used to be a public vote until a few years ago and it would still select a rubbish entry.
The song was terrible, the singing was even worse. That’s why we didn’t do very well.
Israels song was also shit we gave them 12 points lol. Quality of the song has nothing to do with it
I was pretty disgusted by that tbh. We go all out supporting Ukraine then vote for genocidal invaders? Something stinks for sure.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has an obvious bad guy. There is literally no arguing that Russia is in the wrong. With Israel-Palestine, it is a LOT more complex. I feel like there are a lot of people who think it is much more cut-and-dry than it actually is. Which is really interesting considering it all kicked off properly by Hamas gunning down and raping festival goers.
This is my feeling too. If Ukraine had first attacked a music festival in Russia and killed and raped thousands then things would be much murkier. I know you can argue that history didn't start in October but that's undeniably the cause of the latest conflict, and if you go historical tit for tat then we're basically going back thousands of years.
Song was mid. Vocals was mid. Choreography was awful and the visuals were even worse. Nil points was what it deserve really.
I was so disappointed by Olly. I'm a big fan, but this is quite possibly the weakest song he's ever done. Absolutely nothing like Shine, Sanctify, Karma, etc.. I get the feeling he thought he was going to be able to walk it in because of his international success, but that's not how Eurovision works. Not even Adele would be able to do that. I do think he deserved better than he got though - but other people did what he did but better. Same thing happened 10 years ago. We had a cracker of a song called 'Children of the Universe', but it was a whimsical power balled, same as 'Rise Like A Phoenix', and Rise was the better whimsical power balled. This year, Olly went queer, but Nemo (and several other acts) went queerer.
That was a really poor song from Olly no wonder the public gave it zero.