Three part Eurovision video during down season? Tom you are too good to us 🥹

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

🤗

If we are making a "winning sports team" analogy, it feels like the juries would be the referees, and if the refs are playing favorites, then yes, we need to bring some balance to the scoring. I think that if both jury and televote top scores weren't so high anyone would care, but the fact that the juries made it impossible for anyone else to win certainly doesn't help. I think if the jury can pick the winner regardless of the televote, it's going to disincentivize people from voting in the future.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

yea i think the EBU will be aware of this, especially since jury voting comes first, so theyll be very conscious that someone winning the jury by a lot kind of ruins the latter part of the results. Honestly, i dont think this will happen again. Most of the time, the jury is actually much closer than the televote. But i think theyll still try to make some changes so that it doesnt happen again

I personally do want Sweden to send something in the rock genre or something folk/ethnic. Not just because "they always send pop" (I typically enjoy their entries and that probably won't change) but they absolutely can pull both genres off with the right performers and staging

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

yea we've been so close sometimes. Folkwise, jan henrik fjällgren seemed like he would make it eventually, but his entry this year was a step in the wrong direction imo. Smash into Pieces this year were awesome too. Hopefully theyre back next year

@swedishmetalbear

10 ай бұрын

It was very close this year that Sweden sent a rock entry.. But Loreen couldn't do wrong.. So.. Had she not participated, most likely Smash Into Pieces would have been sent.

@monkeconleche

10 ай бұрын

Personally as a Swede I love our 2 place in national finals 2013 which is still very iconic here and different from our usual genre

@dra900nka1n

10 ай бұрын

Face in the Crowd by Browsing Collection was my favourite Melodi Festivalen entry last year.

@EmoBearRights

10 ай бұрын

As ethnic yup - Spirits Are Calling Me Name was great.

Delcious is not a word I'd use to describe the massive jury score given to Tattoo. By percentage Tattoo is the best song since their return as rated by juries - i say bollocks to that and regard as a damning statement of how basic the juries are.

It's baffling that music professionals didn't appreciate Eaea more - vocally it was the best, the composition was more complex, creative, and original than any of the other jury favorites', visually it was an engaging and charismatic... No idea what their problem was. Too ethnic for them to appreciate? The public votes how they like, there's no logic to it, but music professionals should have appreciated Eaea at least as much as Due Vite, Unicorn, and Tattoo

@gabesalgado789

10 ай бұрын

Everyone who loves EAEA should try to understand why it sounds absolutely horrendous to the ears of most of the community. The performance and the artistry were astounding. The problem was the song, which sounds like the nails of a million cats in heat on a million chalkboards to the majority of jury members AND televoters.

@Mycenaea

10 ай бұрын

@@gabesalgado789 Yep, I totally agree with you and you put in words how I feel about Spain's entry. The presentation was good and the artist was good, but some parts were just too much(for my ears) - and, as we can see from the scores, other people felt the same way, and music professionals are not immune to that either. I don't find the scoring baffling at all.

@Shellydaliie

10 ай бұрын

​​@@gabesalgado789ut the issue is why didn't jurors appreciate it more? The televote, personally I loved it but I can understand if it was off putting for televoters, but thats where a jury is supposed to step in. In terms of Originality, I'd probably have Spain top 3 in the final, no other song sounded like it and the structure of the song is not something many would be familiarized with. Vocally, I loved it and I still think even if it isn't peoples cup of tea like, you can't say she can't sing (not saying that was what you were implying but vocally she hit every note the way she intended to). This is also something jurors should've appreciated. The presentation of the entry was very professional. I personally think (and ik they'd have preferences) but I think there was no excuse for jurors to have Spain outside the top 5 and I personally wouldve had them top the jury given that Loreen and Blanca did several things brilliantly but Blanca's song was much more original which was the first criteria in the jury ranking (no idea why they seemed to ignore that).

@oreovision6937

10 ай бұрын

@@Shellydaliie 95 jury points was way more than this song deserved.

@euroesc5013

10 ай бұрын

⁠@@ShellydaliieTotally agree with you. People have the right to not like the song and to show that through the televote score and in that way her 5 points were deserved (even though I loved eaea). But it doesn’t change the fact that it had everything to be a jury winner according to the official jury criteria, which sadly they didn’t follow at all.

Tom, the effort and detail you put into these videos is absolutely unbelievable. I always look forward to your videos because so many Eurovision channels post similar things. Your channel really stands out because I feel like I'm learning something new about Eurovision. Really hope to meet you someday when you're back in Dublin for a chat about Eurovision. :)

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thank you Peter 🙏🏻

Thanks for your work. 2023 was my first Eurovision experience. Because La Zarra is a Montreal girl, my hometown. Listen to her Vie d'artiste, it's spectacular.

Now that's what I'm talking about! Thank you ESC Tom, excellent work. Looking forward to the next installment

oh i'm very excited for part two, i think the composition of the jury is a major contributor to sweden's ongoing eurovision success & its jury score this year. it's no surprise that the swedish broadcaster had a negative reaction when the ebu announced they would re-evaluate the juries lol

omg a three part geeky (a compliment) analysis is exactly what i need in the off season!! grateful for all your hard work and interesting point of view!

Great comments Tom, I might just wait until the end of this series before I give my own suggestions

Amazing! Thank you so much for all your effort 👌👌

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thanks Hanna 🙏🏻

Wow Tom you have put a lot of time and effort into this and it is appreciated, thank you.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thank you Susana 🙏🏻

Thanks Tom for doing this detailed analysis,fascinating stuff, really looking forward to the next episodes!

@Shellydaliie

10 ай бұрын

Also in terms of people talking about Sweden perhaps potentially not doing as well, I think in 2021 there were some rumblings about wither not a comfortable, smooth sailing qualification or (and this was a relatively small number of people) a potential nq. People were questioning the staging and the vocal. This also translated to the final as it was the worst result Sweden had in years so on that basis, if Sweden send something thats not as competitive, you could argue it translates into placing not as highly.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Yea thats true, I remember actually that Tusse was considered a borderline. He only scraped into 10th in the televote, so if it was televote only like this year, he could have been close to their 2nd shock NQ

Been waiting for this!

So well researched and informative. Looking forward to the next two !

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thank you Alexo ❤️

@singing5100

10 ай бұрын

​@@ESCTomYou should be a little more animated when you speak. You sound very monotone.

That's why I like your videos. All the research and effort.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thank you Patrick

Thx for your in-depth research! Much appreciated

Thanks from Carlow 🇮🇪 for all the hard work especially during down season

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thanks Adam 🙏🏻

Tom, bravo Fabulous work. Great to see you come alive when stats are involved!!! 😉😉☺️☺️

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thanks John ❤️ The second episode is the big one though 👀

@johnmoynahan874

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom when will the next 2 sagas drop Tom?

Yay 3 parts 🥰 thank you Tom!! ❤

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

❤️

Amazing content!

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thank you Carl 🙏🏻

Love your video from Malta ,

This is the best day of my life. Thanks Tom!!

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

hahahahaha thanks Paal 😂

what a treat!! thank you for all your hard work as always.

I am here for Tom's costume changes and Dune Part 2 Trailer reaction. Also loved this video ❤

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

im so excited for Dune 2 🤩

Another excellent video Tom! I completely agree with you about Sweden's jury score in that it was inflated due to an overwhelming majority of jurors having pop music as the area of expertise and I'm really looking forward to your video about the jury. Like you, I'm very pro jury and think that they play an important role in the make up of the contest, such as helping songs that are going to be affected by the running order or songs that aren't super accessible but are still deserving of praise. However, I've found myself becoming increasingly frustrated by them constantly putting radio friendly pop music and ballads on a pedestal and acting as if it is the only valid genre for Eurovision. It really makes me question the professionalism of some jurors if they are acting in such a narrow minded way. Despite having pop music as their area of expertise, they should still be able to recognise quality in other genres. Every single genre of music has artistic value and should be made to feel welcome at the contest but, to me, the way that the juries seem to be behaving at the moment doesn't reflect this. The last thing I want is for any artist to be put off from giving Eurovision a go because they don't feel that they will be given a fair chance purely because of the genre of their music. Following the uproar of this year's jury vote, I decided to do some of my own research into the behaviour of the juries since their re-introduction in 2009. I think a lot of the uproar this year was the result of clear biases within the jury coming to the forefront and being decisive in the overall result. People often say that the jury has a bias towards Sweden. I personally thinking they are mislabelling that bias. Instead, I think its a bias in favour of certain genres and a language bias. Since their re-introduction in 2009, there have only been two occasions where the jury winner was a song that didn't contain a single word of English (2017 and 2021, 2011 also deserves to be mentioned as its the only bilingual jury winner that we've had since the jury was re-introduced). There have been plenty of quality non-English songs in the last decade that would've have been deserving jury winners yet songs in English always seemed to be prioritised over them. Its also interesting to note that there have been 5 occasions where there has been a landslide win in the jury vote with a margin that is over 100 points between the jury winner and their second place: 5) 2017 - A margin of 104 points between jury winner Portugal (382 points) and runner up Bulgaria (278 points). 4) 2016 - A margin of 109 points between jury winner Australia (320 points) and runner up Ukraine (211 points). 3) 2015 - A margin of 114 points between jury winner Sweden (363 points) and runner up Latvia (249 points). 2) 2012 - A margin of 123 points between jury winner Sweden (296 points) and runner up Serbia (173 points). 1) 2023 - A margin of 163 points between jury winner Sweden (340 points) and runner up Israel (177 points). The fact that the 4 jury winners with the biggest margin between them and the jury second place are very polished pop songs in English does make me wonder whether the jury was overwhelmingly made up of people with pop music as their area of expertise in those years, like it was in 2023. If that is the case, then it makes the fact that Portugal won the jury vote that comfortably in 2017 even more impressive because its the exact opposite of those other 4 songs. I think Sweden was one of the first countries since the re-introduction of the juries to clock that the biases existed and they have catered their entries to them ever since while other countries have been playing catch up or have gone down a different avenue. Your "good school girl" analogy for Sweden is very apt. I personally would describe Sweden as that friend who sees you panicking because you haven't revised for an exam and turns to you to say "don't worry, I haven't revised either" but it turns out that they've spent the last 5 months revising. Once again, I'm very much looking forward to your video about the jury. Keep up the excellent work! (sorry that this comment ended up so long)

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

sorry im late responding Sophie, thank you for the awesome comment! the Sweden thing is a little chicken and egg, are they catering their entry to fit the jury OR does their style of music production, which is super mainstream and slick already fit the jury and THEN they see they are getting good results with something that is quite natural to them, so why change it? I totally agree about a jury bias though. I was going to cover this in a video, but ill tell you some of the things im going to say there. I want the jury to be from broader genres and agee groups. I also want them to be shown a short little 60 seconds intro to the song by the artists explaining the meaning of the song. eg this year in particular im thinking of Croatia, which looks like a joke, but is totally serious and actually lyrically one of the best songs this year. but that is lost because of language barrier and not having context. So id also like the jurors to see the songs with subtitles. I also want jurors in separate rooms so they cant influence/bully/coerce each other

@sophiefarrell3547

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom Love your suggestions! I especially like the idea of having an intro with the artists explaining the meaning of their song and I definitely think they should be provided with subtitles. It feels like something that could be easily implemented and I'm surprised they haven't tried something like this before, at least not to my knowledge. The jury also really needs to be more diverse, I 100% agree with you there. I'd also like to see more people on the jury. Have something like 14 or 16 people, with a diversity quota concerning the ages, backgrounds and area of expertise of each juror. The jurors watch the performances in separate rooms and are unaware of who the other jurors are so that they cannot try to influence each other's votes. I would also like to see better adherence to the jury adjudication criteria. From a quick google search, we know that the criteria that juries should consider is the vocal capacity of the artist(s), the performance on stage, the composition and originality of the song, and the overall impression of the act. I think that each person on the jury should provide a detailed rationale or justification for their placing of each song (this should be published after the show along with the full jury rankings on the Eurovision website), allowing us to see that they have objectively adhered to the voting criteria and have not allowed any personal prejudices to influence their votes. For example, a clip from Liverpool Calling did the rounds on twitter where one of the guests mentioned how they overheard a jury member saying that they effectively tanked Spain and Moldova because the songs where too young for them. I'd love to know how that reasoning fits the criteria that the juries are supposed to vote on. Regarding the criteria itself (the vocal capacity of the artist(s), the performance on stage, the composition and originality of the song, and the overall impression of the act), I think its workable but could be expanded a bit and made clearer. For example, concerning vocal capacity, this is usually how high can a female singer belt, or how high and strongly can a male singer use his falsetto. What juries seem to fail to recognise are additional skills and techniques vocalists might utilise. These include rap, vocal growl and vocal fry, aberration, vocal agility-referring to runs and ability to change between registers and harmony, with harmonies being harder to maintain the more dissonant they become. I also think there needs to be more transparency concerning how the jury operates and what their purpose is. For example, Latvia and Ireland only had 4 jurors as opposed to 5, but we don't know why this was the case. Did those jurors become unavailable at the last minute or were their votes disqualified? This is information that we should have access to. I also think the host should be required to talk through the jury voting criteria just before they start revealing the jury results, maybe even have a short VT showing the jurors in action. This would make viewers aware of what the purpose of the jury is and what they are supposed to be looking for. It also needs to be made clearer that the jury are voting based on performances from the night before the final. I think the jury performances should also be made available in a compilation on KZread, similar to how they released the live-on-tapes in 2021. There have been many example of artists nailing their performance on the Saturday, but their jury score is low because their jury performance didn't go too well. The public should definitely have access to these performances so that they can have a better idea of why their favourite song may not have done well with the jury. Really looking forward to your jury video! :)

@singing5100

10 ай бұрын

The problem is not the juries, but all the childish fans, who are still complaining about the result, just because their favourite didn't win.

@ddraven3180

4 ай бұрын

​@@singing5100found the swede

The moment has come!

Oh let's do this 👌🎉

The overall results really tells me that it's time for a new system. Not only to prove the professionalism of the juries, but also to punish countries that play "safe, generic, and not inovative". The fact that France and Spain are underachieving, yet Poland and Croatia are overachieving, concerns me about the quality level we would get in the future. Yes we need more daring songs of diverse genres, not just safe ballads/pops, but it's impossible to achieve if the system don't start punishing the latter in addition to appreciating the former. Ireland has been awful with generic songs for years. Malta is yet to send a Maltese song, and had a streak of sending female singers in 8 years (broken this year). Switzerland currently has a streak of ballad male singers in 3 years; and we can't forget the time Cyprus sent two similar-sounding female bops in a row after 2018 (if we skip 2020). Some of them might be decent songs, but when countries keep exploiting the same formula, it's not as fun anymore. Imagine if Sweden, after winning this year, only sends heroic ballads for 2-3 years in a row. If we want to keep a high quality ESC, then again, the system should start punishing these behaviors. Let all broadcasters grow and realize they cant stay in the safe zone.

You know Switzerland being on a +4 Q streak is actually really impressive considering that from 2007-2018 they only qualified twice in 12 contests. Maybe can serve as inspiration for some other countries that are struggling with qualification *cough* Ireland *cough*.

@gilmourattard3625

10 ай бұрын

Agree

@ZakhadWOW

10 ай бұрын

needs more seBalter. He was immensely likable, and One of the last Swiss entires chosen in a contest, not internally

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Yea Switzerland / Netherlands / Finland / Belgium are examples of countries who really sucked but managed to turn things around

I still don’t understand why loreen ran away with the jury score. I don’t think any of us fans were expecting it. I think there were many other songs that I thought would do well with 6:09 the juries

@swedishmetalbear

10 ай бұрын

I was expecting it to happen. Because of the same reason Tom stated in this video. A lot of fans tend to underrate Swedens performance.

@_dont_mind_me

10 ай бұрын

I thought everyone expected it, the performance was literally perfect for juries. Well produced, good song, innovative staging, excellent vocals, incredible artistic interpretation, magnetic stage presence. Like this was always going to win the jury, it was pure quality. (Edit: And also why it came second in the televote)

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Im going to discuss in Part 2 some of the reasons why the jury's composition was beneficial to Sweden

@anilatac488

10 ай бұрын

agreed. although i can say many of us expected sweden to come first with juries, the gap with the rest of the contestants was definitely unexpected, especially considering that this year was really strong (in my opinion). i think if i had gone blind into the grand final i wouldn't have one obvious winner.

@swedishmetalbear

10 ай бұрын

@@anilatac488 That is exactly why it happened. Her staging stood out.. Her performance stood out. The song.. Meh..

Great video, Tom! Drop your Dune review when Part 2 comes out 🙏😅💜

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

omg i saw the 2nd preview clip, SO excited!

FINALLY 🥳

First of three parts and it's already over 30mins!! I think I need some chocolate and a good glass of wine (or three).

YES FINALLY 😊

Australia's qualification streak should have an asterisk next to it considering Montaigne had to "compete" in a Sydney studio. Everytime that Australia's "attended" ESC they've qualified. You also said that Australia "attended" ESC 8 times, but it's actually only 7, poor Montaigne never got to go!

@Andre_stats_0111

10 ай бұрын

I don't believe Montaigne would've qualified if she'd actually been in Rotterdam. The song was just not strong enough compared to the other songs in their semi-final.

@neilwaldock6272

10 ай бұрын

@@Andre_stats_0111 I agree that "Technicolour" probably wouldn't have qualified, but if they'd been able to go the previous year with "Don't break me" it would have. It was a better song and was what Australia originally voted for.

@Andre_stats_0111

10 ай бұрын

@@neilwaldock6272 true

FINALLY

Anybody else wondering what's the deal with the single red shirt hanging in the window?

Nice video, I like those breakdowns. Regarding the top 10 scores: Netherlands only 3 times in past 10 contests, but they came 11th on 3 occasions. With 2015 and 2023 (NQ), 2018 (18th) and 2021 (23rd) as the weak years. I actually came up with my own ranking system for the countries, based on their (points) results of the past 5 contests, and Italy surprisingly beats Sweden for 1st place. Italy took over 1st place from Sweden after 2021, where Tusse really couldn't deliver for Sweden and Maneskin won the contest. The top 10 is (ranking in 2022): 1. Italy (1) 2. Sweden (2) 3. Ukraine (3) 4. Israel (12) 5. Norway (10) 6. Switzerland (9) 7. Finland (27) 8. France (5) 9. Netherlands (6) 10. Cyprus (11) Maybe I should take those ranking to a 10-year streak instead of the 5-year I do now. Pretty sure Sweden would come out on top then.

@ZakhadWOW

10 ай бұрын

TUsse was a disaster. and he had some of the same sympathy angle Kalush did.. everyone felt so bad about his having to flee Africa, blah blah.. Worst was, he turned out to not be a very nice person, openly mocking another contestants vocal ability, in a public environment where it was caught on social media. He also said, I sh** you not, that if hewon ESC he would be the first POC to do so... ignoring Dana International (Jewish,and generally included in that targeted calss) and Loreen (100 Berber African). Arrogant little f***

YAYY❤❤❤

Describing as the "good schoolgirl" sounds so sweet. I actually think that no one found a better summary for Sweden in Eurovision than you in this video. But this again makes me wonder, why the Jurys kicked Sweden out back in 2010. I don't get it, but it's kind-of funny that in the contest where Sweden reached it's all-time-lowpoint in the competition, Germany reached it's climax in the competition with the 2nd win. Ok, just solved the puzzle! Sweden needs to not qualfiy so that Germany will win! I hope this wasn't to Anti-Sweden once again. Just a question: In the further parts of this review, is there a section where you'll talk again about the whole ABBA-conspiracy-thing? Because some people think that Sweden's televote was influenced by many side-factors during the final (showing the winners leaderboard at the beginning of the final, many commentators said that Loreen could write Eurovision-history by becoming the second person and the first ever women to win twice, some people even said that Cornelia Jakobs as part of the interval act did influence the race + Israel and Italy, which finished in the top 6 of the Televote as well were also represented by Netta and Mahmood in the Liverpool Songbook, the ABBA-anniversary thing, although they showed the Björn Ulvaeus greeting-video after the voting I think). And yes, I know that this is basically one of the general big issues about the Televote because of emotional- and sympathy-voting, which was also part of the debate last year when Ukraine won the Televote by landslide, but I'm a bit curious about it. Again, thank you for your effort into producing this wonderful content. I really enjoyed this video.

@Chanelistap

10 ай бұрын

They showed the leader board mainly to be able to bring up the news about Luxembourg coming back because they won it 5 times even tho they haven't participated in the last 3 decades soo that conspiracy theory doesn't hold water. I voted for her because her melodifestivalen performance was absolutely outstanding, and after seeing so many people being against her I felt like she deserves my support. I didn't care about ABBA (just like ABBA seems to give 0 f*cks about eurovision anymore hahaha)

@Chanelistap

10 ай бұрын

Cornelia influencing to vote for Sweden? I was more pissed off They completely left out Chanel at that moment 😂😂😂

@zwelfbungt

10 ай бұрын

@@Chanelistap yes, I know, but I think that at this moment people were more focused on the possiblity that Sweden could catch up with Ireland rather than Luxembourgs re-introduction. It was a bit unfortunate.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

re: 2010 and also 2013, 2 of their worst results, i think both of those were emotional decisions. With Robin, I believe that he was very funny on the show and became an underdog and there was too much of a backstory to his entry, so he ended up winning from Andra Chansen. But at actual Eurovision, noone knew or cared about it and he came 14th. regarding the conspiracy theories, no i dont think theres any basis for it. People saying Loreen can do the double can just as easiyl be interpreted by people at home as "well, we wont vote for her because shes already won". considering how much success shes had in the streaming charts, her televote definitely matches up with that

Germany had a Melodifestivalen Performance in the NF. Anica Russo who could have been taking Sweden's Points away

Thanks for putting together an informative and professional video. You can see that many hours were spent collating all the data. This is such a welcome change from other leading channels who are either posting irrelevant videos of a past San Marino singer who couldn't sing or just not posting anything at all. You are probably one or the very few who realise that the weeks after a contest is full of data to process. It's not all about the weeks leading up to the contest. Thankfully, you fully understand that fact. Keep up the good work.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Thank you Yoden ❤️🙏🏻

@singing5100

10 ай бұрын

😂

Excellent video Tom 😉👍 Looking forward to your thoughts on the jury, as I agreed with you completely in that, for me, Tattoo itself wasnt a winning song, also the margin over those that came next was, again for me, insane. Its all person taste, however I saw a clip from one of Marcos concerts with the crowd singing Due Vite back to him and I just couldnt imagine the same thing happening with Tattoo. Looking forward to parts 2 & 3😉

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

The jury video is part 2 and is the one Im most proud of 😊

What is it you say in your videos which sounds like "let's keekee"? What is the etymology of that?

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Let's Kiki - its a reference to a song by the Scissor Sisters

Loreens melfest performance was so so so amazing. i was speachless. then i felt so underwhelm by what was given for eurovision. it’s like when my friend makes an amazing coffee for himself but then puts no effort in when i ask him to make me one. it’s giving the same vibes. in future i wish countries could fully use their potential instead of being cut short by production. eurovision is so big now that there’s no excuses. each delegation deserve to bring what they can afford and what they create creatively.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

in fairness, the production limitations in Liverpool would have been known before they came up with the concept of Loreen's staging. I guess the creative directors in Melfest rightfully assumed that it wasnt worth worrying about until they actually won, as 27/28 of the entries that enter Melfest dont win anyway

@singing5100

10 ай бұрын

😂

@singing5100

10 ай бұрын

I wonder, that there are sooo many drama queens that just can't accept that Sweden won, and still have to make videos like this, that make no sense at all. 😂

I was so looking forward to your analysis. At the end of the day Sweden got such a big jury vote that nobody could catch up with them. Was it fair? Well depends on your point of view of course. As you say people probably thought that Spain and France would have done better but both were disappointing.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

yea this is the advantage of the Swedish delegation being top level for so long. Spain's delegation are improving, but they were working with a more niche sound. And France have been decent with staging, but they dont have the same degree of execution that Sweden has

Fab statistics. A Finn greets of showing how Käärijä was robbed 😊

I agree with you completely apart from the performance quality of Sweden/Loreen. I personally did not feel anything during that performance. It was all so not authentic. I'm sorry. The fact that she performed her winning performance with all the bells and whistles (aka panini press) - instead of a spontaneous, unpretentious performance we've seen from other winners proves to show that this was so calculated. I'm happy for her and Sweden for winning, but it was nothing "real".

@trildi

10 ай бұрын

I thought I was the only one who finds Loreen's mannerisms inauthentic and a bit fake. The performance felt very calculated, agreed.

@davidhall7744

10 ай бұрын

I also struggled to understand the connection between the (questionable) lyrics and the staging 😏

@sophiefarrell3547

10 ай бұрын

Nice to know that I'm not alone in feeling like this. I haven't really enjoyed any of Sweden's entries since 2014 because they seem, in my opinion, so calculated and devoid of any real emotion. This year, it felt very calculated, especially following their entry last year. I wasn't the biggest fan of "Hold Me Closer" purely because I wasn't the biggest fan of Cornelia's voice (she's a great singer but her voice just isn't for me). However, I appreciate "Hold Me Closer" a lot more now because it felt a little different for Sweden as it wasn't polished to within an inch of its life. While the performance was still slick and well put together, it still felt authentic with a real rawness to it. The staging was really simple and let the song speak for itself. Couple that with the fact that Cornelia led to creative process of her song and that none of the Melfest usual suspects were involved in that process gave "Hold Me Closer" a certain freshness that I felt was missing this year. As a result, this year's entry felt super artificial to me personally. I appreciate that "Tattoo" is well made, but I just couldn't connect to it. This has been my "problem" with Sweden's entries for the last few years. Every thing feels so calculated that I struggle to connect with them. I also find myself getting increasingly fatigued by Sweden always sending overproduced pop music by the same handful of writers. I'm fully aware that Sweden is one of the biggest exporters of pop music, its a massive part of their music industry and they are fully entitled to send that if they want, but it still would be nice for them to mix things up a little. Sweden has such a varied music industry so it seems a little sad that no other genre seems to be given a chance. For example, Sweden has given the music world some top class rock and metal acts so why aren't they being given a chance. This is why I hoped that Smash into Pieces to surprise win at Melfest this year. I've seen plenty of Swedish Eurovision fans who want to show a different to their music industry at the contest, but polished pop always seems to be pushed ahead as if it is the only valid genre for Eurovision when every genre should be given the chance to flourish.

@davidhall7744

10 ай бұрын

@@sophiefarrell3547 ‘calculated’ is a word that kept coming into my mind as well. Why are they so desperate to win Eurovision? I need to investigate more into what kind of music makes it into the Swedish charts (by Swedish artists), coz for me Melfest music seems to be a genre in itself, as you say mostly written by the usual suspects, what other music of theirs makes into the charts throughout the year. I’ll be interested to see what Tom’s take on the juries were this year, for my money most ‘music professionals’ in Europe probably have connections to the Swedish scene and therefore are they more inclined to support what (and who) they know? 😉

@sophiefarrell3547

10 ай бұрын

@@davidhall7744 I just want to see Sweden experiment a little and take more risks. One of my problems with Sweden in Eurovision recently has been that they always play it safe. Pop music seems to be the only genre that seems to be acceptable which is weird when they have such a rich and varied music industry. For example, many of the world's most successful and acclaimed metal and rock bands are Swedish. There have also been several opportunities in Melfest where they've had the chance to step outside of their comfort zone yet they still picked the safe option. Compare this to countries like Portugal and Ukraine, who send something different pretty much every year and aren't afraid of sending something a little risky, even if it doesn't completely pay off in the end. I like Sweden in Eurovision and the contest wouldn't be the same without them, but I would hate for them to become a victim of their own success. Regarding the jury, I'm very pro-jury and do find myself agreeing with a lot of their decisions, like them giving Maro a lot of love last year or them saving Pastora Soler from finishing outside of the top 10 in 2012. However, I have found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with them constantly putting radio friendly pop and ballads on a pedestal and acting like it is the only valid genre for Eurovision. The last thing I want is for any artist to be put off from wanting to give Eurovision a go because they feel like they won't be given a fair chance and they shouldn't have to waterdown their sound and style just to succeed in the contest. You also raise a very good point about the jurors possibly having connections to the Swedish scene. I've been wondering about that myself and that there is possibly something there. For example, the Cypriot jury gave their 12 points to Sweden. To the casual viewer, this might not be a big deal but considering that Jimmy Jansson and Jimmy "Joker" Thörnfeldt who were part of the team that wrote "Tattoo" were also part of the team that wrote Cyprus's entry "Break a Broken Heart", it does make me wonder whether that influenced some of the Cypriot jurors.

Regarding jury I want to lift up the idea of introducing free app votes as a third category for voting. Melodifestivalen has done it for a while and I think it is quite nice. It puts the focus on the peoples favorite no matter if you have money or not.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

yea that brings up an interesting topic because i think different age groups vote differently. Ive noticed that younger viewers TEND to vote alot of a smaller amount of people, whereas much older viewers are much less likely to max out their 20 votes. Making voting free would skew the televote even more towards a younger audience possibly

@newperspective5918

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom You could just do it like Melodifestivalen, group the votes by age.

@tanjanikola9489

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom The televote is really imbalanced anyway, as it is super cheap in some countries are really expensive in others (€1.70 per vote in Estonia is a lot of money considering their income levels, and even in Finland it was €1.00 per vote, whereas in some countries the cost was insignificant, and you could have easily used all 20 votes available).

Norway is not that expensive anymore because our currency is very weak :-) Also, there are ways to save money that only Norwegians know ;-) Hope to see you here soon! ❤️

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

lol dont say this to me, cos youre making me wanna jump on a plane and attend MGP 😂

@stefanstorm4864

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom Come, come! ❤️

thinking about how if alasandra had better staging and costuming and stood out more to juries she could’ve won fr. i always imagined a very mythical staging and it was so… blank.

Germany wasn‘t 26th in 2022, as due to italy winning 2021, there were only 25 finalists.

If we Calculate last 12 years not 10 would be different Ireland entered the top 10 in 2011 , Georgia reached in 2011, Albania in 2012. Slovenia and Croatia came at least 13th Belarus 13th in 2014, San Marino only reaches 19th , (small country ) so basically everyone got a chance or or got close to the left side of the board, Albania would have kept their strike if Rnela qualifying, she qualified with 📞

People always complain about Sweden always sending pop songs. Well that is because we got alot of famous music producers who have made alot of famous pop songs for american artists for example. Pop music is the biggest genre in Sweden.

@Sipu97

10 ай бұрын

People complain because the songs are soulless, always by the same producers, always sounding the same. It feels boring and inauthentic.

@MarcusPalle

10 ай бұрын

@@Sipu97 i guess people like soulless music then lol

@swedishmetalbear

10 ай бұрын

@@Sipu97 You look at Loreens performance where she bares out every emotion making herself vulnerable and calls out to the entire audience and you call it soulless? You are full of yourself.. Sir. You are the soulless one.

@Divig

10 ай бұрын

Also... The people who look at, and votes in Melodifestivalen are the people who listen to pop.

I think Sweden has Great Artists. I think a Televote issue is People thinking "X is going to win anyway so im voting for Y" I knew Finland would win the Televote so I decided to give my Votes to Germany and Moldova. As they were Fantastic but Underrated. In the Semi I voted for San Marino because I love their Performance and there is No Point voting for a Safe Act. (However if we all thought a certain act was Safe and Didnt Vote, they wouldnt Qualify)

I really was not impressed with Loreen's final performance compared to her semi-final performance. I felt her timings were off.

@ZakhadWOW

10 ай бұрын

no sh** SHerlock.. She was exhausted. She wasnt the only contestant worn out by all the initial week rehearsals, then the two shows a day for like how many days?

@tonyttt31

10 ай бұрын

@@ZakhadWOW I don't dispute any of those things. It doesn't change what I said.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Yea Tony, I know what you mean. I recently just watched back her final show and some of the timings are off. Maybe a little bit of nerves there as well. She actually had a few small blips with Euphoria as well. But the majority of the show was great, so I think those small things arent enough to detract from the performance

@tonyttt31

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom agreed. It's not that it was at all weak. It's just that the semi final performance absolutely blew me away. Stunning.

@neconeconeco

10 ай бұрын

I think the toll of the week of performances was really getting to everyone by the end, with some exceptions. for example Loreen, Kaarija, Alessandra, and Pasha seemed pretty tired by the time the grand final rolled around, which is fair because their performances were all quite demanding in different ways.

Ireland also won in a time when countries had to sing in their own language. You could argue that singing in English was an advantage.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

I think this was an advantage for Malta in that period as well, that unfortunately they were not able to convert

@neilwaldock6272

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom Agreed.

Fun fact: Sweden have come in the top 2 of the juries in 4 out of 5 of the last contests (which is mostly deserved imo). I do think people over hate on Sweden for always doing so well, as like you say, it’s because their entries are very smooth and polished. Honestly I think people just feel the need to have some aspect to complain about: I remember before the songs for 2022 came out people were complaining that the Big 5 shouldn’t automatically qualify, but then after how well they did (at least in terms of quality) in 2022, no one was saying that this year. One other statistic to point out: This was actually Czechia’s 2nd best result ever, so I’m very happy for them.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

ah yes good point about Czechia, 2nd best result ever for them is excellent, and hopefully means they will stay in the contest

This repetetive stuff I do not agree with regarding Sweden. I think Måns created that kind of feeling with a very very professional production. The most overvalued ever by the jury was in fact a swedish song and that was Dance me off with Benjamin Ingrosso. That was a slic production but with no substance. It deserved the low televotes and I laughed when that crap got punished by the televotes. But many entries are not like that. Last time before Loreen I have a very hard timing seeing that. It was only a green circle on the stage. That song was based solely on raw emotions ”hold me closer” kzread.info/dash/bejne/faF1xbOepcfHito.html and a strong voice. Another song that is very simple is ”If I where sorry” by Frans kzread.info/dash/bejne/ZHV9stSPk8uwfps.html . It is very much only the music there. And we also sent crazy but fun songs like La Voix kzread.info/dash/bejne/Z4t8lLGwesizcqg.html. So this is judging Sweden in a way that no one else is. I mean countries like Finland often sent nearly the same kind of rock contribution every year. Should that be good just because it is not pop.

Spain had the best vocal performance. The Czech Republic had the best song. Ukraine didn't even belong in the grand finale.

Something notable to say, if Cyprus (my country) hadn’t NQ’ed in 2022 we would be on a +8 streak. That’s crazy considering we barely have any neighbours

@gabesalgado789

10 ай бұрын

Greece: Hold my 12 points

@matheosc5255

10 ай бұрын

You need 100+ points to qualify. 12 points from a country that may or may not be in the same semi as you makes no difference

@season1ladder261

10 ай бұрын

@@matheosc5255 With this year's system you don't. Samo mi se spava qualified with 37 points

@matheosc5255

10 ай бұрын

@@season1ladder261 Serbia qualified with 37 points this year cause in the semi they were in all the points were scooped up by Sweden, Finland, Israel therefore someone would have gotten through with a low score as an afterthought. 10th place in semi 2 got 74 points which is closer to reality tbh. With the new system I’d say 70-75 is the cut off point - even still, 12 points from just one neighbour when most (not all) have 2+ reliable neighbours is a miracle

The worst song that Sweden has sent in the last 20 years has been Las Vegas which to me was woeful

@swedishmetalbear

10 ай бұрын

Agreed!! Yohio should have been sent that year. The people's winner. But it was "too gender fluid" for the international jury.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

im not sure if youre mixing it up but Las Vegas was 2005, and Yohio was 2nd in 2013 with Heartbreak Hotel, which btw was my favourite song that year. I also loved Bed on Fire

Måns Zelmerlow should Return again but Represent the UK, (Since he lives here now) and if he Wins we should give him Citizenship.

Interesting. Tom, you talk about Sweden's success as if it's a problem that needs solving. It isn't, and it doesn't. I never vote for their songs, but they're the most committed and accomplished.

@danielheden6580

10 ай бұрын

I think what he meant was that more countries should strive to perfection! Just as Sweden do. Not necessarily in the same way but… The Eurovision stage is a way to express yourself both in love, sadness or politics. Although the last one is “against the rules” Then there is the possibility that some countries don’t want to host the even due to costs!

@Hiljaa_

10 ай бұрын

I feel like the problem is the fact that getting the most amount of public votes (without counting Ukraine in 2022 since I'm pretty sure that was a vote of support) was not enough to beat the juries' favourite, another problem that I see is that the juries seem to prefer pop songs over less "mainstream" music which is why spectacular songs like blood and glitter and Duje got vanished to the shadow realm while tattoo was in my opinion incredibly overrated

@alipanroosendaal9503

10 ай бұрын

@@Hiljaa_With respect, I think you are wanting ESC to be something it is not. There are many stages and events to showcase innovation, experimental music and cutting edge performers. ESC is a broad based extravaganza to entertain mainstream viewers throughout Europe and beyond. Most winning songs have a wide appeal across the age range, or they catch the zeitgeist. For me, I can listen to a playlist of the competing songs and it is irrelevent how many points they got. However, I have a solid list of even better songs that weren't even selected.

@Hiljaa_

10 ай бұрын

@@alipanroosendaal9503 yeah it doesn't need to be a super outgoing innovative winner but a little bit of variety would be appreciated, rather than what feels like the same song year after year Completely unrelated but since this year non Europeans could vote it probably made the contest look a bit bad when the 12 points from the rest of the world still weren't enough to make käärijä win, I'm still mad about my favourite (Serbia) getting vanished to the actual void. Samo mi se spava is an absolute banger

It was my first time voting for Sweden because I knew it was gonna be tough, no one could take swedish victory for granted and Loreen absolutely deserved it. I'm so happy for her and Tattoo doing so well on the charts and wish her all the best of luck! can't wait to see her live this year ❤❤❤

24:27 Adrenalina WAS robbed!

@ESCTom

2 ай бұрын

i know, im still calling the police about it to this day

I absolutely don't get all the love for Ukraine. I just don't. Not even their win in 2022.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

I had Ukraine in my top 10 both last year and this year. Both amazing songs with a very unique sound compared to everything else in the contest

Thank god Sweden won. Best winner since Euphoria. Btw if pop jurors help Sweden how come Israel didn't get more points? Unicorn is a thousand times more generic as a pop song than Tattoo.

Norje Energy 😂 You need to work on your pronunciation of foreign names 😂 Norge is the Norwegian name for Norway, and is pronounced with a hard g (voiced plosive) and a schwa at the end.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

i wasnt saying Norje, i was just saying Norway 😂

@stefanstorm4864

10 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom oops, sorry, was watching a news video before this one, and accidentally commented on the wrong one. I know you'd never butcher a foreign name. So embarrassing 🙈🙈🙈

Tom - you dont tnink that Sweden does so.well because of juries pop bias and Sweden's huge influence in the music industry. Benjamin Ingrosso's vocals weren't good. I'm not saying you're wrong but it's not the sole reason.

@ESCTom

10 ай бұрын

Honestly i dont. I think if there was a pop bias, then why wouldnt UK clean up in the jury? Surely they would get even more for their music industry than Sweden's? Re: Benjamin, yea his vocals werent the best but i personally i didnt find it distracting, i thought they were passable. they might have been better in the jury final, which i didnt see that year. Also his stageshow was amazing imo. and that was in 2018, when there were no LEDs, so any song that brought something special (Sweden, Moldova Doredos, Germany Michael Shculte), got hugely rerwarded by the jury for standing out

How many actual televotes Loreen and Käärijä had? It would be interesting to know how much money eurovison robbed from real winners fans.

@ImStevan

10 ай бұрын

we don't get the raw televoting numbers from each country & the real winner was the one with the trophy

@Tollkirschenkind

10 ай бұрын

This is just bs, sorry. I didn't vote for Sweden or Finland, I voted for Italy. Does that mean I'm getting my money back? Does that mean everyone who voted for another country gets their money back? If you don't wanna "waste" your money, then don't vote. Everyone knows the rules before the contest, if you don't agree, again, then don't vote. I don't like Loreen, I don't like this song. But she came first with the juries and SECOND with the televote. What more do you want?

@anyrija.

10 ай бұрын

omg its been almost 2 months, get over it

@Mycenaea

10 ай бұрын

It's when I read braindead comments like this one I want to just stop consuming ESC content online...

@Sipu97

10 ай бұрын

@@Mycenaea Lol as if yours is so much better. Don't be so high and mighty when you are actually just insulting people.

2018 Sweden definitely didn't deserved high jury points at all with that lame and boring song.

18:47 Thank you for acknowledging this. Sweden gets so much hate every year. It's no secret many people voted for Käärijä just because they didn't want Loreen to win a second time.

Spain and France deserved much better ranking in 2023. Both were far superior to Ukraine and Australia.

Croatia didn't belong in the final.

@swedishmetalbear

10 ай бұрын

What are you talking about? It was a great performance.. and people voted for it... So it ended up in the final..

@FeeESC

10 ай бұрын

Yes it did, bc people voted for it, simple as that

If we Put Lithuania in 2020 they would have probably won , and Monika didn't enter top 10 Because Ukraine took the war televoting points sympathy

Glad Loreen won over that green troll screaming Cha Cha Cha. He was also such a bad looser, crying the whole time instead of congratulating queen Loreenfor her objective and more than deserved win.

@Hiljaa_

10 ай бұрын

I mean, he did get the most amount of voted and not even that was enough to best the juries' favourite, I'm sure a lot of people would also be disappointed if they were him. I wouldn't personally congratulate someone who won because of 200 people when the public didn't see her as a favourite in any country or region

@omaewamoushindeiru6581

10 ай бұрын

@@Hiljaa_ you do realize loreen got the second most amount of fan votes right? You seem to be living in a bubble in which you think that most poele wanted him to win, while you would be surprised how many people dislike him and/or his song. Loreen deserved to win and she won.

@Hiljaa_

10 ай бұрын

@@omaewamoushindeiru6581 I am aware of the public votes, but we don't need the juries if they prefer only pop songs. Germany, Albania and Serbia had absolute bangers, with Serbia having my favourite song, and got vanished to the shadow realm. If you install the dislike viewing thing extension you'll see that Loreen's grand final performance has (last time I checked) 250k dislikes to about 180k likes, vs käärijä's about 240k likes to I believe around 20k, haven't checked in a while. My personal favourite was in the void, but I still feel like the crowd favourite should have won rather than the juries'.

@omaewamoushindeiru6581

10 ай бұрын

@@Hiljaa_ it is disliked by irrational haters like you, tise dislikes are not representative for her performance cause her song was objectivly better than chachacha which is why it did much better in the charts. Also without the jury more artsy performances like Spain will literally get zero points because people like you only like songs you can scream half drunk at the bar.