Cav's Place

I really should start with the good and state that this was the best edition I have ever seen. It started pretty poorly, with a rather weak first semifinal, but the second one was very good and the final was even better. Quite frankly, there was a single song I didn’t like that made it to the final, namely Serbia’s. Then there were two other good songs that were sung poorly, namely those from Belarus and the United Kingdom, and Belgium’s performance, which I really had to place last because I judge the entire act and when you just have a single person who does nothing but sit on stage, and that person is also male and sings a song that I didn’t think was one of the very best either, that performance really can’t get any noticeable amount of points from me.
That leaves 21 good performances during this final, which is probably a number you could only reach by adding together two finals from previous years, and perhaps not even then in certain cases. And I really wouldn’t have minded if any of the top eight out of these 21 would have won, which is absolutely unprecedented as there usually are only two or three songs that I think should fight for first place.
And before I move on to the bad, I should also point out that I really liked the interval act. No longer showcasing only the traditions and culture of the host country, but a piece that made a statement out of the international nature of the show and tried to send a message about bringing people together, all of it doubled by a bold choice of music to say the least. It was an interval act that I was curious enough to watch, which caused some problems as during that time I normally take the opportunity to turn my ratings and notes into a neat classification.

Moving on to the bad, I need to start with the new voting system. It would appear that they completely gave up on even trying to persuade people to vote fairly, as allowing voting all through the show means people are now able to vote for the country they want to vote for without even watching its performance, much less the competition. At least until now voters were more or less forced to at least give everyone a chance before they could vote, which meant that at least a small number of them could be persuaded by a particular performance to change their predetermined “political” vote… Plus that allowing people to vote up to 20 times even for the same song instead of limiting it to a single vote per person for each song makes it a question of whose fans have the most time and, most importantly, money to spare instead of a question of who can get the most fans. And the juries are made of people too, so adding them in doesn’t really mean there will be fewer “political” votes.
The result of all that was that in plenty of cases nothing changed, many countries still giving points as expected, so instead of making the contest fairer the new voting system pretty much removed even the theoretical chance of fairness. Which is why I say don’t forget to flush and use plenty of air freshener if you happen to mention the new voting system, because it’s nothing but a huge pile of shit!
And the bad part from a very personal and subjective point of view was that none of those eight I thought could have won made it even in the top three, four of them actually being in the bottom seven, two of them even in the bottom four!

But let me stop that rant and move on to my classification. (Actual place between parantheses, as always.) The system was the same as always, of course, and it was actually easier to judge based solely on the performance at hand this year than it was in 2008 and 2009 because, while I still knew all songs before the competition, I no longer looked for other information, such as interviews or rehearsals, so there were fewer things I had to ignore in order to be able to focus properly.

1 Ireland (23)
2 Azerbaijan (5)
3 Georgia (9)
4 Denmark (4)
5 Moldova (22)
6 Iceland (19)
7 Russia (11)
8 Norway (20)
9 Albania (16)
10 Armenia (7)
11 Turkey (2)
12 Spain (15)
13 Romania (3)
14 France (12)
15 Greece (8)
16 Germany (1)
17 Bosnia (17)
18 Cyprus (21)
19 Ukraine (10)
20 Israel (14)
21 Portugal (18)
22 Belarus (24)
23 United Kingdom (25)
24 Serbia (13)
25 Belgium (6)

Now I will do something different and, instead of commenting only on the first five songs in the actual classification and the first ten in my classification, I’ll comment on all songs. Or all except the bottom four, as I already explained why I placed those so low.
Ireland was obviously this edition’s ballad and unless there’s something else that somehow blows me away I will always put ballads first when it comes to Eurovision, at least as long as the singers are female. Not much show value to speak of, but at least there was more than one person on stage and they didn’t look like they really had to go to the bathroom, so I was content with a neutral “show” rating, which was good enough to allow this performance to rise above the rest.
Azerbaijan continues the run of good results, entering three times so far and finishing eighth, third and now fifth in the actual contest and being first, second and now second again in my classification. This was one performance that certainly required forgetting what I saw and heard before the actual competition because I initially thought their entry was quite poor… Until I saw how it all worked out on stage and completely changed my mind. I’d have been quite happy if this would have won, but at this rate I’m pretty sure they will win soon enough anyway.
Georgia was yet another entry that required me to forget what I previously knew about it, as it sounded and certainly looked far better during the actual competition. Incredible vocal strength and a basically perfect performance, but there were some bits of the song that bothered me a little and that’s why it’s only third.
Denmark’s entry sounded pretty nice, was very catchy and benefitted from a very good female voice as well. I certainly wouldn’t have minded if it won, but a certain part of it sounded too similar to a certain great song of decades past and that’s why it’s only fourth.
Moldova was bold. This is not the kind of song you expect to see on Eurovision and it impressed me in a good way. At first I thought the male voice wasn’t going to suit the song, but during the final they actually sounded great together. But they’re only fifth because I think you need to really blow everyone away with something if you want to be at the top with a very atypical entry.
Iceland presented something that was somewhere between a ballad and a catchy song. Sure, it was nice enough, it could even have won, as any of my top eight, but it just wasn’t quite good enough to beat the ones I ranked above it, possibly just because it was somewhere in between genres.
The Russian lead vocalist had an absolutely amazing voice. I still wonder if he’s castrated, but that’s not the issue here. The song and the entire performance may have been somewhat strange, and certainly not in the sense of certain past winners we can all remember, and it sounded like they needed a few seconds to warm up at the beginning and were getting a little tired by the end of it, but it was still a very interesting and notable performance.
The Norwegian song was also very good, with the possible exception of the first few seconds, and the guy singing it blew me away with his voice, but I very strongly prefer female vocals so that’s why he’s not up there competing with Ireland for the first position. The neutral show value also meant I had to place Norway lower than Russia, but in the end it was yet another performance I thought could have deserved to win.
Albania came with a performance that struck me as a little bit better than all those ranked below it, but far from the top eight, so it has a pretty firm position in my classification.
Armenia put up a pretty nice show, but unfortunately the song fell just a little bit short when compared to the nine ranked above it, so all that was left for me to do was rank it as tenth. It’s also possible that I penalized this performance a little because the singer looked to be surgically “enhanced” in pretty much every way…
Turkey was also bold, coming up with an atypical entry that was certain to be remembered. Pretty good show value, nice message, but having only male vocals meant I wasn’t going to like it quite that much, plus that there actually was something about the song itself that bothered me a little.
The Spanish entry sounded nice enough, the vocalist did his job well (twice), there was also a pretty good show value, but… It just didn’t stand out, unlike many of those ranked above it. And you can really see this edition’s quality level when I rank a good song that’s also performed well and has a pretty good show value only 12th.
And then we have Romania… I really didn’t find the song to be quite all that when compared to the rest, though of course it was also nice enough and very catchy, and Paula has an absolutely amazing voice. But there are some parts of it that rub me the wrong way, plus that the performance itself was quite static, relying mainly on the pyrotechnics for the show value. I think they could have managed while having only two people to do the backing vocals, allowing for two others to actually play with fire on stage.
The French song would have sounded much better a couple of weeks from now, during the World Cup, but it certainly was catchy and entertaining. It was also yet another pretty bold entry.
Greece’s entry somehow grew on me between the semifinal and the final. Not enough to rank it higher than this, but it’s a pretty bright and happy song that doesn’t sound bad at all. And that’s saying a lot, as I don’t respond all that well to those rhythms…
And then there’s Germany… It is indeed a very complex song that also manages to be pretty catchy as well, and the singer seems extremely charismatic. Sure, I can say I like it, but this year I can say that about nearly all of them, so I really couldn’t rank it higher than this, especially since the show value was only neutral.
Bosnia’s entry was really not bad either and it would have very likely been well in my top ten in pretty much any other year, but this time around there really was no room for it any higher than this. You’d say I could have been drawn to the genre, but that no longer applies when you take the competition into account.
And most of what I just said applies to Cyprus as well. Not a bad performance, but when you compare it to the rest of them this year…
The Ukrainian song was extremely complex and also had pretty deep lyrics, or about as deep as an Eurovision song could hope to have, but complexity doesn’t equate sounding very nice. I believe I can recognize a good song when I hear it, and this was a good song, but it just didn’t have an appealing sound to me and this is, after all, my subjective classification. The barely neutral show rating, as that’s about as much as a single person can get from me no matter how well she’d act her part, or how hot she’d be for that matter, didn’t help at all either.
Israel’s entry actually sounded really well, but once again there simply was no room for it higher than this. The fact that the vocalist was male, sang in that dreadful Hebrew and only had a neutral show value meant this seemed like the proper place for it.
And finally we have Portugal, which featured a good singer singing a decent song, but otherwise really getting lost among the rest as it had nothing to make it stand out in any way. And I really can’t stand Portuguese either.

So I got Bosnia and Denmark right, was two places off for Belarus, France and the United Kingdom and three off for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Portugal and Spain. On the other hand, at least ten places off for Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Moldova, Norway, Romania and Serbia.
As for the semifinals, I’d have picked Macedonia, Malta, Poland and Slovakia instead of Belarus, Belgium, Portugal and Serbia from the first one and Croatia, the Netherlands and Slovenia instead of Cyprus, Israel and Ukraine from the second one. In fact, you can see how the seven I wouldn’t have picked to make it to the final are in the bottom eight in my final classification, with only the United Kingdom, who are automatically qualified to the final and therefore gave me no opportunity to judge their performance sooner, in between them.

So why did Germany win? Well, unlike last year when Norway’s victory came as a complete and unexplainable surprise for me, I believe I have a reasonable explanation this time around. I believe that, while the singer’s charisma also played an important role, this is an excellent example of manipulation of and by the media.
You see, first you had some people very thoroughly making sure that all uploads of Germany’s entry would be quickly deleted for copyright infringement in order to only leave the official video and artificially increase the number of viewers for it in comparison to the rest, as said viewers were all forced to watch the same thing instead of being able to choose and therefore spreading the number of views among multiple videos. The very high number of views drew the attention of some bloggers who proceeded to write about this entry more than about others, while perhaps some others were even encouraged to do so through other means. Then some survey results, which are all too easy to forge, popped up and claimed that this entry was the favorite, which increased the attention it received even more. Shortly, all this on-line attention made its way into more traditional media, and from there to pretty much everyone who was in any way interested in Eurovision. That triggered the herd mentality, as the message sent was that you’d be the odd one out if you had another favorite. And, since most people want to fit in and the new voting system also greatly favors preconceived opinions, that resulted in many more votes for Germany than the performance itself could ever hope to gather.
It’s rotten, it’s dastardly, it’s petty… But it’s also highly effective and therefore utterly brilliant, if this indeed is how it happened. Others should learn from this, and I’m no longer just talking about Eurovision contestants. Politicians certainly try to do the exact same thing whenever elections are coming up. The difference here is that it would appear that Germany was the only country having such a campaign this time around, or at least the only one who managed to get it to work…