Eurovision 2022

[motodraconis]

Fuck me... this video, it's a tear jerker. (I'd heard that the band are returning to the front line in Ukraine now.)

Watch on YouTube

There has been the odd comment of..."well of course Ukraine was going to win." (Implying that the song itself was not good enough.) I confess, I am personally not a fan of the rapped bits but the other vocals are haunting and mesmerising which I utterly loved, and they were great on stage too.

For those who do not know how points are given, the scoring is more significant than at first glance. You see, half the points are given by a team of judges in 40 countries, and Ukraine got average points overall. It was only when the peoples' votes came in that Ukraine won by a landslide number of points from the phone ins. A political message? Certainly, but not a bad one, the people of Europe support Ukraine, albeit the sort of people that watch Eurovision. That is actually a more subtly powerful message than might be imagined at a cursory glance.

Comments

[kirundo]

I totally wanted to watch it yesterday and I kinda fell asleep which really annoyed me, watching it back without the live twitter feed makes no sense. Love the political scoring part, from what I heard Austria hasn't given the Ukraine one.single.point....

[motodraconis]

I added an infographic to the post after you commented, and it looks like Ukraine got the top mark from the phone in of Austrians. So yeah, while the Austrian judges were stingy, the Austrian public where not.

[kirundo]

I see :) that's not that bad then. Since we got kicked out for a really really bad song Austria didn't even bother to report it in the news, at least not the print ones I read. Strange times. Conchita wouldn't approve.

[sound_of_silence]

Doesn't the winner host Eurovision the following year? So basically Europe was telling Russia, "see now, we expect you'll have been kicked out by then, fuckers."

[jaelleg]

Ha, never thought of it this way! :-)

[motodraconis]

Oh yes! (There are rumours from respected sources that the war will end this year with Russia defeated, perhaps by August, stuff is brewing and from what seems to be occurring so far, I don't want to say more, I just hope for the best.)

Zelensky tweeted...

"Our courage impresses the world, our music conquers Europe! Next year Ukraine will host Eurovision! For the third time in its history. And I believe - not for the last time."

There was even talk of holding it in Mariupol. One hopes that there will be a clubbing together from Europe as a whole to give funding money for the event, as they can be expensive. A cultural grant from the EU would not be inappropriate for a rebuilding program.

[dadi]

I'm not an easy crier but when I heard the number of popular votes for Ukraine, I broke out in sobs. What a wonderful result. It does inspire hope somehow...

[motodraconis]

I was doubly close to tears, I'd have been gutted if UK had won. No offence to Mr Jesus singer, but UK needs to stay in the naughty corner.

I'm actually getting quite pissed off with people on facebook making shitty remarks about Ukraine winning.

[shadowbliss]

I have never understood why Australia is allowed to compete but still...

[lethe1]

Same with Israel.

[shadowbliss]

Yeah. Though to me, Australia is the one I'm more aware of just because its my country.

[motodraconis]

The official line is that "For a country to be eligible to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, they must have a public broadcaster that is part of the European Broadcasting Union. In order to join the EBU, a country must lie within the European Broadcasting Area."

So this includes Israel, but Morocco participated once, and countries such as Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt and Algeria could participate, (but veto because of Israel.) In theory, it could reach as far as Iraq or Saudi Arabia.

How Australia fits into this is rather weirder, because under no stretch of the genitalia does it even come close to this broadcasting area. Apparently Australia has been broadcasting Eurovision for 40 years or so, and there is a big cult following. To commemorate the 60th Anniversary of Eurovision, Australia was invited to participate as a one off event... but they kept coming back!

Normally the winner must host the next Eurovision, but arrangement is... should Australia ever win, the event must be held in Europe and would be done jointly between Australia and a European country, Germany has been suggested in the past.

It is... weird. My guess is money has a big part in this.

If it was up to me, I'd say only geographical European countries could participate, so this would include (a fraction of) Turkey and such places as Armenia and Azerbaijan who wobble in and out of the border of Asia and Europe. This is because I am ANAL AS FUCK about geography, so Israel having being in Eurovision for sooo long does my head in.

[lethe1]

Didn't Australia win the first time they participated, or did they just end up very high?

[motodraconis]

They've never won, but they did come high I think, the first time.

[shadowbliss]

Okay that...explains it. It doesn't make sense but it explains it.

[thewayne]

Finally getting around to clearing out tabs and watched it today. What an amazing song and video.

[motodraconis]

It's really good! The non-rapped bits have been earworming me for days.