h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hiya

I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a newbie to the h2g2 and quite a song contest fan(atic) from Finland.

The four big EBU members (UK, Spain, France and Germany) can't be relegated from the contest unlike the rest of countries (including us )

I got the impression that there's an Estonian here.. congratulations "neighbour"!

It's me. Kiitos. (for Mods- Thanks)

Yes, congrats again Hati!
I voted for the Russian song. That singer was just hillarious! And so charming in such a very creepy way!

The Norwegian song got the place it deserved. G*d what a crappy song!

Rupert of Rupert, hi and welcome to h2g2

No offence meant here I'm just interested. What is it about the Eurovision song contest that you like? I mean the songs aren't really any good are they and the presentation is cheesy. Why not go out and listen to some good music or is it the amusing cheesiness that you like?

For my part it has mostly to do with traditions. Remember that this has been going on for yonks!
And come on, everybody have a program they love to hate!
This is mine!
I always listen to good music, so a little contrast can't do any harm....

Ah, I can appreciate it for that, but the trouble is, someone somewhere actually must take it seriously

Note, that *obviously* isn't Terry Wogan, I have to say, I find his commentary quite funny.

I have to agree with Bumblebee.
But yes, I have seen people, who take it seriously. They also take seriously "The Bold and the Beautiful", too. And the Latin-American soap-operas.

The actual purpose of the show these days (I believe), is to give the hosting country lots of PR.
That's why I think it's so fun that Estonia won, - I know next to nothing about Estonia..!
I hope they use this opportunity good. They will garanteed have an upswing in the tourist-industry.

Well what the hey. ESC comes but once a year, but I still love it for nostaligic reasons. The voting is definitely the thing to see, but I must be getting old as this year I even watched all of the songs!

Essentially the programme is no worse than Stars in Your Eyes or Blind Date or any other Saturday night fodder, and we all know it's naff, but it's annual regularity is a link between our childhoods and today. Too many programmes get abandoned before they truly have the opportunity to win a place in our hearts ... It's all the "Nil point" and "Germany, 2 points .... Allemagne, deux pointe" stuff and watching countries vote for each other that makes it so great! I especially love hearing the Netherlands in French (sounds something A pay bar)

I reckoned on the French song winning it, but the Estonian effort was pretty good. Some say though, it was very reminiscent of Robbie Williams & Tom Jones ...

As for the presenters, the Danish couple were pretty awful "Ooh this is just so exciting" every couple of minutes, but they were certainly no worse than Ulrika Jonsen back in 1998 when the UK hosted it. I seem to remember her comments to the Dutch jury member were particularly rude. The Danish bloke reminded me of Mick Fleetwood which of course brought back horrible memories of the Brit Awards in 1989.

As for the stuffy bloke (Colin Berry from Radio 2) I have to admit that he may have given the longest ever intro and welcome for the "Results from the United Kingdom" jury and I'm sure he reinforced stereotypes of the English. But that's all the fun of it.

Enuff from me. I love it and I think it's a shame that Ireland have been relegated.

BBS

Yes, the Norwegian song got what it deserved! Gosh, I felt ashamed of my country hearing and seeing that song.. I'll just hold on to the bit of me that is Danish..

Thanks for the warm welcome folks

What I like about the ESC? I guess mostly because it's almost the only way to hear any off-mainstream music from all over Europe around here. Well, the "English is ok"-rule kind of messed that up. For example I liked the Israeli entry this year. I guess I love hating the commentators that prevent from hearing a word the hosts say and it's also kind of fun to see if we are placed last or second to last. (Really, our entries suck! Our best score in the past decade was 15th..)

Yes there do seem to be certain no-go areas for creating winning songs. Generally they have a better chance if they are in English (not always but usually). And this year's UK entry was completely sucuppered by having people rap on it. I would have thought they'd have realised from the 1995 entry that rapping just does not work at the ESC ...

BBS

Well, I thought Love City Groove was kind of a fun song at the time but it was simply something to get tired of quite quickly. And if I recall correctly, back then the voting was done by professional juries and usually they have quite a different taste from the people's taste. Like this year, some countries still used juries. The juries gave quite similar points with each other but which differed from the televote points. I might be wrong though, but I got that feeling.

For the Finns the English rule is a good thing, Finnish isn't the best possible language for the international audience. Usually it doesn't have any resemblance to any other language (except Estonian).

Last year was the first time we got to sing in English but our television company had figured out "a good system" for the national final which was partly of televoting and partly professional juries from across the country. However, because of the clever system the winner of the final was neither the public's nor the juries' favorite. It was kind of an odd system anyway. I'm good at making excuses for our poor success.

Estonia uses the international jury, some musicians, some music producers, some journalists etc. What might be very good for Estonian taste may still fail in ESC. So we have chosen international jury with a "common taste".

I guess you're much smarter than we are then..

I don't know very much about Estonian music but at least Caater is a bit to my taste

Seems that our tastes are differnt. Caater is good at whatever is this they are doing but I don't like it. Our music is quite american, I think. Maybe you know Smilers too? They have been in Finland, they have even lived in Helsinki.

Sorry, the name is unfamiliar.. I visited their website and they sound quite good though. I've heard some Estonian songs (my sister's dating an Estonian guy) but I'm quite terrible at remembering any names, bands and people alike. Well, there's Maarja-Liis Ilus and Ivo Linna.. though I've only heard Kaelakee Hääl (Sound of the necklace) from them

I liked the Greek entry too, and the Slovenian. I was sadly sitting at home scoring the contest. My only excuse is that it's the first time I've seen it for 15 years and my girlfriend was out. I made Estonia's song the joint-worst along with Portugal's. I was very angry when it started getting all those votes until I realised that I was taking it far too seriously and ought to have another drink . Terry Wogan makes it all worth watching - apparently he has made the front page of the papers in Denmark having offended them greatly!

That Terry Wogan seems to quite a character..

The Estonian entry wasn't that bad, it was quite listenable. Not one of my favorites but I was happy for the neighbouring nation when they won. For my taste Portugal's and Latvia's entries were too much.

Its that time of year again

get the lowdown at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/eurovision//index.shtml