Well, as precisely none of you asked for it, here’s the Phil reason why your fave songs ended up where they did. No correspondence will be entered into, following the spirit of “Spot the Ball”. Please note that the “Average Juror Rank” is an average of all the ranking places and NOT where the songs were placed on the curve!
26th Germany – 18 Points.
In good news, at least it wasn’t nul, and they weren’t Sisters, thank the fucking lord, but the only time that proper “Rock” did well at the contest (2006, thanks for asking), it was less rock and more of a “schlager song with rock overtones and some silly costumes”. This, then, had all those hallmarks? – Well, no, not really. It didn’t match any jury criteria, though it got three second places. When it came to the televote, their only friends were their neighbour countries – Austria and Switzerland, plus their rock-obsessed neighbours Finland but there isn’t much love for this kind of thing – no matter how lovely Chris is in real life.
Average Juror Rank – 18.966. Average Televote Position – 15.583
25th United Kingdom – 25 Points
It’s a case of it *could* have been so good for the UK. This is the kind of thing that we had been dying for three years ago, but Saint Sam Ryder has exposed our main weakness. We don’t enter good enough songs consistently. Mae’s song is Radio Friendly (Top 10, I thank you) BUT, here is the key, it’s not a Contest song – a bit like “Snap” wasn’t last year. Mae’s weak live vocal and possibly over-reliance on her background graphics did for this one.
Average Juror Rank – 16.404. Average Televote Position – 20.555 (Ten last places)
24th Serbia – 30 Points
This song was Marmite. You either loved it (Greece A, Iceland B and Denmark C Imma looking at you here), or you panned it. Ten juries out of 37 placed it in their bottom three because they thought the whole concept was weird. Televoters also ignored it, apart from Croatia and Serbia, who gave it 13 out of 16 televoters.
Average Juror Rank – 17.803. Average Televote Position – 18.778 (One last place)
23rd Portugal – 59 Points
This is my first “I am at a loss” moment. Sure, it was drawn in the place of death and stood no chance, but this was just a big bundle of joy on the television boxes of Europe and Australia. Well, it was from Greece C and Moldova C who gave it first place. Apparently, to the televoters of Europe, it was an unfathomable song in an incomprehensible language, and, as such, no bugger voted for it.
Average Juror Rank – 14.416 Average Televote Position – 20.528 (Three last places)
22nd Albania – 76 Points
Welcome to “I’m at a loss” moment two – but in the opposite way to Portugal. This song, to me, was, and still is, typically Albanian. A shouty woman shouting, with the bonus of her family arranged behind her. The juries hated it in the main, but it gathered first place from Azerbaijan “D”. Thankfully, the Albanian diaspora is a far-reaching church. Despite those nine last places, it got 12 points from Switzerland and 8 points from Greece and seven from Latvia and Slovenia. All relatively close to Albania, me thinks?
Average Juror Rank – 17.033 Average Televoter Position – 16.722 (Nine last places)
21st Slovenia – 78 Points.
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK EUROPE?!
Even without my Bojan-coloured glasses on, this is a great song sung by an up-and-coming band. Well, they certainly thought so in Serbia – they gave it the band’s first-place votes in the jury, four of them (With a 2 being the rogue). It also got love from its neighbours but, crucially, a big fat fuck all from anywhere else. The positions are, on the whole, disappointing for the amount of effort put into the performance. I am told the lads watched old Eurovisions. Presumably, 1985 is high on their list, and they realised that connecting with the viewers at home was the key. They certainly did that, but the viewers of Europe were not moved to part with their moolah except, again, in neighbouring countries. It makes me wonder whether this would have done better in English.
Average Juror Rank – 16.000 Average Televoter Position – 14.056
I will make comments to some of the songs:
United Kingdom –
It was the right song but singing last after the madness of Croatia didn’t help their cause because everyone were talking about Croatia and forgot to pay attention to the United Kingdom. Unfortunately the shaky vocals didn’t help either.
Serbia –
No one was really buying this. It was trying to be Konstrakta (Serbia 2022) mark 2.0 but failed in any possible way. They just managed to qualified from the semi. Latvia should be very upset they lost by only 3 points to this pretentious song. Between the semi and the final, they lost around 1/3 of their televote points(37 to 16 points).
P.s. Serbia can’t vote for itself and the other televoter big contributor, apart from Croatia was Slovenia.
Slovenia –
The first and not the last in the category: Were the juries doing their work properly?. If the juries can’t recognize a well crafted song, sung and performed well, what were they listing to? This should have been in top 5 of every jury and yet just managed to scarp the surface with what they actually got. They also lost a lot of televoters points between the semi and the final(105 to 45). It seems their position in the running order between Israel and Croatia was their death slot.