To round off my round *up* – It’s the Top 5….
5th Italy
Average Jury Position – 15.34 Average Televote Position – 6.02
Well I’m mystified, dear viewer, how this even got anywhere near the top of the scoreboard and I’m with the juries on this one. To me, and them, it was a lorra lorra words interspersed with MORE words on the screen. What, literally, do you say when words are not enough? Apparently though, it struck a chord with the people that matter and you rang in in your tens! Thirty-five sets of televotes had this as one of their top nine songs. That is unfathomable. For the Italians, however, close but not actually winning it will keep them coming back cos, despite what their HoD says, they don’t want the hassle of winning it!
4th Germany
Average Jury Position – 7.71 Average Televote Position – 8.60
Clearly everyone loved a three-minute whinge about losing his dad! I dunno, maybe sometimes I’m just too old and set in my ways to understand songs like this. Objectively, though, it’s clearly hit a chord with everyone. Herr Schulte looked down the pipes, sung like Mr Sheeran and got the aww bless vote. Side note, Germany have only had two higher finishes since 1999 – a win, and a third. Is this song that good?
3rd Austria
Average Jury Position – 5.95 Average Televote Position – 11.43
Now this one I do get. This was squarely aimed at me, and I am typical of an average jury: white, gay, middle-aged and when I saw this at the semi-final, I had it first. The reason? It’s just a damn good, well-written, well-paced pop song that gets into your head. The televoters, though, didn’t see enough bang for their Euro, which is probably why it didn’t grab them in sufficient numbers for lots of people to pick up the phone. That’s a shame because it deserved more. Did it deserve a win? – probably not … so, over all, the result was about right.
2nd Cyprus
Average Jury Position – 8.67 Average Televote Position – 5.24
One only has to say “Fuego” to understand why this song finished in second place. It’s just so typically Eurovision Greek mid-2000’s and harks back to an era when pure televoting would have had this stone cold nailed on. The juries, though, being the pesky little so-and-so’s that they were, had already seen class from Austria and thought that this was just a little too obvious for a winner, and put it on the back-burner. Cracking result though!
1st Israel
Average Jury Position – 7.10 Average Televote Position – 4.24
To win this contest you need to appeal to everyone – or if not everyone, then enough people to get the points, and that’s why this won. The two weeks we spent in Lisbon were, in retrospect, completely useless as a fan press worker, because I could have just written “she’s won” on April 29th, but where’s the fun in that? When you are one place better in both televote and jury that builds an 84 point lead, as it stands Netta won by 93, so there you go! *I* don’t like it, and would have preferred another song to win, but the scoreboard doesn’t lie.
Italy – A power point presentation meant for the juries, became a magnet for televoters.
The juries thought, this is not a good song, the televoters loved it.Why?
Maybe it’s passionate Italian language or maybe the sentiment that we hear about war all the time and no one does anything to stop it, hit hard by the televoters.
P.s.-France I hope you were watching. This is how you get your message understood,
Germany – They did everything they could to get out of the last place and managed. It is a middle of the road song that has it’s audience and the sentiment is hard to beat. He sung it with passion and was rewarded by both juries and televoters.
Austria – Love this song. The juries agreed with me, the telvoters didn’t get the song. Since their win in 2014, Ausria has always been in the final and they get it right in the sense of the right song for the right singer. Now find a song that juries and televoters love in equal measures and you have another win in your hand.
Cyprus – Was it a good song, not really. Was it a good presentation, yes., although a bit oversexualized. It’s an old school banger that usually not liked by the juries and loved by the televoters. The score reflect just that split.
Israel – During the whole season it never went out of the top 5 in the betting odds. That’s how strong this song was.
Juries- The discussion whether they will vote for an uptempo song, is closed. They will, if you give them a reason to and if you are in the top 3 by the juries, you are within a chance of winning.
It won the televote by quite a margin and therefore won the whole damn thing.
There is a lesson – Be original, be unique. Don’t be afraid to be different. Blandness will not get you far.
P.S.-
To say you didn’t like the song, is an understatement. You loathed the song.
Let’s remind your readers what you said about it in your countdown preview:
You called the song a “fanwanks”(and can we get rid of this degrading description. Degrading for the artist and the song as much as to fans).
You described Netta as “oversized women clunking her way through”.
You even suggested that Israel was somehow manipulating the odds. A false and unfounded accusation, you only know where it came from.
In this retrospect, the Israeli win is a big middle finger pointed at you.
Let me be perfectly clear here.
I hate it.
It *is* a fat lass clucking and making chicken noises at me.
It *is* Fanwank,
The price DID plummet immediately after it winning and when giving a personal opinion, which i do in the review and which is my right as owner and contributor of this site, i make no apologies for what I wrote then, what I write and think now, and for keeping this train of thought in the future.
it’s not a big finger up to me – I think that’s you putting spin on what you write, what it is, is a song the public voted for – if that’s what they wanted, they got it.