Eurovision in 2011 was a success and people were hoping that Azerbaijan 2012 would have a similar effect. The nation won last year in a fairly tight battle meaning its capital, Baku would host Europe's biggest musical event of the year. How did the contest go this year? It has certainly been interesting both in, and out of the Crystal Hall. Before the competitors competed in the semi-finals, there were fresh allegations of corruption within the Azerbaijani government over their treatment to the residents there. The location of the Crystal Hall had forced people out of their homes in order for the building to be reconstructed with very little compensation. There were calls for some countries to boycott Eurovision but it never happened and 26 nations went head-to-head in a battle which produced some fascinating, yet on occasion, bewildering results.
If frequent readers to this blog would remember, I critically rated each country in last year's Eurovision out of ten and then compared my ranking to the actual outcome. Needless to say, my predictions were not as accurate as hoped and Azerbaijan's victory left me "unimpressed", apparently. This trend continued as Sweden triumphed comfortably which left me disappointed. They were pre-competition favourites so it wasn't a surprise they were to do well, but I thought their performance was below par. It was something about it which I did not like. Graham Norton, who narrated for BBC One during Eurovision, said Loreen, the winning singer, reminded him of Kate Bush. That got my hopes high as I am quite a fan of the "Wuthering Heights" star but instead we were left watching someone who sounded and acted exactly like Bjork. I quite like the song, "It's oh so quiet" but other than that, the Icelandic is quite an annoying artist.
So overall, not happy with the winner but am quite happy Eurovision will be in Sweden for the fifth time. It's a glorious country both scenically and culturally and Swedish sources reveal capital Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo are in the running to host next year's event. I personally prefer Malmo to host. I went there last summer and the city is wonderful. However, I feel Gothenburg may host. In 2000, the last time Sweden hosted Eurovision after their victory in 1999, Stockholm staged while it was Malmo's turn in 1992 when they won it the third time. Gothenburg hosted it before Malmo in 1985.
From the top of the table to the bottom and again, the United Kingdom failed to shine after finishing 25th of 26th. Like every year, everyone has high hopes for Britain to win Eurovision for the first time since 1997 and this year, they provided us with legend himself Engelbert Humperdinck. I am a massive fan of his and I genuinely thought he had a good chance of finishing in the top ten. His "Love will set you free" was far better than last year's Blue but people of Europe do not really appreciate a fantastic mellow ballad. On the other hand, Eurovision is primarily about cheesy pop music where people prance around. Perhaps the UK take this competition too seriously and should approach next year light-hearted rather than ruin the reputations of brilliant singers like "The Hump". Nonetheless, the UK's entry was genuinely my favourite performance of the night and, even though he finished second last, he made me proud to be (half) British (again).
In all honesty, I was impressed by a lot of the competitors this year. It has been a delightful selection of various types of music. My notable favourites apart from the United Kingdom were Iceland and Denmark, in which were in my top three, although the people of Europe thought otherwise. Host nation Azerbaijan and Romania also performed very well. Ireland's Jedward were - interesting - to say the least.
The countries I rated the least on the night were Albania, Turkey, Ukraine and, as mentioned before, Sweden. Another act which disappointed me was France. I usually have high hopes for the nation who have very much been in the news of late but I found their performance very bitter. In 2005, they narrowly lost out on hosting the 2012 Olympics to London so their choreography concentrated on athletes somersaulting in circles, almost representing the Games famous circles. Unless I'm looking too much into it but it sounds as if their message was "we should have won the right to host this year's Olympics".
Despite all this, I have to raise my hat to Russia who were supposedly a laughing stock, simply because the band, Buranovskiye Babushki (translated Buranovo Grannies) consisted of old ladies dancing around. In my eyes, they are an inspiration to overcome this sort of pressure and managed to capture the hearts of millions of the European public. After finishing second overall, they deserve a worthy mention.
But with Sweden and Russia finishing in the top two, followed by Serbia in third, does make people wonder of the voting techniques used by different countries. It has usually been criticised by some that the reason countries like the UK do not win is because they do not have neighbours to support them. In addition, some feel countries vote others for political reasons. The latter may not be so much the case this year because of the Euro financial crisis and the so-called farcical election this year in Russia, but the former is possibly the case. Eastern Europe usually gives "douze points" to other eastern European countries while there are similar cases in western Europe. I have noticed this trend and this year saw similar cases. This does ruin the spirit of Eurovision as I usually say to myself "Looks like Greece have given twelve points to Cyprus again", regardless of their neighbour's performance. I don't want to complain about this because UK has no neighbours and their closest nations to them, Ireland (who gave UK four points) and France (who gave UK nil points) failed to show so much support. Perhaps Britain could hope Scotland would become independent in 2014 so that they get some extra points the following year, but that is highly doubtful. It is a massive shame as Eurovision has been vital part of our calendars for the last over 50 years. I am hoping next year that people vote on good quality musical and choreographic performances rather than have a competition on "who has the most faithful neighbours in Europe this year?" I will continue to restore my faith in Eurovision however I do wish that the predictability would be less obvious so it will be less off-putting to those at home.
If frequent readers to this blog would remember, I critically rated each country in last year's Eurovision out of ten and then compared my ranking to the actual outcome. Needless to say, my predictions were not as accurate as hoped and Azerbaijan's victory left me "unimpressed", apparently. This trend continued as Sweden triumphed comfortably which left me disappointed. They were pre-competition favourites so it wasn't a surprise they were to do well, but I thought their performance was below par. It was something about it which I did not like. Graham Norton, who narrated for BBC One during Eurovision, said Loreen, the winning singer, reminded him of Kate Bush. That got my hopes high as I am quite a fan of the "Wuthering Heights" star but instead we were left watching someone who sounded and acted exactly like Bjork. I quite like the song, "It's oh so quiet" but other than that, the Icelandic is quite an annoying artist.
So overall, not happy with the winner but am quite happy Eurovision will be in Sweden for the fifth time. It's a glorious country both scenically and culturally and Swedish sources reveal capital Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo are in the running to host next year's event. I personally prefer Malmo to host. I went there last summer and the city is wonderful. However, I feel Gothenburg may host. In 2000, the last time Sweden hosted Eurovision after their victory in 1999, Stockholm staged while it was Malmo's turn in 1992 when they won it the third time. Gothenburg hosted it before Malmo in 1985.
From the top of the table to the bottom and again, the United Kingdom failed to shine after finishing 25th of 26th. Like every year, everyone has high hopes for Britain to win Eurovision for the first time since 1997 and this year, they provided us with legend himself Engelbert Humperdinck. I am a massive fan of his and I genuinely thought he had a good chance of finishing in the top ten. His "Love will set you free" was far better than last year's Blue but people of Europe do not really appreciate a fantastic mellow ballad. On the other hand, Eurovision is primarily about cheesy pop music where people prance around. Perhaps the UK take this competition too seriously and should approach next year light-hearted rather than ruin the reputations of brilliant singers like "The Hump". Nonetheless, the UK's entry was genuinely my favourite performance of the night and, even though he finished second last, he made me proud to be (half) British (again).
In all honesty, I was impressed by a lot of the competitors this year. It has been a delightful selection of various types of music. My notable favourites apart from the United Kingdom were Iceland and Denmark, in which were in my top three, although the people of Europe thought otherwise. Host nation Azerbaijan and Romania also performed very well. Ireland's Jedward were - interesting - to say the least.
The countries I rated the least on the night were Albania, Turkey, Ukraine and, as mentioned before, Sweden. Another act which disappointed me was France. I usually have high hopes for the nation who have very much been in the news of late but I found their performance very bitter. In 2005, they narrowly lost out on hosting the 2012 Olympics to London so their choreography concentrated on athletes somersaulting in circles, almost representing the Games famous circles. Unless I'm looking too much into it but it sounds as if their message was "we should have won the right to host this year's Olympics".
Despite all this, I have to raise my hat to Russia who were supposedly a laughing stock, simply because the band, Buranovskiye Babushki (translated Buranovo Grannies) consisted of old ladies dancing around. In my eyes, they are an inspiration to overcome this sort of pressure and managed to capture the hearts of millions of the European public. After finishing second overall, they deserve a worthy mention.
But with Sweden and Russia finishing in the top two, followed by Serbia in third, does make people wonder of the voting techniques used by different countries. It has usually been criticised by some that the reason countries like the UK do not win is because they do not have neighbours to support them. In addition, some feel countries vote others for political reasons. The latter may not be so much the case this year because of the Euro financial crisis and the so-called farcical election this year in Russia, but the former is possibly the case. Eastern Europe usually gives "douze points" to other eastern European countries while there are similar cases in western Europe. I have noticed this trend and this year saw similar cases. This does ruin the spirit of Eurovision as I usually say to myself "Looks like Greece have given twelve points to Cyprus again", regardless of their neighbour's performance. I don't want to complain about this because UK has no neighbours and their closest nations to them, Ireland (who gave UK four points) and France (who gave UK nil points) failed to show so much support. Perhaps Britain could hope Scotland would become independent in 2014 so that they get some extra points the following year, but that is highly doubtful. It is a massive shame as Eurovision has been vital part of our calendars for the last over 50 years. I am hoping next year that people vote on good quality musical and choreographic performances rather than have a competition on "who has the most faithful neighbours in Europe this year?" I will continue to restore my faith in Eurovision however I do wish that the predictability would be less obvious so it will be less off-putting to those at home.
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