Eurovision FINAL

Well firstly thankyou to Wikipedia for updating the scores so quickly so I could do a full post here, I am truly grateful.

Well anyway before I go onto rant about how the Final has been I have to say the winner wasn't shocking to me, it was a good song which was the favourite to win because of many different reasons. What did shock me was the scores by some other finalists.
Before I get onto the scores of the final I'll talk about what I thought - I'll hold myself together so I won't get too angry when I realise some of the scoring!
Well to people who have read my blog before you probably have got a gist of which performance was my favourite and this night was no different but it was very close. And the winner is.... Iceland!!!! Iceland just had the right amount of good vocals, a dazzling stage and a good beat, though it didn't top anything individually - e.g. performance, song, vocals etc. It amounted the best score for everything overall. Now 2nd was slightly biased but she still did well. If you haven't guessed by now from the clues I have given it was Armenia. Though her vocals weren't as good as some people she had improved tremendously in my opinion in 2 days! I just love the song and if the singer was better I think it would have topped this chart. Coming close third and actually it shocked me a bit was....
Turkey! I thought Turkey had a very good performance and its a song that the more you hear it the more you like it. It was a great performance and it really nearly took 2nd place.
4th is... Sweden (trying to hold my shock for later) she has great vocals and I rank them 2nd in the competition. The song was Ok but the vocals just dazed me. If she didn't appear like a gargoyle at the start and had a better intro I would have placed her second.
and 5th was Norway. Norway did well and it was slightly unexpected for me to place them 5th but in the end she did nothing wrong, her vocals were great, the song was very good and overall it was a great performance. I was actually getting myself quite excited because this year was a good contest with a lot of songs that did well. Rounding off my Top 10 were... Portugal - the song was average and slightly boring in my opinion but my god were her vocals fantastic!
Romania performed better than the Semis and finally the great male vocalist came back and definitely one of the best vocalists though the female did worse in my opinion.
Ukraine had a great performance and that was basically why it placed in the top 10, the vocals were good.
Russia was 9th in my opinion though it may be slightly biased, however I thought his accent was less annoying and I think he performed the song better so he placed 9th.
and finishing at 10th was Greece. I thought her singing was not as good this time around but her performance was definitely ... eye catching to say the least!

So beside the fact that Switzerland missed out on the Semis, countries that broke the top 10 were Romania and Russia. Both for the fact they performed better in the final than in the SF.
So Albania was the girl that dropped out of the Top 10 and here is the reason why (they placed 12th in the final for me) her vocals weren't good enough to lift the song up in the end I felt she was slightly flat.
Special mentioning on my rankings list is Serbia the best of the Top 5 - which I had guessed, placing a good 11th. Israel jumped the rankings and did well on my list placing in the top 15. The UK (does nobody love us) placed 15th for me. Denmark actually dropped in my opinion - I got bored, they placed 17th. After that there was a gap in scores! At the top of my bottom 8 was Georgia and Croatia.
and now the illucrative and infamous bottom three (can you guess)...
at 3rd is.... Bosnia and Herzegovina (yeah someone was below them! not one but two!)
at 2nd is... Spain (and I thought they were heading for bottom spot definitely!)
and who beat out my original bottom two to take the worst score of the evening!
Have a guess it's between Azerbaijan and France!
It's France! Now here is the reason, basically everything was wierd or bad. The beards, the singing, I barely heard him, the awkwardness overall which led them to drop below anything imaginable!

Anyway now comparing that with my scores. I think I did ok this year compared to previous years as all the top 5 tonight were in my top 10. It's shocking though that some countries scored that highly and what happened to the UK. Anyway let me analyse!
Russia scored amazingly with 272 which was unexpected for me because I didn't think they will be that far away from No.2, but it was quite entertaining at the start when Turkey, Greece and Russia were fighting for the top spot.
Things I have picked up upon before I go on about the score is... Sweden did worse than last year! Ukraine scored another 2nd so would they take No.1 next time - they're doing well in these recent years! Finally Andy scored lower than Scooch! Is Scooch the way to go for us!
Anyway Russia won and we all thought Greece was going to take 2nd but a late surge from Ukraine saw them take 2nd by 12 points. Anyway Armenia was my most successful top 5 song placing a good 4th and at one point it looked like they had a chance to reach 2nd. The one performance that matches totally with my tally is Norway at 5th - they actually did better than I expected! Serbia came 6th and sadly the good start from Turkey failed to get them in the top 5 and only reached 7th. But then the destruction begins. Azerbaijan placed 8th which was no t what I was hoping for. Israel did better than I expected and placed 9th. Bosnia comes 10th! I was so annoyed about that! But I had guessed Europe liked it! Latvia and Georgia also scored quite well but Portugal didn't score as highly as I thought! I really did think that they were in the top 10, though Portugal hasn't had great scores recently so this is a good showing for them. Iceland sadly scored 64 which was a dissapointment. Then Spain scored 55 - well I guess they always get about 50 points. The shock of the night was Sweden placing 18th! I actually thought she was a favourite! Wasn't she! Well the British bookies seemed to think so. I was shocked that she placed so low considering that her song wasn't bad and she had won it before. Romania also did poorly on the voting and placed 20th. If you look at the bottom few they actually performed mostly in the first half of the show, I think that besides from block voting is the reason why they placed so low because they were forgotten. Also I think the reason why UK, Poland and Germany were bottom besides reasons I have stated above were because they were only ok, they were forgettable and therefore people didn't vote for them.
Well I've just seen the Semis scoring and I just wanted to mention it here.
San Marino placed but on the First Semi with 5 points and therefore the lowest of the whole year. Horrendously Ireland got the same score as Andorra! How could they do that to Andorra. Slovenia was the 11th placed country. Greece actually came first by a good margin here and Russia only came third! Poland came 10th sadly (think they got through from the juries vote) and was quite far away from 9th Bosnia. In the second Semis Ukraine placed 1st which was expected but it was Denmark and Croatia to place 2nd - definitely unexpected. Turkey only placed 7th here whilst they placed the same in the final! But what shocked me the most was that Sweden originally wouldn't have got through as 10th was Macedonia but they were the juries vote so got through that way! Switzerland also only came 13th! Beaten by Macedonia and Bulgaria. So Estonia, San Marino, Czech Republic and Hungary! Were bottom 4. I was so shocked when Hungary took bottom in this semi, they were actually quite good.

Eurovision - Semifinal 2

Ok I was quite happy with tonight and I actually thought most performances were good and this was definitely a better semifinal than the previous one. Ok my favourites of the night generally went though however I was sad to see Switzerland lose out - personally I thought the singer wasn't as good as I hoped but I loved the song anyway! Maybe I'm being biased but I think he deserved another chance. Then Hungary who also didn't go through and was in my top 10. I felt her song was touching though It did lack something unexplainable - maybe it was the accent. My last Top 10 was Malta - Ok hear me out, I just thought she had a great voice and though her song was not so I felt that her voice was enough to push her in! She should have also sung Armenia's song Qele Qele if she did that performance will probably be my favourite. The three who were outside my Top 10 and went in were Croatia - the singer was actually better than I thought but the old guy and the ending were bad, Georgia - I just didn't connect with her! and finally Latvia - though I have to say I liked it more than before but I felt the competition was stronger than them.
Anyhow I felt that this was a strong semifinal and I'm generally happy with all the finalists from this semifinal but I just hope Croatia lose the ending and old guy, Gerogia do something with her performance and Latvia to just get more energetic.
So have you guessed my Top 5 performances! Ok they were...
Iceland... just the right mix of vocals and music
Sweden... I loved her voice but her song wasn't as good as her voice
Portugal... Yet again I loved her voice but her song wasn't up to standard with her voice
Switzerland... Totally opposite, love the song but average voice
Turkey... You always need a change and there performance was good.
Ukraine and Albania also scored highly with me Ukraine for the performance and Albania for the song.
Anyway this final is going to be a good one in my opinion, I've checked the bookies favourites and the 4 seem to be Russia, Armenia, Sweden and Ukraine. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me. Anyway it's sad that Switzerland wasn't as good as I hoped they were quite similar to Romania in my eyes, however the top 10 from the two semifinals seem to be...
Iceland, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Albania, Armenia, Norway, Greece
I know 7 are from the second semifinal! I'm also looking to see Poland, Romania, Israel, Russia and Denmark to see if they can break the top 10. Of course there are still the 5 finalists already and Serbia seem quite good, I'll reserve judgement for the others until I have heard the live performance whilst Spain can't do anything to get in my good books, they look horrendous to me.
It's wierd how each semifinal I have picked 7 of the finalists! Anyway I am not looking forward to hearing another Azerbaijan or the dreadful Bosnia. Finland is just a fill in for me. We'll see who tops my chart on Saturday but from the two semifinals my favourite was Iceland! ... and to crown the worst... Bosnia and Herzegovina! Just to say he looks drunk!
If only Netherlands, Andorra, Switzerland,Hungary and Malta were in the final - then the final will probably be the best it has ever been! Sorry to drag on but I really want Dima Bilan to do well but his accent just gets on my nerves, please sing in Russian instead!

Eurovision 2008

Well I decided as I haven't posted in a while my first come back post will be the contest we all love to hate - Eurovision. With me it's not so much of a listen for great songs and performances, I just love competitions between countries! This year is not an awful year and the UK have an OK song, but like always their is a slew of bad or wierd performances for us to criticize all we like! Anyway after watching the first semi final I was feeling slightly different with some acts. I made myself go through the whole 43 line up a few days ago and picked out some of my favourites however of course these aren't important as some of the performances were in bad quality and I've always said anyone could sound good in a pre recording.

My favourite performance was.... can you guess! It was Norway, yep it was the closest to performances I would normally listen to, I felt her vocals were good and I loved the chorus. Though there were bad things which I could pick holes in I won't.

My second was Armenia, the performance was off but I like the song (I think I'm guilty of giving this song a higher mark because I liked it before the competition). Anyway supposedly she is a favourite so who knows!

Then there was Greece for me I think it was an actual performance it felt like a performance to me. Poland, Andorra, Netherlands and Romania came next for me. I was really dissapointed that Netherlands didn't get through as I thought she was one of the best vocalists of the night, whilst Poland was OK and Andorra I'd previously liked the MV of it. Whilst I really liked the male vocalist of Romania beforehand but this performance lacked a bit so they dropped a few.

Rounding off my top 10 were Montenegro - though forgetful he was OK, Israel - he has good vocals and Russia - I think I just liked the song because his accent was the most annoying thing in the world! And San Marino was a possible alternative (for me).

...and to announce the performance that I thought was the worst - and trust me their were a lot and it was Bosnia and Herzegovina -12 points from me! Ok here me out I just thought it was utterly wierd, everything I couldn't pick out anything good in the song - it was boring, wierd, bad vocals, awful song and there are much more for me to say! That's why when they got through I was thinking of sending a complaint!!!!!!!!!!! Others who fought for the infamous title of worst performance of the night were Estonia (I was really considering putting them last), Ireland, Finland, Belgium and Azerbaijan. Ok lets here the round out. Estonia were awful but at least they had some decency to stay away from what Bosnia did, the only thing which may have caught people's attention were the dancing women! Anyway Ireland Ok you may say why there not bottom but in the end I felt at that the beat of the song wasn't all that bad and if you skip the turkey their is only a bad song not an awful one like Bosnia. Then Finland who I felt had too rough a vocal. Belgium was just annoying in my opinion it wasn't as bad on the video but on TV it was like watching a car crash. Then we have Azerbaijan and that cringing voice which put my hairs on end!

And as you have guessed Slovenia and Moldova come in my in between! Anyway I am so dissapointed Netherland didn't get through because she was a good contender and Andorra I thought was a favourite from hearing the commentary, but best of luck to Norway for the final, Greece you keep your moves and Armenia you work on your vocals!

Ok though I'm not going to say who I like most in the second semi final I'll tell you who I want to here and who not as much!

I remember liking Iceland, Albania, Portugal, Macedonia, Denmark etc.

My favourite was Switzerland whilst hot favourites Ukraine and Sweden are also on my liking

side.

I don't remember much of these performances but when I heard them they took the lowest ranks these being Latvia, Bulgaris, Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania - you never know one of these may come and shut my mouth but I doubt it as checking my 10 in the first semi final they were all the same!