Eurovision Song Contest 2008

2008-05-12 [Hedda]: Please comment as much as you want! You are also welcome to add some information or pictures on the song entry page, but I'm trying to keep them as short as possible because it's your comments that is the important thing.

2008-05-12 [Yncke]: I'm looking forward to it again. Normally, with the Belgian entry, there's the blissful certainty that it will not get beyond the preselections, but this time it's difficult to predict.

2008-05-12 [Hedda]: I don't think they will make it to the final, but I've heard someone loving it, so it will not get at the absolute bottom.

But what about all that singing in invented languages in Belgium? You have 3 languages spoken in the country, but apparently they aren't good enough...

2008-05-13 [Yncke]: Dunno. Three languages is actually two, the German speaking part never gets to chose someone to enter Eurosong (don't ask me why). And I think Urban Trad was the first time there was a Belgian entry, not a Walloon/Flemish turn at entering. And while Belgium usually has a season ticket for one of the last five places, Urban Trad got second. (Which is the best place, lots of media exposure and not having to organise the contest next year.) So I think people voting for Ishtar thought we could pull a second Urban Trad. (Yeah, right)

I think the main reason why it got chosen, though, was that the preselections contained two other rather strong entries that were alike as in being more main stream. Ishtar was the third dog running away with the bone.

2008-05-13 [Hedda]: But no other country uses invented languages and Belgium has done it like 3 times or so in the last years. It's just silly, in my not so humble opinion...

2008-05-13 [Hedda]: Mainstream stuff never win, by the way. Having 5 songs to select from is a very bad way to select a good song. Making a random selection from them is actually better.

The reason is that there are 24 songs in the ESC final, so it's very important to have a song that's different and it can win even though only 10% vote for it. But if there are 5 or 10 songs in a final, you'll get a song that most people like a little and it will be totally forgotten in the big ESC final.

Unfortunately no countries seem to understand this simple math, except maybe those who select an artist on a gut-feeling.

2008-05-13 [Yncke]: 3 times? I remember Urban Trad. Are you sure the rest wasn't just terrible accent? ;)

It sometimes does. That's the fun of Eurosong, there are no certainties.

In that perspective, Ishtar does make a chance if it gets past the preselections. :)

The problem is that it's not even not understanding simple math, since the selection here is done by *shudder* televoting.

2008-05-13 [Hedda]: It's nothing wrong with televoting, but the viewers should have 20-24 songs to select from. In Sweden they have a system with semifinals and God knows what in a huge system that guaranties that Sweden will send a great artist that sings a good, but awfully mainstream, song. It's so boring! It's turning the contest in Sweden into a pop-music club for internal admiring as no one else thinks it's fun. 

In the ESC final it's quite different with almost all kinds of styles. We haven't seen any industrial synth as far as I know, but Tatu did some rave, we've seen blues, jazz, folk music, way too much rock, pop, disco and ballads, and some hard rock and metal.

2008-05-14 [Yncke]: Well, the alternative is the long Belgian tradition of assembling lots of people who can move a little bit to compensate for the fact that they can't sing but hope that somehow, getting a selection for Eurosong will launch them for a brilliant career, putting them one after another on a podium for several Sundays, and expecting the public to select the least embarrassing one. ;) (Although this year was an exception.)

I disagree. Yes, last year was incredibly diverse in genres (I thought it was a rather good year), and it was a terribly cliché and incredibly boring song that won. (Granted, appealing to the holebi communities will have helped getting votes too.) And the year before most was quite mainstream, and it was the non-Eurosong song that won.
If there's only one ballad in the contest, it will end up high, regardless of how lousy it is, because there's lots of people voting on the song contest who like ballads. A song just has to make sure there's no too similar song so that the votes get divided between them. Genre and to some lesser extent even quality are irrelevant.
In that view, televoting doesn't work if you want to select a winning song for Eurosong. What should happen is that someone who really knows Eurosong looks at what the other countries are sending, and selects the song that fills an promising gap.

2008-05-14 [Hedda]: What should happen is that someone who really knows Eurosong looks at what the other countries are sending, and selects the song that fills an promising gap.

Well, yes. But it's almost impossible to find such a song that's good enough.