Eurovision 2021! Who are you rooting for?

[JSmith]

The festival is been hijacked by gays.

News flash... gay people are just that, people. Do you have a like a list or something of the sexuality of each contestant?

If you are implying in the past gay people were not represented, firstly that's probably wrong and secondly clearly now the contest better represents reality. My impression is you probably meant no offence, however it's come across as a bit off... and I'm not even gay.

Can't stand Eurovision much myself from a music perspective.



JSmith

 

[Semla]

Can't stand Eurovision much myself from a music perspective.

That's how I used to think. Then Finland sent this bunch in 2006:

 

[Burning Sounds]

I'm surprised the UK still part-finances it apparently, so we're guaranteed a place whether our 'song' is good or not (usually awful and one or two years we basically took the p** out of it with our entries!). It's been political for so long but does seem to have changed in more recent years whenever we've tuned in to watch some of it. We've not been liked much in the Eurozone for a long time and after Brexit, I dare say we're due another drubbing this year, so expect a 'null point' result as the EU entries try to bolster each other up

I don't think I've watched it since Sandie Shaw took part - unfortunately I think the entire thing is worthy of "nul points" these days.

 

[diddley]

News flash... gay people are just that, people. Do you have a like a list or something of the sexuality of each contestant?

If you are implying in the past gay people were not represented, firstly that's probably wrong and secondly clearly now the contest better represents reality. My impression is you probably meant no offence, however it's come across as a bit off... and I'm not even gay.

Can't stand Eurovision much myself from a music perspective.



JSmith

O on the contrary i got nothing against gays, but a festival that is so one sided, it's just not very musical that's all.
And on the dutch tv it's been apart from the gay pride one big manifastiation of gays, and that get tiredsome.
And again i didn't ment to offence.

 

[Katji]

I don't think I've watched it since Sandie Shaw took part - unfortunately I think the entire thing is worthy of "nul points" these days.

hahhahhah What I heard on the radio when I was a kid is deeply embedded. Long before we had tv though. ...That's why I like Youtube.

Google, interesting. It brings up Dusty Springfield and Helen Shapiro too, on the side. ...I think I'll go to Youtube and do some listening back now.

 

[Katji]

Why would you? you guys joined like 3 or 4 years ago. there is a big historical and sentimental value in Eurovision since it was concieved to bring European nations together after WW2. no politics and no cultural divide just music.

LOL Did they? The British colony.

 

[norcalscott]

As an American, I follow this mainly with curiosity and I don't recognize most of the participants - however, I've always been a big Hooverphonic fan, and seeing Geike Arnaert return to their lineup for this is great.

 

[q3cpma]

Can I root for the hypothetical and improbable meteorite that would crash onto it?

 

[Djsedaw]

I'm rooting for it to end!

 

[Katji]

I used to absolutely love Eurovision when I was growing up in Europe in a country that does not exist anymore - Yugoslavia. It was a classy competition until the 90s with pretty good pop tunes and it helped launch and reboot many artists' careers.

It has unfortunately become a parody of itself with cheap and trashy tunes and plasticky oversexualized starlets. Kind of like pop music in general. There are exceptions, of course. The crazy block-voting does not help. In the past, each country had an expert panel of artists and composers that cast their votes. None of this fake democracy viewers voting stuff. It was considered shameful for neighbouring countries to give each other maximum points whereas this is the norm now.

I still pay attention to it, but the magic is gone.

I wish it still did. A sad failure. I read quite a lot of the history, mostly of 1990s but also some of the background, last 100-150 years or so. Mostly academic papers from academia.edu ...because of a friend in Lubljana, she used to talk about it often.
Are you still there?

Eurovision...yes.
I watched a few seconds of the Moldova one posted, because Moldova is interesting, but it is all the same.

 

[bboris77]

I wish it still did. A sad failure. I read quite a lot of the history, mostly of 1990s but also some of the background, last 100-150 years or so. Mostly academic papers from academia.edu ...because of a friend in Lubljana, she used to talk about it often.
Are you still there?

Eurovision...yes.
I watched a few seconds of the Moldova one posted, because Moldova is interesting, but it is all the same.

Yugoslavia was a fascinating experiment that lasted 40+ years before it imploded with a lot of help from the outside. It was a socialist society with limited private ownership. The standard of living was good, not great, and education and healthcare were free. The most positive aspect of it was the insistence on equality between all the nationalities, ethnicities, religions and races. Since 1945, the government actively encouraged and promoted the idea of mixed marriages as a solution to seemingly never-ending wars between different groups.

I am literally a product on one such marriage - Serb/Croat (Orthodox/Catholic). Given another 20 years, Yugoslavia would have arguably reached a certain critical mass of intermixed population (plus all the people who saw the atrocities of WW2 would have been gone) which would have arguably precluded the possibility of future religious/ethnic wars. So close and yet so far.

The country was divided in the 1990s after a horrific war and plunged back a 100 years in many ways. Ethnicity and religion rather than economy, culture and pursuit of any kind of excellence became the most important things overnight. Corruption and nepotism are prevalent in all the new countries. That is why I have not been back there since 1995.

At least, most of them are still good at sports

 

[JSmith]

That's how I used to think.

Yeah sorry I didn't mean there is nothing good in the songs or music at all, just that the majority can come across as a bit cheesy.

i got nothing against gays

I know... have you considered though why it's even a concern for you, why it needed to be mentioned at all and whether it could simply be based in fear? I guess it could be good to keep in mind all types of people frequent ASR.

And again i didn't ment to offence.

I can see that from your conversion from Nederlands naar Engels, but it is to some... I won't go into this further though now as it's off topic and irrelevant to the Eurovision discussion.



JSmith

 

[diddley]

 

[SMc]

It’s Italy.

 

[bboris77]

It’s Italy.

I’m glad they won because they sang in their own language and can play their own instruments. They were not actually playing live - only the singing was live, but that’s the limitation of Eurovision. The Swiss, the French and the Ukrainians also sang in they own languages and placed in the top 5.

I love English and I’m all for the practicality of having one universal language but if you’re gonna have an international song competition, you may as well sing in your own language. It is extremely difficult to express emotion in a language that you’re not very proficient in. I think the public responded to that tonight.

P.S. The UK has had another memorable failure of epic proportions - 0 jury and 0 public’s points. At least they are self-deprecating enough to take it in stride and see the funny side of it.

 

[abdo123]

I’m glad they won because they sang in their own language and can play their own instruments. They were not actually playing live - only the singing was live, but that’s the limitation of Eurovision. The Swiss, the French and the Ukrainians also sang in they own languages and placed in the top 5.

I love English and I’m all for the practicality of having one universal language but if you’re gonna have an international song competition, you may as well sing in your own language. It is extremely difficult to express emotion in a language that you’re not very proficient in. I think the public responded to that tonight.

P.S. UK has had another memorable failure of epic proportions - 0 jury and 0 public’s points. At least they are self-deprecating enough to take it in stride and see the funny side of it.

The Italian song was arguably the best mixed and the most dynamic in this entire competition.

It's nice to see such trends as well.

 

[restorer-john]

I know... have you considered though why it's even a concern for you, why it needed to be mentioned at all and whether it could simply be based in fear? I guess it could be good to keep in mind all types of people frequent ASR.

Seriously, @diddley was stating the bleedin' obvious, since exactly when is that a crime against wokeness? Eurovision has become a vehicle for raving LGBTQI people to have (yet another) onscreen festival of colour, makeup, glitter and ridiculous outfits, all supposedly in the name of music? Nah, not even close. There's enough "pride" festivals. If acceptance and tolerance is what is needed/wanted, why draw so much attention constantly by trying to be overtly different to the point of total ridicule?

I just don't get it. I lived at one point in an area where I swear the LGBTQI crowd outnumbered the others by 3:1, and it was fine. Some great people. Sure, the odd guy dressed up as a girl, and a bunch of noisy lesbians that seemed perpetually angry a few doors down, but on the whole (no pun intended), it was an eye-opener for me. Very little crime and lots of affluence (many double income no kids households).

4 years in an inner city enclave and although I was glad to leave, there are plenty of things I missed about the entire area and scene. I wasn't going to bring up my son in a converted hipster warehouse apartment with 35ft ceilings and latte bars on every corner- he needed a ton of land, bush, and places to go fishing, ride his bike, build treehouses and play in the creek.

I asked him (13yo now) if he wanted to check out Eurovision 2021 songs on the internet just now. He gave it a few minutes and declared it "terrible" and "sad".

 

[SMc]

Music and theater have pretty much always been the province of "colour, makeup, glitter and ridiculous outfits" and transgressive behavior. I guarantee a Eurovision performed like an orchestral audition behind screens on a bare stage without audience interaction wouldn't get nearly the ratings.

 

[LTig]

I haven't seen any Eurovision contest for at least the last 20 years, but even before I'd say that any singer who passed the first blind audition of any The Voice of ... contest was better then any Eurovision entry. May be it's not my style of music ...

 

[restorer-john]

Music and theater have pretty much always been the province of "colour, makeup, glitter and ridiculous outfits" and transgressive behavior. I guarantee a Eurovision performed like an orchestral audition behind screens on a bare stage without audience interaction wouldn't get nearly the ratings.

Good point. Probably why I'm not a musical theatre kind of guy. I'd rather eat my own head than sit through some of the "gala events" people pay good money to attend.