European songbirds

Today I would like to start the post with a confession: for years now Karen and I have been rabid fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual events where representative of many (normally 26) European countries compete to get the coveted award. This year's edition took place a few days ago and it was the 65th edition, so one can say without any doubt that it has had a long trajectory. At home, the following has had ups and downs, particularly because some years we had unmovable agenda conflicts on the designated Saturday evening, but this year we were free so we had a chance to enjoy it in all its glory.

The winner of the previous edition (in 2019, last year's was dropped because of the pandemic) was the Dutch representative Duncan Laurence, so this time the event took place in the Netherlands, where they configured a the Rotterdam convention center to accommodate the stage, the green room, the public (all COVID-tested) and the international commentators. As usual, it was a show to behold, full of music, great choreography, amazing visual effects and a lot of excitement.

Photo: Ian Nichol

Traditionally, the prize was awarded by the national juries, who voted on site and reported the point allotment one by one, but in the meantime the scoring has migrated to a hybrid system where a country awards to sets of points (12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1): one is awarded by the national jury and the other by the viewers in that country though tele-voting. In either case, they are not allowed to vote to their own representative (essentially everyone would give themselves the 12 points and it would make no difference).

Although we love the show, we are not so invested as to follow the singers beforehand or even to watch the semifinals (running a couple of days earlier), so we get to have a fresh impression of each of the songs on that night. Most of the songs are completely new to us and we only have limited insights as to what the favorites might be, so we have a fairly unbiased judgement.

Every years there is certain amount of discussion about cultural similarities and the influence they might have on the score, such as how the Baltic republics tend to vote for one another, as do the Scandinavians (including Denmark and Iceland), or the Benelux countries. Still in recent years Portugal (with just one neighbor) and Israel (yes, somehow it is part of the European Broadcasting Union) have won the awards, so neighborhood is not enough to win the contest. Germany, on the contrary, even if it has a lot of neighbors has had a dry spell in the last few years. With the exception of 2018, where they scored 4th position with 340 points the previous time where they got above 40 points was back in 2012.

One remarkable aspect of the contest is the huge disagreements that frequently take place between the juries and the public.The structure of the show is such that all the countries provide the points in sequence through very brief remote connections and that provides a interim winner. But then the total points awarded by the viewers are revealed and it is not infrequent that the results is completely changed.

The favorite of the juries this year was, with 267 points, the Swiss representative Gjon's Tears, which I profoundly disliked by the affectation of the song, the dull choreography and the bland performance throughout. Barbara Pravi, from France, was second by the jury vote with 248 points. But when the votes of the public came in, the Swiss got only 165 points compared with the 251 that the French got. Still, the public crowned the Italians Måneskin with 318 points on top of the 206 from the juries. The imbalance in this case decided the competition, but there were many other cases with ever more outrageous disagreements between the public and the juries. Malta got respectively 47 and 208, Bulgaria 30 and 140, and Portugal 27 and 126. On the flip side Ukraine got 267 and 97, Finland 218 and 83 and Lithuania 165 and 55. Obviously the taste of the public is different from that of the juries, but that is probably part of the hybrid voting method.

There must be a hint of masochism in seeing a poor song getting voted over and over, or a great song getting zero points repeatedly, but in the end it is just an excuse to enjoy the music, have fun with friends and go to bed late. This year Trevor bailed out soon, but Jason stayed glued to the TV until the end and shared on our relief that the (medium) hard rock band got the trophy. Let us see what happens next year. Have a nice week.