General / Off-Topic How to win Eurovision

[Alien]

1. Be from a Scandinavian country like Sweden, Denmark or Norway. Or be from a neighbouring country of one of them.

2. Don't be a country that went and invaded another country, why doesn't matter, just don't invade another country. It's a blackball for life.

3. The song must be a medium paced power ballad.

4. Try to get the sympathy vote. For example: Transsexual in an Islamic country, drag artist with a beard or your country is in severe financial difficulties.

5. Wind machines, violinist on roller skates or a guy in hamster wheel, all help your performance.

6. Talking of your performance, don't worry about singing ability, the song will be pre-recorded *cough*autotune*cough* and you'll be miming it.

7. If your country funds Eurovision, forget it, you're screwed.

8. If you're Switzerland, you're not getting past the semi-final stage no matter how good your song is (see Switzerland's 2013 entry for an example)

9. Winning it the most times out of anyone and inventing Riverdance won't guarantee you entry each year.

10. If all else fails, just be the absolute weirdest thing anyone has ever seen. See Finland's 2006 entry for an example.

 

[Zieman]

How to get into the final with totally crap song:
Be a former soviet republic.

 

[Hexen]

Sweet... but no thanks.

Spoiler

 

[Surfinjo]

Another equally useful thread might be,

How to Enjoy Eurovision.

1, Fire up your copy of Elite Dangerous for the first time in ages. Then later you can say, 'Oh it was that night I fired up Elite Dangerous again. OK, so it's boring, but on the off chance that Eurovision ever produces another Abba, I can always catch the repeats. (Thousands of them). But selling a ship load of gold for 1.5k profit, you don't see times that that very often!

 

[Alien]

1. Be from a Scandinavian country like Sweden, Denmark or Norway. Or be from a neighbouring country of one of them.

2. Don't be a country that went and invaded another country, why doesn't matter, just don't invade another country. It's a blackball for life.

3. The song must be a medium paced power ballad.

5. Wind machines, violinist on roller skates or a guy in hamster wheel, all help your performance.

OK, so how did my "How to win" stand up this year?

1. The winner was from Sweden ... so check

2. Sweden hasn't (as far as I know) invaded another country ... check

3. It's a medium to fast paced song, but not a power ballad. When I came up with this point, I had considered saying make it a self-redemption song ... which this kind of is ... so maybe I'll re-write this point

5. The on stage projections were amazing ... like I said, they help the performance ... check

so, three out of ten.

Anyway, congrats Sweden, I actually like this song.

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My revised list is ...

1. Be from a Scandinavian country like Sweden, Denmark or Norway. Or be from a neighbouring country of one of them.

2. Don't be a country that went and invaded another country, why doesn't matter, just don't invade another country. It's a blackball for life.

3. The song should be a medium paced power ballad or a medium to fast paced catchy song. Make it about self redemption or being positive about one's self.

4. Try to get the sympathy vote. For example: Transsexual in an Islamic country, drag artist with a beard or your country is in severe financial difficulties.

5. Wind machines, violinist on roller skates or a guy in hamster wheel, all help your performance.

6. A couple of months before the competition, get your song played across Europe so people know it when it comes to the final.

7. If your country funds Eurovision, forget it, you're screwed.

8. If you're Switzerland, you're not getting past the semi-final stage no matter how good your song is (see Switzerland's 2013 entry for an example)

9. Winning it the most times out of anyone and inventing Riverdance won't guarantee you entry each year.

10. If all else fails, just be the absolute weirdest thing anyone has ever seen. See Finland's 2006 entry for an example.

 

[Trinity Star]

Why exactly does the UK continue to fund this?

 

[adoredtv]

Because of the best ever Eurovison song of course!

[video=youtube;X8oTtSTRdSw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8oTtSTRdSw[/video]

 

[Tinman]

I'm a music teacher from Sweden and all I can say about this is that I am sooooooooooo glad that I didn't even know the final was today. That's how little I care about the "contest"...

 

[The Kerbinator]

10. If all else fails, just be the absolute weirdest thing anyone has ever seen. See Finland's 2006 entry for an example.

Finland's winning entry in 2006 is the greatest moment in the history of Eurovision. They should have ended it there, it can never be topped.

 

[Alien]

Finland's winning entry in 2006 is the greatest moment in the history of Eurovision. They should have ended it there, it can never be topped.

I'm not so sure of that, I think this year's winner from Sweden is one of the best Eurovision performances I've ever seen (and I've been watching it for a long time now). Let's compare the two ...

Spoiler

[video=youtube;gAh9NRGNhUU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAh9NRGNhUU[/video]

[video=youtube;-msutN_OkU4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-msutN_OkU4[/video]

Sorry, but if we'd ended the whole competition in 2006, we'd not have this year's performance.

 

[Simon719]

Because we are STUPID, should have pulled out of this years ago and spent our money on something far more needing of it
we put Millions into this rubbish, we must be mad, or stupid, like I said...

Sorry for any lovers of it (if there are any?) but I hate the damn thing and have done since I was old enough to understand the political voting of other countries.

Not heard our song, don't listen to the radio, so can't comment on how bad/good it was?

 

[Bruce Warren]

Meh. There was me thinking we had long memories. Seems I was wrong.

The best ever Eurovision song was indeed from Sweden, but it was "Waterloo" by ABBA in 1974.

 

[Alien]

Meh. There was me thinking we had long memories. Seems I was wrong.

The best ever Eurovision song was indeed from Sweden, but it was "Waterloo" by ABBA in 1974.

Let's compare Sweden in 1974 to Sweden today ...

Spoiler

[video=youtube;3FsVeMz1F5c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsVeMz1F5c[/video]

[video=youtube;-msutN_OkU4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-msutN_OkU4[/video]

 

[xondk]

Wait, there was eurovision? still seems like a waste of money especially for the company holding it, kinda like fifa, the company holding it rarely gets anything out of it other then "Eurovision [year] [countryname)" t-shirts maybe?

 

[FuzzySpider]

Not heard our song, don't listen to the radio, so can't comment on how bad/good it was?

Are you from Britain? If so our song was extremely typical of how it has been for years now. "Safe", bland, typical, generic easily listening afternoon radio fodder that nobody will remember even a year or two from now.

I love Eurovision though. Come on folks it's not that bad. Ok, so 95% of the songs are trully horrific. But you get the occasional fun song and you get the rare gem. If you're a music fiend like myself finding a gem can be well worth an evening spent listening to cowpat in audio form.

Two years ago Norway entered this, which was pretty awesome. She should have won that year.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;tc6a4EV63uM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc6a4EV63uM[/video]

That said, I do hate some parts of it. The political voting is irritating, but even more infuriating is the panel of 5 "experts" each country apparently have who make up half of any votes for a song. It was these snooty individuals who, as a group across all nations, pushed Polands fun but quirky song out last year because it was teensy bit on the burlesque side.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;VJ920cN2HmA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ920cN2HmA[/video]

Ok, it wasn't particularly good, but it was better than a lot of the other crap that was on off from a music point of view. Keeping it down due to prudishness isn't what a music jury should have done.

I apologize to any Austrians here but I am glad they got Nul Points last night. Last year they stole this totally, the winner got picked because of who she was not because of any songs she sang.

 

[linx333]

For most of the countries, Eurovision is just like the Olympics or the United Nations. You have to be part of it in order to show people you exist.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well, for once i wasn't totally embarrased by the UK entry, so that was a positive note. But it still managed to pull in little (5?) points.

I really hate most of the solo male/fermale singers, so generic, so bland.

The biggest dissapointment for me though was Romaina, who produced a song which got me in the feelies, even though i couldn't understand a word. Really thought they should have been a contender.

Me and the missus were convinced Italy would win though. Didn't like Russia much (see my previous point about solo male/female artists - but my wife being Russian liked it). Surprised it did so well considering the usual accusations of politcal voting. The fact they did so well either says something about the performance (which i must have overlooked) or that political voting took a back seat regarding Russia (or people don't pay much attention to the press these days).

Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed it, always do, for both the good and bad performances.

 

[Frank]

I with Surfinjo on this one, but I think we missed out on a good forum thread opportunity here. Next year we should gamble on who's going to win. The player(s) who picked the lowest scores have to transfer a can of gold to the winner.

A bunch of illegal gamblers meet in a backwater system to make a trade... What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Alien]

Are you from Britain? If so our song was extremely typical of how it has been for years now. "Safe", bland, typical, generic easily listening afternoon radio fodder that nobody will remember even a year or two from now.

I love Eurovision though. Come on folks it's not that bad. Ok, so 95% of the songs are trully horrific. But you get the occasional fun song and you get the rare gem. If you're a music fiend like myself finding a gem can be well worth an evening spent listening to cowpat in audio form.

Two years ago Norway entered this, which was pretty awesome. She should have won that year.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc6a4EV63uM

That said, I do hate some parts of it. The political voting is irritating, but even more infuriating is the panel of 5 "experts" each country apparently have who make up half of any votes for a song. It was these snooty individuals who, as a group across all nations, pushed Polands fun but quirky song out last year because it was teensy bit on the burlesque side.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ920cN2HmA

Ok, it wasn't particularly good, but it was better than a lot of the other crap that was on off from a music point of view. Keeping it down due to prudishness isn't what a music jury should have done.

I apologize to any Austrians here but I am glad they got Nul Points last night. Last year they stole this totally, the winner got picked because of who she was not because of any songs she sang.

4. Try to get the sympathy vote. For example: Transsexual in an Islamic country, drag artist with a beard or your country is in severe financial difficulties.

Conchita won because every country basically went "Oh, drag artist with a beard? Hmmm We'd best give that act decent points, wouldn't want anyone to think we're against people like that." Don't misunderstand me here, I am post op transexual, so I have no problem with a drag artist being in the competition (not too keen on the beard, tbh)* but Conchita did get the sympathy vote.

I agree with you about the jury voting, I don't agree that 5 people have 50% of the vote. It should be 100% public voting.

*= Interesting fact about drag artists, it's traditional for them to literally undress at the end of their act to reveal they are really a man. Conchita didn't do this last year

 

[Surfinjo]

I'm a music teacher from Sweden and all I can say about this is that I am sooooooooooo glad that I didn't even know the final was today. That's how little I care about the "contest"...

I really miss Abba too.

Loving Wallender though.