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Eric /kiss groffiswin
10:00 pm - 02/19/2012

EUROVISION ROUND-UP: The national finalists so far!


Darin's new single welcomes you in this long post

1st Semi-Final

1st Half

Albania: Rona Nishliu – Suus


Iceland: Greta Salóme & Jónsi – Mundu eftir mér


Latvia: Anmary – Beautiful Song


Switzerland: Sinplus – Unbreakable


2nd Half

Cyprus: Ivi Adamou – La, La, Love (this one qt and catchy, although idk if she can pull it off live)


Denmark: Soluna Samay – Should’ve known better


Hungary: Compact Disco - Sound Of Our Hearts


2nd Semi-Final

1st Half

Belarus: Alyona Lanskaya – All my life


Malta: Kurt Calleja - This Is The Night


Ukraine: Gaitana - Be My Guest


2nd Half

Croatia: Nina Badrić - Nebo


Georgia: Anri Jokhadze - I'm A Joker


Norway: Tooji - Stay


Final

France: Anggun - Echo (You and I)


Germany: Roman Lob - Standing Still

source: http://ogaegreece.com/eurovision-2012-2/

mods, I'm sorry for screwing up the other post
Leave a Comment
megedeborch 19th-Feb-2012 08:56 pm (UTC)
I still think, that if the song is really really great, the language doesn't matter. Yes, Ireland had a couple of wins over the last decade when that rule applied but apart from that a lot of non-english songs won or placed among the runner-ups.
blazinguns 19th-Feb-2012 09:13 pm (UTC)
It's not about the wins only, UK/Ireland consistently did very well (a lot of top 10 entries) prior to the change in the rule. The situation would be even more biased towards those countries because nowadays "everyone" speaks English, moreso than a decade or two ago, so it's familiar to so many people. Can non-English speaking song win/place high? Sure. However, it has to be exceptional to beat the English-speaking (-singing?) entries, which is not really fair.

The language rule wa in place (according to wiki) from 1966-1973, 1977-1999, just look at all the high placing entries UK and Ireland had (and how that changed after 1999):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest

Another interesting country to look at is Malta, which could sing in English, it's positions between 1991(when it re-entered) and 1999 reflect surprisingly good run for a such a small country, suggesting language plays a role:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
megedeborch 19th-Feb-2012 09:34 pm (UTC)
Well, maybe it's just the nostalgia speaking through me, because growing up it was always fun to hear all the different voices, so maybe I think that the general audience has changed a lot & not everyone is voting for the english song just because they're understanding it. 1990ies =/= 2010s. Yes, a lot of people speak English now, but a lot of people are more interested in other cultures and languages as well, so maybe nowadays the voting would be different again.

And of course France could always argue against it, because they usually placed higher when the rule still applied & pretty much achieved nothing since they changed the rule again.
blazinguns 19th-Feb-2012 09:40 pm (UTC)
Oh I'm not against diversity by any means, I think it's great too when people sing in their own languages (and I think Molitva is by far the best Eurovision winner in recent years). I'm just a bitter person from a country who always did horribly in Eurovision partly because we have zero language allies, heh. (Some entries were atrocious too, but even the decent ones ended up at the bottom.)
megedeborch 19th-Feb-2012 10:07 pm (UTC)
Well, except for our win 2 years ago Germany pretty much achieved nothing since the very late 80ies no matter if the song was sung in german or english, except for some fun entries, so I'm totally getting your point.

And I just 'stalked' your profile - Finland is usually way underrated imho. I liked last year's entry, even with the whole kitschy message & I still don't get why Waldo's People didn't place higher a few years back, because it was such a perfect ESC song.
redleigh86 19th-Feb-2012 09:58 pm (UTC)
Still it's ridiculously restrictive. There are still plenty of countries who sing in their national language, but if they want to sing in English let them. Who cares? It's the people voting for their finalists anyway, and if they're given a choice between a song in their language and a song in English but still consistently vote the English-language song to represent them...

It's not hurting anything or anyone.
megedeborch 19th-Feb-2012 10:15 pm (UTC)
Of course it's not hurting anyone, but it's still boring & like I said. Maybe it's nostalgia. - Or maybe I just like languages.

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