After the Conference in Italy we are back to work, to an office with no heat, after the weekend, and I biked to work. I could sit in a fire and still not be warm right now. It’s awful.
With that… Congratulations to Lissandro and France for the victory of JESC 2022. Good work by the artist and of course by the composer, Barbara Pravi.
Björn
I wish I had asked for a late check out, bothroom close 🙂
So leaving for Paris in a few hours anyway, back home Friday evening so a normal weekend and no need to stress on Monday.
See ya later if the flight reach the final destination and not going down over the alps, said Eeyore.
Björn
So far it’s been a mix of good stuff and technical problems with PPTs presented by people who join the conference by zoom.
So I leave you with a Christmas tree
Björn
Yes I manage to post something today as well… Even if I am supposed to sleep well by now.
Long day, not much food and gym done. Maybe the scare to gain too much weight this week is just a scare. We will see on Friday.
Picture from Bologna.
Björn
What can be said about Eurovision Song Contest 2022 so far? Beside the fact that the worst semifinal this year is over, the one tomorrow kind of hold all good songs that’s not one of the big 5… While yesterday presented 17 songs where it was hard to find 10 I even wanted to pass to the final. So much better then when some songs actually turned out to be little gems live.
Lithuania raised to be much higher on my personal ranking on Saturday together with Portugal and Iceland. All three came out from the first semifinal with their dignity intact. Can’t say the same for Albania who I actually liked after their revamp and were 100% certain to pass to the final. But seriously? What was that? She managed to kill the song with one of the worst performances in Eurovision history. And of course the ESC fanbase (mainly the Balkan part of it) exploded in conspiracy theories – as if they did not see the disaster on stage. Many of the fans think the jury killed Albanias song this year, I am not so sure she did well with the televote either. Will be really interesting to take a look at the full results when they are out on Sunday.
And I am sure the Barbara Dex reward is already earned and will find a home in Albania, in a tough competition with Ukraine and Moldova.
Also Croatia abused the stage by being this years Kate Ryan entry, meaning to much weird stuff happening on stage at the same time. At least one song each year fail cause of the “Kate Ryan” factor.
Happy to see Switzerland passing through. I guess it might be thanks to the juries (I am so happy there is 50% jury) not the televotes. While I am sure France tele-voted for Lithuania and Portugal yesterday, and of course Ukraine out of pity.
Also to finally see Diodato on stage after the cancelled Eurovision 2020, and hear his “Fai Rumore” just made me go “wow”. So sure he would have won after seeing that. Perfection.
So now we can look forward to Thursdays semifinal number 2 with Il Volo on stage… Love love love (even if their last album was a disapointment).
Björn
Tonight is time for the Eurovision semifinal one out of two, and maybe the worst semifinal in the history of Eurovision. For me it is tough to even find 10 songs I want in the finals. Unfortunately many of the “hate” songs here turn out to be fan favorites, and high on the betting sites. No surprise, it is always one or two songs each year that ends up high on the scoreboard and I can’t understand why. But in this semifinal it is a majority of the songs I hate that has low odds and end up high on different polls. Nightmare.
So here we go then,
And the complete list, incl. my guesses who will qualify can be downloaded as a PDF
Enjoy Semi 1
Björn
So now its time to finalize this week of most played blogging, as you know the entries in 2020 Eurovision comes from:
Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ukraine and United Kingdom
Albania
Not a country usually on my radar so there are not many of their entries making my private playlists.
Belgium
Up and down like a roller coaster, and often when they have really good entries they end up on the wrong side of the score board. No one votes even if the song is good. Belgium is a mystery that way.
France
Oh, my old love in Eurovision, France. Still going strong and has a stream of lovely songs throughout the years.
Germany
Big in Germany, a phrase in the music world that is looked upon a bit like someone look at Mona Lisa, famous but isn’t it more than that. But in Eurovision they have some good times.
Ireland
Still the Kingdom of Eurovision with their wins in the 90s, kind of they won all of the 90s, but not often on my top 10 in Eurovision.
Italy
Wow, it is amazing that Italy don’t win every year. Yer after year they present amazing songs climbing the charts outside Italy and many of the artists actually become famous in Europe after the contest.
Portugal
Sadly forgotten in the Eurovision history, but finally won 2017, and well deserved.
Spain
From Portugal to their neighbors Spain, also a country sadly forgotten today. But so many fantastic entries coming from Spain. At their best when they sound 100% Spanish.
Switzerland
Not a favorite country for me in Eurovision, and their 2020 entry will be heavily discussed in tomorrows blog post on the 2020 contest entries. But they have had their good times as well.
The Netherlands
It feels like Netherlands and Sweden had a lot of the same vibes in the Eurovision in the 80s and 90s, a kind of Swedish Schlager over many of their entries (or if you are Dutch the opposite). But they did not manage to win until 2019 with one of the more , for me, uninteresting winners in Eurovision, “Arcade”.
United Kingdom
One of the biggest music markets in the world and still not able to score better in Eurovision, UK is a sad story lately and it seems like whatever path they take its a fail. A it unfair really cause they often better then their placing.
So, that was the most played songs from each country in the Eurovision Song Contest history, all to try to keep some Eurovision feeling in 2020 when the Eurovision Song Contest been cancelled caused by the Corona Pandemic.
Tomorrow I will discuss my ranking of the 2020 entries and wrap this Eurovision week up on Sunday with my personal points on the development of Eurovision. Whats good and what can EBU change to make it more interesting for me. Not everyone will agree but as said, it’s my own opinions.
The former blog post on the most played can be found:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Take care
Björn
So now its time to put the 2018 behind us and as a list nerd of course I will do it with charts. And we start with the most played Eurovision Song Contest 2018 songs.
The chart show the songs from the Eurovision 2018 I played the most in 2018, which is not the same as my favorites but more or less in retrospective this is the best once.
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2018 – Most Played.
None of the songs from the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 reached over 200 plays in 2018 so none of the songs so far reached the 1000 most played over all time list.
Björn
12 Moldova, 10 Estonia, 8 Denmark, 7 Italy, 6 France, 5 Ireland, 4 Finland, 3 Sweden, 2 Ukraine and 1 Austria
But… I think we will try to travel to Cyprus next year… In real Swedish, Fasanfullt
Björn
