ESC 18 = Retrovision Song Contest?

[midnightsun]

Since the first songs have been released, I have a feeling we get a bunch of "old school Eurovision songs" this year.

Most of them remind me of the good old 2000s, when the Eastern European countries conquered the Eurovisionworld.
But there are are classic poprocksongs also, just like in the last decade.

I am really GLAD many countries go back to the roots after two terrible years (2016, 2017 - my opinion only) when many songs resembled rather pop idol than Eurovision. This year, motto seems to be retro. Could have to do with Salvador winning, showing you don't need to have the most modern song to win.

This doesn't necessarily mean the song quality is better this year. In fact, we have more trash than the past years. But this is what Eurovision is all about.

I love the classic style of Serbia or Moldova or the late 2000s vibes of Belarus and Ukraine, who do, what they do best: dated pop dance!

And I am really looking forward to more "gems". What about you?

 

[mauve]

I agree with you. Last year was a terrible year in ESC. I hardly could support any country with my whole heart. This year seems to be a Little better. I also like the classic style of the Eastern European. This year I especially like Belarus - the official Version. But when I heard the live Version, I was quite shocked. Either he had a very bad day or he can't sing live. I heard the Version that People say, he is not used to sing in English. Whatever it is I hope he will concentrate on his singing til may!

 

[Matt]

There has been a lot of complaining about the quality of the songs this year. While this clearly happens every single year, I feel as this year there are more voices than usual. I always thought that 2017, with a few exceptions, was incredibly weak, so 2018 to me has been a significant improvement so far. Yes, there are a good amount of so-called retro songs but not all of them would fall into the "outdated" category.

There seems to be a significant number of entries this year that will stay in their native tongue which I applaud and a lot of (probably most) die-hard Eurovision fans are appreciative of. So far, we don't have many "chart" friendly entries yet which is neither a good or bad thing IMO, just the way it played out.

I don't know if we can call it the Salvador effect, we'd have to look at each entry/selection and see if there is a pattern. I doubt that the average viewer at home will think "Well, Salvador did well so let's vote for something like that". Now there could be a conscious or subconscious effort by the producers and/or broadcasters to push such music in the NFs but for that I'd have to dig a little deeper to see if that theory could be supported.

I also agree that songs like Belarus, Moldova etc, would never in a Brazilion years be seen in the Charts, but it is something I want to see in Eurovision, to a certain degree. And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that. This kind of music is still popular in certain parts of the continent so it shouldn't come as a surprise that several countries would send such songs to the contest.

What I do see is a departure from mainstream Pop songs, at least based on the selection so far. In recent years, the winners have been less "radio friendly" so maybe broadcasters are less scared of sending something less predictable?

And just for the Record, I don't think Retro equals bad our irrelevant. There are artists out there today that capture music from the old days and still make it work, Michael Buble comes to mind.

We still have 20 songs to go, at least at the time of this post and I do hope that we get a few more upbeat songs and contemporary music as I'm all for diversity. But I don't see anything wrong with the songs so far, I only dislike 3 songs out of the 23 selected so far, that's not bad at all.

 

[QwaarJet]

I like the musical direction the contest is going, with different genres, different languages and less focus on "modern". However, I think the overall song quality this year is shocking. I'd have to go back to 2008 for a time when I was less enthused with the song quality.

 

[FilipFromSweden]

I think retro/old school is actually a trend not only in Eurovision but also in the mainstream music industry. Portugal. The Man for an example

 

[Ezio]

I like the trend, I just don't like what many countries made of it so far. I don't like more than half of the songs. Most of them are boring. Salvador wasn't boring. He touched hearts and mine as well.

 

[midnightsun]

I don't think the quality is worse than most years this decade. I really appreciate the different kinds of music, especially that we have a certain amount of songs sung in their native language. I agree that many songs aren't radio friendly - that's why I love this year. As I expected, there's another bunch of old school songs that has been released so far. I don't find them boring. Some are just classic Eurovision style.

Some of the latest released songs are rather radio friendly pop dance house songs. Really, I don't like them because they all sound the same. One or two of that kind in a whole Eurovision is okay, but not that many.

 

[mauve]

Agree with that absolutely. I rather like songs that fall out of mainstream. Okay, some are mainstream AND good at the same time. But I love the the musicians who dare to be different. Wish more of them would be. But - I am not completely immune to mainstream, and radio friendly Music as Long as it's good.

 

[aef]

I totally get what you're talking about! I don't think it's the right direction for Eurovision... Of course I'm happy about the comeback of some classic Eurovision genres fron the 2000s like the balkan ballad ( and ) but on the other side there is so much weak material this year which also brings back bad memories of the 2000s! ( etc)

I didn't have the feeling before that a certain year had been a really weak one but this year definitely is one in my opinion! By now (with I think over 30 songs or something like that released) it's still really hard for me to put up a personal top 10 ranking! I'm not even sure if I really like my current top 3...

I liked the direction of having modern songs BUT different genres! It's all about different genres and risky choices but I really don't want diversity on a 2000s level!

 

[mauve]

For me it was also hard to pick out 10 of my favorite songs so far. But not because I don't like them but because the songs could never be material that I would listen to in my future, just at the present. With "good" music I connect songs that I can listen to still after years. When I look at the Eurovision list now I can hardly say that. In this sense, 2018 is a weak year. But I have found two or three musical pearls so far. And when I look at my top ten, I can see Balkan ballad, Country rock, opera, Pop, Hard Rock/Metal and more.So it's still exciting.

 

[EscGeek]

if ESC 18 really is a throwback from the 2000s then it's no wonder that it's already one of my favorite years plus there's 10 songs yet to come

 

[JonnyWest]

if ESC 18 really is a throwback from the 2000s then it's no wonder that it's already one of my favorite years plus there's 10 songs yet to come

Ok now thank Salvador for this

 

[EscGeek]

Ok now thank Salvador for this