Finland FINLAND 2023 - Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha

[ESC United Mod Team]

 

[Gitte]

Sweden was my second fave, I literally supported them in equal measure, but the Loreen stans have been way more toxic throughout the season by a large margin. Ever since it won Melodifestivalen, you couldn't even dare to not bow before the greatness of Loreen, she was the winner already, so let's not talk about toxicity. It's only natural for fans to feel disappointed when one song was heavily pushed by the jury to the point of receiving as many points as frickin' Portugal, which was the ultimate jury bait.

My winner was Armenia if anything (tho I didn't have a peak favourite, but if I had to pick) which ended up 14th somehow wth, so Loreen wasn't my fave either, only if I had to choose between the two. And her amount of jury points are inflated, she could've gotten a more reasonable close to 300 high 200's amount and still borderline won depending on how points shift then.

 

[lolita]

The black king spoke the truth!

Literally all contestants act like he really DID win, I love that! Everyone came to congratulate only him, and to Loreen none.

 

[Pussipiru]

Let's organize next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Finland for the public. Let the juries hold their own in Sweden. Let's see if there are more performers in Sweden than in Finland if the contestants themselves get to decide whether they want the honest votes of the people or the jury's votes with ulterior motives. And which country has more audience. Then we'll see who the real winner is. You don't think Sweden has anything against it? Why would it be?

 

[Gera11]

Let's organize next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Finland for the public. Let the juries hold their own in Sweden. Let's see if there are more performers in Sweden than in Finland if the contestants themselves get to decide whether they want the honest votes of the people or the jury's votes with ulterior motives. And which country has more audience. Then we'll see who the real winner is. You don't think Sweden has anything against it? Why would it be?

Ok, let's calm down a bit

 

[Pussipiru]

Ok, let's calm down a bit

I think that's a great idea. Jury listening to Loreen non-stop next year with each other.

 

[Ezio]

Tvorchi x Käärija

Libras United

 

[Ezio]

I think that's a great idea. Jury listening to Loreen non-stop next year with each other.

Thats a great idea and Finland are great hosts.

 

[AliceEsc]

No shade to the hosts, they were great.
It's just that we don't like to be "ignored"

 

[BorisBubbles]

Shame he didn't win, but i suppose it was never in the cards the second Loreen won Melfest.

I did my part. I cast eight votes for Käärijä during the finale and he won my country's televote. I tried. We tried. It wasn't enough. So be it.

All hail the Verka of our time.

 

[Ajeje Brazorf]

Disappointed by the Final result and Käärja not winning this year, but I don't want juries to go. From past Sanremo's I learned you can't give televoters full control of the results, because they will not always choose the better, but they will always choose the most popular in that timespan... In Sanremo for example, Mahmood lost the televote to Ultimo in 2019 despite being better, Diodato lost it to Gabbani in 2020 despite being better, Måneskin lost it to Fedez/Michielin (!!!!) in 2021 despite being HUUUUUGELY better... Almost all years Sanremo is decided by Juries, every time there is a lot of people criticizing this method of voting and everytime around the song chosen by our juries slays both in the charts and on Eurovision.

Juries are not the problem, biased juries are the problem: 5 people for every country are too low of a number to prevent juries from being biased to a certain extent to influence the vote. That is the main problem imo.

Here in Italy to prevent the Juries from being biased we have split them in two juries (Press/OnLine/Media and Demoscopic): the first consists of 150-200 people from almost every radio, newspaper, social talking about music, demoscopic jury are other 150-200 people chosen from everywhere across the country, with different ages, different musical interests, coming from different environments. We so have a professional and a popular jury + the televote. And I think it kinda works, I can't see Sanremo being back to the former 50-50 format and sticking to the actual 33-33-34. Again, it is not the perfect formula, but I think it works for a National Final. I'm not sure this formula can be applied to Eurovision, but it will add something, a voting link between jury vote and Televoting (i.e. demoscopic) that is actually missing in Eurovision.

 

[PollyWantsACracker]

The black king spoke the truth!

They all loved Loreen I see

 

[ArmpitOfEurope]

Not Cha cha cha fans becoming even worse than spanish eurofans last year, pure toxicness. Poisoning an entry with a beautiful and happy energy like Cha cha cha with so much hate, a shame really.

 

[goncalovieira]

There is a loooot of youngsters around the foruns/insta/youtube/tiktok spreading hate about Loreen because of Kaarja 2nd place.

 

[Ajeje Brazorf]

People needs to get a life... Bullying an artist just because your favourite didn't won, won't change anything! It's childish, it's stupid and it's disrespectful!

 

[Franzilein]

Sweden was my second fave, I literally supported them in equal measure, but the Loreen stans have been way more toxic throughout the season by a large margin. Ever since it won Melodifestivalen, you couldn't even dare to not bow before the greatness of Loreen, she was the winner already, so let's not talk about toxicity. It's only natural for fans to feel disappointed when one song was heavily pushed by the jury to the point of receiving almost as many points as frickin' Portugal, which was the ultimate jury bait.

Since Salvador also won the public vote in similar fashion to Käärijä, I'd say the juries did their job right there. A disparity of 6 puny points. Compare that to the staggering difference of 226. Even if Käärijä did the unthinkable and got 12 points from every country's public vote, Loreen still would have won by 1 point. This is the real scandal here.

 

[heke1988]

Since Salvador also won the public vote in similar fashion to Käärijä, I'd say the juries did their job right there. A disparity of 6 puny points. Compare that to the staggering difference of 226. Even if Käärijä did the unthinkable and got 12 points from every country's public vote, Loreen still would have won by 1 point. This is the real scandal here.

Käärijä would won, because rest of he world was also voting. So Käärijä would have got 71 more points, so his total points would have Been 597.

 

[midnightsun]

Even if Käärijä did the unthinkable and got 12 points from every country's public vote, Loreen still would have won by 1 point.

Wow, Swedish team calculated very well!

 

[Franzilein]

Käärijä would won, because rest of he world was also voting. So Käärijä would have got 71 more points, so his total points would have Been 597.

Ah true, forgot they were allowed to vote this year as well. Still madness though, imagine if this is your win condition: Just get 12 points all across the public voting results. Käärijä got the second highest amount of public votes (point- and percentage-wise) of all time and that still wasn't enough to win, yet Loreen's infantry acts all surprised when people are upset The disparity is insane.

 

[Ajeje Brazorf]

Since Salvador also won the public vote in similar fashion to Käärijä, I'd say the juries did their job right there. A disparity of 6 puny points. Compare that to the staggering difference of 226. Even if Käärijä did the unthinkable and got 12 points from every country's public vote, Loreen still would have won by 1 point. This is the real scandal here.

I mean, I understand that point. But who would have juries awarded in order for Sweden to lose some jury points? Let's examine entry by entry (top 10 places):

- second place with the Juries was Noa Kirel's Unicorn. 177 points seems fair to me, since the performance was great and so was the production, lyrically the song wasn't the best one though and vocally she was good but not top. So 177 is fair.
- third place with the Juries was Marco Mengoni's Due Vite. Here again, the performance was great and so was the production. The song was a bit basic though and carried by Marco's awesome performance. Staging was good but very simple. I think 176 points are fair and the third place is not something I would have imagined before the contest.
- fourth place is Käärja's Cha Cha Cha. Here the song was really innovative, the staging was really good, lyrically the song is ok, sadly the vocals weren't that good. And I say this despite Cha Cha being in my top 5 for the entire season. Juries didn't tank him though, giving Käärja 150 points. Way better than I imagined, honestly.
- fifth place is Alika's Bridges. This came out as the surprise of the night, but visually and vocally I can see why juries put this performance so high up in their ranking. I feel this is the one which could have stolen points to Loreen, but it didn't because the running order sandwiched it between Marco and Käärja. This performance would have been a 200+ performance if drawn in the second half, mark my words. It had the potential to be the Proud of 2023 and Käärja's savior, because vocals were there, song was not innovative but has one of the best melodical progressions in the competition and was elevated by a great delivery, staging was simple but stunning, production really good. I watched this performance again and again yesterday, and it's one of the biggest "what if's" of the entire competition to me, because juries really liked it and I though they could have liked it even more with a different running order.
- sixth place is Voyager's Promise. Yet again, I feel the performance was really solid to be a rock entry, deserved a good jury placement, but did it deserve more points? Not so sure. The song is not that memorable, and the public bombed it. The performance was good and the production was ok too, but it was not Måneskin level of attractiveness. 130 points seems fair enough, tbh.
- seven place is Gustaph's Because of you. A very divisive entry: as a televoter I really dislike this entry. But if I was a juror I could have seen some pro's: Gustaph's performance, for example, was really good, one of the best among the 26 acts. The entry was wisely staged and it gained lots of credibility during the competition. But again, the song is really, really basic. So I don't think it deserved more than 127, tbh.
- eight place is Teya and Salena's Who the hell is Edgar? So, let me say one thing: if this entry got only 16 points by the televoters, we can't really blame the Juries for giving it 104, are we? I found the song more of a bubble pleaser, vocally wasn't even that bad, the production was there, the staging was underwhelming though. Ok placement I think.
- ninth place is Blanca Paloma's Eaea and listen: if it was a performance which I would have ranked higher if I was a juror, it's this one. Why? Because it is authentic, vocally was top notch, I really like the dark vibe surrounding it and it was really a unique entry in this year's contest. But as we saw from the televoters, this is not everyone's cup of tea: unfortunately this genre is not popular in Europe, I will say it's not popular outside the Iberic Peninsula. I can't see an Estonian, or an Icelandic, or an Irish juror vote for this song, to be totally honest with you, and not because they thought it was not quality, but because it is really difficult to understand this entry for people with sooo different of a cultural heritage. Glad it didn't bombed totally with the Juries though...
- tenth place is Vesna's My Sister's crown. I see this song and performance more suitable to foreigners than Eaea, but the performance has not the same power vocally to lift the entry to top 5 candidate with the Juries. Staging was not bad, but not great too. Top 10 is deserved, but I think 93 is fair enough.

So, as you see, I can't find any entry in the top 10 I would have ranked higher in terms of points awarded, except for Estonia and maybe Spain. Estonia's chances to be even higher on this list were written off when Alika was drawn in the first half, Spain's chances were written off because if you don't know the environment, the performance looks chaotic and messy.

In conclusion, Sweden won by that high margin because none of the other Jury picks in their top 10 deserved more and the others failed with them badly. Sweden didn't have opponents with the Juries as much as Finland didn't have opponents with the televoters.

 

[midnightsun]

But who would have juries award

I expect of juries, unlike televoters who usually have 3-4 big favourites, to like a huge variety of songs. That’s why we have juries right? To vote for musical variety that televoters don’t because they are biased.

How can it be that juries all vote for the same song? It bothered me already in the past and this year even more when we had a lot of different and creative songs (unlike last year when juries basically only had ballads mostly to choose from).

I would expect some jury to award some of their 12s to Czechia, some to Serbia, some Portugal, some to Norway, some to Slovenia… to distribute their points more balanced. All of them creative, fresh songs.