Germany GERMANY 2023 - Lord of the Lost - Blood and Glitter

[ESC United Mod Team]

 

[Lindon]

Björn Ulvaeus suggests that Germans should go back to their roots and try Schlager. Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten!

 

[Ausar Vandermark]

Björn Ulvaeus suggests that Germans should go back to their roots and try Schlager. Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten!

That would mean to ignore that the music scene in Germany isn't the same as a couple of decades ago. While Schlager certainly still is a German phenomenon, it has been on the decline for quite a while now.

I am not ruling out supporting a good song that also happens to be 'Schlager', but I don't think it is as simple as to 'going back to it'. Not everone can or should tackle that genre. At the end of the day your audience will come to realize if you - as an artist - actually have love and passion for the kind of music you perform.

 

[Mainshow]

I don't think that Schlager is "on the decline", e.g. "Layla" was basically the most successful song of the year and "Schlager" acts like Helene Fischer, Vanessa M., Beatrice Egli, Nino de Angelo, Giovanni Zarrella still get #1 or Top 5 debuts on the German album charts.

Schlager has changed, though - and it has basically just become "German Pop" (since it has become so EDM-driven with less key changes, etc.) but I think its worth trying.... Unfortunately, German metal/dark pop/rock didn't work out.

 

[Kruto]

try german metal/dark pop/rock but in german next time. Guaranteed votes from me again... Don't give up, Germany!

 

[heke1988]

Rammstein with a good song! If that won't work, I don't know what.

 

[ESC94]

Rammstein with a good song! If that won't work, I don't know what.

Will never happen.

 

[dogmeat]

As one of all 5 metalheads who watch Eurovision, I want to share my thoughts on what went wrong with Germany this year.

Lord of the Lost are undeniably an amazing band. They have an established career, their concerts sell well, they don't need Eurovision. But they really wanted to be a part of this. It's so cool how they did covers of other entries, so it's heartbreaking to see them get this result.

Maybe it's just me and my taste, but I think their choice of song was simply wrong. It was too safe. They have a distinct style that went missing in "Blood and Glitter". The song feels like an album filler to me. Had nice melody, good production, but nothing spectacular to be remembered by. To get televotes, it's not good enough to be someone's top 5. Most people only send one vote, so you must be their #1. This year I suppose most of Germany's potential votes went to Finland instead.

It seems to me German artists have this odd belief that you need to schlagerize your entry to succeed in ESC. You could hear that even stronger in Patty's excuse of an NF entry (I really like her other music). Yes, you're starting in a difficult position when you enter with a niche genre, but the answer isn't to go more pop, but to stay true to yourself and do the best your can in your own style. This is what, for example, Blind Channel did. They entered with 90s/00s nu metal, which is far from mainstream these days, and got an amazing televote score. Lord of the Lost, however, somehow managed to play goth metal in glamrock outfits and not stand out. That's impressive, not in a good way.

These are my impressions. Feel free to disagree. Maybe to you "Blood and Glitter" was the best song Lord of the Lost ever made. It wasn't to me, and comparing their score to how successful they are outside Eurovision makes me suspect my opinion isn't unpopular.

 

[GermanBango]

No metal, no rock, no Schlager please.

 

[ESC94]

No metal, no rock, no Schlager please.

What do you suggest??

 

[Ausar Vandermark]

If a good song comes along, well executed by an artist that is both invested in their craft and visibly having fun performing, the genre really doesn't matter. Give me metal, rock, Schlager and whatever else you can think of. Good music simply is good music.

I also think that starting with a list of what you don't want isn't the best approach.

 

[Fluke]

Too much of everything, too little of anything.

First off i think Eurofans were a bit overly positive. A very common comment was basically "at least it's not gonna be last, it's gonna do better than Germany usually does" which spells doom. And in the end, it got the classic German placement.

The song didn't really appeal to metalheads, because it wasn't metal enough, it was only typical Eurofans who thought it would. Also, some of them might have been put off by the queer elements. Käärijä sucked up a lot of votes with his metal-punk-inspired energy, while those who wanted a "real" rock band voted for Slovenia or Australia ,who only got 20th place with 21 televote points anyway.

The juries, and mainstream televoters, didn't like it because of the silly chorus and the weak, unsteady clean vocals, which weren't that great in the NF either, but many overlooked for some reason. I guess people were impressed by his overall performance and charisma, but his singing was never really that good, in this song at least.

Then the staging wasn't spectacular enough. With a title like "Blood and Glitter", you could imagine drag queens in enormous alien space armor with wings or horns, giant jiggling breasts, spewing blood or fire from their mouths. Instead we just got a typical horror-rock performance with a bit of feminity added on like nail polish.

It wasn't queer enough to appeal to LGBT viewers, and if anything it may have come across as appropriating LGBT culture, kinda like Yohio was accused of in 2013. I don't know if any of the band members are LGBT - it frankly doesn't matter to the viewers who don't know, but it may have increasingly weakened one of their supposed strengths.

Overall, i think they could be pretty proud of their choice. They've gotten an entry that people actually talked about - even though it clearly failed to work outside of the Eurofan bubble. They need to pick artists that actually believe in what they're doing and understand Eurovision, and all their recent ones have failed on one or the other. Jendrik and Malik Harris were sincere artists who just didn't belong in the contest, while the others tried a bit too hard to fit into it and ended up bringing nothing of substance. I think this really was a step up in quality and ambition, it just didn't show in the results for complex reasons. Better luck next time!

 

[GermanBango]

What do you suggest??

Honestly give me a well executed pop song and I am more than happy. Not the secondhand pop trash that we usually have in our national finals.
Look at the country that must not be named because people get rabies as soon as it gets mentioned, look at Israel, Norway, … they all managed to come up with well-produced and -performed dance pop. There is nothing wrong with that.
I‘d rather have a decent pop song than some uninspired rock/metal with a performance that has as much energy as me on a Sunday morning.

 

[ESC94]

Honestly give me a well executed pop song and I am more than happy. Not the secondhand pop trash that we usually have in our national finals.
Look at the country that must not be named because people get rabies as soon as it gets mentioned, look at Israel, Norway, … they all managed to come up with well-produced and -performed dance pop. There is nothing wrong with that.
I‘d rather have a decent pop song than some uninspired rock/metal with a performance that has as much energy as me on a Sunday morning.

Well, it´s not the fault of LotL that you´re a morning grouch.

 

[Semra]

Honestly give me a well executed pop song and I am more than happy. Not the secondhand pop trash that we usually have in our national finals.
Look at the country that must not be named because people get rabies as soon as it gets mentioned, look at Israel, Norway, … they all managed to come up with well-produced and -performed dance pop. There is nothing wrong with that.
I‘d rather have a decent pop song than some uninspired rock/metal with a performance that has as much energy as me on a Sunday morning.

You're right.
I'm an indie rock child but would vote for a great quality pop song (or ballad, ethnic, whatever) over a bad or dated rock song ANY DAY!
Germans shouldn't think about "what genre" but "how good".

 

[ESC94]

The televoting results of this year:

23rd place -
22nd place -

.....

20th place -
19th place -
18th place -
17th place -
16th place -
15th place -
14th place -
13th place -
12th place -
11th place -

.....

7th place -
6th place -
5th place -

 

[Realest]

Well.....

 

[ESC94]

Well.....

With the system from 2013-2015 they would´ve gotten a big fat right?? Ok, maybe one point from but otherwise??

 

[Realest]

With the system from 2013-2015 they would´ve gotten a big fat right?? Ok, maybe one point from but otherwise??

No, we would have been 8th in s Voting and received 3 Points.

 

[JenJen94]

Well.....

Ouch.....

 

[I bims]

Well.....

They really got lost