She was covering her personal faves. She covered
and + she was adding each of them to her Insta live, there was also a 5-way Insta live, including
in Paris:
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JESC 2021
- Thread starter Mainshow
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and + she was adding each of them to her Insta live, there was also a 5-way Insta live, including
in Paris:
Dr J
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Thank you for the info, AlekS!She was covering her personal faves. She covered
+ she was adding each of them to her Insta live, there was also a 5-way Insta live, including
Some aspects looked like Olena was making fun of the song, the way she slowed some parts down and overdramatised them and the guitarist couldn't stop laughing.
But if she was just doing this with a lot of different songs, then probably not, especially if she was virtually promoting them to her own Instagram followers.
Dr J
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Last Is Always First?
I have finished my research. The final performer won the JESC in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2016, 2018 and 2020. Yes, out of 17 contests, the final performer won in 6.
One could "imagine" how it could happen: kids don't remember who sang what after sitting through a 1 hour battery of songs, approaching 2 hours with interval entertainment and jury voting, so, if the last song they heard was not bad, they just vote for it. However, these results show that it is not consistently or reliably correct to say "whoever performs last wins". That is good because, if we observed voting behaviour like that, it would mean that the televote would be really meaningless and the kids would not deserve to vote.
Now, I have been arguing, the "stray voters" who come to the contest with no preferences and just vote based on what they hear in the contest are probably no longer a majority as they may have been in 2005-2007. Children are sitting down to watch JESC mainly to vote for their "star", whom they have been following on instagram or other social media, or for their country's candidate, whenever that candidate appears during the performance.
Another way NOT to pick the winner of JESC 2021!
I have finished my research. The final performer won the JESC in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2016, 2018 and 2020. Yes, out of 17 contests, the final performer won in 6.
One could "imagine" how it could happen: kids don't remember who sang what after sitting through a 1 hour battery of songs, approaching 2 hours with interval entertainment and jury voting, so, if the last song they heard was not bad, they just vote for it. However, these results show that it is not consistently or reliably correct to say "whoever performs last wins". That is good because, if we observed voting behaviour like that, it would mean that the televote would be really meaningless and the kids would not deserve to vote.
Now, I have been arguing, the "stray voters" who come to the contest with no preferences and just vote based on what they hear in the contest are probably no longer a majority as they may have been in 2005-2007. Children are sitting down to watch JESC mainly to vote for their "star", whom they have been following on instagram or other social media, or for their country's candidate, whenever that candidate appears during the performance.
Another way NOT to pick the winner of JESC 2021!
It's all for fun
+ she adjusted the song for her style. Though she didn't adjust the Armenian song on her Insta, and the choreo was 
Flamenkax
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Errrrrr, this typical "french speaking english" accent... Just sounds like scissors to my ears.
A-lister
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So not really invested in jESC, but nevertheless here is my ranking based on my first listens (could they just stop with the awful native/english bi-lingualism though? The English parts drag down almost every entry 
) :
In its own league
1. (since 2018, ok 2020 was just so-so, Poland has really rocked this contest... if they just paid the adult version half of the effort they do jESC their Eurovision record could look so different)
Pretty good
2.
3.
4.
Ok
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
The rest (it's kids so I'll refrain from being harsh but the range is between meh to bad basically...)
11.
12:
13.
14.
15.
16:
17.
18.
19.
) :In its own league
1.
(since 2018, ok 2020 was just so-so, Poland has really rocked this contest... if they just paid the adult version half of the effort they do jESC their Eurovision record could look so different)Pretty good
2.
3.
4.
Ok
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
The rest (it's kids so I'll refrain from being harsh but the range is between meh to bad basically...)
11.
12:
13.
14.
15.
16:
17.
18.
19.
Joking like that is the new low for Oikotimes or someone who's impersonating them:
SCREAMING!
Yep, "fake"
SCREAMING!
Yep, "fake"
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Schlagerman1
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YAAAAA! So happy to see Portugal being the 7th winner in JESC-history to start from the last spot in the running order. FORZA PORTUGAL! SOU O RAPAAAAAAZZ!Running Order:
19.
The complete running order will be revealed later.
Junior Eurovision 2021: Running Order 🇫🇷
The running order of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2021 has been decided by a combination of random chance and producer led curation.
- Germany: Pauline – Imagine Us
- Georgia: Niko Kajaia – Let’s Count The Smiles
- Poland: Sara James – Somebody
- Malta: Ike & Kaya – My Home
- Italy: Elisabetta Lizza – Specchio (Mirror On The Wall)
- Bulgaria: Denislava & Martin – Voice Of Love
- Russia: Tanya Mezhentseva – Mon Ami
- Ireland: Maiú Levi Lawlor – Saor (Disappear)
- Armenia: Maléna – Qami Qami
- Kazakhstan: Alinur Khazim & Beknur Zhanibekuly – Ертегі әлемі (Fairy World)
- Albania: Anna Gjebrea – Stand By You
- Ukraine: Olena Usenko – Vazhil
- France: Enzo – Tic Tac
- Azerbaijan: Sona Azizova – One Of Those Days
- Netherlands: Ayana – Mata Sugu Aō Ne
- Spain: Levi Díaz – Reír
- Serbia: Jovana & Dunja – Oči Deteta (Children’s Eyes)
- North Macedonia: Datje Muzika – Green Forces
- Portugal: Simão Oliveira – O Rapaz
Not Ukraine -> France -> Azerbaijan again!
lasse braun
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i will hope the song,the stage performance will win and not the BTS calculation!
i stay with italy & ukraine - poland(calculated),armenia (very calculated!),north macedonia (too much this well known oh oh ooooho...,french pigtails will doing well,too).
who will win it?
no idea - we should take it not too serious - it's about the music youth and their devolution.
i stay with italy & ukraine - poland(calculated),armenia (very calculated!),north macedonia (too much this well known oh oh ooooho...,french pigtails will doing well,too).
who will win it?
no idea - we should take it not too serious - it's about the music youth and their devolution.
Schlagerman1
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Wow, the rehearsal clip for Portugal is absolutely stunning! This will be a perfect entry to end it all with on Sunday, this will be very memorable. Portugal will do a lot better than people expect to. 
I don't think the running order matters too much in JESC, but I feel like it is a bit biased in favour of France. It is weird that all the favourites are so close to each other and all before France. I'm not exactly sure what kind of audience JESC has and if it is promoted as ESC in the participating countries, but I believe that people who know about the contest will vote for their favourite/country regardless of the running order so maybe it doesn't matter too much.
However I'm really happy to see that Portugal will close the contest as it is my favourite and at least now it has better chances to do well. It is probably unrealistic but I really hope it gets into the top 10.
However I'm really happy to see that Portugal will close the contest as it is my favourite and at least now it has better chances to do well. It is probably unrealistic but I really hope it gets into the top 10.
Zonne147
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Love them, I would definitely have them in my playlist (9/10)
Love them, but for some reason, I don't listen to them as much as the ones above (8/10)
I like them when they come but I wouldn't have them on repeat (7/10)
Enjoyable songs, they don't bore me but they kind of are just there (6/10)
I can't say I dislike the ones below because all of them are talented and I can see what's good there, but they honestly don't do anything to me
I really love JESC this year and I can say this is my favorite edition since I'm familiar with the contest (2018). I want one of my 9/10 to win the contest (slight preference for Armenia) but I'd be happy with every song that got 7, 8 or 9.
I'm expecting the live performances to be decisive when it comes to the three countries I'm voting for
Love them, but for some reason, I don't listen to them as much as the ones above (8/10)
I like them when they come but I wouldn't have them on repeat (7/10)
Enjoyable songs, they don't bore me but they kind of are just there (6/10)
I can't say I dislike the ones below because all of them are talented and I can see what's good there, but they honestly don't do anything to me
I really love JESC this year and I can say this is my favorite edition since I'm familiar with the contest (2018). I want one of my 9/10 to win the contest (slight preference for Armenia) but I'd be happy with every song that got 7, 8 or 9.
I'm expecting the live performances to be decisive when it comes to the three countries I'm voting for
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Dr J
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Greenhouses Are Open! Back To The Future Or An Idea Whose Time Has Passed?
One past strategy to win the JESC is what I call the "Greenhouse Strategy". Georgia and Malta perfected it in 2008-2016. It was how a small country, with few televotes, could pool its resources and put its best foot forward: and win! Greenhouses in these countries won JESC in 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016.
A greenhouse, by my metaphoric definition, is a music/singing school that grooms JESC contestants. It has a gardener: a musical and/or singing expert who trains the children to be technically perfect. In most cases, the gardeners also wrote and composed the songs for JESC entry but the contestants participated in this process to a greater or lesser degree. This replaced the practice from 2003 to 2012, and 2014, where the winning child singer usually wrote the song - lyrics at least.
The greenhouse was the first step in the professionalisation of JESC, leading to the current practice, in which the national broadcaster chooses a song, chooses a child (often, but not necessarily, by public national contest) and packages them for JESC. My personal opinion is that these were not steps up, they were steps down. I think that the early days, when we heard directly from children and they came out on the stage warts and all, gave us much better songs and a much less commercial contest which was still beautifully produced by the host cities/countries on show day.
Georgia had the first greenhouse. It started when Giga Kukhianidze's students, 2 Mariams and 1 Giorgi, calling themselves "Bzikebi" ("Wasps"), flew away with the 2008 JESC in an historic landslide. The song, of course, was called "Bzz". They dressed like wasps, danced like wasps and sang in a waspish language (I guess the JESC national language requirements were overlooked). If you have never seen that performance, you should. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMHcS_QdiIU. It was original, unique, fun, funny, amazing.
The next year, 2009, Giga was not involved in the Georgian national selection, at least so far as the published literature goes. "Princesses", who came out of God-knows-where, won the national selection with a brilliant - and, in my opinion, one of JESC's most underrated - song, "Lurji Prinveli" (Blue Bird) but Georgia dropped down to 6th.
Then the next year, it was Giga to the rescue. He formed a greenhouse, "Bzikebi Studios" and took students. In 2010, Giga ran with one of these students, "Baby Gaga", Mariam Kakhelishvili, who had lost to Bzikebi in the national selection in 2008. Georgia went up to 4th but perhaps Giga realised that he could not keep trying to copy Bzikebi's wins with nonsense language: Mariam's "Mari-Daris" had done only a little better than the Princesses' "Ram-ta-pa-ta-pas" and nothing like Bzikebi's "Bzzz-bzzalos".
In 2011, Bzikebi Studios got it right. Giga filled the stage with 5 of his older girl students, called them "Candy" and gave them a song in proper Georgian called "Candy Party". Georgia won the contest. The one nod to the old formula was a 10 year old Armenian member of Candy, Irina, who threw in a winning "Oo-ah, oo-ah" whenever needed.
2012-2015 was a dry spell for Giga. Georgia did not win. Again, Giga tried to beat an old formula to death, trying to recreate Candy with kid groups whose main attractions seemed to be pulling faces and mugging for the camera.
Also, Georgia did not win in 2012-2015 because it got outgreenhoused. In Malta, the greenhouse was La Voix Academy and the gardeners were Maltese pop stars Gillian Attard (voice) and Matthew "Muxu" Mercieca (music). Their first big success was Gaia Cauchi, who won for Malta in 2013, followed by Destiny Chukunyere's landslide in 2015.
In 2014, La Voix stumbled with Federica Falzon, a child operatic singer who sounded 50 years old when she opened her mouth. Technically perfect: but opera is definitely a downer for today's kids. ask Melani Garcia (Spain, 2018) and Jackie Evancho and Emanne Beasha from America's Got Talent. Hearthrob Vincenzo Cantiello (2014) went over much better, singing about his first love. A strong Italian contestant is always dangerous for Malta, as he/she will pull votes from Malta's Italophiliac elite kids: it could happen this year too.
In 2016, Malta could not get over "Mamadashvili mania" among the juries, as there was no televote. Giga had pulled one of his former students, 11 year old Mariam Mamadashvili, back from New York, where she was studying for the theatre. He put her with someone else's song and produced the video. The televote was gone, the juries loved "Mzeo" ("Sun")'s complex structure and Mariam's Broadway style of singing and Georgia won.
In 2017-2020, both greenhouses were out of the JESC competition although they remained successful music schools. Both Georgia and Malta tanked, Malta hitting rock bottom in 2019 and Georgia falling to 14 out of 19 contestants in the same year.
This year, Giga is back with, in my humble opinion, one of his best songs: "Count The Smiles". It has a vibe perfect for JESC and includes as the common language French instead of English. Can he win, or is focusing on the song another example of trying to beat an old formula to death? Niko Kajaia is unknown outside Georgia. I cannot find his total followers but his posts on Instagram get likes in the hundreds while Sara's (Poland) and Tanya's (Russia) get likes in the thousands. Georgia's total voters are too few to compete with Poland's and Russia's on a national basis. So where can Georgia's winning majority come from? I will leave it with this: (1) if the contest were decided on merit alone Georgia would win and it could have done so in JESC 2012 as it then was (2) the juries will love this entry and (3) Georgia have a good shot at the top 10, maybe even top 5, but not number 1.
This year, Malta's greenhouse is only half into the JESC. Gillian Attard's La Voix Academy is still going strong but Gillian did not write "My Home". La Voix is there, however, in the person of Kaya Gouder Curmi, a La Voix student (you can see it in her stage presence and hear it in her technically perfect singing) and Muxu was a co-writer of the lyrics. Probably, Gillian has been coaching Kaya behind the scenes but that is a guess.
Is half a greenhouse good enough? First of all, La Voix not running this show is going to hurt Ike and Kaya: the "What were they thinking?" strategy of a duo singing half in rap is combining JESC's least favourite attributes, duos and raps. Gillian was never so "creative" in the worst sense of the word. No duo (Bulgaria and Serbia please note!) and no even partially-rap song (ask Arina Pekhtereva (Belarus, 2020) has ever won JESC. Young children like neither. They need a single candidate they can identify with and, except in some urban areas and among immigrant and first-generation children, they do not feel comfortable with rap. Add to this that the rap and ballad are not combined properly: a child looking at the video thinks "Kaya is trying to sing a beautiful song so why is Ike barracking her?". Even being in English and some Muxu impact on the lyrics will not save this. All that was needed to totally bury Malta's chances would have been for Kaya to start singing opera in the middle of it all. Add to this a strong candidate in Italy, in Elisabetta Lizzi, "Signorina Maneskin", and we start looking for Malta as a distant rock, drowning in the ocean, perhaps, as in the recent past, a Slavic ocean.
The greenhouses were a transitional phase in the movement from a child-dominated to a broadcaster-dominated contest. They offered children a chance at stardom and broadcasters well-trained children with partly-professional songs who could win JESC. They made good sense for small countries. However, they probably cannot survive an environment of superstar candidates, nationalist voting and professionally-packaged songs and singers, marketed professionally. Georgia and Malta are putting their best feet forward by going back to their greenhouses this year, Malta stumbling by not going full-on with their greenhouse. Now we will see whether greenhouses are still relevant and can save the day or are an idea whose time has passed.
One past strategy to win the JESC is what I call the "Greenhouse Strategy". Georgia and Malta perfected it in 2008-2016. It was how a small country, with few televotes, could pool its resources and put its best foot forward: and win! Greenhouses in these countries won JESC in 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016.
A greenhouse, by my metaphoric definition, is a music/singing school that grooms JESC contestants. It has a gardener: a musical and/or singing expert who trains the children to be technically perfect. In most cases, the gardeners also wrote and composed the songs for JESC entry but the contestants participated in this process to a greater or lesser degree. This replaced the practice from 2003 to 2012, and 2014, where the winning child singer usually wrote the song - lyrics at least.
The greenhouse was the first step in the professionalisation of JESC, leading to the current practice, in which the national broadcaster chooses a song, chooses a child (often, but not necessarily, by public national contest) and packages them for JESC. My personal opinion is that these were not steps up, they were steps down. I think that the early days, when we heard directly from children and they came out on the stage warts and all, gave us much better songs and a much less commercial contest which was still beautifully produced by the host cities/countries on show day.
Georgia had the first greenhouse. It started when Giga Kukhianidze's students, 2 Mariams and 1 Giorgi, calling themselves "Bzikebi" ("Wasps"), flew away with the 2008 JESC in an historic landslide. The song, of course, was called "Bzz". They dressed like wasps, danced like wasps and sang in a waspish language (I guess the JESC national language requirements were overlooked). If you have never seen that performance, you should. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMHcS_QdiIU. It was original, unique, fun, funny, amazing.
The next year, 2009, Giga was not involved in the Georgian national selection, at least so far as the published literature goes. "Princesses", who came out of God-knows-where, won the national selection with a brilliant - and, in my opinion, one of JESC's most underrated - song, "Lurji Prinveli" (Blue Bird) but Georgia dropped down to 6th.
Then the next year, it was Giga to the rescue. He formed a greenhouse, "Bzikebi Studios" and took students. In 2010, Giga ran with one of these students, "Baby Gaga", Mariam Kakhelishvili, who had lost to Bzikebi in the national selection in 2008. Georgia went up to 4th but perhaps Giga realised that he could not keep trying to copy Bzikebi's wins with nonsense language: Mariam's "Mari-Daris" had done only a little better than the Princesses' "Ram-ta-pa-ta-pas" and nothing like Bzikebi's "Bzzz-bzzalos".
In 2011, Bzikebi Studios got it right. Giga filled the stage with 5 of his older girl students, called them "Candy" and gave them a song in proper Georgian called "Candy Party". Georgia won the contest. The one nod to the old formula was a 10 year old Armenian member of Candy, Irina, who threw in a winning "Oo-ah, oo-ah" whenever needed.
2012-2015 was a dry spell for Giga. Georgia did not win. Again, Giga tried to beat an old formula to death, trying to recreate Candy with kid groups whose main attractions seemed to be pulling faces and mugging for the camera.
Also, Georgia did not win in 2012-2015 because it got outgreenhoused. In Malta, the greenhouse was La Voix Academy and the gardeners were Maltese pop stars Gillian Attard (voice) and Matthew "Muxu" Mercieca (music). Their first big success was Gaia Cauchi, who won for Malta in 2013, followed by Destiny Chukunyere's landslide in 2015.
In 2014, La Voix stumbled with Federica Falzon, a child operatic singer who sounded 50 years old when she opened her mouth. Technically perfect: but opera is definitely a downer for today's kids. ask Melani Garcia (Spain, 2018) and Jackie Evancho and Emanne Beasha from America's Got Talent. Hearthrob Vincenzo Cantiello (2014) went over much better, singing about his first love. A strong Italian contestant is always dangerous for Malta, as he/she will pull votes from Malta's Italophiliac elite kids: it could happen this year too.
In 2016, Malta could not get over "Mamadashvili mania" among the juries, as there was no televote. Giga had pulled one of his former students, 11 year old Mariam Mamadashvili, back from New York, where she was studying for the theatre. He put her with someone else's song and produced the video. The televote was gone, the juries loved "Mzeo" ("Sun")'s complex structure and Mariam's Broadway style of singing and Georgia won.
In 2017-2020, both greenhouses were out of the JESC competition although they remained successful music schools. Both Georgia and Malta tanked, Malta hitting rock bottom in 2019 and Georgia falling to 14 out of 19 contestants in the same year.
This year, Giga is back with, in my humble opinion, one of his best songs: "Count The Smiles". It has a vibe perfect for JESC and includes as the common language French instead of English. Can he win, or is focusing on the song another example of trying to beat an old formula to death? Niko Kajaia is unknown outside Georgia. I cannot find his total followers but his posts on Instagram get likes in the hundreds while Sara's (Poland) and Tanya's (Russia) get likes in the thousands. Georgia's total voters are too few to compete with Poland's and Russia's on a national basis. So where can Georgia's winning majority come from? I will leave it with this: (1) if the contest were decided on merit alone Georgia would win and it could have done so in JESC 2012 as it then was (2) the juries will love this entry and (3) Georgia have a good shot at the top 10, maybe even top 5, but not number 1.
This year, Malta's greenhouse is only half into the JESC. Gillian Attard's La Voix Academy is still going strong but Gillian did not write "My Home". La Voix is there, however, in the person of Kaya Gouder Curmi, a La Voix student (you can see it in her stage presence and hear it in her technically perfect singing) and Muxu was a co-writer of the lyrics. Probably, Gillian has been coaching Kaya behind the scenes but that is a guess.
Is half a greenhouse good enough? First of all, La Voix not running this show is going to hurt Ike and Kaya: the "What were they thinking?" strategy of a duo singing half in rap is combining JESC's least favourite attributes, duos and raps. Gillian was never so "creative" in the worst sense of the word. No duo (Bulgaria and Serbia please note!) and no even partially-rap song (ask Arina Pekhtereva (Belarus, 2020) has ever won JESC. Young children like neither. They need a single candidate they can identify with and, except in some urban areas and among immigrant and first-generation children, they do not feel comfortable with rap. Add to this that the rap and ballad are not combined properly: a child looking at the video thinks "Kaya is trying to sing a beautiful song so why is Ike barracking her?". Even being in English and some Muxu impact on the lyrics will not save this. All that was needed to totally bury Malta's chances would have been for Kaya to start singing opera in the middle of it all. Add to this a strong candidate in Italy, in Elisabetta Lizzi, "Signorina Maneskin", and we start looking for Malta as a distant rock, drowning in the ocean, perhaps, as in the recent past, a Slavic ocean.
The greenhouses were a transitional phase in the movement from a child-dominated to a broadcaster-dominated contest. They offered children a chance at stardom and broadcasters well-trained children with partly-professional songs who could win JESC. They made good sense for small countries. However, they probably cannot survive an environment of superstar candidates, nationalist voting and professionally-packaged songs and singers, marketed professionally. Georgia and Malta are putting their best feet forward by going back to their greenhouses this year, Malta stumbling by not going full-on with their greenhouse. Now we will see whether greenhouses are still relevant and can save the day or are an idea whose time has passed.