Victims of Politics

[Realest]

In the last few Years many ESC-Artists were whining about being a victim of politics. Here are some examples:

Lisa Angell ( 2015; 25/27):

"je pense que la musique et la politique, ça ne marche pas"

http://www.jeanmarcmorandini.com/ar...te-musique-et-politique-ca-ne-marche-pas.html

Engelbert Humperdinck ( 2012; 25/26):

"No, I don’t watch it. It’s very political. The UK will never be up there again because the competition is too controlled. No matter how much talent you send out there from the UK, nothing will come of it. [...] Yes. How can you put a person on who is a global artist when there are people there who don’t have record contracts and have never appeared in an arena before and win a music contest? There was a group of Russian grannies who were cooking when they were singing. How does that make sense? And they came second. "

http://wiwibloggs.com/2017/06/22/engelbert-humperdinck-blames-eurovision-2012-politics/192180/

Manuella ( 2016; 14/18 in the SF):

"Oh, how could Georgia qualify and we haven't? I will start believing that this show is all about politics."
(Read it here in the Forum)

Jamie Lee ( 2016; 26/26):

"Mir wurde gesagt, das aufgrund der aktuellen politischen Situation in Deutschland, Deutschland sowieso nicht gewinnen wird."
"I was told that germany wouldnt have a chance to win because of the political Situation in Germany"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMcTwwM7mrc
"Its not only about music there. Countries are traficking the points [...]"

Here in the Forum i read that Joe and Jake ( 2016; 24/26) retweeted a post that contains:
"you won't beat politics"

What do you think? Is it right (or is it wrong?)? And do you know some other Victims of Politics?

 

[blue00eyes]

Politics has some influence, there are countries which suffer more from this - Germany & Russia. I don't think France or UK do.
People you mentioned use politics as a bad excuse, they are victims of their own songs

 

[Realest]

Politics are only a bad excuse from bad Losers in Germany. In my Opinion Germany has never been a victim of Politics. Germany deserved the bad Placements (only Ann Sophie could have been around 19th-22nd) One Guy from the NDR said after Cascadas bad Ranking that not only Cascada but whole Germany stood on the stage and that the political Situation was fault. Thats why every German complains every year. This Grafic ( http://blog.prinz.de/grand-prix/esc-voting-2017-wer-mochte-levina-ein-bisschen/ )shows that there is no Anti-voting against Germany since more than the half (26/41) of the Juries had us on Top 19. No one hated, but no one really loved this Song. Only Greece and Bulgaria put us on last place, both for the second time in a row. Greece is the only country who might have voted against us for political reasons.

Russia only suffers from Lithuania and Georgia and not from whole Western Europe as many say. So i dont see them as victims since they have enough friends. 4th Place for Polina and 5th Place for Sergey were very good (in my opinion too good) Rankings.

And of course the Participants I mentioned are only bad Losers and have no clue from anything.

 

[Gabe]

Only sore losers genuinely think they do badly because of politics.

Send shit, do shit. Send good stuff, do well. It's simple.

 

[Ezio]

Shit in, shit out

 

[DanielLuis]

Sore losers. Portugal, Bulgaria and Moldova top 3 this year show that you just need to do good entries, no matter how bad your track record in the contest is.

 

[ScarlettGirl]

Personally, I don´t think any of these have been the victims of politics. I actually quite liked all these entries that are listed in the post.

Lisa Angell - I liked her song and performance, but I think she was a bit unfortunate with her starting position. Her song kinda "drowned" between the others + I felt like something was missing.
Engelbert Humperdinck - Again, lovely song and performance, but bad starting position. I am not saying that starting position has everything to say (I don´t know), but I think he also sort of drowned between everything else.
ManuElla - Okay catchy song, but I think that is what it ever was for me.
Jamie Lee - I listened to "Ghost" a lot before the final and I like it, but again, on the final evening I felt she drowned between the other songs.
Joe & Jake - I like their song. I like to put it on once in a while. It´s catchy, but nothing special.

This is how I felt about them. I think what they all have in common is that they might not have been "memorable" and a bit "anonymous" maybe? Idk.

 

[LastDreamer]

I was sure in ManuElla's top 10 result, maybe even better.

P.S : Some weeks before Eurovision Anmary and Krista were the contenders for win in my opinion

 

[Realest]

Just found an other Victim:

Tako Gachechiladze ( 2017, 11/18 in the Semifinal):

According to Google Translate:

"Georgia today and in general this year is the best! Everyone saw it today! That's about it. Ovations, applause, everything! And most importantly, people react and shock at the end.What I promised and what was the most important thing for me was that Georgia gave me dignity and that's not the Eurovision was my worth! All this is still politics ...... !!! Unfortunately((( In short, thank you all, I love you and I am proud of myself and the most important thing is that I am Georgian !!!!"

(She had a Optimal Draw with Armenia, Azerbaijan)

 

[lavieenrose]

The victims of politics at Eurovision are the people who have to listen to other people whinge about how the entire voting is based on it.

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

Diaspora voting is way more of a problem than political voting, but that doesn't mean political voting doesn't exist.

Only sore losers genuinely think they do badly because of politics.

Send shit, do shit. Send good stuff, do well. It's simple.

This is clearly not true, you only have to look at televoting results... grannies baking bread come 2nd, Laka hanging clothes on a washing line comes 10th. Lucie Jones come 20th, Patricia Kaas comes 17th!

They are a few instances that really stand out to me, but you can look just generally to see that countries who have a political/diaspora base can send literally anything and come top - see Russia and Bosnia, but those that don't have such a base literally pull out everything and still only get to the same level (if they are lucky):
France's Amir in 2016 only comes 9th in televoting. United Kingdom's Jade Ewen & Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2009 only comes 10th in televoting.

Saying "send shit, do shit" is like ignoring the blindingly obvious as well as ignoring a problem that ruins the Contest every year if you take it seriously (I no longer do so at least no longer have this problem lol).

 

[DenizESC]

[MENTION=5194]MyHeartIsYours[/MENTION] Send shit, do shit is real and already proven many times. Lets look at the Netherlands for example, they couldn't qualify at all in the 2000s then their broadcaster started sending decent songs and they have been doing amazing ever since.

Gimmicks always get a lot of points like the cute grannies baking bread, which IMHO were still better then half of UK's entries last decade... Conchita was also one and even won the whole thing, that doesn't prove your point at all. If you actually send an amazing winner song and manage to promote it well then the song will make it to the top anyway unless it flopped really bad.

Yes countries like Russia can probably send anything and still get a nice ranking however Portugal and Bulgaria also seem to be able to reach the top when they send a song people actually like...

 

[DanielLuis]

Laka's "Pokusaj" was an amazing song actually, one of the bests of 2008. If anything the over the top performance actually brought it's result down a little.

 

[Gabe]

Diaspora voting is way more of a problem than political voting, but that doesn't mean political voting doesn't exist.


This is clearly not true, you only have to look at televoting results... grannies baking bread come 2nd, Laka hanging clothes on a washing line comes 10th. Lucie Jones come 20th, Patricia Kaas comes 17th!

They are a few instances that really stand out to me, but you can look just generally to see that countries who have a political/diaspora base can send literally anything and come top - see Russia and Bosnia, but those that don't have such a base literally pull out everything and still only get to the same level (if they are lucky):
France's Amir in 2016 only comes 9th in televoting. United Kingdom's Jade Ewen & Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2009 only comes 10th in televoting.

Saying "send shit, do shit" is like ignoring the blindingly obvious as well as ignoring a problem that ruins the Contest every year if you take it seriously (I no longer do so at least no longer have this problem lol).

Grannies were memorable and funny. Laka was memorable and funny. People voted for them because they were ENTERTAINING. Lucie was unfairly treated but her personal talent and exceptional performance could only push a mediocre song so far. Patricia Kaas was boring and very early in the running order.

Amir was disappointing live. Jade Ewen was above average for the UK, not exceptional. We did as well as we could have hoped to do with that song and staging.

With all respect, your post says 'Europe doesn't share my taste/outlook of Eurovision so I'm salty about it' above all else. You have to remember that most people watch it to be entertained and Patricia Kaas was not entertaining for most people.

I'm not denying diaspora voting has an effect but it is not sufficiently consequential to be up in arms about it.

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

Yes countries like Russia can probably send anything and still get a nice ranking

Well you say you dont agree with me but it seems we do lol. Same with Gabe!

Indeed, from what I have seen everybody who at first says something like "send shit, do shit" eventually concedes that that is not true, even though they still argue it is...

As we can see, some countries can send "good" and still do shit (Britain, France, etc), other countries can send "shit" and still do good (Russia, Turkey, etc).

And using a single success of Portugal after decades of failure does not prove anything - all countries will win after a certain amount of rolls of the dice, and Portugal's song this year was exceptional and un-ordinary. We are talking about generally good finishing badly or below expectation for no good reason, while absolute shite performs brilliantly - all apparently determined by which country sends it.

Why are gimmick acts only considered entertaining and acceptable to succeed if they are sent by certain countries? I bet French grannies baking bread would have finished bottom 5 and would have been condemned as deserving of failure by the Eurofans because they didn't take the Contest seriously enough!

 

[DenizESC]

[MENTION=5194]MyHeartIsYours[/MENTION] I'm not saying I straight up don't agree with you. My point is what can we do about these diaspora votes? Nothing, pretty much. Yes that's sad and most of all unfair but that's why the juries were introduced. Which I know are not making it more fair per se but anyway I still believe if you send nice songs you will get a nice ranking. Portugal has been doing very bad before yes but their songs were bad too... The contest will never be truly fair but hey what is fair even. Serbians f.e. like Russians and their culture/music/people so they send them a lot of points each year. We can't do anything about this...

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

[MENTION=5194]MyHeartIsYours[/MENTION] I'm not saying I straight up don't agree with you. My point is what can we do about these diaspora votes? Nothing, pretty much. Yes that's sad and most of all unfair but that's why the juries were introduced. Which I know are not making it more fair per se but anyway I still believe if you send nice songs you will get a nice ranking. Portugal has been doing very bad before yes but their songs were bad too... The contest will never be truly fair but hey what is fair even. Serbians f.e. like Russians and their culture/music/people so they send them a lot of points each year. We can't do anything about this...

I'm not at all sure that anything can be done about it, but just because something can't be changed doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

The phrase "send shit, do shit" denies there is a problem, even though there obviously is one, and pretty much everyone agrees on it. Just coz we love this Contest doesn't mean we should pretend it doesn't have faults.

I'm not bothered myself if the UK, France, etc, keeps failing as nowadays I just enjoy the night for Eurovision, not coz I'm rooting for a home victory. Tbh the UK/FR constantly being what I would call undervalued in voting is less of a problem to me, more annoying is countries being overvalued, especially when they send absolute garbage like bread baking grannies.

We both agree that there is little to be done to stop dodgy voting, but I still don't see that as a reason to say there is no problem, "send shit, do shit" as it was put earlier in the thread. I don't think it's fair to the countries that do suffer from it to say it doesn't exist.

 

[RomanFromRussia]

"Russia would be high with any entry they send"

As a russian, I want to add one fact. If any country invested in their performances as Russia does any single year your statement would work.
Yep, diaspora voting was a problem in early 2000's, but it is a problem of broadcaster. The salvation is easy: attract bigger number of voters. With large amount of votes all the diasporal votes are being drown and that is.

UK, France, San Marino, Spain- Since 90's and earlier didn't send any artist who could fight for the victory at ESC stage.

Although they were faves of eurofans sometimes, live performances were below average:
- UK:
2011 - Faves for the victory, but disaster in vocals
2014 - Power to the people, but where was this power?
2017 - Lucie was perfect in vocals, but in a sea of ballads "Never Give Up On You" hadn't anything to stand out.

- France:
Sognu: vocal flop, lack of any emotionality
J'ai cherche: Nothing on the stage, Amir wasn't stable performer, anyway result was decent one
Requiem: Alma wasn't a stable performer, background is clichè

- Spain
Pastora: just boring performance with no thing to stand out
Ruth: clichè song, but Ruth is a great performer and the rain did everything for a top'10
Edurne: Song has nothing to stand out, dances were ridiculous
Barei: She looked so exhausted at the stage, also she performed after Russia

Any flop can be explained easily.

So send shit, do shit - is like a formula for ESC.

 

[LastDreamer]

So send shit, do shit - is like a formula for ESC.

But it's not the same for Ukraine. Almost every their entry was awful, but the most got good result.

 

[RomanFromRussia]

But it's not the same for Ukraine. Almost every their entry was awful, but the most got good result.

What result of Ukraine wasn't deserved?