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It is this time of year again where Europe comes together and acts like they have no issues at all with each other and holds a competition about which country has the best song of them all. Every year there are all kinds of entries: very dramatic, some weird, others just funny and a few are actually really good songs.
For those who have no clue what this Contest is all about, here a not so brief introductory:
This year marks the 50 year anniversary when ABBA won the competition back in 1974 with Waterloo. It will take place in their home country in Sweden, Malmö (the internet still is debating if it was a conincidence that Sweden won last year) from May 7th to May 11th. As for the contestants I think this year is especially interesting, because you can't really tell who will actually win. There are betting odds, but for now the top 10 still can change quite a lot until the competition.
My personal favourites are Switzerland, Nemo - The Code, Netherlands, Jost Klein - Europapa and Windows95man - No Rules!
Here is a full playlist and a shorter round up of all entries, if interested.
I am quite exited for this year, more so than the past few ones. But I don't think I would watch the actual show, because it is tbh honest quite boring over the whole duration (edit: and also because I'm not really too happy about that Israel didn't get excluded). But I'll maybe watch the final voting at the end, which can be quite entertaining with all the gloom and doom.
What about you? Are you hyped about the Contest? What are your personal favourites?
For those who have no clue what this Contest is all about, here a not so brief introductory:
What is the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC)?
The ESC is a Song Competition between most European Countries, countries culturally/geografically close to Europe and for some reason Australia. It is organized by the European Brodcast Union (EBU) which is owned by several Broadcast Organizations in different European countries. It was first hold in 1956 as the "Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson" with just a few countries. In 2024, 37 countries are taking part of the Contest.
The ESC is one of the biggest Music Competition Shows worldwide and has each year around 180 Million viewers. While most people just refer to it as "Eurovision", it's a label meant to be used for any show that is organised by more than one country in europe.
The original idea behind it was to have a friendly, non political competition in a newly more united Europe. Though this never really was true, the Contest is full of political controversies. For more recent examples: Some countries like Azerbaijan are taking part to tell everyone how great of a country they are, while being an authoritarian regime that wants no one to talk about their ongoing conflict in Karabakh. Others like Russia needed to be excluded for obvious reasons, while Israel keeps to be part of it because likely of money reasons (Eurovision gets sponsored by Moroccanoil, Company from Israel)
Despite all this, the contest remains popular in the general public of Europe. In recent years it has gotten quite important for many parts of the Queer Community. The background and expressivness of the Artist and the Staging got more important too, which people equally critisise and like. At least among most of my friends the ESC is something that they love to hate.
Personally I believe that while you can't look past the many controversies and the stances of EBU behind it, it is still great to have something like this possible on the European Continent.
How does it work?
The ESC is a Song Competition between most European Countries, countries culturally/geografically close to Europe and for some reason Australia. It is organized by the European Brodcast Union (EBU) which is owned by several Broadcast Organizations in different European countries. It was first hold in 1956 as the "Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson" with just a few countries. In 2024, 37 countries are taking part of the Contest.
The ESC is one of the biggest Music Competition Shows worldwide and has each year around 180 Million viewers. While most people just refer to it as "Eurovision", it's a label meant to be used for any show that is organised by more than one country in europe.
The original idea behind it was to have a friendly, non political competition in a newly more united Europe. Though this never really was true, the Contest is full of political controversies. For more recent examples: Some countries like Azerbaijan are taking part to tell everyone how great of a country they are, while being an authoritarian regime that wants no one to talk about their ongoing conflict in Karabakh. Others like Russia needed to be excluded for obvious reasons, while Israel keeps to be part of it because likely of money reasons (Eurovision gets sponsored by Moroccanoil, Company from Israel)
Despite all this, the contest remains popular in the general public of Europe. In recent years it has gotten quite important for many parts of the Queer Community. The background and expressivness of the Artist and the Staging got more important too, which people equally critisise and like. At least among most of my friends the ESC is something that they love to hate.
Personally I believe that while you can't look past the many controversies and the stances of EBU behind it, it is still great to have something like this possible on the European Continent.
How does it work?
- Each participating country submits one song which gets already published at least 2 months before the competition.
- Among other more specific rules, the song can't be longer than 3 minutes.
- Then in May there are 3 shows; the first and second Semi-Final and the Final.
- At each Semi-Final, it gets decided which countries will perform at the Final Show.
- The big five, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and the country where they competition is held (this year Sweden), are automatically part of the Final Show, because they are the biggest financial contributors.
- The Decisions of who get qualified at the Semi Finals and who wins at the end is evenly decided by juries from all countries and a public vote. Each countries jury gives points 1-12 to ten other countres. The public votes for the best song outside of their country. If you are from an non-participating country, this year you can vote too! It will not count as much as from the participating ones though.
- The Winning Country will then hold the competition next year (if possible).
- The voting process gets critisised because of the Jury and Public often having very different favourites. It also often is not very fair. Juries of neighbouring countries most of the time give 12 points each other and if a country has a big foreign population of another country, they will all vote for their home nation.
- After Irland had a winning streak three times in a row in the 90s, it was decided that countries are not forced anymore to sing in their own national languages and could also perform in English.
- Most winning songs nowadays are performed in English, while Italian, French and Spanish also are quite popular. German and many middle european languages not so much.
- Germany had a lot of flops in recent years and reaches both at the juries and public votes very little points. Many Germans believe it is because Europe wouldn't like them, but it propably is because their recent entries really were just kinda bland.
- UK seems to see themselves in the same boat like Germany because of Brexit, even though they got second place in 2022.
- Some countries don't actually want to win the contest because of how much money it would cost to host. It is said that they just send joke entries.
- Ukraine won in 2022, but couldn't host the competition because of the attack of russia. It was hold in in the UK.
- Many famous Singer and Songwriter went to the ESC to boost their careers. Famous examples are Celiné Dion, ABBA, Olivia Newton-John, Darude or Bonnie Tyler. Though not all were sucessful with their entries.
This year marks the 50 year anniversary when ABBA won the competition back in 1974 with Waterloo. It will take place in their home country in Sweden, Malmö (the internet still is debating if it was a conincidence that Sweden won last year) from May 7th to May 11th. As for the contestants I think this year is especially interesting, because you can't really tell who will actually win. There are betting odds, but for now the top 10 still can change quite a lot until the competition.
My personal favourites are Switzerland, Nemo - The Code, Netherlands, Jost Klein - Europapa and Windows95man - No Rules!
Here is a full playlist and a shorter round up of all entries, if interested.
I am quite exited for this year, more so than the past few ones. But I don't think I would watch the actual show, because it is tbh honest quite boring over the whole duration (edit: and also because I'm not really too happy about that Israel didn't get excluded). But I'll maybe watch the final voting at the end, which can be quite entertaining with all the gloom and doom.
What about you? Are you hyped about the Contest? What are your personal favourites?
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