Eurovision 2024

[RichB]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Sheets Tabuer said:

It's difficult, we didn't have strong vocals but making it look like a load of blokes were shagging in a grotty toilet wouldn't have helped. Eurovision may well be camp as Christmas but staging a gay porn movie is probably pushing it too far.

Perhaps, but only because there is more of an 'ick fsctor' with gay sex for some people.

Personally, I thought the Polish milkmaids a few years ago was way more overt

whatever one's sexual leanings the staging of that video was ill judged and dreary. A dirty shower block with mould and mildew on the walls doesn't exactly shout fun!

[thetapeworm]

RichB said:

hatever one's sexual leanings the staging of that video was ill judged and dreary. A dirty shower block with mould and mildew on the walls doesn't exactly shout fun!

Ah! I thought they were in Five Guys, workers on a break.

[Evercross]

Hopefully the fading into mediocre obscurity for Olly Alexander is now complete. He was a talented member of a talented band but clearly someone whispered into his ear (or more - see the controversy regarding the Netflix show Baby Reindeer and how Russell T Davis has ill-advisedly chipped into the debate) and made him believe he could be a solo phenomenon.

Overhyped and he believed his own publicity. The song was probably good enough to win in another time, but the staging was entirely someone's self indulgent fantasy and it had nothing to do with the sexual orientation being presented - it was just tacky and stereotypical - invoking a whole load of sleazy tropes that even most gay people find tired and maybe a bit offensive.

Anyway - UK have proved they know how to win and would have two years ago if Putin hadn't started his "special military operations". Sam Ryder was a great talent and a genuinely nice guy who wrote and performed a great song with a brilliant hook and would have made the Kalusha Orchestra's whiney minor-key dirge (and pink woolly bucket hat) a footnote in Eurovision history where it not for world politics.

ETA. Just found this article and it sums up my opinion of Alexander perfectly....

Sam Ryder struck it lucky with Eurovision.

Even the headline proves how disingenuous and hubristic Alexander is. Ryder did not 'get lucky' - he was more talented and put performing before political activism.

Edited by Evercross on Sunday 12th May 17:28

[JerseyRoyal]

I don’t even really care about us winning tbh, I’m usually just there for the event.

Olly Alexander has had some very bad advice though. Not just in performing in the first place but in how he managed his image in the run up.

He seems to have successfully pissed everyone off.

[Evercross]

JerseyRoyal said:

He seems to have successfully pissed everyone off.

This goes back further than Eurovision though. He crapped on his 'Years and Years' bandmates because someone made him believe he could be a solo star.

[Forester1965]

It seemed unnecessarily seedy. Half expected them to have a glory hole in the shower walls. Mind you, they needed to keep Norton in the studio.

[Evercross]

Forester1965 said:

It seemed unnecessarily seedy.

There's a whole bunch of people who would accuse you of being homophobic for any kind of criticism of the performance, but whoever decided to put on that show clearly didn't know the difference between camp and sleazy.

[Ace-T]

Forester1965 said:

It seemed unnecessarily seedy. Half expected them to have a glory hole in the shower walls. Mind you, they needed to keep Norton in the studio.

I actually think the act was not the problem. He simply did not sing it well enough or strong enough, he was wobbly and out of tune for too large a proportion of the song and it sounded amaturish compared with pretty much everyone else. I mentioned that in the semi finals there were rather a lot of folks not hitting the notes. The ones that got through sang much better in the final; I am uneducated about how the artists hear themselves over what must be an absolute racket, but the systems had obviously improved for an awful lot of them. His was either still crap or he couldn't perform when needed.

That, on top of what is at best a bit of an average track, was the reason for no votes (all IMO of course )

[JerseyRoyal]

I saw some clips of the performance and I could see what they were going for, a kind of George Michael Outside thing.

The set dressing was too grungy though, it just came off scummy.

[Forester1965]

For me it sounded like the mixing was all wrong.

[wiffmaster]

Forester1965 said:

It seemed unnecessarily seedy. Half expected them to have a glory hole in the shower walls. Mind you, they needed to keep Norton in the studio.

I think this was part of the problem. Fundamentally, a lot of Europe is still fairly Catholic and conservative. The song wasn't good enough or catchy enough for the staging to be that gay. They totally misjudged 'Eurovision camp'.

[thetapeworm]

Forester1965 said:

For me it sounded like the mixing was all wrong.

Agreed, the vocal seemed in tune but overly quiet, it came across as a poppy mumble, struggling to be heard over the backing track.

None of the others seemed to suffer the same issue even if they were fundamentally awful, which I don't think our entry was. The radio play I'd heard presented a generic earworm that seemed quite well suited to the event.

I still favoured Ireland.

[kevinon]

JerseyRoyal said:

I saw some clips of the performance and I could see what they were going for, a kind of George Michael Outside thing.

The set dressing was too grungy though, it just came off scummy.

Hadn't thought of that comparison.
George Michael's Outside song and video are both good, and together they are great. The song, the confident vocals, the dancing, and the video all play enhance each other.

As you say, the shower room grungy thing just detracted from the song. (I didn't see the final, but it seems he didn't even sing the song well)

I've seen George Michael live in concert - and he didn't miss a note.

[Mr Pointy]

If anyone is interested in some of the technical stuff behind the scenes this guy has posted a series of FB Reels:

https://www.facebook.com/ola.melzig/reels/

[Stick Legs]

Eurovision homo-erotic performances in a nutshell:

Spain = Camp & fun.

Britain = Sleezy.

As it happens I wasn't going to bother this year, ended up watching it and had a good time, some good songs, some genuine WTF and some laugh out loud moments.

For me that's what Eurovision is all about.

A televised Europe wide gang show.

[Kamov]

Regards the UK entry, the point of being on a massive stage, with options of a state of the art lighting system and 3 3D boxes at your disposal means you don't then make your performance confined to a small dirty toilet.
Such a bizarre idea of staging, nit sure how it worked live in the venue, but on TV it just looked like a music video.... really not the point of a live stage performance....
Song was weak for Eurovision but ok for radio, not enough key changes and big notes until the last few seconds, but by then too late.

People saying it is homophobic to dislike it, well I doubt many real homophobes watch EV at all.
Personally i didn't mind the smut, I just didn't like the song or the staging at all.

The Nemo song, the winner, was almost as perfectly crafted Eurovision song as Sam Ryders. Deserving winner for Nemo, but I still think Germany song was very good and should of been higher up.
Croatia was fun and actually again a well crafted song for EV......

The point about EV is that if Beyoncé turned up doing a chart song, its not automatically going to win.... that's not how EV works...so we as in the UK were way off the vibe on this one....

Enjoyed the show though....

Edited by Kamov on Monday 13th May 07:45

[FourWheelDrift]

Kamov said:

Regards the UK entry, the point of being on a massive stage, with options of a state of the art lighting system and 3 3D boxes at your disposal means you don't then make your performance confined to a small dirty toilet.
Such a bizarre idea of staging, nit sure how it worked live in the venue

Not many people in the venue could see it.

[Tom8]

We generally tune in as a family to watch eurosong. It is a bit like a panto, a bit camp, lots of silliness and some singing.

This year however was not the case. Watching some of the acts with a child was awkward to say the least. I bemoaned a while back about the continuous warnings issued on tv programmes however, where one was needed here, there was nothing and it really needed something. The Brit song was dire and the performance wholly inappropriate along with Spain's and a couple of others. But "diversity" so you have to accept it. I don't. That wil be the last eurosong we watch.

[rider73]

i usually enjoy Eurovision and have watched it for many years as an Event, but this year i felt they were mostly just generic pop songs, generic gyrating dancers, and with little variety or , shall we say , "flare" or "style" of the country-we-come-from based songs that usually smatter the entries - this year seems to have reached a new low for that - i think this will be my last real effort to watch Eurovision as an event to plan for - the next generations can define what it wants to be for the future, and long may it open doors to diversity and talent!

[Kamov]

rider73 said:

i usually enjoy Eurovision and have watched it for many years as an Event, but this year i felt they were mostly just generic pop songs, generic gyrating dancers, and with little variety or , shall we say , "flare" or "style" of the country-we-come-from based songs that usually smatter the entries - this year seems to have reached a new low for that - i think this will be my last real effort to watch Eurovision as an event to plan for - the next generations can define what it wants to be for the future, and long may it open doors to diversity and talent!

Fair enough, the diversity thing though, music has always been diverse, it needs no help. There does seem to be a generation these days that seems to either ignore or be unaware that everything before 2023 wasn't knuckle dragging racists and homophobes.
Boy George was way more out there than any EV entrant this year and that was 40 odd years ago, Bowie did gender bending way before that even, its insane to me that we have people like Olly and Sam Smith happy to go along with the idea they are ground breaking and pushing boundaries, utter guff, its actually old hat and quite boring as its all been done before and way better.
I can remember watching ToTP's and Andy Bell from Erasure was wearing like a swim suit, and another time he was dressed in blue chaps with his bum out, that was 30 odd years ago or more....
I just don't see how any of this, even some of the stuff in this years EV is anything new let alone shocking.
I find it wierd that the 'youth' pretend its new and pushing boundaries, and some of the older generations act outraged at it when many would say David Bowie was the good old days...

Bloody 1970s!! Been there, done that.....