Thursday 12 May 2016

Oppholdsvær prediction, part dos

Or I guess this is part uno of the oppholdsvær prediction, as the Tuesday one was a rainy one...? Either way, it's Eurovision today!!

I correctly predicted 8/10 in Tuesday's semi - annoyingly, the two qualifiers I missed out on (Croatia and Azerbaijan) were entries I've seen as obvious, safe qualifiers for months, but got convinced by rehearsal reports were a bit doomed. Their qualifications were fully deserved, and I changed my mind again while watching (and then managed 9/10 – still thought Iceland would do it instead of Malta). Croatia in particular sounded much better than I expected, and much to my amazement she'd suddenly developed personality! And Azerbaijan was far from as horrible vocally as reported, and it looked really good – excellent use of the screens.

So, how wrong will I be tonight? Let's have a look!

1 Ukraine | Don't think this is a Eurovision winner, but should be able to win tonight. Might be a bit divisive for some at home, but televoters don't have negative votes, after all. And pretty sure the juries will wet themselves (even if the Russian one might disagree on Saturday, periscoped or not...).
2 Australia | This is all a bit bland and disappointing for me, but it seems to work.
3 Bulgaria | Not seen any clips of this, and only one (very dubious!) photo, but even if they're not nailing the staging, the song itself is strong enough this should work reasonably well. Vote vote vote!
4 Latvia
5 Belgium | Very lucky draw for this, and I doubt it'll do much in the final, even with a similar draw there, but even I am starting to not hate it... :-o
6 Israel | I've had this as a likely (if borderline-ish) qualifier ever since we got the new version of it (well, new song, really, several bits of the melody is actually completely different), and most others seems to have followed suit during rehearsals, so upgrading it to a safe 6th.
7 Lithuania | This has seemed relatively safe all along, but I've also had a little bet on it to not qualify. As much as anything, it's one I can't really see who will care about, even if it's pretty strong and performed well. Also, LOSE THE PERM, DONNY.
8 Poland
9 Serbia | I assume the juries will love this, but not quite as sure about the televoters.
10 Norway | Hm. Thought it was a safe qualifier and possible top 10 in the final when it was chosen, but have since gone off it a bit. Not that I think she won't perform it well, or that her lack of promo will matter at all, nor do I think the tempo change really ruins it, it's just that I don't really think it's quite strong enough as a song. I would've predicted it out had Romania still been in, but I think it's sneaking through now. Only to do a Tooji in the final or so, perhaps...?

11 Macedonia | Kaliopi is obvs giving this her all, presumably securing reasonably good jury support, as well as a good bunch of friendly televotes, but I don't think her song is good enough this year to make it. Maybe a platypus version would help?
12 Albania | I looooved the original version, and quickly grew to loooove the new one too, but I'm sadly not expecting the world to agree :-(
13 Denmark | So inoffensive I'm offended.
14 Georgia | Reports seem to suggest this is doing much better than previously expected, but then 'previously expected' was about 19th, so...
15 Belarus | Will probably manage to scrape up some points just for being a bit... Belarussian.
16 Slovenia | Aww.
17 Ireland | Who's going to vote for this, seriously?
18 Switzerland | Smokey armpits, great idea there, The Rajkka...

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