The eight non-qualifiers - why did they fail?

So last night we once again saw ten lucky countries advance to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. As usual in a Eurovision semi final, the outcome consisted of a mix off expected and unexpected results. And as much as all ten finalists very much deserved to make it, plenty of people were hoping that other entries would be among that top 10 as well. Some might say that some songs deserved it even more than those who did make it, while other songs suffered the fate they deserved. I thought I'd take a look at the countries that didn't make it, and try to figure out why...


Estonia
This is perhaps one of the biggest surprises among many fans, and hashtags such as #JusticeForJüri are currently being spread on twitter. Personally I had a hunch that this was coming. The song itself was possibly strong enough to be a qualifier, but Estonia royally messed up the performance. Or rather, they didn't mess it up as much as they simply made us bored. Why was Jüri completely alone on stage? Why did absolutely nothing happen? (Except a card trick which you'd miss if you'd blink). Sure, he's a charming and handsome guy. But while standing still completely alone on a stage made sense for a big ballad like the Czech Republic, it made no sense for Estonia. The big issue here was simply that their bad staging decisions lead to a performance that failed to entertain the viewers and failed to stay in their minds.


Greece
This was perhaps not really a surprise for anybody. But being the first time a Greek entry fails to qualify for the final, it may have still come as a small shock to some people.
In theory, the concept on it's own could have been enough to make Greece qualify. On a superficial level, the song had a lot in common with their 2011 entry (traditional ethnic music mixed with rap verses and a sung chorus) which won the semi final. But this year's entry lacked a strong melody and lacked cohesion. I suspect it might have done better with the televote than the jury vote. Performance-wise I think they did well with what they had, but I suspect the biggest reason for the failure was simply the song.

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Just like Greece, I don't think the staging was the main issue here. Sure, it was a bit over the top with the thermal blanket capes and the camp outfits. And the song itself sounds like something that would normally have been strong enough to qualify. However, the backing track of the song does have a very bad production. It still sounds like a rather low-budget demo recording. There is really no excuse to send a production to Eurovision where the drumkit sounds as a badly sampled loop from 1971. And when compared to the surrounding entries which all had very full sounding high-quality music productions, the Bosnian song fell rather flat. This, combined with the fact that they came across as four solo acts rather than a group of performers, was probably enough to give Bosnia-Herzegovina their first ever non-qualificaton.

Moldova
Sometimes it's hard to pin point just one reason. In most cases it's simply a combination of several issues. And in this case there wasn't really much that worked in Moldova's favour. The song wasn't the strongest to begin with, and Lidia sure wasn't the strongest singer of the night. The ad-lib she decided to do for the final chorus (and which unfortunately also became the section used for the recap) didn't do the song any favours, and the dancing astronaut came across as a silly gimmick. And once again, being (almost) alone on stage didn't help either. With so many elements working against it, the Moldovan song this year probably never stood much of a chance this year.

Montenegro
Another song that probably never really was among the songs that would find it easy to qualify. But in spite of the song and genre being a difficult choice for Eurovision, the camerawork didn't really help it either. The fast flashing clips resulted in a performance where the viewers would have had difficlt making any sort of connection with the singer. We barely even got to see their faces long enough to see what they looked like, and anybody watching this on a very large screen would probably be feeling quite sea sick. The random half naked woman surely didn't help either in terms of convincing the jury to give them points.


Finland
The only thing that I thought would maybe help this qualify was the fact that Sandhja is a hell of a fantastic singer. And she did deliver vocally, even if I would have liked to hear her vocal higher in the mix. But it simply wasn't enough to make up for the bad styling choices (her jewellery even started falling apart during the performance) and the slightly weak song. A totally different visual performance might have helped it, but most likely not.


San Marino
Let's face it. This probably wouldn't have had a chance regardless of the performance. And staging-wise they did the best they could. It had life, it had energy, and it had all sorts of silliness which is what makes many of us love the entry. But it was always going to suffer from both juries and televoters finding it too old fashioned and too gimmicky. San Marino were never really competing for a place in the final this year, but they did put on a really good and entertaining show that people will remember. And they should be proud of that.


Iceland
And last but not least, possibly the biggest surprise in this semi. This one still baffles me a bit. The song is not bad at all, and it sure doesn't just blend in with the big mass of similar-sounding songs this year. Greta sang it well, and it had the draw really working in it's favour. Was it maybe the technical aspects of the performance that proved too messy? Was it the staging's similarities to previous entries? Was it the extremely ugly boots? I'm not sure. But I guess a combination of everything. And with more niched musical styles, there's always the risk that the people in the juries just happen to not be fans of that genre in the first. Every year there's always a few unlucky entries that in theory seemed like pretty safe qualifiers, and mostly it simply comes down to the fact that the jury and the televoters simply preferred ten other songs more. 

Semi 1 surprises - what did the bloggers miss?

I'm not in Stockholm this year, so, like you, I'm relying on rehearsal videos and the descriptions of bloggers watching rehearsals in the press centre to get an impression of what's going to do well. And as you'll have seen, I only got seven qualifiers right out of ten last night. So what went wrong? Who can I blame other than myself?

Croatia
A key example of an artist turning it on for the night. Where did all Nina Kraljić's personality come from? She found cameras, she smiled, she was warm - it was almost enough to make you forget the dress! And she sang really well! An obvious qualifier seeing it on TV last night.

Photo credit: Andres Putting (EBU)

Netherlands
That silence. We were told by several bloggers that the Netherlands had put in a short silence in order to encourage a crowd singalong. That never happens, and it seems it was never the intention. Perhaps an example of the groupthink that can sometimes afflict a hermertically sealed-in press centre, and something I've certainly been guilty of in the past.

I was expecting Netherlands to be great, based on reports, and found it only okay. Throughout, Douwe Bob seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open, and I didn't feel a real connection from him. And I suspect the silence was meant to lend authenticity - in a 'real' country gig, it wouldn't be uncommon to have a period of quiet like that, to bring up a swell of noise and applause from the audience, which would grow and grow to make a massive reaction. The gap in 'Slow Down' was too short for that to work, but just long enough to be awkward.

Russia
Nowhere near as impressive as we'd been led to believe, I felt. The first minute to so is underwhelming, you can see the shadows of both Sergey and his dancers separate from the projections, and then for the second verse and chorus, we lose Sergey's face; as the camera zooms out to show the impressiveness of the technology, we get no close-ups of what is a very warm and charismatic performer. Why get someone in like Sergey, with that beautiful face, and fail to show it? The last 20 seconds, where he could stand on the top, be natural, stop concentrating on stepping and show his face, were easily the best of the whole song.

Azerbaijan
It seems everyone in the press centre focused on Samra's bad vocals to the omission of everything else, including how the Azeris had come up with some of the best uses of the screens of any act. 'Miracle' didn't sound great (though nowhere near as bad as we might have expected), but it looked fantastic!

Iceland
Okay, I have no bones to pick with the bloggers about this. It looked great, it sounded great - the projections looked much more impressive than for Russia, Greta Salome showed personality - I thought this was a nailed on qualifier and potential Top 5 contender. But then Måns said the word 'Malta' instead :(

Semi Final One - My picks for tonight

I promised earlier that I wouldn't make any predictions. Because I suck at it. But I'll tell you who I want to qualify tonight. Partly influenced by what I think might be possible. So for all the prediction fans out there; you are free to consider this a prediction if you really want to.

Croatia (in spite of the clothes, I thinknit's a strong song and performance)
Netherlands (stands out as a fresh glass of water among bottles of bad wine)
Armenia (love the performance)
Russia (as much as part of me would love this to not qualify, that just isn't going to happen. And it's for sure not among the 8 weakest entries)
Czechia (probably the strongest power ballad, and a very competent performance)
Austria (cute and charming. Deserves to go through)
Iceland (quite underrated, and really stands out in the good way)
Malta (really managed to clean up the performance and should definitely be in the top 10)

After these eight it gets more difficult. But I'd quite possibly also pick Cyprus as it's a really nice rock-inspired song and they're presenting it well on stage. And Bosnia-Herzegovina would be nice as well as it's classic Balkan Eurovision schlager and every contest needs a bit of that.

There are a lot of strong contenders among the other entries too. In fact, I don't think there is any entry in this semi that I would mind seeing in the final. I'd just mind if they steal the spot from someome I'd rather see there.

Rainy prediction, part uno

For some reason Syden has decided to be all rainy and wet (and thundery - it's getting exciting etc), so this first Eurovision day has been spent indoors perfecting my (very fresh!) snooker technique. It's going so-so so (so?) far – a Bee, a Faulkner and a Fry have all beat me, and I'm sure there's more to come. Will the predicting go any better...?

Last year I managed to do very well in the final somehow, and pretty good in the semis (9/10 in both semi 1 and semi 2). Pretty sure I'll be more off on all evenings this year... As always, I'll predict the full ranking, even if we'll only get to see the ten qualifiers in a "random" order tonight.

1 Russia | I think this is winning on Saturday too, so today should be a fairly easy match for it. Plus it's the best song in it!
2 Armenia | Wasn't sure about this before, as it's all a bit weird and complicated and aggressive and siren-y, but reports suggest they've managed to stage and film it *just* right.
3 Netherlands | I find the song a bit too dull to do anything in the final, but it should sail through to it quite easily.
4 Czech Republic | I find the song a bit too dull to do anything in the final, but it should sail through to it quite easily.
5 Malta | Erk. My instinct here is a big no, but it seems to appeal to various different people, for some reason.
6 Iceland | More erk.
7 Estonia | Not at all sure about this, but it deserves to qualify. And we all want to see the bummage again on Saturday, don't we?
8 Hungary | I don't fully get this (apart from the #hip bit), but several seem to, so a safe-is qualification and then 21st or so in the final seems likely.
9 Cyprus
10 Austria | Many things suggest this won't make it, but then there's also the fact it's, like, you know, a nice song, so...

11 Croatia | Hope it makes it, fear it just won't click.
12 Azerbaijan | The song by itself should be an easy top 5 in this semi, and Azerbaijan know their way around getting points, but according to all reports, trustworthy or not, she's royally fucking this up. Looking forward to hear for myself! :-D
13 Bosnia & Herzegovina
14 Finland
15 Greece
16 Montenegro
17 San Marino | Just a bit too obviously last to end last.
18 Moldova | A shame, I really like it :-(

The borderliners - My Semi 1 Prediction

I have to admit, I'm finding Semi 1 one of the hardest semis to predict in a number of years, and that's for the simple reason that there are so many songs that, for me, are right on the borderline of qualifying. To put my thoughts in order, I thought I'd write about them.

For me, there are six songs that are definitely through in Semi 1, and four that are definitely out. That leaves seven in the borderline between 8th place and 14th place - so three of them have to qualify. Those seven songs are Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Austria, Estonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and for me, they fall into three pairs (plus Greece). So let's take them in their pairs.

Battle 1: Azerbaijan vs Austria
The two young girls who haven't impressed vocally in rehearsals. I've always really liked Austria, and have tended to be quite firm in my belief that it's a good song, and that will be enough to carry it through. However, with a lot of competition in this semi-final, and so many things working against it (the language, Zoe's vocals, the cute-and-likeable vs annoying-and-precocious debate), I now think it stays in the semi. Azerbaijan, by contrast, has never impressed me as a song - I always found it quite ordinary, and I think the staging is also quite underwhelming. But they have more friends, and what's possibly quite a generically appealing song.

Battle 2: Hungary vs Estonia
Two boys singing darker songs. Hungary have been quite well-thought of since 'Pioneer' was chosen, both in predictions and betting odds, but I've never seen it. I always found the performance from A Dal quite uninteresting, and it doesn't sound like Freddie's done much to change that in Stockholm. It'll all depend on if Europe sees something more than I do. On the other side of the battle, Estonia have changed their performance for the international final, and reports suggest it might be over-complicating things now. I do think Hungary is slightly more accessible as a song, but Juri might have enough appeal - and who knows what juries will make of it?

Battle 3: Croatia vs Bosnia-Herzegovina
The Balkan nations - is there room for both of them in the final? Croatia have tumbled down the rankings over the past couple of months, and even more so after seeing the planned stage performance. I always had Bosnia-Herzegovina down as a non-qualifier - just too Balkan as a song, and potentially not a very vote-friendly look (that's me trying to find a kind way of saying that Deen looks weird). But as Bosnia always do, they've come with a strong (if slightly odd) performance in rehearsals, and may surprise us once again. I told myself I'd never bet against Bosnia qualifying after 2010 - perhaps I should take that advice tonight.

And then there's Greece. As a song, it should be doomed - but on the other hand, the last time they entered a combination of rap and singing in a mix of languages, which we'd all assumed was hopeless when it was selected, it went and won the semi. I'm always wary of counting Greece out.

So, I have to make a choice... here goes:

The qualifiers:

1. Russia
2. Iceland
3. Netherlands
4. Armenia
5. Malta
6. Czech Republic
7. Cyprus
8. Hungary
9. Bosnia-Herzegovina
10. Estonia

And missing out:

11. Azerbaijan
12. Croatia
13. Greece
14. Austria
15. Montenegro
16. San Marino
17. Finland
18. Moldova