Germany – After concerns were raised by Eurovision Ireland about two songs in the German final, one has apparently been changed. Eurovision Ireland had previously reported there were several similarities between Die Priester feat. Mojca Erdmann and their song “Ave Maris Stella“ and several religious songs from the 16th and 19th Centuries. According to Blog.prinze.de it has now been decided that Die Priester will now change their entry.
Eurovision Ireland had also pointed out to NDR, the German broadcaster, that Mobilee and their song “Little Sister” had also been available on YouTube well in advance of the cut off date for performance, Sept 1st. Blog.prinze.de has a report on this here. Apparently it has been decided that as the video had received very small numbers of views, no competitive advantage had been given to Mobilee and their entry. Is this fair that the rules can be waved for this act? The rules are there for a reason.
All of this comes as Switzerland are still deciding what to do about their representatives who must change their name as it would break the rules of promoting a commercial organisation, and on the back of a disqualification in Estonia.
It seems staggering that year after year songs are breaking the rules. Fans know what the rules are, so how can composers, singers and national broadcasters not know, and have these games every year?
The Eurovision Times 
At this point, I am rooting for Mia Diekow, Ben Ivory and LaBrassBanda anyway.
Good luck to us! :)
Hello togravus im bert im from ukraine but live in scotland in englands. I want cascada to win for germanys. United kingdom gives 12 points to germanys yay :) togravus you eurovision times answer to simon cowells
“but live in scotland in englands”
Scotland in England??? Don’t tell the Scots or you’ll be doomed …
You don’t like “Lil’ sister”?
It’s so groovy and cool, it also has country and rockish vibes! :D I prefer it to Lena BY FAR!
:( Die Priesters were my favorites :) Hope for something even better!
Will Die Priester be allowed in Eurovision when Heilsarmee won’t? I’m all in for gregorian chant so I hope they will be there.
It’ll be interesting to watch, if they win. I mean, one can make the argument that being a priest is simply an occupation, while Heilsarmee are an organization using their name in the contest to advertise. There’s also a possibility that they would be more willing to change their name for Eurovision too.
how about NDR understands that no matter how many views they get, Mobilée will NOT be eligible for Malmö… so, true, they havent had a bigger advantage when it comes to winning Unser Song für Malmö, but if they win, that’s a lot of trouble coming your way for not being able to send the winning song to the contest… how stupid are they?
ps: Ben Ivory’s The Righteous Ones sounds like one of the songs of the year already! cant wait for full version and hope for a strong live
So,we now know 2 songs taking part in the German final.I prefer Ben Ivory for now!
it’s not complete yet :(
Rules are rules. I am also expecting a lot from Ben Ivory. Good luck.
P.S.: enjoy the coming evening and night, everyone! :) It’s raining here and there is a Londinian fog hanging around.
Yes, happy new year to everyone! enjoy!, may 2013 be the best ESC year ever…hmmm well there’s still hope somewhere :-) feliç any 2013 i visca Barça!! :-)
Enjoy the night everyone!Here,the weather is quite mild.One of my favorite songs by our reigning esc winner and her amazing album “Heal” for those who feel like dancing… :)\
What’s with those youtube videos…Here is the right song.
If you’re playing from a playlist, you have to unselect the playlist when you go to share it or you share the entire playlist.
It’s… frustrating.
Thanks ;)!Anyway,the second video is the right one.
HAPPY NEW YEAR MY FELLOW EUROVISIONTIMESERS :p
happy new year too! I thought it might be a nice idea for new year for people here to send a video of the place where they live just to get an idea for everyone about their daily life etc and get an idea about where they live independent of ESC etc, if that is possible to get a video, I will start the ball rolling with my home city, Barcelona:
Great Idea. :)
Well, I am in the company of Barcelona, Paris, Lisbon, Thessaloniki etc. here and thus I feel a bit like Stone & Stone again living in Stuttgart. I guess that most people do not know much about Stuttgart except that we are good at building fast and expensive cars … :(
indeed you see it was a good idea! I never realised Stuttgart was just more than a typical German city, that there so much more to it, especially the green areas outside…and flamingos too! I imagine other cities here have their hidden treasures too :-)
Best things about Stuttgart (imho):
We have vinyards in downtown Stuttgart.
We have the best opera house and ballet in Germany.
We have the best weather of all major German cities.
We have the best food and the best wine in Germany. (Well, I know that this is subjective, but only to a certain degree. Swabian food is much more diverse than food in most other German regions.)
We have Germany’s most famous zoo and botanical garden, the Wilhelma, which was built in the early 20th century in Moorish Revival style.
We have wild parrots living in Bad Cannstatt. They escaped from the Wilhelma decades ago but decided to stay here. Perhaps they like opera and a Viertele Trollinger too.
We are a spa town too.
And … first and foremost …
The Alps, France and Italy are not far. :)
every decent football fan knows stuttgart!
or used to, at least
lol
casual morons only know bayern (but they all root for barcelona anyway)
i dont follow closely the german bundesliga, but one of my closest friends is a huge fan of Werder so I tend to support that team over there… in France i’m a huge Auxerre fan :( and root for Tottenham in England, the rest…
i love the bundesliga, most entertaining major league by far, i’d watch any game
in france i like nice, of course, plus their goalie is colombian (and our starter in la seleccion) and i love man utd
ewww MU are the devil, literaly :p but anyway but the Gunners, I’m a Spurs fan after all… how can a league with a 10pt leader like Bayern be entertaining? or even la Liga for instance? France is the lowest level one but the only one where you never know what will happen :p
as in playing style, every game is fun and open
when i was in france ol already had a 14 pts advantage in october lol, luckily i turned to rugby
Toulon! can’t believe the team reinvented itself the past three years, since they came back to Top 14
jonny wilkinson helps
but as a good south american, i care about international play waaaay more than anything else
the six nations is just heaven for me (i, of course, support la france)
aw thanks, did you see the recent games of les bleus? coz the 30-6 Australia game blew me away… and of course we were cheated out of the world cup final :/
no :( i had this thing that costed me all my saturday mornings in november but i did follow results (new zealand lost!!)
i did watched the semi vs wales completely drunk after a wedding in bucaramanga at 4 am lol
next year’s campaign looks great tho, more open tourney in years
I will boycott that bloody Bundesliga until we return … yes, we will rise, and we will return … the Phoenix from the Flaaaaame ♫♪♫ (you are all pretty young … do you know which song I am quoting?)
At the moment my club has a miserable life in the 2nd Bundesliga. But we are in the cup’s semis and will play the VfB in Stuttgart. Will probably be the end of the 2012/2013 cup for us. :(
Not semis … quarters … wishful thinking. :)
oh my god no, “Troy” is one of my fave songs ever
my “oh my god no” was because I read “you’re too young to know which song I am quoting”… come on, I actually played Ireland in a stupid online fan esc copy just so I could play with “Troy”!
That’s the Morgan I have known for years. Always beyond the liimitations of age when it comes to good music. You rock!
Good night!
lol thanks, I have “Lion and Cobra” original CD too :o im a geek :p
I live in Paris, in the south, the communist region called “the red belt” around Paris, where all the labouring-class workers used to live together… I work in the Sorbonne (University Paris IV officially), in the Latin Quarter, “Rive gauche” (Left bank, associated with Saint-Germain-des-Près, the quarter next to the Latin Quarter, also on Rive Gauche, where Sartre, de Beauvoir and other lefty intellectuals used to join) and take the metro everyday… right in front of Saint-Germain on the right bank you have the Louvre and from there you have, parallel to the Seine river, the main axe of Paris, that goes from Louvre west to the Tuileries gardens at the end of which you find the Concord plaza, with the egyptian Obelisk, west of that, in the same line, you get the Champs-Elysées that lead to the Arc de Triomphe. The Eiffel Tower is on the Left bank but all the way on the West end side of Paris. Montmartre, the hill, and the Sacré-Coeur abbaye are all the way on the North of Paris. Hope you get a better idea of the famous landmarks of Paris now, because that’s pretty much what you see in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yHldMaLzG0
ok get your drift, bien sur, je te comprends, not sure why you are telling me about your current situation re my post?, have lived in Paris myself as a student and journalist many years before you..and your point is?!
What a strange comment …
just to explain what was my daily life, i thought that’s what you were after?
I’m sorry, it’s my fault, I misunderstood your reply , do forgive me, between several languages it is hard to tell what is sarcastic and not these days, a 1000 apologies !
my point is, if i said “i live and work in paris” then that makes NO point, it’s a BIG town with very different lifestyles and genres so I wanted people to understand that I am a left-brank person, living South of Paris and working in latin quarter, that this was my Paris, and nothing like Eiffel-Champs Elysée or Montmartre (which is very popular since “Amelie”). That’s my point, now I don’t get the whole “many years before you”. Do people ALWAYS need to FIGHT on Eurovision? Coz I certainly can give up trying to be nice to everyone for god’s sake
Talking of french things if it’s any consolation, my father was in the audience at the Teatro Real in 1969, as representative of British embassy Madrid (I was 2 years old and we later went to start the British consulate in Barcelona), my father still says to this day that French song was clearly best on the night, even among Spanish audience, and they were really surprised about the 4 way tie, they expected French song to win , it is clear in the “reprise” of the French song, when Spanish audience applauded the loudest ahead of even Spanish winner, my father told me about that:
I always thought that Frida did get the biggest applause in the reprise but I wasn’t sure if it wasnt just me hoping for it (I also think France 1969 was the best that year imo)
Well, I can assure you now, she got the biggest reprise, because , according to my father, she got the applause halfway through her song, from all the audience that represented France plus other nations represented , including Spain, it was a first in eurovision, that the audience was heard aloud cheering a winning song live!
I agree. France had the best song and one of the best performances ever in 1969. Well, since I am a virgo and thus want things to be in order … here is my list of the 1969 songs I love or really like:
1. France
2. Portugal
3. Italy
4. Ireland
5. Spain
6. Netherlands
and the ones I cannot stand:
15. UK
16. Yugoslavia
P.S. In case anyone from Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Israel etc. is around: Happy New Year! :)
Uk is my dead last but I also have Ireland 15th in my garbage bin (seriously the shirtest skirt way before crappy esc started), it was the wagest of something alright… France, Portugal, Netherlands in my Top 3, the rest is so so, I have Italy 4th, Monaco 5th and the usual Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Spain to follow… nothing incredible really
I am not allowed to watch this clip either … :(
such a shame you can’t see it., my father still listens to that song after so many years ..so beautiful
I can watch Frida, and I know song and performance by heart anyway. My comment was referring to Morgan’s Paris clip. But then I will be in Paris in May which is even better, I suppose. :)
Thanks for the fact. I’m very interested in electoral geography and what makes some areas “left-wing” and other “right-wing”.
The prettiest building in Paris is, of course, Palais Garnier. And the Eiffel Tower by night. Are there many toruists facing the gloomy Paris syndrome? :)
no, usually tourists love Paris, at least all the ones i know … I agree about palais Garnier, stunning, and near the grand boulevard for shopping lol, very rich quarter (the dark blue in french monopoly is a street that goes from the Opera to the place Vendôme) ;)
as for geography, the winds always blow from west to east (from atlantic to continent) in paris, so all factories were built in the east and south of paris, hence they’re the poorest quarters, the old laboring classes lived there and now they’re communist headquarters, the west of paris, represented mostly by Neuilly (the hometown of… Sarkozy), is extremely wealthy and rich and conservative, from eiffel tower to XVth, XVIth and XVIIth quarter of Paris :(
So there’s a west/east difference, just as in London and Berlin, where the wealthy lives in the west and the poor lives in the east. Interesting things about capitals overall is that some are left-wing (Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Copenhagen and more), others are right-wing (Madrid, Prague, Stockholm, Helsinki and more).
And in France, I’m particulary amazed by Vendée, which is the Philippe de Villiers area, still 215 years after the Vendée revolt. :)
Paris is now very lefty, has a gay socialist mayor since 2001 and voted left on presidential elections since… and Vendée is THE exception, the entire Atlantic coast and is now quite lefty, all the way to Aquitaine and South-West, who almost only have lefty deputies… the East and North, industrial, have now turned conservative :(
Indeed has Bretagne made a huge switch when it comes to politics. And the same goes for Northern France. What has happened?
economic changes, the whole 70s-80s era saw a lot of economic and institutional changes: Bretagne is a very farmer’s region, so it doesnt follow the flow of the industrial north, that went from communist to extreme right, following the populist waves all around Europe… while Bretagne has its own politics, and the good economic wave for our agriculture has managed to keep them out of that, and while the right defends old fashion bretagne v. Paris, the left has accompanied best the changes and is now in full of power…
Togravus feel tiny in comparison with other ET Times fellows, coming from Stuttgart. At least, his hometown has some cultural institutions at all. I’m the one who should really “feel a bit like Stone & Stone”. :(
I won’t wish a happy new year now because we Germans beleive that it brings bad luck to wish a happy new year before the new year has actually arrived.
I am at home reading Rosalía de Castro’s ‘En las orillas del Sar’. I always reserve this night for a special book, a fine volume of poetry most years … and I never attend New Year’s Eve parties for the follwing reasons:
People play awful music because everyone MUST be happy and in a good mood which automatically transforms my jolly self into a grumpy old man.
People drink too much.
When they have drunk too much, people start talking rubbish.
When they have drunk even more, people lose all sense of individual distance and good manners in general.
When they are totally pissed, people do embarrassing things they regret the next day.
It even happens to the most sensible people and has happen to me in the past too, and thus I prefer to spend the evening in the company of Rosalía. :)
really? superstition, you? :p
LOL, my family is from East Prussia originally and the Germans who lived on the countryside there before the WW2 were the most superstitious ever and had never really left the Middle Ages behind. (It is sort of a miracle that Kant came from East Prussia too …). I am not superstitous myself but like to stick to the family traditions. F. e. I never do laundry between Christmas Eve and Epiphany … because that is supposed to bring bad luck too. ;)
Shame about the songs being ineligible. I hope for a song that is just as good as “ave maris stella”. It sounds really stupid to allow Mobilée to participate with a song that is ineligible. It makes it seem like it is fixed from the start. If they win, they would have to change the song and that’s not fair game, but maybe they KNOW they won’t win. :P
I’m off to a friend’s place for the New Year’s Eve party.
Happy New Year, everyone! :)
happy new year ! and thanks for images of your city too !
I am not allowed to watch the Thessaloniki clip … :(
BTW, about Estonian songs: I completely fell for the French song by Neogeen! It is definitely going to be one of my NF favs this season.
…and Happy New Year everyone!
Lailaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa happy new year! I LUV YA!! :-*****
I also fell for Elina Born – “Enough” it’s the best entry for me till now! :)
First, happy new year, everyone! :)
Second, you all live in beautiful cities. Seriously, they’re much more beautiful than almost any city in the United States. As for me, I live in El Paso, Texas, right along the border with Mexico. Some facts about my city.
– We’re the second safest city in the United States.
– Our Mexican sister city, Juárez, is generally regarded as one of the most lawless cities in the world.
– The second largest U.S. military installation is just north of here.
– There are five state (three American, two Mexican) capitals closer than our own.
– Our theater just emerged from a complete renovation and is now beautiful.
– Our Congressman-elect is partially nationally famous for his stance on drugs.
It certainly isn’t the most exciting city in the country (I tend to think of it as just one big suburb), but it is nice. I live east of downtown, which is generally regarded as the middle class neighborhood. To the west, there’s the university and the upper class area. Further east, there are more suburbs and to the south, there’s the poorest areas not only in the city, but in the entire country. Here’s the best video I could find.
Thanks for sharing. I love the crocodile. And I think that I would love the weather in El Paso too. :)
You’re welcome!
The story behind the crocodile is that there used to be an enclosure in the main square, but they removed the animals in the 50s and replaced it with that statue.
If hot and dry is your weather preference, you’d absolutely love it. Right now, it’s 8 degrees outside but in the summer, we average around 33 degrees. Personally, I can’t stand it, but I’ll be leaving in August, so I can’t complain too much. :)
El Paso texas, cool! for ESC!
What do you mean?
well we cant change where we’re from as a fact but we can make a change for the place we come from and there’s great things every where I believe, I even enjoyed my one time in Texas (but it was in Dallas)… ah, warmth weather, you got me there
I agree. The weather isn’t really my thing, but the people are extremely nice and the Mexican food is held in high regard across the country. There’s really something for everyone. :)
On a completely unrelated note, 12points.tv is doing their countdown of the 250 best Eurovision songs, and Rona Nishliu came in at number 12 all time. Other notable 2012 entries are Serbia at 17, Estonia at 27, F.Y.R. Macedonia at 46, Italy at 54, Azerbaijan at 58, Russia at 132, Bosnia & Herzegovina at 175, Finland at 204, Denmark at 207, the Netherlands at 235, Portugal at 243, Spain at 2 and, unsurprisingly, Sweden at number 1, taking the spot from Serbia 2004.
as usual, the latest year takes everything… Portugal or Netherlands 2012 should never feature in an all time Top 250 but RUSSIA?!
I am pretty sure that only very few songs from the 60s featured on that list. Only the usual suspect probably, ‘Puppet’, ‘Poupée’ … and ‘Nel blu’ from the 50s. I guess that my favourite ESC song of all times did not even come close to making it onto that list. :(
Precisely. There were eight songs from the 60s, Italy ’64, Luxembourg ’65, France ’69, Luxembourg ’67, Denmark ’63, Monaco ’67, Portugal ’69 and France ’68. And from the 50s, it’s only Italy ’58. Out of these, the highest was Italy ’64 at 88. Sorry. :(
I’m currently working my way through Eurovision history and have gone through 1960 right now and, I have to say, there’s quite a lot of good stuff.
The 60s were the best decade of ESC ever imo. Everyone could sing live, and there are so many musical gems there, even if they are totally different to what went on in the UK back then. Music has always been much more than British pop only. Celebrate diversity!
the irony in this is, besides the odd ones (Lux 67 is overrated, Monaco 67 is, well I guess Gainsbourg is still big… and I don’t like Italy 64 myself), they have it right, Denmark 63, France 68-69 and Luxembourg 65 are the four undoubtful masterpieces of the decade (I’d add a few, like Sweden 67, Italy 61, Finland 65, possibly Spain 66) so they got it right on which were the best, they just neglect to see they ARE indeed the BEST and that there should be around 10 songs per YEAR from that decade in a Top 250, not half of 2012 and 8 miserable songs out of so many beautiful years :(
I don’t have the background that you do but I agree. This bias toward current years is ridiculous. Even if the Netherlands was my number one this year, it doesn’t deserve to be on this list. There were at least thirty songs from 2012 on that list and a vast majority of it was from the 2000s. They should just call it a best of 2000s list and leave the whole lists to the people who know the history.
just like the 50 years celebration with a Top 14 with BOTH Johnny Logan’s songs and not a single French entry, and every single winner from like 2000 to 2005… ridiculous! but people dont know the history, so if you want to sell, give them what they know/want… who wants to debate if Betty Curtis really had the best Italian 60s entry, people dont even know her and the background to her “Al di la” let alone how it got cut and much faster for the 3mns live… sigh…
ok if you mean you were above then sure let bygones be bygones, am a bit tired of this website, not knowing what’s real or what’s not, so will have to say goodbye to you I guess, sorry..
FROHES NEUES JAHR!
(Happy new year, everyone! :) … No I can say it … except to those who live in El Paso or other places where the new year hasn’t arrived yet. ;) …)
i heard people chanting and figured it was time, the dog and the cat got very excited! :p
My cat went out one night in August and never returned home. (I was in Berlin then but my family and friends did everything they could to find her …) She was only one and a half years old, and now she is probably in heaven … if we can believe Kushner’s ‘Angels in America’ and cats go to heaven …
i love Angels in America
Me too. In one line with ‘Hamlet’, ‘Faust’, ‘A Passage to India’ etc. if it comes to dealing with the last and ultimate questions.
Death in Venice sums up all my questions in one book, but I prefer Visconti’s film (Mann wrote better books)
plus I’m single, I had to have some compagny :p
i’ll play
i live in barranquilla. that is the caribbean coast of colombia.
great an ESC fan in Colombia!! :-)
Thanks for sharing too. It looks very colourful and thus very Carribean to a guy from the cold north like me. And then the main attractions are a bar and a carnival place. Very Carribean indeed. :) Love it to bits!
It looks beautiful. Thanks. :)
that is a bar that our nobel, gabriel garcia marquez, and a bunch of other renowned writers used to frequent
Yes, I understood that. I studied Spanish at university. :)
means plenty of other south american /worldwide fans here too and their cities I hope will come out of the woodwork! :-)
well Phyll is from Argentina! and Marco lives in Australia! it’s quite a lot of time zones covered ;) no Asian esc fans yet :(
we always play one of our family’s best friends at Xmas, one of my brother’s (and my) best friends:
Feliz Ano Novo de 2013, everyone! :)
Happy New Year, Eurovision Times fellows!
I’m back from the celebrations and notice that you have had an interesting discussion throughout the evening. There’s no new year without Alfred Tennyson’s “Ring out, wild bells”, if I’m the one to decide. Here read in Swedish by the great actor Anders de Wahl, who served as my avatar during the Esctoday years.
And here, in English:
Hi everyone!Happy new year!Here is a video and a music theme i love.it’s the last sunset of the 20th century in Santorini…The orchestra of colors performing.
Happy new year!
Finland’s song with no voice over are online (http://www.youtube.com/user/2013EurovisionMalmo?feature=watch)
is just me or diandra’s and Arion’s song sounded better in demos? :s
Thanks for the links.And here are the HQ videos YLE uploaded a while ago plus you can watch the contestants performing in front of the judges.
I’ll post only one to avoid multiple links and then everyone interested can find the rest of the videos.
http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1783363
oh god, Krista looks downright stupid
http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1783287
she’s performing while wearing the ugliest wedding dress ever with…pseudo black high heeled combat boots. She even throws herself to the floor dramatically o_o
LOL
I’m officialy in love with Mikael Saari’s ballad!And his live vocals are superb! Yeah! :)
Same!
The piano + his vocals sounds so so good.
It is a pretty strong line up!I’m excited.And they all seem able to perform live.At least,the ones i’ve watched so far.Krista’s wedding dress performance is somewhat awkward,i will agree!
Oh yes, all of them are pretty good. I feel bad that Iina Salin has such a weak repetitive song, because she has a wonderful voice.
After watching Krista’s video,i have second thoughts.Do they really sing live?She sounded too good to be true…
I want to believe they do if they are in front of the jury, but yeah, my doubts rise when she goes “hahaha” it sounds too perfect?
On the other hand,Lina Salin,Great wide north and Mikael Saari sound like they are singing live so they are all able to deliver i guess.
Elina Orkoneva’s song reminds me of Adele’s “Rumor has it” at parts.
Yep, I was reminded of that song too.
The one that I like for some reason unknown to myself is Ilari Hämäläinen’s. Probably because of the rhythm.
No song scores less than 7/12 from me.Krista,Last Panda and Lucy Was Driving all score 7.Ilari’s song is not among my favorites too.
I have yet to rate them, but i’ll probably have something similar, but Krista’s song, I dislike that one so much (those lyrics).
I’m worried about Diandra’s and Arion’s song…apparently the fulls are the final versions, unless juries tell them to change something…but the demo of those songs sounded so much better o_O. Diandra’s song went from good to no. Her voice gets eaten by the music in this one :s. And Arion’s changed their lyrics. It was way better when it went “All by myself, so far away” now it goes “She tries to leave” (?)
I find them more or less the same.Yes,i also prefer “All by myself…” but it’s not enough to make me like the song any less.I like them both.Arion and Mikael Saari are my runaway winners.
Here is the studio version/video by Rautakoura.