Eurovision 2015 – This year we resume the “Eurovision Times Awards” to give prizes (the Fridas) for the best in every category! And you get to vote! Today, we resume the polls with the two categories focused on unfair results!
2015 will be the second year for Eurovision Times to organize a new contest (you can check 2013’s results here and the 2014’s ones here). As with the past couple of years, our blog hosts now two contests: TEKO which takes place before the contest and the “Eurovision Times Awards” after the contest. The principle of the ET Awards is simple, in each categories, the staff of this website will nominate a few entries per categories and open polls for the public to vote in them so we can reveal afterwards all the winners. The winners recieve an imaginary trophee, entitled the Fridas in hommage to Frida Boccara, the French Eurovision winner in 1969 with “Un jour, un enfant“.
The fifteenth award is in the “Result” category and it’s “Most Overrated”. Here are the results of the recommendations made by the regular users of Eurovision Times in this category:
- 14 Russia
- 7 Sweden
- 6 Serbia
- 5 Italy
- 3 Australia
- 3 Albania
- 3 Poland
- 2 Armenia
- 2 Israel
- 2 Norway
- 1 Belgium
- 1 Estonia
- 1 Greece
- 1 Latvia
- 1 Montenegro
- 1 Romania
- 1 Spain
- 1 United-Kingdom
However, it’s down to the staff of Eurovision Times to choose the official nominees. But it’s up to you to vote in our poll below which entry was the most overrated this year! You need to click on the country’s name to be redirected to the video of the song. The nominees in alphabetical order are:
Albania‘s Elhaida Dani (9th in televote, 26th in juries… in the end 34pts… out of only 4 countries!)
Australia‘s Guy Sebastian (5th as a guest country)
Poland‘s Monika Kuszyńska (Finalist with a cynical gimmick)
Russia‘s Polina Gagarina (Runner-up for the country’s name)
Serbia‘s Bojana Stamenov (Top 10 thanks to two former Yugoslav countries using 100% televote)
Rules: the polls will be open for a week. At the end of the week, an article will announce the winner of the category but not the detailed results. The full results will however be given to you once all polls are closed so that you don’t get influenced (we never know) in your following votes. Every IP gets only one vote, please do not cheat, do take in consideration to watch very carefully the videos before voting and do not vote necessarly for your favorite song but vote regarding to the category. Of course, it’s pointless to vote only for your own country unless you’re really certain it should win. May the best win!
The Eurovision Times 
For fairness, I won’t say for which I have voted!
Australia and Russia were ok songs, nicely performed so I can see the appeal!
Albania’s song was good imo but the whole performance was really underwhelming, I guess #17 is fair.
Poland is indeed slightly overrated but I can understand the sympathy vote plus the melody is instantly likable
Serbia’s trash should rank nowhere near #10 let alone qualify…so my vote goes to “Beauty never lies”
Russia ranking #2 just for “the country’s name” sounds quite out of place imo since Russia was heavily supported by Western countries this year…
If one country got a real boost just because jurors are advised to vote on “hit potential” that is Sweden imo!
I think you’re right. “A Million Voices” would have been top 10 with that performance from any esc country, but it’s only gotten THAT high with the flag. I’ll try to find a better way to say it and change the article, thanks!
Russia hands down. Such a shallow composition combined with such pretentious lyrics shouldn’t have been awarded with such a high place on the scoreboard (jury “experts”, you suck big time). Israel would be my second choice.
Norway, seriously? :o
what Norway?
were there actually two people who recommended Norway as overrated?
UK’s, Spain’s and Greece’s recommendations are also laughable, imho.
Yes there were! Some people don’t like it at all I guess. The Uk’s nod comes from a British person so I guess it’s pure self-hatred. I must admit Spain and Greece are highly overrated to me, but Uk’s got a rather fair result, even if it shouldn’t have ended higher than the bottom 3 entries, at least bottom 5 is “fair”
Spain and Greece got pretty much what they deserved, so they cannot be labeled as overrated.
I would have had them in the final’s bottom 5 with Poland, Armenia and Albania. So slightly overrated for me. But they didnt threaten the top 10 so I wouldnt think of nominating them either!
I see.
I never hid a profound hatred towards them both. Though their “not awful” esc performances (though terribly lame and with very disappointing vocals for songs that are totally empty and only rely on those) helped both rise outside my bottom 5 of the entire year!
I did.
The song’s good, the video is powerful, but the final result and performace left me very underwhelmed. Debra wasn’t vocally up the par, but the worst thing was the staging. There was very little to match up the song, and way too angelic for something that should’ve been dark and dramatic.
I get why juries rank it high, but I also get why it fell with the audience. I’d rather see Georgia in the top 10.
I’d prefer the staging a bit darker too. Other than that they were perfect methinks.
I agree on Israel.
Russia followed by Poland (Sweden was actually the 2nd most overrated song, imo, but it did not find its way to the final nominees).
Hmm, a tough one. I mean, really tough. Even if I think that a 2nd place was way too much for Russia, I still think it was good enough (a great live first and foremost) to deserve a decent place. Me personally had it around 14th place in the final. But I think Albania is the one for me in the end. It was absolutely bottom 3 material in its semi, so it shouldn’t have qualified to begin with. Plus, as Morgan says in the nomination, it was lifted thanks to the points from a few faithful countries.
So, no dashuri from me.
So Sweden didn’t make it to the 5 nominees?Lol!I’ll give my vote to Russia.Australia and Serbia were overrated too.
Sigh, you guys need to stop with this already. I’ve discussed it at length with the two greeks who have been moaning about it all week already. No, neither Sweden nor Italy, both in top 5 recommendations, deserve to be nominated.
I wasn’t aware of said discussion. I would have put Russia, Sweden and Italy in the final nominees, but I understand your position.
Hm this is a tough one, but I went with Poland, should not have qualified at all imo with those awful vocals and also the very dated, bad and extremely boring song!
The rest:
Albania: fair placement in the end imo, its a good song with awful vocals :P
Serbia: I cant help but really dig this hehe ^^, it was only slightly overrated imo, but you make a great point there about it getting high points from very few countries :P
Australia: I really like this song, but Latvia deserved to be in the top 5 more, but otherwhise a fair placement.
Russia: Hm this is my gulity pleasure song this year ehe :P, It deserves to be in the top 6 for me, but second place is a tad to high, but still ^^
Why do you think Poland was in the Swedish televoting Top 10? It’s really beyond me. A song like “In the name of love” is definitely not what I would expect our countrymen listening to, even less vote for. Especially since it’s also a ballad in one of the most ballad heavy editions for a long while. I expected it to drown completely.
MF results are very gimmick driven already, so yeah…
When MF audience vote for gimmick entries, it’s often a party song or something like that that gets an extra push thanks to the gimmick. Not a dreary conservated ballad from the 80’s.
?
and Suzzie in2008
LOL. The exception that makes the rule. ;)
The sympathy votes clearly, as I myself felt some warm feeling watching the performance, but still.. This is why the jury must stay to bring those songs down! I am more surprised that we had Albania almost in our top 5 :O
I don’t know. Do we care that much about disabled singers here? The blind Georgian in 2008 didn’t get anything from us f.e. I wanted to say some diaspora (which I also think is the main reason for Albania), but then again, don’t we have a stronger Serbian diaspora, and they only finished 10th?! Plus that “Beauty never lies” feels much more “Swedish” than both Poland and Albania.
Yeah we have always had a strong Serbian diaspora and im surprised it did not get a single point from us :P Maybe the times are changing haha ;) Doh I think that Montenegro took most of the Serbian voters, we have always loved baltic ballads and always give points to them. In Polands case I believe that we might be kinda close culturally to them and simply gave in to the warm feeling Monika Kuszyńska had :P
Every single country in the top ten got at least one recommendation LOL XD
This is between Albania and Poland for me, but while Albania only benefited from diaspora alone, Poland were pushed by their draw and ‘back story’ as well. So they get my vote here.
Russia. I like Polina’s style and Slavic upbeat pop, but this kind of songs from Russia are getting boring and tired to the point of cynism. Taking her and putting her in a Dina Garipova setting felt wrong. Very boring overall, what a shame for someone as on point as her.
Poland comes second. Unlike Finland who treated PKN as normal as they would Softengine or any other act, they milked her condition dry to the point it became gimmicky. THAT’S when you can count it as sympathy.
Australia, Serbia and Albania are ok in my book.
Australia and Serbia were properly placed but the other 3 were terribly overrated imo. *opens the bin*
I didnt realize Albania got points only from 4 countries..Shameful indeed..
Overrated for sure (outrageously so on televoting).
Serbia : also quite overrated but given the rise it saw in odds after the semi I expectes an even better result in the end.
Australia : Not a fan of the song but I would expect it to do a top 10 regardless the country. It stood out in the uptempo field mainly because Guy is a really good live performer.
And it comes down to the last 2..One propaganda song that got a dissapointing amount of votes from western Europe. We saw her crying in a PR way, take photos with Conchita, answer questions without answering and all that PR stuff. The essence remains the same imo. Russia has no place in the contest especially with such vulgar songs.
All that said I wont even dignify them with a vote here.
My vote will go to Poland. Shameful opportunism of a disability. She could not sing well, the song was subpar, the staging as opportunistic as it goes with the pictures on the screens…And it worked, she got way more points than what she deserved. Thankfullt the juries did their job as good as they could here.
P.S. Thank you ET team for not nominating Sweden here, it would be extremely unfair, especially if Italy was not nominated as well in that case.
Why should anyone nominate Sweden? It was clear from the very beginning that Måns would finish top 3. Anyone nominating Sweden for most overrated must be totally delusional or biased, which the ET editors are not. :)
Exactly the same applies to Italy btw, even if I have a strong personal dislike for “Grande amore” …
Your questions can be answered by the many heated discussions on the subject after the contest I guess..!
Nominated Russia, but voted for Australia, since it’s a worse song that really just didn’t deserve to be anywhere near the top 5. At least Russia is understandable and would’ve happened regardless, whereas Australia came in randomly and stole a top 5 finish from Latvia.
RUSSIA!!!!!!
Ummm I think you got confused between overrated and underrated.
Albania deserved better. Poland absolutely flopped in the final. Nothing compared to Italy 3RD and Israel 9TH.
Clearly you don’t want anything getting in the way of Russia winning this category so I will vote for Australia.
Poland and Israel, Poland should have been last in the semi and Israel should have been NQ imo
Poland. It’s my least favorite of the 5.