Eurovision 2016 – This is it! After a long season and a very nerve-breaking vote, Jamala has won the contest for Ukraine with 1944! This is the 2nd victory for the country! It won with 511 points!
You can rewatch the winning entry from its final performance here:
The rest of the results are as follow: Australia is 2nd, Russia 3rd, Bulgaria 4th, Sweden 5th, France 6th, Armenia 7th, Poland 8th, Lithuania 9th and Belgium 10th with Netherlands 11th, Malta 12th, Austria 13th. The interesting thing is, Ukraine came only 2nd in both voting system, as Australia came 1st with a landslide victory with juries and Russia won, by a small margin, over Ukraine in televote! Rare are the countries that did get top 10 from both lists, besides the top 4 and France and Lithuania.
Big disagreement, Malta was 4th in juries and bottom 5 in televote! Poland was one-before last in juries but 3rd in televote! Also Austria, bottom 5 with juries, was top 10 in televote!
In some interesting facts, Bulgaria has gotten its best placing ever in Eurovision, and its only second top 10. For Lithuania as well it was their second time in the top 10! Belgium got two Top 10 in a row for the first time since 77-78 considering their format of changing broadcaster every year. It’s France’s best placing since 2002. For the second year of France 2 taking back the contest over France 3, a good sign? Australia signs its second top 5 in a row in two editions. A likely winner soon? Netherlands confirms a third result in the top 11 in four years.
Czech Republic finnished last in televote with 0pt, after the kiss of death in the draw. However, Germany is the one who snatches the last place for the second year in a row. It was last with juries with only 1pt when televote had it in bottom 5 adding only 10 points. Uk, Spain and Germany were all bottom 5 in televote.
Ukraine has hosted the contest once before, in 2005 in the capital Kiyv. Will they host it again next year?
The Eurovision Times 
Just read that televoting is completely scrapped for junior eurovision and only jury vote will be used from now on ! Very encouraging news :-)
My top-42 after the contest (pre-contest positions in brackets). Bulgaria, Lithuania and San Marino are the biggest risers, Estonia, Azerbaijan and Switzerland the biggest droppers. The top-5 and the bottom-4 remain the same.
#1 (1) Ukraine
#2 (2) Austria
#3 (3) France
#4 (4) Hungary
#5 (5) Italy
#6 (9) Russia
#7 (7) Croatia
#8 (11) Australia
#9 (23) Bulgaria
#10 (19) Lithuania
#11 (16) Slovenia
#12 (38) San Marino
#13 (15) Spain
#14 (8) Latvia
#15 (10) Serbia
#16 (17) Holland
#17 (6) Estonia
#18 (18) Sweden
#19 (14) Iceland
#20 (20) Cyprus
#21 (25) Finland
#22 (21) Armenia
#23 (32) FYRoM
#24 (22) Czechia
#25 (31) Israel
#26 (37) Belgium
#27 (12) Azerbaijan
#28 (35) Albania
#29 (24) Norway
#30 (30) Poland
#31 (28) Greece
#32 (36) Moldova
#33 (13) Switzerland
#34 (29) Germany
#35 (33) Montenegro
#36 (26) Malta
#37 (34) Ireland
#38 (27) Denmark
#39 (39) Bosnia Herzegovina
#40 (40) UK
#41 (41) Georgia
#42 (42) Belarus
I’ve been checking the results again :
EVERY single country awarded televotes to Russia.
There were of course the usual suspects (ARM,AZE,BELA,EST, LAT, MLD, UKR) awarding 12p, 10p (ISR) and 8p (LITH,GEO,FIN), but Russia got HUGE support in televoting from WEST/CENTRAL/SOUTH Europe and Nordics as well!!!
f.e 12 from Germany and Serbia
10 from Cyprus, Malta, Czech R.,Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, San Marino, Slovenia
8 from Austria, Croatia, FYROM, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden
7 from Albania, Iceland, UK
Then some 6s, one 5 (Australia), one 4 (Denmark) and a 3 from Netherlands their lowest score…
On the other hand Australia got mainly 5s and 4s…
Russia is a MASSIVE televoting WINNER!!!!
“Russia is a MASSIVE televoting WINNER”
Not as Italy 2015 though. Il Volo scored 366 points from 39 countries while Sergey 361 from 41 countries available :p
Being 38 points ahead of the runner up hardly makes a MASSIVE televoting WINNER.
I was comparing them to Australia…
That’s why I mentioned the latter scoring mainly 5s and 4s
It still isn’t a masisve televoting winner as you call it and i also have to add that the juries weren’t obliged to vote for it massively either.It’s not a good or contemporary song.The stage performance and Sergey elevated it.
Any song scoring 9 points on average from each country is a HUGE winner!
I disagree!What makes a huge or massive winner is the margin between them and the runner-up.If it’s only 30 pts then it’s not a massive winner.It’s just the winner of televoting.There were 2 songs that swept the televoting pts last night so Russia’s score doesn’t make it a massive winner.
I repeat. I am comparing RUS and UKR to AUSTRALIA for God’s sake!
2 songs that were massively supported in televoting while Australia scored only 4s and 5s…
We all owe a heartfelt thank you to Poland’s televoters who pushed Australia to 4th place effectively giving the middle finger to the EBU’s machinations.
Russia was in the televoting top-10 in every single country, getting 8-12 from 29 countries in total. Yet 21 juries gave them no points! It is an absolute travesty. I did not vote for Russia but there were a lot of things to commend it for. I thought last year the official excuse was that Sweden had “more impressive staging”. This year Russia had what many thought to be the “most impressive” staging but instead they went for a girl sitting on a cube? It is absolutely ludicrous. Even their excuses don’t have the slightest consistency.
Thid year’s jury vote legitimizes even further Sweden’s massive victory. It showed that juries indeed rewarded a contemporary well performed song. Dated, desperate kitchen sink approaches were not rewarded as much some would expect and thats one of the many things juries did right this year.
Also a heartfelt thanks to the dated drivel from Poland elevated by diaspora vote ? Again so glad juries are around to downvote those drivels as much as possible and drive the televoting lovers’ agenda to the ground :-)
Well although I believe Heroes is a better package than RUSS 16, I do agree that last year’s pattern was repeated this year. This time juries boosted Australia MASSIVELY and tried to drag down Russia (but in a not evident way) by ranking them 5th (around the place Italy was ranked in 2015) in order to stop them from winning and crown Dami Im the winner.
However, they didn’t see Ukraine coming with HUGE support from both televoting and juries !
No they did not see Poland’s televoting. They thought Australia would be televoting top-3 and thus win easily with an 110-point advantage from the juries. They couldn’t imagine a spoiler in the televoting top-3 and that was Poland who ended up in the televoting top-10 in a massive 34 countries! Talk about power of the 80s ballad :)
Russia got 0 from 21 juries. That’s political voting, nothing else. I totally understand Kirkorov’s point.
We can’t prove that EBU manipulated the whole thing,can we?Whatever happened or we may think has happened,Ukraine won so Esc remains fascninating and unpredictable.Plus,why should Russia do any better with the jury vote?It was a catchy yet dated pop song with a kitsch presentation.
What proof do you need? Last year they downmarked Italy to give Sweden victory, this year they did the same to Russia to elevate Australia. They do this in open daylight and have made something that was once extremely rare “the new normal”. Only Poland’s vote spolied it this year and that was completely unexpected. If Australia was 3rd it would have won just like Sweden last year.
Unlike a lot of people, my views on fairness are not impacted by my personal opinion of a song. An entry that is in the televote top-10 of all 41 countries but does not get a single point from 21 juries does not just “happen”. Or are we supposed to believe that the same people who massively voted for Malta, suddenly became musically discerning regarding Russia’s entry? If you want proof from a criminal court I can’t help you with that. It’s all there in the official results.
But how would they know how the televoting pts would be distributed?What if France was top-3?What if Australia was in 3rd place with 200 pts and the Russian-Ukrainian duo both at 400 pts?Then Ukraine would win again.They can’t make such manipulations because they simply don’t know how televoting will go.
I should mention here that i also don’t agree with the huge jury lead of Australia and generally with the big leads they give to certain songs 2 years in a row with no apparent reason.
As for your comment on your views on fairness not being impacted by your personal taste,allow me to disagree.No one can claim that he’s the impartial ultimate juror.You f.i called the Austrian entry contemporary and you can’t see why the juries voted it down while i was 100% it wasn’t jury material.Remember what happened in the Austrian final?
What Michos said !
My views on Austria and Russia being perfectly contemporary songs by ESC standards are not based on my own personal standards but on the chart positions they have achieved. And what happened at the austrian national final was exactly the same as what happened at the ESC: Institutional bias against any song that is not at least partly in english as not being “contemporary enough”. I told you again, by the standards they have now, “Molitva” would have never won. Which is even more stupid in the case of french, when so many contemporary chart hits in Europe are in french nowadays.
You are right about one thing though. At least they keep the televoting counts pretty clean and thus theoretically anything can happen on that front. But come on, everybody expected a top-3 of Russia, Ukraine and Australia.
I also don’t understand why you focus on Russia and not Ukraine.In my opinion if there’s a problem in the jury vote this lies with the way they snubbed Ukraine and not with the fact they place the Russian dated pop in 5th place.
Australia was catchy yet a dated power ballad with gay kitsch presentation performed (or should I say quality screamed) by talent show winner. Nothing there really worth those jury points.
I wrote this from the very beginning: “Shame on the juries for giving an 110-point edge to Australia over Ukraine. Is this how those so-called “experts” judge song quality?”
https://eurovisiontimes.wordpress.com/2016/05/15/ukraine-wins-eurovision-2016/comment-page-3/#comment-244215
I totally forgot that juries awarded the other not so quality screamer Hovi as well with his outdated and underperformed power ballad. Kind of lame.
Half of the juries find Mr Lazarev’s entry up to date. Half didn’t like it at all. Maybe that is because they don’t like Russia and voted accordingly. Bias against Russia of course is ok, god forbid it to happen to any other country.
I am on of the so called “silent readers”.
I completly agree, political stuff doesn’t deserve to be on an Eurovision stage.
Probably it will be no surprise at all, that i really do not like the winning song.
Not because it’s a (political song), but because i just do not like songs like this
winning Eurovision.
And for people saying here that “real music” and “substance” won…
If i want to listen to “real music”, then i am playing Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen…
Good for you. Some of us want real music to do well in eurovision because it is a SONH contest. If you watch the contest to have a good laugh I am sorry it dissapointed you this year.
*SONG
Some people are more royalist than the king…Russia absolutely did nothing against “1944” the moment it was revealed yet some people are still being offended by Ukranian song😂
I am not watching Eurovision for more then 30 years now just for having a laugh.
By the way i am not dissapointed in this years Eurovision, only in the winning song.
My favourites this year were Georgia, Latvia, France, Austria and Australia…
great top5
Good for you, I like many of the songs you mention with the exception of Georgia. But Ukraine won fair and square based on its artistry.
Think i never said that the Ukraine victory is unfair.
Anyway i will continue being a very loyal “silent reader”, looking forward to next year already.
Peace!
And since we are talking about massive winners, Dami Im was a MASSIVE winner with music professionals, scoring high all accross the board. A credible, contemporary, well made song performed in a mesmerizing way by Dami. Yesterday was literally her best performance to date imo. She really deserved being the runner up and the jury winner.
P.S. got to love the televoting crowd’s conspiracy theories :-)
They are ready to praise ANYTHING the televoting diaspora zombies are supporting. From dated drivels to desperate kitchen sinks. And at the same time attack anything credible the juries support – by making up some big conspiracy behind what happened such as “the bad EBU is pushing Australia” etc. Desperate and sad. And all that in a thinly veiled effort to cover up for the mess the televoting left behind…
We have a winner..whether you like it or not…It has always been like that 😊Had it been Australia or Russia,people would have moaned too…so better digest it and move on!
And I am hoping to see no more Verka and no Ruslana on Eurovision stage next year!
If it was Russia (the “winner” of sacred televoting) all the moaners here would be wetting their pants really even if all these months they claimed to not like the song.
The dogma is simple : Televoting does no wrong, all the juries are corrupt and manipulated and conspire against countries.
I wouldnt want Russian win because I found the song weak and oldfashioned not because it was Russia
It is impossible to please everyone so 50/50 still seems to me the best option
” I wouldnt want Russian win because I found the song weak and oldfashioned not because it was Russia ” Yes ! That’s why since the end of ESC and with Ukraine win with a tatar ( turk ) singer you spread so hate fort Russia and Sergey! ps: I v check all of your comments and your pic below ;)
You are ridiculous
I agree. These conspiracy theories don’t sit with me , sure there may be occasional irregularities but these can be tweaked as I stated before. It’s how to stop the diaspora of the likes of Poland, Lithuania and seemingly now, Bulgaria from overwhelming the televote which in my eyes is more discerning.Both have their flaws. It’s not an equal playing field I know that but it needs to be addressed. I’m hopeful it will improve in time.
I want more Verka no Ruslana 😁
❤️😂😂
Verka was the true highlight of voting!
Many people are very emotional today and the www is going crazy with all different opinions. Prinz Blog published a commentary called “Why the Juries Need to Go” and apparently Mr. Kirkorov suggested to reduce the jury impact to 25 %. He insinuated that Russia might leave the contest if things stayed as they are. Some German newspapers asked for Germany to withdraw … And we have heated discussions on this thread too … ESC seems to be more important than many people think.
It’s the end of the world as we know it. In a week, all will be forgotten. That said, there will be complications when it comes to organizing ESC 17 somewhere in Ukraine.
The Portuguese media mentioned the Ukrainian victory and alluded to the content of the song. They also made reference to Ukrainian and Russian reactions.
Now, it’s time to let the dust settle and assess what happened. This is just a song contest.
Wise words: “It is only a song contest” … but one that is politically charged …
Oh please then give even more power to the juries so that they may leave as soon as possible (russia that is – Germany simply needs to go back to the drawing board)
I can’t wait till we get back to our peaceful, drama-free FDLC and ETSC :P
Thumbs up !
I second that!
I third it (if that even is an expression)
I’m coming with highly political and controversial song as that’s so a’la mode at the moment. It’s the end to make the ends end.
You know what’s funny, both songs that I’m considering atm have some form of political content. Nothing controversial though (or so I hope) :D
Sounds good! This is quite progressive enviroment so my entry’s controversiality might be wishful thinking, but it’s very straight forward and totally on your face.
And the funny thing is that almost everyone here in Germany (NDR, the media, even Peter Urban) is/pretends to be very surprised that Jamie-Lee came last. I wonder … do they ever check the fan sites? A miserable result for Germany was predicted everywhere.
My mother told me that Jamie-Lee said in an interview before the contest that she was expected to do badly and that NDR told her never to say so again in public. I guess that they did not want the viewing figures to decrease due to low expectations … quite the opposite, they built an artificial hype around Jamie-Lee although everyone knowing a bit about ESC knew that she would come bottom 5 at best. Poor girl. She sand very well last night. Alas, the song was bad. But why should anyone expect a song to do well if it doesn’t even chart on home ground? Silly.
It was her best performance of the song last night, and I actually like the song. But always expected it to be bottom 3 (I predicted Czech Rep to be last overall)
The song was good.It’s a song i’d buy on i-tunes unlike many other songs that did better.However,many times good songs end up in last place because the singer has no real charisma or because the presentation is a fail.Maybe even some songs don’t really work within the contect of a contest.It was indeed Jamie-Lee’s best performance but that wasn’t enough.
*context
Tbh seeing all the reactions I think I am really rooting for a big australian victory next year with a great contemporary song like the one this year with massive jury support. Would be interesting and enjoyable to see heads exploding around here :-)
P.S. Huge diaspora boosted now called charm of an 80s power ballad..The efforts to cover up televoting travesties get progressively worse..
ET users trying to decipher the jury vote:
But I’m the only one who gets to make an article about my views :p
LOL
33 gifs of esc 2016: http://www.lifo.gr/articles/mikropragmata/100654
😃😃😃😃
A true artist
That really is very sweet. It makes me feel bad about not wanting Australia in the contest.
She came second,won jury votes landslide yet she is congratulating the winner with warm words…12 points more to Dami for that ❤️
She seems like such a genuinely humble and nice person. IMO she embodies the spirit of the contest better than some other, european, artists and she embraces what the contest is about. She is a great singer on top of that.
Thank you for your contribution to the contest this year Dami Im :)
What a lovely lady. That’s the spirit. (And yes, I am looking at you, Mr. Kirkorov.)
Dami did not have any political bets on a possible victory here, unlike Kirkorov. I am reading articles about russia’s reaction now. They are not happy and ask for the result to be nullified because the song is political. The song was chosen in February, I guess it was not political back then…
The Russian reaction to Jamala’s victory even made it into the main news here. Don’t the Russians realise that they make fools of themselves and simply prove that they are sore losers?
They think winning televoting and that being made perfectly clear on the live broadcast gives them pseudo-legitimacy. Another consequence of this new reckless voting system..
So when it comes to the voting system, the world is upside down. You don’t like this Swedish-inspired innovation, and I love it.
And if the Russians are reacting in a immature way, that’s not the voting system’s fault but entirely down to the deficient personalities in charge of ESC there.
I have never been of the “everything sweden does is good” mindset as you should know. I scrutinize everything – and from almost the first moment I expressed my fears for the new voting system – and unfortunately each and every one of them (enhanced diaspora protected under the collective televoting presentation, exposing the jury vote to more criticism, allowing more space to question the validity of the winner in case they do not win the all mighty televoting etc) came true. This is one of those cases I wish I had been proven wrong…
And I have never been of the “everything Sweden does is bad” mindset. Good that we’ve got that one out of the way in both directions.
An Australian lady.
That’s so cool!!
Seriously guys.
If these juries are suppose to reward contemporary quality music how on earth it’s possible that Israel gets 124 points and Malta 137 points for their luke warm and seriously kitsch and dated efforts while Latvia, the most up to date pop song in the competition only gets 64.
In pop music there nothing more dated than last season, a year or two ago (Malta), Hovi was just bad cabaret so it’s DNA is dated. Performance wise these were both cruise ship tacky.
I am soooooooooooo sorry for Latvia but it is definitely the only song I will keep listening to from this year
Me too, probably
I totally understand. It’s the only one that actually could be from the real pop world. Shame on those “professionals”. If I ever meet Justs I will tell him that lovely Miss Mermaid of Eurovision Times has only took his song to her playlists from this years selection. You probably aren’t the only one.
Not even Estonia?
Not that much…
Latvia is already in my playlist. I love the Aminata sound.
They are supposed to assess the talent of the performing artist as well you know and both Ira and Hovi have bucketloads of it. Justs still scored a higher amount of points with juries rather than televoting.
Want to discuss how televoting can award such amounts of points to two kitsch, dated, cringeworthy acts from Poland and Lithuania ?
You really shouldn’t judge Poland or Lithuania (which actually scored more from juries than televoting) if you think that Hovi and Losco are talented performers with up to date songs and stylish staging. The answer to your question is no. Not really.
Both the singers AND the songs of Malta and Israel – and the presentations may I add – are miles better than both Poland and of course Lithuania.
As much as I dislike the Lithuanian song, I expected it to do well because Donny Montell was really strong in the final. I was sure that he would find sufficient support.
He always overperforms what it is expected from him I will give him that. Still I feel this wouldn’t be anywhere close to where it was if it was Switzerland, sorry.
Of course some countries have a stable influx of automatic votes every year but I am pretty confident that Donny had qualified under the Swiss flag too.
I heavily doubt it personally. This experiment I keep proposing – hold the same contest with the same artists and a different country name in the bottom left corner and see what happens, must happen at some point. It would resolve many issues argued on every blog and site.
Nobody denies that the flag the entries compete under have an effect on both jury voting and televoting but if I remember correctly, Sebalter was very popular with the televote but killed by the juries. Every year is different, and at the end of the day the entries themselves are the most decisive factor imo.
Due to the existence of the jury vote, the entry itself ends up being the most decisive factor imo in the last contests. That’s what brought the necessary credibility element imo.
Your comment shows that the current juries need to be more diverse.
I totally agree. If the juries are to stay and if they are here to balance televoting, that’s the only way.
Well, if you have jurors that aren’t really up to date, they’ll vote for what they think of as contemporary and you get the result we saw last night. It is high time that the EBU addresses the jury issue to stop the laughable results of some juries. We need more jurors and people who are music professionals but independent. I’d love to see more professors and music critics in the juries and less singers and starlets.
They should also address televoting issues though.
Televoting is what it is. As much as I dislike some stable patterns, there is nothing they can do without damaging the contest imo.
Oh I vastly disagree as you know. The previous system restrained it quite well. They obviously don’t want that so they should come up with something else imo. I was just reading on wikipedia what the results would be under the previous system. Poland would be 19th and Latvia 11th.
I think that we are addressing the issue from different directions. As much as I dislike the Polish song, people across Europe obviously liked it, and that is fine with me because I do not expect the final results to reflect my personal taste. You don’t get 200+ points from diaspora only.
That’s another point we will disagree on. You may not take all of them from diaspora but a pretty hefty amount of those comes from a mobilized diaspora. It would be much better for the contest’s reputation if Poland got the 19th place it would get under the old system and Latvia got close to the top 10 (With the Netherlands in the top 10 as well btw). Also France would be 5th and Sweden 6th but I am skipping that as a minor change..
I am not sure how many countries have a significant Polish diaspora. The UK and Ireland, who gave 12 pts, and Germany, who gave 10 pts. Who else?
There are polish people all over Europe, from Austria to the nordics. I do not doubt all the point he got but if we already get out of the way the pts from the countries you mention he is lower than Australia – which for all the criticism it has received scored those 191 pts on televoting with a starting point of zero points unlike some others.
yes, one vote per phone number?
Yes.
I couldn’t agree more. On this mode juries are just a bad farce. I still can’t understand how they pushed Australia so hard. There was even much better plastic around to choose from.
A couple of years ago, we had Florian Silbereisen in the German jury. He hosts Volksmusik programmes only watched by people who are completely out of touch with contemporary trends.
Broadcasters seem to take tue easy road. They really don’t seem to care. Starlets from radio, stage etc. of both genders. And of course you must have the cancers of contemporary world – “media personalities” who have also lured in to replace intellectuals in their domain.
I agree, our culture has become terribly superficial …
Tristan and Isolde opened in Helsinki last night. I was there. Nowadays going to opera or classical music concert is like a safety blanket to me. I felt so good, for five hours the world was a perfect place capable of true wonders. Don’t get me wrong, I do love many things in contemporary world. The political turmoil and the failing European project makes me just sick to the bone. And this hell has become new normal. We got used to it so unbelievably fast. Finland used to be liberal progressive haven, now we have people who barely can read or write in our government representing right wing xenophobic or should I say panphobic True Finns.
Alas, I couldn’t agree more. (add several very sad emojis …)
Exactly, that’s what I’ve been wondering too! It seems that most of the juries from this year were not up to the task, they voted more like regular televoters, ignoring some high quality good modern songs…
A while ago in Kiev airport.An enthusiastic crowd welcomes Jamala who bursts in tears
http://www.lifo.gr/now/culture/100675
Some notable televoting facts:
Serbia got 80 points from televoting: Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, FYROM, Montenegro and Switzerland gave them 12, while Austria and Italy gave them 4 points.
Croatia got 33 points, all from ex-yugoslavian countries.
Malta was only voted by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Australia.
Germany got points only from Austria and Switzerland.
Russia was voted by all countries.
Only one country didn’t vote for Ukraine and that was Iceland.
Hungary’s points came mainly from the East (Serbia gave them 10 points, most likely it was the hungarian diaspora)
UK was voted by Malta, Ireland and Australia.
One member of the Danish jury ranked Australia 26th because he/she hadn’t understood how the ranking is done.That’s how Australia ended up with their 10 pts and Ukraine with their 12.lol
Obvious patterns. Change has always developped slowly in Europe …
thanks! do you mind i use some of your stats for an article?
Feel free to do so :)
merci !
Just one correction, we dont have Hungarian diaspora, these are Hungarians living here for ages in certain part of the country..its not diaspora its nationality in Serbia.. :)
Btw, my 7 and 9 year old nieces had Italy in 1st place and were scared by Cyprus.
I have to say here watching the contest with a multinational group of people was interesting.
Especially americans and canadians were so confused by everything going on but they loved it.
I knew Bulgaria was going to do good when a big part of the group loved it. Spain was also pretty popular, same with Austria and Belgium. A more rock friend liked Georgia of course. The women loved the empowering message of Serbia as well.
There were no real opinions on Ukraine although I hyped the entry very much with the backstory etc but everyone at the end admitted it was a worthy winner.
Got to say though I threw profanities at Poland during the televoting announcment in front of a polish-israeli guy more than I should :-P
Here’s my finalised ranking for this year along with my scores for each song!
In brackets I put my pre-contest rankings which I last updated around a month ago. There are some big changes as I didn’t listen the songs more than 3-4 times before the shows (didn’t follow NFs either this year) and also some songs were much better live (and as whole package) and grew a lot on me.
1. (9) Latvia 8.8/10
2. (2) Ukraine 8.5/10
3. (26) Georgia 8.3/10
4. (1) France 8/10
5. (21) Netherlands 7.9/10
6. (4) Australia 7.7/10
7. (7) Armenia 7.6/10
8. (24) Hungary 7.5/10
9. (14) Lithuania 7.4/10
10. (28) Belgium 7.4/10
11. (8) Italy 7.4/10
12. (25) Sweden 7.4/10
13. (18) Germany 7.3/10
14. (11) Austria 7.25/10
15. (12) Iceland 7.25/10
16. (16) Bulgaria 7.2/10
17. (27) Montenegro 7.2/10
18. (3) Czech Republic 7.2/10
19. (6) Russia 7.1/10
20. (22) Serbia 7/10
21. (17) Spain 6.9/10
22. (20) Cyprus 6.9/10
23. (5) Estonia 6.8/10
24. (23) Israel 6.7/10
25. (33) UK 6.6/10
26. (13) Malta 6.5/10
27. (19) Norway 6.5/10
28. (10) Croatia 6.4/10
29. (29) Bosnia & Herzegovina 6.3/10
30. (15) Azerbaijan 6.2/10
31. (32) Poland 6.1/10
32. (37) Ireland 5.3/10
33. (36) Switzerland 5.2/10
34. (34) Slovenia 5/10
35. (30) FYR Macedonia 5/10
36. (31) Finland 5/10
37. (38) Albania 4.7/10
38. (35) Denmark 4.5/10
39. (39) Greece 4/10
40. (40) Belarus 4/10
41. (41) Moldova 3/10
42. (42) San Marino 3/10
So the songs that grew the most on me were Georgia (really needed more listenings and their live and show was fantastic), Netherlands (sounded much better live and the way he performed it made the song much better for me), Hungary (sounded much better in ESC than in the preview video imo), Belgium (who I never thought would end up in my top 10, but the show was spectacular and improved the song a lot, one of the most entertaining acts), Sweden (needed more listenings), Montenegro (needed more listenings, also their live and show were great) and ofc Latvia who is my new #1 (I really liked it before, but now I totally love it and my god how good was Justs live ?? probably the best performance along with Dami, also the show was awesome, so fitting).
I didn’t change my opinion too much about the songs that dropped in my ranking, it’s just that there were many others that sounded better live or grew on me.
wow we have five in common in the top 6!
Nice!! :D
Guess the difference?
France ? :P
yes, and what else instead?
Hmm, maybe Sweden.
There you go!
Wow, this wasn’t easy, but I remembered that I saw a comment of yours these days saying that you prefer Sweden to France. :P
Ah! You still guessed both right on the first go, so I was wondering if I was just that typical ;)
Hehe, I was thinking that the difference could be either France or Netherlands.
Dami Im, Dami Im, Dami Im!
I can’t believe what happened…this contest is political as hell..Dami Im should have won it by landslide..I’m not sure I will follow this farce next time..where UKR, RUS, AZE, ARM and so on use it for their propaganda..
Dami Im, Dami Im, Dami Im!
I also loved Francesca Michelin and Frans, they were brilliant, they brought smth new and fresh to this festival..Francesca was like in a fairytale and her singing was magical, while Frans transmited the best emotion..
1. Australia
2. Italy
3. Sweden
I wrote a short article on Ukraine’s win, hope you guys enjoy :) https://medium.com/@bramos/ukraines-eurovision-win-is-both-personal-and-political-f25fb16f11a2#.o2d6k0341
Personally, the contest this year had great results. Of my pre-contest top 10, only two (Macedonia and Bosnia) failed to qualify, while of the remaining 8, only three more (Latvia, Serbia, and Malta) failed to make the top 10. It’s also the first time since I was born that my favorite in the contest also won the contest (what a great birthday present).
Overall, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the final. After being kinda disappointed by both the semis, I expected to get bored during the final, but rather, I found myself enjoying things a lot more. Perhaps it is because a lot of performances improved in the final (of course, some got worse), but I found myself thinking that this final was one of the better ones in recent years.
Poland was the most popular song in my group. It was my sister’s favorite song this year, while my friend and I had it in out top 5. There’s something very charismatic about Michal as a singer that makes you want to watch him. Other popular songs were Georgia, Ukraine, and Croatia. The Czech Republic and Germany were actively disliked, while my friend hated Australia and my sister hated the Netherlands (while she liked Hungary for Freddie’s looks).
Reading through comments one can see that Poland was liked by many people and I mean A LOT!
Maybe fans were too quick to use Poland and televoting as a scapegoat?
I think a lot of fans, not all that seem to refuse to see that there is a massive appeal there but many fans, never got over the Polish national final.
well that too, but juries and televote rarely disagree to such hard extend: I mean not even neighbour country juries helped it at all… last time this happened was what? uk 2011 with bottom 3 in jury and top 5 televote, but Blue had an awful song and performance that got them killed by juries rightfully so and top 5 based on fame… this one isnt like that at all… it’s got an appeal little saw coming because it was really poor and the juries thought so too, and it got an extra push from diaspora to emphasize the shock
Probably so. But isnt it insane that not a single esc fan we know likes it and suddently it goes to 3rd favorite in Europe? that has never happened, and Poland has had a very hardcore fanbase every year since they took part (their youtube views were first in 2014 and 2016) that make real esc fans uneasy considering they simply dont get it: both times it ended up in 5th and 3rd in televote and I do think that the Polish diaspora did back these two entries massively the way they didnt in 2015. Now that it ALSO gathered the surprise mother’s vote as I call it, to push Poland from a bias Polish diaspora top 10 to 3rd is probable