Eurovision 2017 – 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!
2017 will be the fifth year for Eurovision Times to organize a new contest (you can check 2013’s results here, the 2014’s ones here, the 2015’s ones here and the 2016’s ones here). As with the past few 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 sixteenth award is in the “Result” category and it’s “Most Underrated”. Here are the results of the recommendations made by the regular users of Eurovision Times in this category:
- 18 Finland
- 6 Czech Republic
- 6 Iceland
- 5 Azerbaijan
- 5 Belarus
- 4 Armenia
- 3 Latvia
- 2 Estonia
- 2 Macedonia
- 1 Austria
- 1 Denmark
- 1 Germany
- 1 Italy
- 1 Lithuania
- 1 Ukraine
- 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 underrated 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:
- Armenia‘s 18th place
- Azerbaijan‘ missing the Top 10
- Czech Republic‘s failing to qualify
- Finland‘s failing to qualify
- Iceland‘s failing to qualify
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 
Sign of a MF eurovision, excluding Romania, all most “overrated” are male acts, all “underrated” ones are female acts :/
Definitely not Iceland, which non-qualification was completely deserved considering the competition.
All 4 are definately underrated.
Finland should fall into a category of its own: “Scandal of the Year”
Finland’s shocking and undeserved non qualification!
indeed voted the same …
I mean, I am in the 99% that did predict Finland’s fail, so can’t speak much for the runaway winner here.
Israel is my most underrated (a 10/10 show, 3rd place in semi going bottom 5 in the final? No.) but choices here I am going with Azerbaijan and their strongest song and presentation to date.
The running order probably played a part in the big discrepancy Israel had between semi and final. Belgium did manage to (just) enter the top10 last year with the same running order situation (last in the semi, first in the final) but Belgium kept the jury love in the final, whereas Israel sank on both votes compared to the semi. Weird…
I’m also miffed at the overall lukewarm reaction at I Feel Alive. This is like Golden Boy times ten, much better and sleeker, while still very much Israeli. My guess is that 2015 was so heavy in slow songs (more than this one), that Golden Boy was much more of an exotic site.
Other weird results between semi and final: Cyprus 5th in the semi but only 21st in the final (I think their “deal” with swedish producers only includes qualification lol) while on the other hand Belgium was 4th in the semi and kept 4th place in the final as well (of course she did improve a lot between the two) and Romania only finished 6th in its semi but still managed 7th in the final!
Another easy vote, this time for Finland. My nominees were Finland, Estonia and Austria.
By the way, I don’t think Armenia and Azerbaijan got worse than they deserved from their live performance. Armenia was a song that I totally loved pre-contest that came out as a very predictable bore, despite her great voice. As for Azerbaijan I still prefer to listen to the recorded version. The interplay between her and the vocals was a failure, especially towards the end where they become too much like the chorus of an ancient tragedy.
Czechia also got what it deserved, even though I agree it was probably better than the other female ballads the juries pushed like Holland, Denmark and Malta.
Are we going to have results tonight? :P
yes, soon
Splendid! I was looking for an excuse to delay my studying :p
well wait no further, as im working on the articles now!
Very easy one: Czech Republic! Such a warm and beautiful song, and brilliantly performed vocally as well.
I believe Finland will win this though…
Armenia was definitely underrated too. Azerbaijan: I’m not that impressed by the song which I think is pretty cold and lacks something on the melodic front. But it was better than many of those that finished higher.
Finland 2017 has been the most underrated song as long as I have watched esc, so obviously Norma John gets my vote!
You werent there when Finland got 0 in 1965? ;)
Haha yeah, true! So many null points in the 60s sadly :P
Joke aside, it’s a huge masterpiece (Fin 65)
Oh ok, gotta check it out then, have not heard it I think. I know I have watched almost all contests from the 70s to the 90s, but the 60s I never really got to unfortunally.
I only have it at 5/12 though…
I have Toggie and Niclas with me on this one ;)
Sounds plausible :-)
And me :) My favourite Finnish entry along with 1977
Welcome aboard! though my other faves are 85, 89 and 96!
ARM, AZE, CZE and FIN were all criminally underrated. My vote went to Norma John.
Finland by far. What happened was ludicrous; shame on juries.
mh, televote only had it 10th not enough to overdo juries but they didnt kill it either
The juries should have had this second! They had Sweden 3rd and Australia 4th!!! They should have been fired on the spot just for that. Grrrr
4th or 5th I’d say. See my comment below.
Televoting sucked too. Everything sucks these days …, at least in the semi-finals …LOL ;)
Help me defend Fin 65 against Anders!
FIN65 is a masterpiece … whatever Anders, whom we all love, thinks. I has made it clear that he doesn’t like gloomy songs on many occasions, and it is a perfectly legitimate opinion imo.
Will you help me call Evridiki one of the best ESC artists ever now?
No.
Get lost and sleep tight. LOL Bonne nuit. :)
lol, b’nuit !
If we speak 1992, I second Evridiki too :-)
and 94?
It’s a strong song too, but a bit too melodramatic for my taste. “Comme ci comme ca” is mixed imo.
Well, I would like to have seen “Blackbird” in the final, but tbh. I have never found it that strong. I think the orchestration is too pompous which somewhat works against the simplicity of the melody. It would work better with a more simple and acoustic setup imo. – and a less musical-like vocal.
Yes, hence why it was only my 10th pre contest and everyone knows im usually a big Finland fan!
I have it around there too, but in a year which I found musically underwhelming overall. There were a few songs that really stood out, the winner included of course.
The Andres, it’s a very beautiful song. I wish they had used other title (there is only one Blackbird… :) and had sung in Finnish, thou. I don’t know why, but it sounds a bit as if Nigel Godrich had produced it.
Indeed there is only one “Blackbird” (the Beatles song). A classy example of saying a lot with very simple musical and lyrical means :-)
I love ‘Blackbird’ just as it is, but I understand what you mean.
Also, I would say that saying Shame on juries, or televotes, for not supporting a song one loves is a bit harsh.
I am incredible sad that the Czech song didn’t qualify. I like it a lot, but the majority of voters thought differently, and I have to respect that.
Voice of reason!
Any news from Patrick, by any chance?
Ranking Finlaand 17 14th among that group of songs is shameful, if you are supposed to be a musician, even if you do not like it. It was shameful and does nothing to improve the contest’s credibility.
But musicians focus on different things too. Musical qualities don’t always come down to a book of facts. I as a musician have some issues with the song though I have it higher than 14th.
Of course, but having Australia and Sweden so high (by so-called professionals) is not acceptable, imo.
I don’t agree with having them that high either. Especially not Sweden. But everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion. Even jurors. They may be using some criterias that I as a musician wouldn’t agree with (chart appeal among other things), but that’s a different story.
I don’t think the jurors themselves are to blame. They vote based on their own approach. I would do the same, and it would probably be a different approach than the majority of jurors.
What is more relevant imo. is who the actual jurors are, and that is down to the responsible people from the TV broadcasters who select them. I have always wanted them to select people with more different musical backgrounds, and not just people working with mainstream pop.
So I would rather ask the broadcasters to make a more diverse jury.
The EBU must be clear about what they want: art or business; atm, it’s too much about business, when it comes to the juries and that is shameful, imo, but legitimate, if they so wish, as long as they state it clearly; these persons are supposed to be professionals in the music world. We, the televoters, can be silly, they cannot; this year they were way sillier than the televoters and that does their credibility no good. There must be more diversity, we’ve been saying that here for years now and there should not be flag voting; I would like to see the EBU addressing this problem instead of making a fool of themselves with the Ukrainian/Russian affair.
But if the jury vote is all about business and being silly, how come they voted so massively for the Portuguese song?
Also, calling their votes for Australia and Sweden silly is rather postulatiric imo. The only way we can know is to get everyone of them to explain why he or she ranked the songs the way they did. I’m not saying that all of them are necessarily using criterias that I would find fit for a song contest, but I don’t know what is going on in the head of another jury member when casting the votes.
and as you said, they did have the same top 2 than televote, so that’s that already, the rest is annoying maybe to us (I’m more annoyed at Netherlands, Austria or Norway fanwanking than Australia or Sweden personally) but they did prove they don’t have a hidden agenda except for SOME (Arm-Aze for instance).
The latter is true, sadly. But Arm-Aze is a special case because of the strained relationship they have with each other. For me that would be a good argument for just letting them vote for their top 10, like before 2013.
Their rankings were silly and unacceptable in general; the fact that they gave the win to Salvador only shows how strong the song was in oder to break all the obstacles it had to face. Relativism can only go so far. If they want to be taken seriously act like it. Now, I really shoould go back to the football match. :)
they had it 12th, 1pt above Belgium! on the other hand they had Czech Rep 7th and 16 out of 21juries had it top 10!
they ranked it 12th (with belgium 13th) and televote 10th
The same thing.
5 juries had it top 5!
Not enough.
You make a good point however the juries are their imo to encourage musicality as they did with Chech Republic. Objectively I think Finland 2017 should have at least been in the top 10 and at least have a better score then the likes of the basicness coming from Greece and Cyprus and then would have overall qualified.
Australia is also another mystery as it sounded very strained in the dress rehearsels both times, yet they punish Blanche for her vocals and not Isaiah even if Belgiums song is miles better then the Australian one.
I know that it all comes down to the most average liked jury entry, but I saw many have extremely average songs in their top 3, so some sort of radio friendlyness bias is clearly there for a lot of jury members.
In conclusion I think that some of the criteria is a bit bonkers atm and that is pretty obvious in the jury results and needs to change, cause as a jury member myself I would have ranked Australia 20/26 in the final.
I would have ranked Australia somewhere in the midfield, 12-17 approximately. It’s not that bad, just a bit anonymous. I also think Isaiah’s vocals worked better than Blanche’s in the semi, whereas Blanche improved a lot in the final.
As for the Finnish song: I think it deserved better too. No question. It’s not a flawless song, and there are issues with the way it was produced (unfitting orchestration among other things), but it clearly had qualities.
It’s just that saying “Shame on” feels like pointing fingers at people, and I think that is a wrong thing to do.
Iceland.
This is always a great discussion: what is overrated, what is underrated.
If we take only into account the objective data we have (the points given and the scoreboard) we’ll see that there were jury pets, but there were also televote pets.
The jurys clearly favoured Australia (34,3%+ points than televote), The Netherlands (24,4%+) and Norway (20,3%+). On the other hand, televote visibly protected Romania (33,7+ points than the jury), Moldova (31,3+) and Belgium (29,9+).
I have nominted all these 5 countries as well as most underrated! :D
My vote goes to Finland which should’ve been in top 10 in the final imo.
UK not nominated ? And Iceland and Armenia nominated ? LOL.
Not voting. What a joke.
Uk got 15th, and that’s probably what it deserved (I personally find it overrated, but that’s my personal taste, overall it’s a fair result).
Well at the very least I would expect Austria nominated. Anyway.
Even though it got TOO High with juries and TOO Low with televote, in the end the irony is it got its fair result…
I was mainly referring to its televote result. I think it was ok with the juries – could be higher. But then they were busy filling their top 10 with Moldova (which I like but it was not top 10 jury material) and Italy so..
3/5, missing Belarus and Macedonia, but I can live with that. I can’t live with their finishes, but they wouldn’t have done anything in this poll lol
Hmm, having preemptively prepared myself for a Czech NQ, I don’t think I can call their finish underrated as much as I can call two entries that I tipped for top 10 before the show. Knowing that Finland probably has this award sewn up, I’ll lend a vote to the very deserving (and higher in my top ;) ) Azerbaijan.
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