Eurovision 2023 – Every year, the summer is the calm after the storm so it’s the perfect time to do more games and contests! This year we resume the “Eurovision Times Awards” to give prizes (the Fridas) for the best in every category! And you get to vote!
2023 will be the tenth year for Eurovision Times to organize the Eurovision Times Awards, because the 2020 contest was cancelled, preventing us from hosting this new yearly tradition that year. 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“.
You can check past results if you’re curious, even though past winners will be mentioned in the upcoming articles:
- 2013’s results here
- 2014’s results here
- 2015’s results here
- 2016’s results here
- 2017’s results here
- 2018’s results here
- 2019’s results here
- 2021’s results here
- 2022’s results here
Here are the categories for the 2023 “Eurovision Times Awards”:
- Technical Awards:
- Best Female Vocals
- Best Male Vocals
- Best Lyrics
- Best Composition
- Artistic Awards:
- Best Performance
- Best Props & Gimmicks
- Best Female Style
- Best Male Style
- Best Backings
- Delegation Awards:
- Best Backdrop
- Best Light Effects
- Best Promotion Video
- Best Spokeperson
- Best National Final
- Best Backdrop
- Results Awards:
- Most Improved Entry
- Best Non-Qualified Semi-Finalist
- Most Underrated Entry In Final
- Best Entry
But wait, there’s more! Indeed, there will be surprise winners this year! This new feature is introduced to be able to prize anything specific about an edition without having to repeat the award for next year. So anything you think stood out this year and deserves a nod, you can nominate (meme, polemics, online features, a specific person in a delegation, something about Liverpool’s hosting…) In the reveal night, we’ll also reveal which ones we picked for a Frida! There is also a Miss Congeniality winner decided by ET directly! It was won by Miki (2019) and Lauri (2022) in the past, but we’re now making it a tradition to have one!
A specific page for each category will be open with a recap video of all the nominees and the poll for you to vote (everyone gets to vote, not just regular voters)! Each page will specifically remind you what the category is about so that there are no confusion. The page will feature a poll opened for an entire week. Every IP gets only one vote, please do not cheat, do take in consideration to watch them all once again before voting and do not vote necessarily for your favorite song! Of course, it’s pointless to vote only for your own country unless you’re really certain it should win. May the best win!
Tell us tonight and through the next few days whom do you want to see nominated in each categories, even though these are only “recommendations” as only the staff of Eurovision Times gets to nominate in the first round (else they wouln’t be able to be called “Eurovision Times Awards”)! However, every year, we’ve nominated at least a couple of whichever was heavily recommended, if not most of them! You can nominate by replying in the comment section of this article!
PS1: there are no “group” vocals category simply because there is often either a male or female singer for the whole group, in case of a duet, because we can’t be sure that there would be enough duets every year to have enough nominees, we decided that either the male, the female or both could be nominated separately if they deserve to be. Same goes for groups with multiple singers, they all get to be nominated individually if needed, so you can nominate all of the group members or single out the best one (for instance for Italy 2015…)
PS2: In 2013, we had “Best Male Looks” and “Best Female Looks” and that got people confused, who often voted for “hottest” person. This felt a tad too shallow for us and we decided to focus mostly on Style (hair, makeup and clothes and how they match with the person’s looks, the overall backdrop and light show and the song itself of course) since 2014. Recommend (and later on vote) accordingly, even though we know how supericial Eurovision can be, and, well, all artists look great!
PS3: There are no “Worst…” categories as these awards are here to salute great efforts that contribute to the contest, its credibility as well as its overall quality. We decided to even drop the “Most Overrated” award. Other categories that got ditched: “Best Top 5 Entry” as this one was always won by whoever won “Best Entry” afterwards (yes, all of our “Best Entry” winners were in the Top 5 in Eurovision!) and “Best Internal Choice” as this one was also redundant as whoever won that one was a popular entry that won many other Fridas. On the other hand, we divided “Most underrated” between Non-Q entries and low finalists and “Best Backdrop & Lights” into two categories: looking at the few entries who went without a backdrop but had a light show, it did not feel like these should compete for the same award as the delegations who create a visually compelling backdrop. And we were proven right in 2022, with the infamous black sun!
PS4: As it’s now tradition since 2018, there wont be an article for each category’s result but at the end of all categories, we’ll do a “Super Reveal Night” for all results one by one. Else it felt like the latest categories, people started voting based on results that were already out ;) Stay tune and start nominating!
The Eurovision Times 
Congrats to HDH! 😍🥳🍾
Now I have one club I love (Bochum) and three clubs I like a lot (Werder, Freiburg, HDH) in the Bundesliga. I have never had that many. 🙂 Please add Sankt Pauli and KSC next year …
Just back from her baby break and opening her new tour:
I have just read that on EK. 🙂
ERT is not to be trusted. Don’t dream (yet)
I don’t know what’s worse, sending a cynical song about refugees in the midle of the crisis or sending the rich kid due to family connections?
After this year’s debacle, they can hardly ignore such a public proposition.
She has been out of circulation for a while and needs the ESC boost. And if she wants to return she can’t postpone it any longer.
Yes and ERT will listen, lol
Unless the allergic (and clueless) to dance pop ERT jury withdraws, it’s naive to believe they will just send her because she proposed herself (Kalomoira also did btw)
They sent Stefania twice, so they are definitely not allergic to dance pop. We all know why they had to dumb the team this year.
They didn’t send Stefania. They sent Kontopoulos so I doubt Kozakou and sia had any say on the song.
Why did they dump Dream Team this year ? 🤔
Because Russia.
What about Russia? I didn’t get it
Come on. “Liar” was the song Russia was going to bring with Klava Koka and their relationship to Kirkorov is well-known and longstanding. There is a reason that no country worked openly with them this year, even though they have hinted Fokas was behind La Zarra’s staging (but if he was, again it was under the radar).
All broadcasters avoided a Greek team due to previous Russian connections and in order to support Ukraine? It feels a bit far steched
These connections are not in the past, “Liar” would have been the russian entry last year had the invasion of Ukraine never happened. There must be a compelling reason ERT didn’t subcontract the whole thing to them for a 4th year when the people in charge are the same and they really didn’t have a plan B to speak of. That reason must be that they were afraid of scandal or embarassment in the year that Ukraine was the reigning winner.
Plus every time I mention the obvious reason the team was suddenly dropped like a hot potato in the EuroFun site, they never publish the comment. Don’t you wonder why is that? I mean they could have published it simply to rebut it but they don’t even want it mentioned.
The latest data on the self-reported hygiene (or lack thereof) of europeans is creating a buzz. El Pais even ran an article about it 😅
Until a few years ago, I used to shower every day, but because of environmental considerations I now only do so when it is hot. For the rest of the year it is every other day … unless sth unexpected happens … like exercise that hasn’t been planned f. e. I even plan my work outs these days, scheduling them for shower days. LOL
The song that was the runner up in the Dutch internal selection:
WHAAAT this could have been my #1 of 2023!!!! Absolutely disastrous decision at AVROTROS. They were blinded by their Duncan Laurence dickriding.
I’m so upset about this one now I hope she tries again next year. I’m deep diving into all her music and loving her lol.
Yes
I hope he’ll finally be gone now
I think i agree with Michos on this. It’s ok but i doubt it wold have been a big hit.
Well it would have been a hit in my house lol. But regardless I disagree. If the live was poor, then yeah, it wouldn’t have been a hit, but if it was executed well I could see this in top ten by occupying a Siren Song kind of lane. It depends on how good of a performer she is (I have no idea of her capabilities) and if the staging concept was good, the catchiness is there and dark pop is a popular music genre.
But in any case, it surely wouldn’t have been as big of a flop as Burning Daylight.
Didn’t Duncan say that he had penned another ESC winner? Well, that potential winner ended up flat on its face with only 7 points …
Famous last words from Duncan. I hope he stops turning up now, such an arrogant annoying man.
I am not a fan of his either, but I still like “Arcade”. I would have preferred Mahmood to win though.
I don’t think Arcade is bad it’s just very standard and forgettable for me. Rotterdam put on a great show in 2021 so I can’t complain too much, but there were much more interesting options on offer in 2019 imo.
I don’t see this being a Eurovision winner people are still talking about in 10 years, plus I find the “he is a success in the US too!!” talk to be kind of cringe. Arcade was a moderate hit but he is in one-hit-wonder territory for now and has not been able to build any US career off of it. It’s the kind of song you have heard of but have no idea who sings it and never hear it again 3 years after its release.
I find him tedious as well. The music is not my stryle at all and he seems like the kind of guy who artfully drapes a scarf around his neck, then spends several minutes hysterically looking for it when you get ready to leave the cafe.
He is exactly that type of guy lol
Merol was top10 in VFoS a couple of years ago with this. “Applaus” has more character than the song they picked even though I doubt it would have done very well.
I see. I remember the song.
That sounds good to me.
I know that there was a lot of talk about the long runway time of 2023 and I got curious as I am between jobs atm and have nothing better to do :P So I made a comparison of an earlier competition and this years hosting to see where the differences was bigger and smaller and came up with these statistics:
(PS: Bare in mind that all of these numbers are not exact, but close enough)
2003
Countries: 26 in the finale and 26 overall
Runtime: 3 hours 10 min approximately
HoDs: 109 min (Postcards, songs, the reminder, the winning performance)
– The reminder: 7 min (1 in total)
– Postcard per Hod: 45 sec
– Overall time Per HoD: 4 min 12 sec
Voting: 54 min
Voting per Country: 2 min 7 sec
Hosts: 10 min 45 sec (Hosts explaining the rules, forcing jokes upon us and being a segway to other parts of the show)
Commercials/Interviews/Taped interval acts: 16 min (1 min 15 sec between songs) (6 min 30 seconds interval act between the song performances and the voting segment)
Interval acts on stage: 0 min (all the interval acts were taped)
2023:
Countries: 26 in the finale and 37 overall
Runtime: 4 hours and 15 min approximately
HoDs: 131 min (the flag walk, Postcards, songs, the reminder, the winning performance)
– The Reminder: 15 min and 10 sec (3 in total)
– Postcards per HoD: 1 min
– Overall time per HoD: 5 min 10 seconds
– Flag walk: 4 min ish
Voting: 49 min
Voting per HoD: 1 min 32 seconds
Hosts: 22 min (Hosts explaining the rules, forcing jokes upon us and being a segway to other parts of the show) (4-5 min between songs)
Commercials/Interviews/Taped interval acts: 24 min 10 seconds (10 min between songs!)
Interval acts on stage: 28 min 30 seconds
It’s pretty clear when you see this comparison that almost every part of the show has extended apart from the voting, which actually has decreased immensely per country in the competition. Kudos to the rework!
The thing I noticed most was all the weird pauses between acts in 2023. 15 min in total whereas 2003s competition had only a little over 1 min. I know people said Loreen had an extra pause before her number, but she is overall not the crime in all of this. I think there were like 8 extra pauses in between other acts too, however she had the longest one.
You can cut out 6 HoDs in the finale and gain a little over 30 min, but overall it’s everything else that immensely has increased, more commercials, more interviews, more unnecessary pauses, more hosting, more reminders, more interval acts, more taped stuff. If you trim the fat to its core and remove 6 countries in the finale I think you can easily take away 50ish min or even more and make it a 3 hour and 20 min show, but less then that will be hard as the show is a whole lot bigger then it was 20 years ago.
For example, I watched the 2016 show recently with my bf to show him Eurovision at its best and that show was about 3 hours and 50 min. Bare in mind that ESC 2016 had 5 more countries in it making the voting segment 7 min longer as well, so it is possible to make it all shorter.
Thanks for the raw data. Indeed imo a lot of it was unnecessary fat
Your welcome! I mean rewatching a bit I think the hosts did a good job, but I remember watching it on the night 3 and half hour in and thinking ”When is it gonna end?” and I usually dont have that thaught. Luckily we were drinking and having a good time, so ultimately it didn’t matter that much :P
Interesting how long it has become, espeicially the acts. Planning does make a lot of difference, in 2010 the song presentation was 1:55 if you count Spain doing their performance twice and in 2023 it was 2:17. Maybe the acts are far more complicated to set up nowadays or they just had problems on the grand finale live
I didn’t mind somehow, the show seemed to move faster than usual for me despite the length. They do need to do something about the set-up, the Swedish circus especially this year gave them a bit of an advantage – weirdly because the whole thing looked like sth out of Mad Max.
Idk there were some werid pauses here and there that didn’t make sense. The postcards were longer then they used to be, but still the crew needed more time for certian acts and as I said it was not only Loreen, but other acts as well who needed it. The hosts did do a good job at masking this, but it still could have gone smoother.
The cards were longer because they always showed 3 countries, I think they were really nice. The interval act sequence dragged on too much for m.
Sweden, Finland, Italy, Greece, Turkey… Next is Spain (in July) with the worst right-wing party in the western world. We definately live in the darkest days of right-wing dominance since WWII. I wish I could isolate myself in a shack at the top of a mountain.
I don’t think Turkey can even be compared with the rest that you mention. I don’t think anyone else would celebrate their victory inside a monument they sacked and pillaged 570 years ago and brag about it as well.
Let’s hope France doesnt follow in 2027!
You can’t follow because you are already there 😉 I don’t see what’s the big difference between Mitsotakis and Macron tbh.
Oh well, it’s because in some social matters or on immigration the centrist party isnt as awful as our Conservative party who isnt sitting in the majority (yet?) and that Le Pen’s policies would be way worse, incl being very pro-Russia. So yes it could be way worse
It seems to me that Macron also talks tough about immigration and especially against identitarianism /islamism.
He tries to find a middle ground to not “seem” like he’s ignoring the issue, which is the main argument of Le Pen, that every other party is ignoring it and only she can do anything about it. Macron also recognized France’s historical crimes in Algeria which every president refused to do so far, but yes he’s leaning very right wong on the topic this term vs. his first one
New Democracy is a normal conservative party and especially under Mitsotakis it’s very centrist. In fact, that’s what some of the more traditional right wing voters don’t like about him.
The US will be joining the club next year since Biden refuses to retire
“…Spain… with the worst right-wing party in the western world”.
Exactly!!!!! Many people outside Spain don’t understand how dangerous and backwards PP really is.
They are the worst of the worst.
VOX (who nominally are more to the right) are fascists, but PP (who pretend to be centre-right) are even worse, they are francoists + fascists.
They still hold Franco and his ideas close to their hearts, and also they are heavily influenced by Opus Dei.
When it comes to parties in power in 4 other countries you mention (Sweden, Finland, Italy and Greece), nobody comes close to Partido Popular.
They may have horrible rhetorics, but they are right wingers – they are all up “for sale”.
Which means they heavily change their rhetorics when they come to power (just look at Meloni), just to keep the power.
But not “Partido Popular”. They are “true believers”.
And I know that you dislike New Democracy (if I was Greek, I would dislike them too, and probably vote Syriza, I guess), but really there is no comparison between Mr. Mitsotakis and other right wingers mentioned above.
He is very “mild” in a right wing world :-)))
When it comes to Turkey and Erdogan, I am lost for words. Horrible.
They are in very bad place right now, and I don’t see that it can change soon.
If PP wins the next general election and perhaps even is supported by Vox, things will get turbulent in Catalonia once again … If the Spanish voters are stupid enough to vote extreme right wing, they deserve to lose Catalonia and all the tax money that regions brings to the table. I honestly have had enough of mankind … with very few exceptions.
Rewatched Eurovision 2003 this weekend and it feels like another show
Anyway this is my ranking:
1. Turkey (On another level, best performance of the night)
2. Sweden (Good cheese, strong vocals)
3. Iceland
4. Belgium (I get it, but I still zoned out a bit watching the performance, however later on it was this song that I started to hum, so a complicated relationship with this one.
5. Germany (Lets be happy and lets be GAAAY!)
6. Poland
7. Romania
8. Netherlands
9. France
10. Spain
11. Israel
12. Norway (Tbh I thaught this was kinda cringe, but I get it, cute boy singing about heartache)
13. Croatia
14. Ukraine
15-20. Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia
21. Portugal
22. Russia (Horror, maybe they got so much points, cause people thaught they tuned into the best out of tune duo contest)
23. Bosnia
24. Greece
25. United kingdom (Uncomfortable to watch, that poor girl really did not wanna be there)
26. Austria (Even more horror)
Some general thaughts watching it: hosts were cringy, but could have been worse I guess, no live interval acts was weird??? jeez this acting… the booing for Russia is very unnerving, but with that live performance I cant really blame them that much. Russian spokesperson: ”Slavic brothers Ukraine” oh how the times have changed. <\3 Russia 12 points from Ukraine!
Austria getting 6th yet people wonder why the jury is needed… They should really rewatch the earlier shows. A very exciting finish, I am glad Turkey won in the end, would have been ok with Belgium, but Russia being 2 points short was a wtf moment. Tatu really was that famous back in the days. I mean with a better live they would have probably easily won.
2003 was one of my interesting ESCs because I watched it in Zagreb; I don’t remotely speak Croatian so it showed how pointless the commentary is. I had arranged a buddy online before the trip, we really connected and spent the whole 4 days together. Both ecited about the show and winner, went to the club afterwards. Very special ESC.
I love Austria 2003, especially the lyrics, which are among the best in the contest’s history and even more relevant today. But I really like the music too. 🙂
My TOP 3 are France, Austria and Romania, followed by the actual TOP 3. I can’t stand Greece, Germany, the UK and Ukraine.
I dont think people voted for it because of the lyrics as most people in Europe dont speak german and that is my point. The music is not for me, but I get that it was different and it stood out. I more think they were weird on stage, because they knew they would get more points then and that is exactly what happened.
2003 is one of my favourite editions; I loved Portugal, Spain, Poland, Ireland, Turkey, Iceland, Latvia, but my absolute favourite was Croatia (one of only 2 times I had Croatia in my TOP 5).
It was, and still is, one of the most beloved entries in Croatia. A huge hit, even nowdays.
Sure, “Maria Magdalena” and “Sveta ljubav” were huge hits too, but those two songs never really had a “life” outside Eurovision, while “Vise nisam tvoja” surpassed the “Eurovision” brand and made it a as a mainstream evergreen.
Not many people outside Croatia realise that the song actually uses traditional elements in chorus, which were so cleverly blended in contemporary pop music.
It has one of the best melodies we have ever sent to ESC, very cleverly composed.
Oh my 🇫🇷 Luca Van Assche 🤩
Ass
among other lovely things
OK, nominations. Always a hightlight before the fighting starts:
Technical Awards:
Best Female Vocals – Spain, Sweden, Portugal
Best Male Vocals – Italy, Belgium
Best Lyrics – Poland (dreadful but they are what people remember so that’s what counts)
Best Composition – Portugal, France
Artistic Awards:
Best Performance – Finland, Cyprus
Best Props & Gimmicks – Finland
Best Female Style – Poland, Czechia
Best Male Style – Cyprus, Moldova
Best Backings – Cyprus, Poland
Delegation Awards:
Best Backdrop – Cyprus
Best Promotion Video – Cyprus, France
Best Spokeperson – Iceland, Italy
Best National Final – Finland, Italy
Results Awards:
Most Improved Entry – Poland, Albania
Best Non-Qualified Semi-Finalist – Latvia, Malta
Most Underrated Entry In Final – Germany, Portugal
Best Entry – Portugal
We do not tend to fight over the rsults. 🙂
No, I meant the FTSC, a lot of people get quite hysterical about it.
That makes sense …
I know I’m the odd one out but it’s my least favorite time of the year on ET. I’m glad people mostly enjoy it nonetheless, it just seems very stressful to me.
I stopped participating last year because ETSC became too time consuming. I still check the songs though because I discover some gems in every edition.
I usually ask Michos or Dino what they think I’d like and get some good stuff that way
Going to your EK message, beautiful summer weather here as well. Plus our ice otters did great, didn’t expect that. Bundesliga – I think we’re all done with it now, it’s ridiculous.
As for the BL, it is what it is. Im am very happy that HDH will join the club next season. I have never had 4 clubs I love or like in the BL before, but now I have VfL, Freiburg, Werfer and HDH. 🙂 I hope that Sankt Pauli and perhaps KSC will join next year, and of course I hope that anyone but Bayern will come 1st. As for icehockey … of course I am happy for the team but personally I simply don’t care. 🙁
I like hockey, really ghood friend of mine used to play it so I’d go to the games and got into it. I couldn’t locate Heidenheim on a map but look forward to you buying tickets to see their games ;-). BVB and HSV are simply too stupid obviously, I don’t even care about relegation any more.
I might actually buy a ticket for HDH vs. VfL. 🙂 I always attend the VfL matches in Stuttgart too, and that is the main reason I support VfB in relegation. Well, my dad, my sis and my best friend being VfB fans might play a role too. My best friend even is a member of VfB, and when we buried his father a couple of years ago, his coffin was decorated with two scarves: VfB and Galatasaray.
I like Werder (odd as that seems for a HSV still-sort-of fan) and the Union story obviously is great. Freiburg’s a good story, too, but I really disliked working there, people were odd.
my best German friend/colleague is a Werder fan, so I have a soft spot when I hear news about them but dont follow the BL tbh
BL by now is even more boring than L1, at least whenit coems to the championship. Bremen where Werder is from is a really nice city, underappreciated gym. They combine cool older architecture with some sleaze so a bit like Marseille. The economy unfortunately sucks but one of our biggest pet food producers is there; it’s always fun riding/driving through because you see their logo.
* Werder
Welcome to Cyprus Song Contest
Sleeveless again, please.
Sleevelessly I’ll be watching you, breathlessly … ♪♫♪
That’s some MAJOR cock vote Mr!
I didn’t even dare to nominate ISR in every category which is superior to Cyprus in almost every aspect 😜
I had to reign myself in regarding Spain … No cock involved there …
You are not much of a cock voter , I’d say!
I take that as a compliment … 🤔🤪
LOL… hey, I didn’t nominate him for best vocals!
Nominating CYP for best backings though… can you elaborate pls as I see no people and I only hear prerecorded.
Are you on drugs? 🤪
I wish!
The backings are all pre-recorded now, aren’t they?
Also,
How dare you badmouth ETSC devotion?
#reported
Reported back for reporting!
Cyprus as among the best backings makes sense. Wasn’t it the reason it caused uproar beacause it sounded that good to be true? So in terms of artistic merits the delegation did a good job by offering back up to Andrew and also enriching the song with second backing vocalists.
Were there really backing singers? I only listen to loud prerecorded and that’s not what we nominate here.
It wasn’t only his voice pre-recorded. I can hear other voices as well that aren’t his and can be heard in the background. Second voices isn’t something new or wrong per se. Live concerts have always had backing vocals.
“prerecorded and that’s not what we nominate here.”
There isn’t a rule about not nominating prerecorded vocals, hence I asked Morgan what are we supposed to nominate. Prerecorded is a reality in ESC nowadays and we can’t ignore it. The real question is whether it is done well or not. some delegations did it succesfully whilst others struggled.
Well of course everyone is free to nominate whatever they like but I think it’s should be about live vocals, otherwise we are nominating best track, editing and sound mixing
What I nominate in the category of Best Backings are people who were escorting the main act visibly on the stage, either singing or dancing, and made a positive impact on the presentation as a whole. Everything else falls in the category of “Best Playback” :-P
Here are my nominations. I managed to nominate countries I didn’t even have in my top10 in SFs.
Technical Awards
Best Female Vocals: Mimicat, Albina, Blanca, La Zarra, Monika, Alika, Loreen, Brunette
Best Male Vocals: Remo Forrer, Gustaph, Tvorchi, Marco Mengoni
Best Lyrics: Italy, Estonia, Austria, Greece
Best Composition: Spain
Artistic Awards
Best Performance: Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Latvia, Israel
Best Props & Gimmicks: Malta, Serbia and Australia
Best Female Style: Mimicat and Iru
Best Male Style: Marco Mengoni and the Azeris
Best Backings: if we are talking about pre-recorded vocalists then Cyprus as it enriched the song; if it is about dancers then Finland, Moldova and Portugal.
Delegation Awards
Best Backdrop: Cyprus, Georgia, Malta and Czech Republic
Best Light Effects: Spain, Latvia, Slovenia, Moldova, Norway
Best Promotion Video: I don’t pay much attention to this category
Best Spokeperson: I don’t find this relevant
Best National Final: From what I followed I would say UMK, Benidorm and FdC
Results Awards
Most Improved Entry: I don’t think there’s any
Best Non-Qualified Semi-Finalist: Latvia and Malta. Maybe Azerbaijan as I would have qualified it in SF2 had it competed there.
Most Underrated Entry In Final: Portugal, Slovenia and Spain
Best Entry: Spain and Czech Republic; but essentially this overlaps with the best composition?
The head of contest for Eurovision said in an interview that the acts chosen to open the contest are chosen because they are the most child-friendly, if we want to keep that in mind when we do our 2024 running order predictions lol.
So countries that don’t want to go first simply have to send something very adult and porny.
ROFL One couldn’t make those things up … And then the childern are in bed by the time the voting starts. Absurd.
It seems prerecorded backing vocals are not allowed in jesc this year…
Prerecorded vocals in general to be exact:
https://eurovisionfun.com/en/2023/05/junior-eurovision-2023-pre-recorded-vocals-may-not-be-allowed/
Let’s hope that the same will apply to ESC next year. If not, JESC will more credibility than ESC … 😡
* will have more …
Yes,it’s interesting to see if this is a precursor for things to come.
Interesting to see JESC coming back to the esc roots (do kids really need help? I guess people who like the show want kids to sing, not a “perfect” show) and ESC slowing drifting away :/ Nice to see it’s hosted in France for this big change :p Or as we say here, Nice it’s in Nice :p
A chanter la grande France 😀
Shocking. I get from this that the idea of pre-recorded backing vocals wasn’t popular among the delegations but, as far as I know, autotune had many supporters.
Don’t know what people outside the bubble think about it but allowing the pre-recorded vocals has brought more controversies than helping the show. I mean, we still have “not-so-good” singers and on the other hand we’ve got dubious cases like Belarus and France in JESC 2020, or Cyprus 2023 and Norway 2022 in ESC where the line is undefined.
Or perhaps it means that scandinavians are not much interested in Eurovision Junior.
This is good news for JESC imo as long as it doesn’t carry into ESC. JESC is getting creepier and creepier trying to turn these 12 year olds into grown adult performers. It needs to go back to its roots and just let kids be kids with self-written songs and showcase all the amateurism that a child performer should possess.
The Polish winner of JESC 2018 just turned 18 this year and announced that she is engaged to her producer who is a grown adult… and that follows nonstop sexualization of the two Polish JESC winners in their post-JESC careers starting from when they were barely even teenagers. It’s getting really creepy and I hope the EBU puts their foot down, it’ll get more countries to want to compete too, particularly the Nordic countries which we all know are EBU darlings.
To add, I see a lot of people in the bubble saying things like “some JESC songs are more adult than ESC songs” or “this JESC performance was even more professional than an ESC performance” or things along those lines as if they’re positive things and signify that JESC is getting stronger, but I really don’t think that SHOULD be the case. JESC should always be more amateur than ESC because these are children and it’s the “junior” version for a reason. Ugh.
To summarize it, adults should not want to watch Junior Eurovision and it should not be catering to what adults want to see. It should be a show that appeals to children, and all these reforms the EBU has made to the contest and broadcasters to their song/artist selection process in order to appeal more to adults were awful decisions.
I have never watched JESC but I agree with your comment 100 %. Kids shoul just have fun, and people should not expect them to be professionals with pitch perfect vocals etc.
On the other hand, I want live vocals back in ESC. Recently I have watched some older contests, and most of the live renditions gave my goosebumps … even with songs I do not care that much for. That only happened to me with Spain, Albania (when the family kicks in), Italy, Portgal and the coda of Latvia this year. 🙁 Alika was great too but somehow her vocals did not have the goosebumps effect on me.
Yep, we agree on JESC then, but that is no surprise. I probably am in a different boat than the rest of you here since I actually watched JESC as an actual child, so it does have a special place in my heart, but instead of feeling like I’ve truly outgrown it like I should, it strangely feels like the contest is trying to grow with me and become a mini-adult contest as I’ve become an adult, and I find that scary. Looking back on the first editions of JESC, it is so clearly a children’s contest with amateur songs and performances so clearly written by children, for children. No longer is it anything like that, it’s songs written by adults, for adults, just performed by children. It’s gotten worse and worse too, Armenia’s winning entry in 2021 sounds like a professional adult Eurovision song, plus the girl was only 14 years old but you can swap her out and put a 21 year old performer in her place, and it wouldn’t seem too juvenile at all. I just don’t think that should happen, it should be by kids, for kids, with adults just handling the management and chaperoning. It’s bordering on dare I say pedophilic at this point.
I look at live backing vocals as I do the orchestra. It serves a purpose well for certain acts, but for others it harms the artistic quality – and that’s not a commentary on bad vocalists being helped, just that certain genres of music need prerecorded backing vocals in order to sound how they’re supposed to sound – so the best scenario for me is to let artists choose what serves their performance best: live backing vocals or prerecorded backing vocals, nothing being mandatory. There are some acts where the vocal is the main focus and they do well with 100% live backing vocals, or if the backing vocalists are incorporated well into the staging so it makes sense to have them live, but for an act where the vocal really is not what you’re supposed to be focusing on anyways (like Spain 2022), I don’t care much and don’t understand why anyone else would. France 2022 is always my go-to example of an entry that needed prerecorded backing vocals and sounded very dull and disjointed without them, but there are even worse examples of songs from the 100% live backing vocals era that got destroyed in their NFs because these electronic music genres were just not compatible with live backing vocals. And this is imperative if ESC wants to remain relevant and in-line with modern music, as a newcomer to the Eurovision world in 2013, I always found the insistance on live backing vocals to make many performances sound far worse (mainly in the 2010s) as at that point countries had begun sending songs that otherwise would have utilized prerecorded backing vocals in any non-ESC performance in the real music world. And again, it’s not to say that every entry should have them, just that the option should be there if it makes sense. There will always be the big vocalists who don’t need them, but for electronic music or dance music or genres like that, it’s not giving them a fair shot at success by making the backing vocals be 100% live. But I do take issue with calling it “live vocals” versus “prerecorded vocals,” the main vocals are still live, it’s just the backing vocals. Nobody is lipsynching despite all the conspiracy theories and you can clearly see/hear that all the main vocals are live, just with background help.
I see your point. However, feel free to call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want songs that can’t be sung live in ESC. There are many other places those acts can head to.
Btw, have you become a mini-adult like JESC too, or have you grown into a proper adult. 😉🤣
I think I will be just a mini-adult for the foreseeable future :P
I sometimes think that I haven’t grown out of it either yet. 🤪 (Btw, does the ‘yet’ go in front of or behind the ‘either’?)
The scariest thing I’ve ever experienced was when I was talking to my grandparents, aunt, and uncle about turning 22 last year and saying how I still feel like a kid who doesn’t know anything, only for them to tell me that they too sometimes feel like that still despite being 30+ years older than me and the feeling never goes away entirely lol.
You can say it either way. I’m not sure if one is genuinely grammatically correct or not but both ways sound fine, I may lean towards putting ‘yet’ first, but not in a strong way.
Thanks a lot for the grammar lesson. I kept switching around the 2 before posting my comment. LOL
And yes, many of us probably never become proper adults. I still remember my parents discovering a fishing boat on the Playa de Castilnovo in Conil de la Frontera some years ago. The boat was half-sunk into the beach and was mostly covered by sand. My parents instantly jumped onto the bow and played Titanic. They were in their mid-70s back then. I used the pic I took back then as avatar some years ago.
Ha always glad to help with English grammar. I know how you feel too, I second guess myself every time I have to say/write anything in French even if I’m fairly sure I have it right. Don’t even get me started on Albanian too…
Love the story re your parents. Makes me think that we’re not meant to “grow up” and our youth is our natural human state of being.
I think this is a show that appeals to adults in an unsavory way. I don’t think many kids want to see a show with kids singing.
I think the original JESC is a show that kids genuinely would watch, but young kids, like 5/6/7/8 year olds, not preteens. They gradually shifted the focus away from young kids and towards preteens moving into the 2010s, but when preteens didn’t care to watch, they dropped the kid focus entirely and now it’s a show for adults to watch children. It’s very gross.
Yeah, I boycott it.
I probably should but I can’t help listening to the songs that get a lot of fan hype.
The BBC is reportedly strongly targeting Sophie Ellis-Bextor for Eurovision 2024. She is supposedly the only artist on their shortlist.
tbh don’t see that scenario myself, she is so more early 2000s, not sure if you know but she is the daughter of a famous BBC presenter on a famous kid’s show called “Blue Peter” is like Sesame street in USA, let`s see, if she can produce a great song live!!
thus BBC connection is possible?!