Ukraine's Eurovision story has been pretty impressive. In 9 of their 15 appearances since 2003 they've been placed in the Top 10, 7 of which were Top 6 and they've been runners up twice and won it twice.
After not participating in 2015 on the grounds that the country needed to spend all its money on defence at the height of problems with Russia they were welcomed back in a grand way, winning in 2016 - and with a distinctly national song from Jamala which was pretty close to being banned for being too political!
Winning that year was particularly pleasing for them as the favourite had been Russia's Sergey Lazarev, who finished 3rd. Ukraine's sexy Maruv was expected to be one of the favourites this year. As it happens, Sergey is returning this year as Russia's entry and, even though we don't yet know the song, he's now favourite to win instead!
So Ukraine mat well have landed a potential victory to Russia as a result of this mess, which seems to have originated because Ukraine was not happy about artists performing in Russia. Maruv refused to agree her contract in this respect and the artists who were also in the running and came 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the national competition have also refused.
The European Broadcasting Union may now impose a fine and, indeed, a ban on Ukraine for future participation.
Quite a surprise. It could now be quite a boring year, judging by the entries released so far.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Ukraine's entry!
OK. Yes, er, this is Ukraine's, er, entry for Eurovision. I can't wait to do the commentary if she keeps the same stage show!
Ukraine are always up there amongst the contenders but this isn't going to produce a win for them this year. They will get lots of publicity, though. Good luck with that, Maruv!
Saturday, February 09, 2019
Eurovision: UK hasn't a clue.
What on Earth has happened to the UK's approach to the Eurovision Song Contest? For a period of ten years from 1967 to 1977 we finished in the Top 4 every year. With just two exceptions, we have been in the Top 10 every year since the competition started until 1999. We had entries which were commercial, written to catch attention and appeal to the wide European audience and, whilst often tacky and not something I would rush out to buy, we would watch the Final with valid expectations that our nation would be in competition near the top of the scoreboard.
It wasn't the best music, it was embarrassingly designed to be remembered by international juries on occasion too, but Eurovision fans relished it and we generally forgave the writers, performers and Terry Wogan made us smile. We did well, year after year. It was British music which dominated the charts across Europe as our writers and producers were simply the best at reaching the record-buying audience. We may have forgotten most tracks soon after the Final but that didn't matter. Britain had done well.
Since 1999, though, the UK have finished in the Top 10 just twice. Twice in 20 years. Indeed, it gets worse - on nine occasions we haven't even made the Top 20, finishing either last or with just a handful of points from one or two of the 42 or so countries voting.
It was not only international juries who didn't like what they heard; few recent tracks have even made the UK Top 20. Blue managed it but some didn't even make the Top 100 which required little more than your relatives to have bought a couple of copies each. We thought our entries were dreadful too!
We simply have to blame the BBC for this farce. There is a committee that sits in a room and decides how an artist and song will be chosen, how they will be presented to us, the public, and how a final decision is made as to who and what will represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. And they have got it wrong, year after year. Yes, there may have been a choice for the public but either the format of the show or the overall choice itself has been poor so people have either not bothered voting or had to choose between the poor and the uninspiring so whatever we may have preferred didn't stand much chance anyway.
We have hundreds of fabulous performers, groups and even more brilliant writers. Our singles charts may not be full of commercial numbers as they once were by virtue of the changes in how charts and compiled and the very few 'sales' now needed to get into them anyway, but the album charts still show how good we can be.
Every week there is a stand-out release from someone somewhere and I often think to myself at around this time each year 'why couldn't this be our UK Eurovision entry?'
Now, those faceless ones in the BBC committee will no doubt tell us they asked X, Y and Z to do the honours but they weren't interested. I doubt they made much effort, though, and who on Earth could have really thought that either the ancient Engelbert Humperdinck or ageing Bonnie Tyler would represent UK well? From 2014 then, after these two seriously embarrassed us and themselves with lowly close to bottom finishes, the committee decides to introduce us to people at almost the opposite end of the spectrum; young people few of us will have ever heard of.
This approach started with Molly and continued with Electro Velvet, Jo and Jake, Lucie Jones and SuRie. Nice enough people, all of them, and, with the exception of Jo and Jake, excellent singers but the songs were just plain poor and the performances uninspiring and forgettable. Interestingly, SuRie performed in this year's decision show and did a completely different version of Storm which might, had she done that last year, have put the UK on the left hand side of the board. Our positions in these years? Out of 25 or 26: 17th, 24th, 24th, 15th and 24th!! Terrible. And the BBC Committee seems to think this is a good way to decide? This year we have Michael Rice with Bigger Than Us. He can sing, although I have my doubts about whether the song is ideal for him with a start that's too low and a silly ending. It'll finish in the 20s again unless the other entries are particularly bad this year.
The way we decided was really flawed. First the only airing the tracks may have had that the public might have heard before would have been occasional features on Ken Bruce's Radio 2 show in the week. Maybe they got a couple of other plays but most people would have heard them for the first time on Friday evening, an hour or so before being asked to vote.
Secondly, we get three songs performed by two artists in quite different ways. That, in itself is not wrong but it is odd. The writer, presumably, had some idea as to how he or she wanted to project whatever emotion was in the words and one, if not both, of the artists will have messed that up big time! It also confused us. Giving us two interpretations of one set of lyrics and a tune just makes neither memorable. Add to that the fact that, again, we had a selection of nice people and reasonably good singers but none had much by way of performance history other than a group, Maid, who had each quite a good period in West End or similar shows. The others we might have remembered from X Factor or Britain's Got Talent but they hadn't done very well really. Michael Rice did, at least, win his show but I can't remember the name and I am not sure it was particularly big in the ratings. He was probably the best choice out of a strange selection but the poor fellow is going to disappoint us, however hard he tries.
He got selected in a public vote which I suspect only reached just a few thousand of us. In a really strange show, three people, Rylan Clark-Neal, a girl from the Saturdays and another chap I didn't recognise decided which of the two versions of each song would be put to us to vote on. That was very weird and you really did feel sorry for the people who were rejected in such a farcical way. The three 'judges' were sound enough - I have a lot of respect for Rylan and he gets Eurovision, for sure. I just wish that he had had more say in earlier days and I imagine that his enthusiasm may well have brought some other better-known artists into the frame had he been given the chance. Each of the three made sensible enough comments but they had about five minutes to decide and you just felt that the whole thing was a bit silly.
We need to get serious about planning to win Eurovision in 2020. The UK has to make a great impression across Europe, with a great band or star singer who can almost guarantee to get votes just because whatever they do is good and performing to big audiences is just what they do. Surely one or other of our major acts will take a chance and work with the best in the music promotion industry. Bring in Simon Cowell or, at least, his company advisors, if necessary. If that idea offends some of our established talent then let them plan the whole thing themselves - I can imagine people like Coldplay having more than enough understanding and experience already and we could just leave them to it, maybe just voting on which song, of a selection they offer, song they do.
The BBC can continue to do the promotion too in their own way as only the BBC can do but not exclusively. We'll give them the credit if we do well but, essentially, the whole job needs really to be in the hands of real professionals. People who know what they're doing, who can sell stuff, who can write stuff and who can win.
It wasn't the best music, it was embarrassingly designed to be remembered by international juries on occasion too, but Eurovision fans relished it and we generally forgave the writers, performers and Terry Wogan made us smile. We did well, year after year. It was British music which dominated the charts across Europe as our writers and producers were simply the best at reaching the record-buying audience. We may have forgotten most tracks soon after the Final but that didn't matter. Britain had done well.
Since 1999, though, the UK have finished in the Top 10 just twice. Twice in 20 years. Indeed, it gets worse - on nine occasions we haven't even made the Top 20, finishing either last or with just a handful of points from one or two of the 42 or so countries voting.
It was not only international juries who didn't like what they heard; few recent tracks have even made the UK Top 20. Blue managed it but some didn't even make the Top 100 which required little more than your relatives to have bought a couple of copies each. We thought our entries were dreadful too!
We simply have to blame the BBC for this farce. There is a committee that sits in a room and decides how an artist and song will be chosen, how they will be presented to us, the public, and how a final decision is made as to who and what will represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. And they have got it wrong, year after year. Yes, there may have been a choice for the public but either the format of the show or the overall choice itself has been poor so people have either not bothered voting or had to choose between the poor and the uninspiring so whatever we may have preferred didn't stand much chance anyway.
We have hundreds of fabulous performers, groups and even more brilliant writers. Our singles charts may not be full of commercial numbers as they once were by virtue of the changes in how charts and compiled and the very few 'sales' now needed to get into them anyway, but the album charts still show how good we can be.
Every week there is a stand-out release from someone somewhere and I often think to myself at around this time each year 'why couldn't this be our UK Eurovision entry?'
Now, those faceless ones in the BBC committee will no doubt tell us they asked X, Y and Z to do the honours but they weren't interested. I doubt they made much effort, though, and who on Earth could have really thought that either the ancient Engelbert Humperdinck or ageing Bonnie Tyler would represent UK well? From 2014 then, after these two seriously embarrassed us and themselves with lowly close to bottom finishes, the committee decides to introduce us to people at almost the opposite end of the spectrum; young people few of us will have ever heard of.
This approach started with Molly and continued with Electro Velvet, Jo and Jake, Lucie Jones and SuRie. Nice enough people, all of them, and, with the exception of Jo and Jake, excellent singers but the songs were just plain poor and the performances uninspiring and forgettable. Interestingly, SuRie performed in this year's decision show and did a completely different version of Storm which might, had she done that last year, have put the UK on the left hand side of the board. Our positions in these years? Out of 25 or 26: 17th, 24th, 24th, 15th and 24th!! Terrible. And the BBC Committee seems to think this is a good way to decide? This year we have Michael Rice with Bigger Than Us. He can sing, although I have my doubts about whether the song is ideal for him with a start that's too low and a silly ending. It'll finish in the 20s again unless the other entries are particularly bad this year.
The way we decided was really flawed. First the only airing the tracks may have had that the public might have heard before would have been occasional features on Ken Bruce's Radio 2 show in the week. Maybe they got a couple of other plays but most people would have heard them for the first time on Friday evening, an hour or so before being asked to vote.
Secondly, we get three songs performed by two artists in quite different ways. That, in itself is not wrong but it is odd. The writer, presumably, had some idea as to how he or she wanted to project whatever emotion was in the words and one, if not both, of the artists will have messed that up big time! It also confused us. Giving us two interpretations of one set of lyrics and a tune just makes neither memorable. Add to that the fact that, again, we had a selection of nice people and reasonably good singers but none had much by way of performance history other than a group, Maid, who had each quite a good period in West End or similar shows. The others we might have remembered from X Factor or Britain's Got Talent but they hadn't done very well really. Michael Rice did, at least, win his show but I can't remember the name and I am not sure it was particularly big in the ratings. He was probably the best choice out of a strange selection but the poor fellow is going to disappoint us, however hard he tries.
He got selected in a public vote which I suspect only reached just a few thousand of us. In a really strange show, three people, Rylan Clark-Neal, a girl from the Saturdays and another chap I didn't recognise decided which of the two versions of each song would be put to us to vote on. That was very weird and you really did feel sorry for the people who were rejected in such a farcical way. The three 'judges' were sound enough - I have a lot of respect for Rylan and he gets Eurovision, for sure. I just wish that he had had more say in earlier days and I imagine that his enthusiasm may well have brought some other better-known artists into the frame had he been given the chance. Each of the three made sensible enough comments but they had about five minutes to decide and you just felt that the whole thing was a bit silly.
We need to get serious about planning to win Eurovision in 2020. The UK has to make a great impression across Europe, with a great band or star singer who can almost guarantee to get votes just because whatever they do is good and performing to big audiences is just what they do. Surely one or other of our major acts will take a chance and work with the best in the music promotion industry. Bring in Simon Cowell or, at least, his company advisors, if necessary. If that idea offends some of our established talent then let them plan the whole thing themselves - I can imagine people like Coldplay having more than enough understanding and experience already and we could just leave them to it, maybe just voting on which song, of a selection they offer, song they do.
The BBC can continue to do the promotion too in their own way as only the BBC can do but not exclusively. We'll give them the credit if we do well but, essentially, the whole job needs really to be in the hands of real professionals. People who know what they're doing, who can sell stuff, who can write stuff and who can win.
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