I DON'T CARE IF I LOSE MY MIND - The Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final 2009

Worth pointing out those odds for Norway are not a misprint - Alex really is odds on to bring this one home, and Ladbrokes have in fact got another market open for winner excluding Norway.

(am rooting for Albania btw - there's a kind of inexplicable FA Cup run thing about them...)

In Norway, Alex got about 70 per cent of the total votes received for all the 8 final entries (and there were several good ones among them). He will have more competition here, but looks like a solid favourite, which for us in Norway he has somewhat done since the Norwegian final more than two months ago. "Fairytale" recently topped our singles chart for 8 weeks - still at #3, in its 14th week on the chart.

Haven't watched any of the build-up or semis cos I like to come at it fresh but am sure that once again the UK will do badly and once again nob-ends will whine about block voting and once again fail to acknowledge that the song we've entered is somewhat shit.

Haven't watched any of the build-up or semis cos I like to come at it fresh

yeah part of me regrets watching the semis, otoh if you don't, you miss some bizarre stuff that doesn't qualify. (Serbia, Hungary)

I'm glad I watched both the semis. The final is going to be over three hours long, so the semis were like warm up exercises.

once again fail to acknowledge that the song we've entered is somewhat shit.

otoh other people seem to think shit songs never do well in Eurovision?!?!

Depressing stuff on the PopJustice twitter: http://tinyurl.com/norwayeuro

Betting moves since last night - Norway still absolutely rock-solid favourites, but Ladbrokes have Jade as a serious mover in the market - in to 8/1 third favourite now, with Greece drifting slightly to 6/1.

There is always one ballad up in the listings, and I would have more faith in Jade than in the French entry. The French one is a solid song, performed by a great artist, but sounding like Edit Piaf in 2009 will get you nowhere in Eurovision. The French entry may benefit from the fact that 50 per cent of the votes are decided by "experts" though.

Rybak's "people" might have acted like twats, but my (almost universally non-heterosexual Moscow) sources have been consistently saying what a nice, friendly, approachable chap he's been all fortnight. So I'm taking that one with a pinch of salt.

Based on the semi-final, I'd say that Norway is by no means the dead cert that everyone's saying it is - but still Top 5, no doubt. I'm still calling it for Norway, Bosnia, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK in the Top Five... but the re-introduction of the jury system has blown all the usual predictability out of the water.

The juries have in fact already voted, based on last night's final dress rehearsal. This might be bad news for the UK's Jade, as apparently she dropped a few bum notes.

My heart lies with France, though. Love that Patricia Kaas.

Got odds 500 on Croatia at Betfair. Of course it won't win, but that was just a bit to generous not to put £3 on.

Read your article now mike! It's good stuff, exactly in the vein I was venting about the lack of on Thursday.

(Of course what I really want to see -- nb this is obv not your job or anyone's in particular -- is a really deadpan academical runthrough of the songs on their musical merit. I'm envisaging a bald 60 year old musicologist with a drab grey suit, Coke-glass-bottle-bottom glasses and thorough knowledge on Bartók, nordic folk dances and contemporary R&B ... actually, this is how I like to imagine the national juries this year, though I fear they all look like Simon Cowell instead.)

The juries have in fact already voted, based on last night's final dress rehearsal.

that's just strange!

what else was i going to say, oh yes, Armenia will win. mark my words. :P

http://www.radiotimes.com/content/magazine/mag238_220.gif

I'm envisaging a bald 60 year old musicologist with a drab grey suit, Coke-glass-bottle-bottom glasses and thorough knowledge on Bartók, nordic folk dances

Thinking of anyone particularly on ILM?

Hahaha not before you mentioned it! Would prob do a decent job of it though, whoever it is.

Anyone know if there'll be a Norton-enabled web stream of this accessible internationally btw? BBC or something?

lol thought you meant Graham Norton-disabled for a minute.

a really deadpan academical runthrough of the songs on their musical merit

I'd also love to read something like this. It's a gap in the market.

I believe most of the broadcasters' streams of it are available internationally?

Final round-ups from Moscow (including a live-blog from this afternoon's final dress rehearsal) are on both the group fan blogs, which I've been trailing obsessively for the past fortnight:

http://community.livejournal.com/oneurope_live/
http://akoe07.livejournal.com/

And I feel it's only right to point out that myself and Mr Atkinson - AMONG OTHERS (!) - will be liveblogging it at The Singles Jukebox, starting in 20 minutes - http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=548 is the place to be. There may be polls, if I can figure out how to do them.

People that watched this - what's this year's ridiculous "Vampires Are Alive" or Lordi type thing except not faux-Gothy because that has been played out?

IT ON

I think we're all on this thesinglesjukebox link that Swygart just posted - it's a bit laggy though

yeah, as I said there, a swygart/ewing/atkinson lineup is too good too pass up

unfortunately laggy as hell, also it keeps losing half of my comments

Why is Stanley Baxter singing for Sweden?

I've enjoyed all the songs so far. Graham Norton is doing a stand-up job too, so glad he's dropped Wogan's relentless snark.

K Portugal is now my current favourite, that was quite lovely.

Enjoyed all but the first on up to now, my favourites being Israel, France and Portugal so far.

Yes Portugal was so lovely! It's actually a band of street performers, I've learned.

Giant stapler ahoy!

I'm liking the Armenian entry quite a lot too.

That Russian aging thing was too creepy.

I think we're all over here
http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=548
lag notwithstanding...

Yeah, I'm watching with the fam tho so I don't wanna run something with sound.

Otherwise wd have thoroughly enjoyed the company of the redoubtable Messrs Swygart and Diva.

You can mute the typing noises by clicking on the speaker icon (on the row of icons next to where it says "COVER IT LIVE!")

We've sorted the clacking.

Armenia was really good, as well as the somewhat crazy Moldova (those trumpets!)

Iceland and Armenia for me.

Loved Armenia. Don't think they've got much chance.

i think norway will win but the uk will get 3/4 votes off some "experts" just so that the UK doesnt pull out (malta will give us votes as always.

haha 10 pts how predictable

all these UK points are clearly by the panels. Do they really need the BBC financing that much?

this is even sadder than usual. how is it that so many different countries all want to give Norway 12? why so unanimous? i know lyrics aren't important but man.

so people dont complain about the balkans always winning it? (despite the fact those countries are still giving the big points to their neighbours)

Andorra 12 pts to spain as usual?

haha yes

im pretty sure the uk would get fuck all if it wasnt for the panel of experts

Kerr you are even better at random conspiracy theories than my Dad.

Geir shd be all over this thread, I assume he's already drunk and dancing naked in the street.

knew UK would give Turkey top 3

i thought turkey mightve won this but i dont think there's anyway Norway can lose now

thought Malta would do a lot better - as a big stupid ballad it seemed better than 'My Time'

where are you guys watching this? is this on tv in the u.s.?

Try streaming from eurovision.tv ?

Cyprus 12 points to....

lol

omg that norway song was the pits.

only just noticed France are 9th wtf

imagine romania and moldova giving each other 12 pts. who woulda thought it

i love the shitness of the Azerbaijan lady's background. tacky CGI fireworks and the palace picture is tilted to the right by about 20 degrees.

LJ has a lucrative career ahead of him...

Norway can fuck off imo

dreadful song. Its funny as fuck though with Norton trying to tell us how eurovision is back about the songs not politics.

years ago when i was younger...

Least-credited dude on these things: Marc-Antoine Charpentier. That riff I've known my whole life, or something.

http://media.aftenposten.no/archive/00737/17__MAI__tittel_jpg_737852x.jpg

And, well.... To a much bigger extent than Secret Garden (and surely bigger than Bobbysocks), this was a deserved win.

Still, my favourite Norwegian entry remains one that didn't win. Silje Vige did manage to get 12 points each from Cyprus and Greece though, which is very rare (they always give 12 to each other), yet kind of understandable when you hear the song:

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The Alex win is anyway just the continuation of the Silje nonwin, oompah oompah right? Same base, more cough palatable surface. Or something.

Well, except Alexander's song sounds like "Kalinka" while the Silje one sounded like something Theodorakis ;)

<3 Hadise

I think Norway's song was quite okay, but I don't see where the landslide victory came from... What's so special about the tune? Did it win because the singer was cute and the song was a bit different in that it was neither an Eastern dance pop number nor a power ballad? I thought Portugal was clearly better in that regard, but I guess they weren't flashy enough to get as many votes.

i thought it did sound quite Russiany, and the guy was born in Russia himself. don't see why this would sway so many tho.

there's always the potential for 5-10 countries to be in the running right until the end but it never seems to happen. it would probably generate more excitement if it was as close as the actual quality of the songs actually demonstrates year after year (and this would be a better 'story' than 'jaunty young fiddler gets most points ever by huge margin'). instead it tends to be pretty clear who will win before the night and after only 2 votes were in it was far too obvious. Finland > Norway.

You mean this year? I don't really think so, Waldo's People was such an embarrassment. The song had a catchy chorus but everything else about it sucked.

Norway must've won because their song and performance was different enough from the rest to stand out, but not so different that it would've scared away the voters. I think Portugal and Estonia had the best songs, but they both fell into the "too different" category, especially since neither of them put that much emphasis on a catchy chorus. Patricia Kaas gave a great performance, but I think France would've done better if the song hadn't been so bland, chanson-by-numbers. It's nice to see that Western Europe has again started to take the contest a bit more seriously though, it seemed Germany was the only one to have a joke number this year.

ok, that was fun, pretty good show troughout.
i had Norway ranked as 6th amongst my personal favs, but a deserved win anyway, very catchy tune (compare it to Russia's forgettable song of last year)
v. glad Ukraine and Greece didn't do that well.
Not enough love for Moldova (the enthusiasm!) I had predicted Armenia as winners, so i guess i'll have to say not enough love for them either. That song seemed to have a lot of layers and interesting melodies, i guess it lacked some sex-appeal though, a bit too weird maybe.
the big four all dissapointed, as usual. Spain had a very weak song (but i also think having drawn a slot late in the contest never helps) France's superstar was a joke (but i don't like that chanson style anyway) Germany seemed to have spent lots of dollars on Yanks. and Yanks in the EUROvision contest, it never works. and finally England, sort of cool that Andrew was there, but the song was a bunch of cliches and the singer had no personality in her voice whatsoever.

but now i'm whining, Iceland was fine again (I voted for it) and Azerbaijan was very sweet as well.

best votes-announcer: that junkie guy from Bosnia! (who was in the contest the previous year)

Norway was okay, it sounded better on the victory lap, but his first performance of it was lame and the song is as ripe a slice of cheese in its own way as anything that's won previously. Portugal and Armenia were my faves, both the most technically accomplished songs/performances on the night, both never in with a chance. Finland was an absolutely banger - seriously way better than the winner. Moldova looked better and better as the night wore on too, but I think they were one of the many countries riding that Eastern-influenced dance number vibe (understandably, obviously) and I reckon that boat has now sailed. I'm normally a bit of a fan of big drama ballads but this year's crop seemed weak and unmemorable to me - I honestly can't recall a note of the Iceland entry. Bosnia & Herzegovina was kind of pleasing without quite erupting like it should've. Thought Rolling Keyring's song for Denmark was a fair bit better than most people seemed to - lol poor guy couldn't even get a 12 from the Irish vote tho.

In summary: it felt a much tougher call than the voting made it look, quality was pretty uniform without many stellar highs, jury system probably a bit bollocks and should be made more transparent so we can judge what effect it has on the marks overall. I take Eurovision plenty serious but bollocks to the New Rockism.

Waldo's People was such an embarrassment. The song had a catchy chorus but everything else about it sucked.

I don't think the song or the performance was why they were there. The only thing people are going to remember is: "oh yeah, Scandinavian women are babes"

On the other hand, people didn't think "oh yeah, there are monsters in Finland" after Lordi won, so ignore. :-)

Thought Rolling Keyring's song for Denmark was a fair bit better than most people seemed to - lol poor guy couldn't even get a 12 from the Irish vote tho.

probably because he was such an arrogant prick. like a footballer really.

Oops.

Speak about losing one's mind. Norwegians went more bananas than any other nation has ever done after winning the ESC. Just look at these Flickr photostreams with pics taken today in various places around the country:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qiqifred/3539792012/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsbilling/3538973777/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krogen/3539777450/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/electricblue86/3538596043/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorj/3538545443/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stickmeat/3539579432/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rennyba/3538586303/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rennyba/3539320588/