Eurovision 2010 - Final, Saturday 29th May

Songs I like: Russia, Germany, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Albania
Songs I hate: Denmark, Portugal, Cyprus, Norway, France
Probably going to win: Armenia, Azerbaijan

Voting Iceland here, although I think Germany will win because it's a bit different from a final otherwise dominated by ballads and dance pop.

Drip Drop is supposed to be the favourite, and it's fine, except for the bit where she sings the title.

Tears don't go drip drop, that's a dripdry shirt that does that.

Yeah, she should change it to "My lovely horse goes clip clop, clip clop", go for the nerdvote.

With Greece, Iceland and developing countries Azerbadjan and Moldova all among the favourites, I guess there is a chance that next year's final may be a bit less OTT in terms of budget....

what's the favourite, sorry?

What was that one where the girl sings "Because ... because ... because ... " ?

It was too tempting not to go "Because of the wonderful things he does nananananananahhh"

I notice that, out of all the obvious favourites, Germany is the one going latest in the contest, which is usually an advantage.

Germany hasn't won since 1982, so I really wouldn't mind, even if their Amy Winehouse-influenced thing is being a bit badly sung.

Azerbaijan is the bookies' favourite, and they're trying to recreate Russia's winning recipe from 2008: throw lots of money at getting big pop industry people in - video director did Straight Outta Compton(!), choreographer did Single Ladies, composer did random megastar album tracks I've never heard of - and pulverise the opposition with a ringtone-friendly pop ballad. They could well do it.

I've never understood why Germany is such a favourite: is there really a pan-European audience for this kind of thing?

I've never understood why Germany is such a favourite: is there really a pan-European audience for this kind of thing?

Maybe not. The Western music press knows zilch about Eastern and Southern European musical taste, and tends to pretend it's the same as in Northwest Europe. Which earlier finals have shown that indeed it isn't.
Even before the Eastern European countries entered, there was an obvious North-South thing, but that was easier to ignore because it usually just meant that Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus would all always end up in the bottom of the list (too few to compete with Northern Europe).

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Western music press knows zilch about Eastern and Southern European musical taste, and tends to pretend it's the same as in Northwest Europe.

Geir utterly OTM about this. Thus you get the UK (one of the leaders in international pop music historically, that cannot be denied) sending the most insipid and/or gimmicky shit year after year, on the pretext that "we don't get it; we must send something noone gets".

Betfair's market for "Last place" has GBR at odds of about 2.4; the next competitor is at about TWELVE. :-D

I notice that, out of all the obvious favourites, Germany is the one going latest in the contest, which is usually an advantage.

No shit. I did some proper statistical studies on this, using data from the last ten ESCs. Starting last-three vs starting first-three has an expected value of about *100 POINTS* extra! I'm not kidding here; this figure has been corrected for habitual friendly voting, overall country ability and song attractiveness.

The obvious explanation is that ppl remember the recent songs better when voting opens after the last song. There's a rule change this year; voting is open from the start. It is pretty clear to me that this is because some math guy in Eurovision has noticed what I noticed.

I don't think *all* the late-starter advantage will be eliminated by this rule btw (though twill be interesting to analyze). There's obv also the thing that the later you start, the more BOUZE has been consumed among spectators, which a) heightens enthusiasm and b) lowers threshold for spending a halfeuro or whatever on making your point.

All that said, go LENA! :-D

Starting last-three vs starting first-three has an expected value of about *100 POINTS* extra!

Yet starting first-three is probably an advantage compared to starting as, say, number 13 or something like that. And that is not because 13 is an unlucky number.

Geir utterly OTM about this. Thus you get the UK (one of the leaders in international pop music historically, that cannot be denied) sending the most insipid and/or gimmicky shit year after year, on the pretext that "we don't get it; we must send something noone gets".

Even though they didn't really fail last year (The UK did a lot better than usually in 2009), I think the idea of having one prewritten song and just choosing the artist is a bad one. Having a number of songs to choose between makes it more likely that you end up picking a potential hit. And, really, Pete Waterman may have had a lot of hits in the 80s, but he hasn't exactly set the hitlists on fire the past 15 years or so, so I suppose they might have come up with somebody better to write that one song.

There is also a theory that being among the "big four" is a disadvantage because they don't get the attention the ones having to go through a semi final gets. But we'll see tonight if Lena can prove that theory wrong...

Yet starting first-three is probably an advantage compared to starting as, say, number 13 or something like that.

Wrong. The actual link between starting order and points gained is linear the run of the competition. Extremely high levels of significance.

linear *throughout* the run of the competition

So far: Moldova and Serbia are doing it for me.

This is being liveblogged over at http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com

Moldova was fun! I've never watched this before; whenever someone gets up with an acoustic guitar, I wince (and put on rugby).

Greece's singer is earning his pension here.

OPA FTW

What sounds good to me is getting to the next song.

kinda hoping this Turkish song goes crabcore

This isn't bad, the Albania song.

background singers a little wtf for Albania though I think

I really don't want to like France's entry...

The French performers don't seem to know how to play on a stage this big.

Why is Kelly from Saved By The Bell sitting at a glass keyboard with Charlie from Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

HE SHOT FIRE OUT OF HIS FUCKIN SLEEVE

if Romania don't win, we riot

The bloke presenter looks like Philip Schofield's evil european twin.

Germany, France and Greece have all made an effort => the Euro currency is safe!

The bloke presenter looks like Philip Schofield's evil european twin.

See I had him down as what would happen if Gordon Ramsay mated with Ant and/or Dec.

Apparently he's a Villa fan.

last!

I actually think the UK entry sounded better in the new version, and also with a better stage show. Still not surprised that it failed though. OK, so Ukraine was worse, but Ukraine have a lot of good neighbours voting for them no matter what they enter with.

Oh, and I guess Germany is probably the only country besides Norway who can afford to arrange the final now, so probably good it was them who won it. :)

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

Oh, and, btw. Classic appearance by Jimmy Jump during the performance of the Spanish entry. :)

Got everything mostly wrong there, turns out Europe did vote for "lovely Lena". Crowd favourites round our way were France and Moldova, I won some money on Romania, don't forget YOU HAVE NO PROGRESSIVE FUTURE and Josh should have stayed on that bus. Roll on next year.

The Moldovans wuz robbed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkmncrAPILw

The Denmark tune had a lovely ABBA-esque hook in the chorus, shame about the verse though...

omg

OK the whole Moldova thing is amazing but especially this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrdwhXNt4qw&feature=related

Oh jesus, I'd blanked out the sax dude. There is no excuse to be pulling those kind of moves.

just discovered the moldovan song [via epic sax guy meme]--it rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsPp4tfBnGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHy7DGLTt8g

I need the MP3 of that.

Has anyone slowed this down 800% yet?

10 hours?! Thought the 10 min clip I posted upthread was impressive but I be like damn. Sergey 4 eva.