#The fuck is the ebu's excuse

[valyrfia]

good news is that aurora will be visible tonight in almost all european skies, so you really have no excuse whatsoever to stay inside and watch eurovision. fuck the ebu, find a dark area, look north and see a once in a lifetime sight instead!

[silvysartfulness]

I am feeling increasingly salty about non-Europeans (Americans in particular) loudly, confidently posting anti-Eurovision rants on my dash lately.

Here's the thing. Eurovision is messy and problematic. Of course it is, it's always been messy and problematic! It's what Europe mostly does instead of ceaseless wars these days. It's not allowed to be too on-the-nose political (to avoid outright diplomatic incidents and more of said wars) but at the heart of it it is very much politics.

Eurovision isn't really about the "shitty music that no one will miss anyway", not really. It's not even an event, like the Superbowl or Met Gala or whatever your frame of reference is. It's an arena. A dialogue, the musical performances and resulting votes a call-and-response exercise between the actual people of the nations of an entire continent.

It is, in a very literal sense, the European Overton window in action.

The EBU administration is hypocritical as fuck, and I certainly don't agree with or excuse the shitty choices they occasionally make. That's not what this is about.

But some of you gleefully judgmental people shit-talking the concept of Eurovision itself and "hoping it'll crash and burn" show very blatantly you have no idea what it actually is. Which is fair! Because the combination of politics, cutthroat rivalry, unity and bloodthirsty festivity, the expression of (often deeply political) opinions through a creative medium like music, grudgingly uniting several dozens of nations that have spent a major part of the last thousand years at war in varying constellations... is something highly unique.

So sure, you may not get it. You don't have to get it. You don't have to like it. You certainly don't have to watch it. You can think it's as shitty or shallow or problematic as you like (it is absolutely all those things). But you're honestly entitled as fuck if you butt in with loud opinions about its very existence if you don't even understand what it's for, or grasp the very real impact that that call-and-response has on the lives and political direction of all the people actually living here.

This last weekend, a song about the struggles and euphoria of breaking free from the gender binary and getting to exist as yourself, as you are - performed by a proud and out non-binary artist - won the Eurovision Song Contest by a landslide. The Overton window, the people of Europe came together and loudly and unanimously said "trans rights!"

And if you can't grasp the insane impact of that because you're so focused on the hypocrisy of the group of people doing the administration, I really don't know what to tell you.

Maybe you should just sit down and accept that this once, something isn't for you.

[residentraccoon]

Hey! I saw this on Eurovision Reddit:

How likely do you think it is that Romania competes this year? Based on how they've treated their contestants during the last couple of years I didn't think TVR would have any real interest in ESC anymore.

AH I've been waiting to write this

So

TVR honey you said at first that you will announce the participation on January 22nd, and a few days before that you suddenly change the date AGAIN to 25th? Um excuse me the fuck?

Not to mention that before this they said either in December, either tHiS wEeK gUys dOwn't wORrY wE will sAy fOr SuRe lmao

Like? Is it really that hard to take a decision? Granted, I have no idea how talks for a specific budget or activity occurs so I might be wrong, but geez? They've been dragging this for 3 months already and it's dumb because the EBU and especially the fans are kept waiting after them and for what? To say in the end that yeah fuck this shit we ain't doing this again bcs you all failed Theodor see ya in the 9th dimension (fades away)

Knowing that it's not the eurofans or voters that failed Theodor, it's them bcs they didn't even give a flying fuck about his entire performance. And it's SAD

I don't know, honestly. I think that even if they confirm, the national selection is going to be extremely shitty, like everyone had their submission windows open in late 2023 and then there's TVR a few days before the semifinal allocation draw being indecisive because lolz. The smartest decision would be an internal selection tbh, because we don't need 95% jury vote where the voters are 70+ and only know that what works in Eurovision is trashy pop or dramatic ballads tm or literally any kind of drama surrounding the winner like in every year. Everyone is tired of this.

In the end, I'm not really sure whether they will participate or not. Remains to be seen. I'll just enjoy the chaos eating popcorn in a corner in case any drama will happen.

[condensed-ink]

It's honestly amazing how this year's Eurovision has shown the extent of how everything related to the contest is shit.

First we have sheer amount of artists showing off just how two - faced they are. We have had multiple petitions: from Finnish artists, from UK - based artists, from Irish artists calling for their respective representatives to boycott the event. But what do the singers do? Even if some of the artists expressed solidarity with Palestine in the past, they still decided to go anyway, throwing away any moral integrity for their 5 minutes on stage and having the FUCKING NERVE to excuse it all with some "unifying power of music" bullshit. At the end of the day, performing on stage is a de facto endorsement of the EBU's stance on Palestine. The vast majority of the viewers won't care about your supplementary Instagram posts on the issue, but WILL care about why a large chunk of the performer's aren't present.

In addition, here's a question for those who signed off on that shitty Olly Alexander post: UNIFY WHO WITH WHOM? The entire post implies fostering unity between Israelis and Palestinians, but how can you do that when: 1) Palestinians aren't even allowed to have their own representative, and 2) Palestinian symbols are banned from the event. When Eric Saade did something as simple as wearing a keffiyeh on his wrist during the opening ceremony he got reprimanded for it. And, finally, how can any reconciliation be reached when one side is BOMBING, STARVING AND DISPLACING THE OTHER.

Also, here's a statement for all the people fawning over the contestants in the Eurovision hashtag: you're not fucking clever, we all see that you have comments turned off on your posts because YOU KNOW that you'll get called out for it. Like, my God, THIS IS THE BARE MINIMUM, MAN. This boycott requires you to do fuck - all, you don't need to donate, sign a petition or reach out to your political representatives, you just need to IGNORE THE EVENT and some of you mfs still manage to fail at it.

And no, I don't want to hear no "But I want to see my queer babies on stage" excuse. If you wanna see queer people do badass performances, GO OUTSIDE and seek out your local drag groups and see some actual good shit, whose existence is not contingent on paying a fee to the EBU.

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Like with the first semi, here are my thoughts on the second one after all's been said and done

1. Denmark 🇩🇰 - Emabrassing

2. Armenia 🇦🇲 - My girl SLAYED! I heard that she was gonna have a dance break from wiwibloggs and I wasn't sure if it was gonna fit but it did! They should have gone less ham on the smoke effects though because she was literally lost in it for a few seconds, hope they sort this out

3. Romania 🇷🇴 - I don't like the rearranged version and the staging was embarrassing, but he's still young so I think he's gonna find his way eventually

4. Estonia 🇪🇪 - Maybe it's because I'm so used to the studio version or maybe she was anxious but I kinda expected more? She wasn't bad or anything like that, I just know that she can sing even better and I hope she brings it to the final

5. Belgium 🇧🇪 - YEEEES! I was absolutely sure he was a qualifier the moment he stepped on that stage. Like I said yesterday, Gustaph's journey this year has been so amazing to watch. From beating out the fan favourite in Belgium's national final (and giving us an amazing surprised / scared reaction 😂) to the fans being unsure if this was gonna do well to him eventually winning everyone by the preparties and the eventual semi performance. Wow! And then he cried when he qualified! I'm so happy for him ���

6. Cyprus 🇨🇾 - My man pulled through and made us proud (it's an unwritten rule than whenever Cyprus has a better song than Greece we switch sides) He's hot, the hottest guy in the contest this year, no other options are correct, and he also has an amazing voice to go with it. He's gonna go toe to toe with Marco and Remo on best male vocals on the final.

7. Iceland 🇮🇸 - So sad for Diljá honestly, she's so crazy and fun and she's a fan of the contest too! Amazing vocals, especially considering all the jumping around she did but I feel like they could have done something better with her staging? Idk.

8. Greece 🇬🇷 - Wooo boy. Ok. I know I've been going hard at him since the rehearsal footage came out, maybe a little bit earlier because Poland's was not the only selection allegedly rigged, but honestly? He was better than expected. He did work on his pronunciation and his stage presence and he did the best he could... Which wasn't enough. And I don't want to use his age as an excuse because you have kids in Eurovision Junior doing much better than that or even 13 year old Sandra Kim winning for Belgium before the 16+ age limit was put in place. If I remember correctly it was actually because of Sandra Kim that they put an age limit because she was so good she EMBARASSED the fuck out of all the adults and then they complained that she was younger than what her song says (15). The outfit and the GRΣΣK script on English words was cringe as fuck, though these were not his fault. When people say they want countries to showcase their cultures more, spelling spirit as ΣPIRIT is not what they mean. God the greek broadcaster needs to touch some grass real quick. I also have a tiny bit of an issue with what he said in an interview, that he wrote the song because he was feeling overwhelmed about being signed to a big record label or sth? Well, Victor, I hope the whole world only had problems of this caliber! Turns out he actually is a nepo baby after all, his grandfather is a shipowner but allegedly this did not influence the greek broadcaster's decision on choosing him over the fan favourite. Sure Jan.

9. Poland 🇵🇱 - I don't know if the EBU put the two alleged cheaters back to back on purpose, probably not because no one seemed to care about the Greek allegations anyway, but in my mind this was iconic. Okay. Miss BEJBAH was good. Not "slay yas werk you're gonna be an icon of the contest" good but good enough to qualify. I told you all she was gonna make it. Most people who watch the show do not follow the preselection process and then some won't care anyway. Her song was okay, her performance was okay, she's gonna tank in the final. Get over it. I'm also curious about something. If the roles of her and Jann were reversed, would he have faced as much backlash? I think not. But what do I know?

10. Slovenia 🇸🇮 - They're okay. I like them. Their song is catchy. That's it. I literally don't know what more to say. I've seen tons of hype for them and their song and their alleged stellar stage presence and they absolutely deserved to qualify but this is just an okay, inoffensive, enjoyable song. I don't feel too strongly about it either way.

11. Georgia 🇬🇪 - Why do you hate joy Europe? Why? Why did you not vote for her? Why? Why? Why? I voted for her SIX times, two of which I'm not sure even went through because I only got confirmation TODAY, so when the detailed voting scores are announced Greece better have given her SOMETHING. But no I'm genuinely puzzled. Out of the borderline qualifiers I expected her to beat Alika. I'm happy for Alika of course, she deserves it, but Iru gave a very solid performance, she was on key the whole time, she looked great and the song was peak Eurovision, what the fuck went wrong here? A lot of my friends seemed to like her too. Two said she was their favourite last night, same as me, one liked her a lot and the other was the only one who hated her performance. I'm sad 😢

12. San Marino 🇸🇲 - Piqued Jacks was a pleasant surprise honestly. I liked them much more than I expected as they consistently ranked among my least favourites but I think they have a very solid performance that they can be proud of.

13. Austria 🇦🇹 - Okay, I got really nervous because both their performance back in Austria and their rehearsal footage looked so low-key? They felt maybe a bit too shy? I know they couldn't possibly recreate that phenomenal music video on stage, but I wanted, and still do, to see them embrace the kookiness of their song. I think they played it too safe, too serious. But then again they do have a serious message they want to get across underneath this fun crazy song so maybe it was intentional? Anyway, they still were more enjoyable than I thought they would be and I'm glad they're in!

14. Albania 🇦🇱 - Talk about a glow up alright! I'm not even mad they qualified over Georgia, because even though the odds predicted Georgia 9th and Albania 11th (they were even lower before the show) I knew they were gonna make it the moment I saw their performance. It's not a perfect song but it still had so much identity and a distinct ethnic, Balkan sound that is otherwise completely absent from this year's Contest so people were bound to pass it through to the final. I'm afraid they might land very close to the bottom in the final, but it honestly doesn't matter because Albina and her Familja still very much have a place in the final, regardless of their placing.

15. Lithuania 🇱🇹 - YES Monika YES!! Another definite qualifier in my mind. I personally loved her since day one. I said I almost cried during Latvia's performance in the first semi, well I did cry during Monika's! Amazing job girl.

16. Australia 🇦🇺 - Good. Solid. Fun. I don't feel too strongly about this either, and I do think San Marino was more enjoyable to watch, but I'm happy for them.

[hextechmaturgy]

i'm sorry but you and the person in your replies are stupid if you think "we all agree israel should be kicked from the show ❤️" is a good excuse to watch and fund by viewing a TV show that OPENLY supports israel and zionism, going as far as even having a ZIONIST SONG win one of the contests. what you're basically saying is, "Yeah, we all agree, amazon should treat its workers better ❤️" then ordering next day delivery. european or not, you're dismissing the struggles and suffering of palestinians and funding a show that openly supports israel and zionism. saying, "i disagree with israel and want them off the show," literally isn't enough. but honestly, this is the most european attitude to have towards the situation, so i honestly don't know why i'm surprised. also - some contestants holding a flag for palestine doesn't negate the support the show itself gives to israel. you need to remember that the people suffering in palestine are real and more important than a competition show for, historically, the most racist countries on earth with shit music on it. the fact that you stating "indeed!" and the user in your replies stating you're both aware of the situation is worse than being ignorant and unaware. i will block you just because you are clearly going to die on this hill because what does it matter to you, a white european person, if brown people die so long as you get to watch your silly little music show, which you know, is still openly supporting israel by not excluding them from the competition despite russia's removal. i suppose the white victims of russia are easier to empathise with than the brown lives lost in palestine. i'm embarrassed that i ever bought any of your art.

hello again :) first of all, i appreciate that you're passionate about this topic, it's a good cause to champion and i'm sure there are a lot of ignorant ESC fans that could use the reminders, lord knows you can't escape the zionists on twitter. alas, you don't know me personally, and i don't know you at all, so our back and forth here on tumblr dot com asks seems a bit pointless, especially if you're blocking me anyway? hence my brevity before, but maybe that came across as me generally not giving a damn about anything, and if so, i am sorry

eurovision's 'apolitical' stance (as if anything can be apolitical) is and always has been bullshit, whether it's about how hip europe pretends to be regarding queer issues, misogyny, and other major conflicts like the ones you brought up, such as the war with russia and, of course, israel and palestine. this really isn't a well kept secret, and neither is the response this incites in activists everywhere. there have been protests, petitions, boycotts, there's a heated discussion about eurovision every time we have eurovision, and rightly so, i fully encourage them. the sad truth in my eyes is that people people can only do so much to set things right. EBU is in this to make money and they're fucking great at it. nobody fixed russia by booing and banning them from the show, it was just more profitable to throw them out than keeping them in because 'communism bad', which is a trend among western countries

i've watched eurovision almost every year since i was a little kid, and it's pretty obvious that my stance on this whole thing is privileged. war has never been loud outside my door, i have a reliable supply of food and water every day, a sturdy roof over my head. i can spare myself some respite, and music is a big part of what constitutes my peace, always has been. i'm an enthusiast of foreign arts, of songs and languages that are difficult to get exposed to with how american-centric the music charts are nowadays

and so, the way i see it - and i understand if this is a line you're not comfortable drawing - the artists performing at eurovision aren't the EBU. i watch it for them. many of them who are just young singers looking for their big break, many others who are older and confident using their platform to say the uncomfortable things the organizers want to keep on the low. they're all gathered in one spot to represent a different culture, many singing in different languages, sharing traditional garb and dance. ethnic and LGBT minorities take to a huge stage that connects them to every point of the world, and i'm sorry if this all sounds quite silly in the grand scheme of things, but this is the one thing the show can do right in it's current state. europe is diverse, and sometimes it looks like even europe doesn't know that

i'm sad to see you go, but i respect that you've drawn this line, and i'm thankful to hear you've supported my art in the past. keep fighting the good fight, and may the world be a little less shitty sooner rather than later

[docholligay]

25. Australia

I openly resent Australia’s presence at Eurovision every year and I know 100% that they will renew Australia’s contract for Eurovision even though its nearly up because the EBU would quite frankly like to have any country they can make an excuse for participating. Some years, I feel like, oh, maybe I’m too hard on Australia. They’re a lonely island and I should let them have fun with the other kids. 

Then they send shit like this loiw-rent winy-ass Phantom of the Opera shit and I go, “No, no,, bullying Australia is the right move.” 

There’s a trend in Eurovision that I cannot understand wherein they send these children to sing these songs about a great amount of longing or suffering, and I just have to laugh. Do we all remember in 2017 when Australia sent a literal 17 year old to sing about his difficulties with love and trust? Or that same year where Ireland sent what, a 16-17 year old telling us about how he’s willing to be brave and try for love? 

Well Australia is doing that same kinda shit here, with a 19 year old with a very supportive family and a wide circle of friends, telling us he can’t get over being bullied when he was six years old and he wants it to come off sympathetic but it comes off REALLY pathetic to me. As a card-carrying member of “teased badly as a child” because I was fucking weird and twitchy, get over it, Sheldon. You wore that getup to the National final and your parents were like “Great job honey!! We love you!!” this is not some 40 year old from Lithuania singing this. (Lithuania would never send this! Serbia had to like, secret in lesbians from behind the curtain when it happened!) Australia is a TOP TEN COUNTRY IN THE WORLD where it is safe to be gay, according the the Spartacus index. It’s safer to be gay in Australia than it is the Netherlands. You’re fucking fine, Sheldon. I am not sympathetic to this, as a gay kid who was teased. 

He can sing, but holy shit do my eyes roll back in my fucking head every time I hear this song. It’s only as high as it is because I remember it so well. 

Disclaimer/Method

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2022 (#38)

38. AZERBAIJAN Nadir Rustamli - “Fade to black” 16th place

Decade rank:75/79 [Above Roxen, below Undisclosed]

I’m GNOOOOOME, GNOOOOME!

Ugh, I just DON’T want to write about this fucking male Dilara! please read this chat I had two hours before I FINALLY sat myself down to write this entry: 

There, you have it! The extent of my willingness to talk about this year’s Azerbaijani entry. It’s EXHAUSTING.

André is very charitable though. Nadir is not a Gjon. Nadir is a Freddy. An “attractive” (but not really) athletic guy with a strange, gruff voice and HORRIBLE enunciation (like seriously, the words I can make out are *the wrong English* words) dressed in roughspun, barefoot, screaming notes in an annoying, an fully masturbatory way. Between Freddy, Nadir and this Mello’s Lundvik, is there a catalogue where you can order these? Can I get one at IKEA?!

Method Singing. +1SIN ::CinemaSins sin counter ping::

Was there ever a bigger case of blue balls when Azerbaijan deliberately *delayed* the reveal of their song by a full week and then hit us with ::pages through notes:: “Fade to black”? Apt name btw. “Snap” isn’t amazing or anything, but it at least has a memorable melody. I don’t think I could remember any chord from “F2B” other than “I’m Gnome” assuming I could have been bothered to try and memorize this inherently dull! 

Even if we were to take the staging into account, ”Fade to Black” has an astounding lack of originality. Yeah, it looked “artistic” perhaps to those not familiar with art? (which: Konstrakta is a Eurovision alum and not an NF loser in our universe, so how are you not?). Yeah sure “a classy act” but HAVE YOU HEARD THE SONG?! (god the way this sentence is applicable for at least *four other entries* I have to rank after this, THIS IS WHY THEY ALL RANK LOW *AND* IN RED Y’ALL!! THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I DISLIKED 2022!!)

Azer just literally went to Sweden to buy themselves yet another generic trash song with HORRIBLE lyrics and expected to be rewarded for it. Again!

What makes this worse though, is that they were rewarded wtf?! I don’t fucking understand it, what sort of a person sees the Eurovision 2022 Grand Final, reaches “Fade to Black” (mind you, having already witnessed Chanel and Maro by this point) and thinks “YES! That one! THAT’s The One!! That’s the winner of Eurovision” (and continues to think so even after seeing Cornelia and Sam). Apparently, several “professional” juries. At least with Spain you can make the excuse of them being strategic since they had a leg in the race for second, but what excuse do the others have? Were they experimenting with artificial intelligence? Or did they simply not get caught cheating?

This neatly brings me to the last two points, which are what truly pushes Nadir into the bottom 3 for me: Azerbaijan were, ONCE AGAIN, up to some dodgy shite, and had their jury cancelled. Yet they have the audacity to be indignant about it? (unless they want me to believe they DIDN’T cheat but were punished anyway because the EBU doesn’t trust their potentially recidivist arses, which is a narrative I can get behind tbh <3) Like seriously, why does Azerbaijan always get away with a stern warning and not actual action? Expel them, on the fucking spot.

Even worse, *because* a third of the Semi 2 juries were DQ’d, the EBU’s rigging algorithm took over the jury results, and this insipid calculation is what ultimately carried Azer into the finals despite receiving ZERO TELEVOTE POINTS from the audience?! I don’t know what should have advanced (um, that is to say, it should have been Ireland, but realistically probably Cyprus or NoMac), but whoever they robbed, that country’s delegation have grounds to sue.

In sum: "Congratulations" to Azerbaijan for making me hate an entry *this* insipid with *that* much passion. Your reward is a bottom 3 spot on the ranking :-)

The Ranking: 

38. AZERBAIJAN - Nadir Rustamli - “Fade to black” 39. ITALY: Mahmood & Blanco - “Brividi” 40. ISRAEL: Michael Ben David - “I.M”

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Lithuania to Eurovision with a rampaging mess that gave a lukewarm conclusion

Oh dear.

When it comes to my country to choose, they’re often chosen to be overlooked by the Eurofan community, especially because of our insanely long procedure of choosing, that would often cause everyone to hear the songs live more times than they’re supposed to. And it seemed to be a similar case this year because while not as long as usual, we still had 7 shows + an additional week break (that allowed me to watch some more Destination Eurovision! Woo!), and a big pile to songs to swim through, usually submitted by all ranges of songwriters who’re willing just to get their names known to the world creditswise (looking at you Ashley Hicklin and co.) and often are paired with our talent show rejects that fade away as soon as they come in if their song and their chances crash out before the final (see Germantė Kinderytė - she didn’t make it to the lives of The Voice Lithuania, had a killer song though that didn’t make it to the semis thanks for the jury annihilating her pointswise TWICE and only ended up lucky the televoters’ 10 was enough to get her through. Another example: Benas Malakauskas, who got lucky to be on the selection for two years in a row, but did not go beyond the AUDITIONS in said talent show! Yet progressed to the second round at farthest both of his years). And even then, you’re never sure if these songs ARE even on the lineup. Last year we had angry Erica Jennings pulling her song out of the comp just because of having to hear the juries critique others so abrasively (at least abrasively I guess?) one show in, but then it suddenly re-emerged back, but instead sung by Monika Marija - fresh off her The Voice Lithuania victory. This year we had some names pulling off for no reason, some names pulling for A reason (like Sasha Song who couldn’t turn up for the live recording of Heat 4 because of his song not sounding the best way possible, and was fined for it lol), and some names being added last minute or even changed unexpectedly (Tomas Sinickis, you heard of him? Now he underwent by Tommy Modric... yes the footballer Modric). Which is as crazy as MIIIIHAAAAIIIII deciding not to compete in the Romanian NF because “it’s all rigged and me a tryhard won’t feel too safe enough to finally win on this one” oh boo-hoo, think of the kids who never liked your sorry ass anyway. And think of the kids in general before showcasing your half-naked or mostly-naked body in front of them.

Excuse me for my long ass paragraph number 1, BUT we were actually so dang dramatic this year that I cannot contain myself without letting y'all know why this NF deserved a much better winner to come out of it rather than THAT that actually came to be. I'm a native so I know every single detail. So if ya wanna know why exactly I'm underwhelmed, read 'em up. If you wanna know that I'm just underwhelmed, just skip ahead to the review, idc. Did you make your choice? Well then. Let's delve into the details:

• The first clear competitor, Monika Marija, releases a song that people really want to see in the selection but she assures everyone it’s not THE song. Then she shows her other one, and people honestly want the first one back, but grow to adapt to it.

• Lineup reveal happens with her in it, wbk. Along with some other interesting names like Jurgis Didžiulis (off InCulto), Jurgis Brūzga and etc.

• First show is filmed and broadcasted as normal. But, after the broadcast, a pissed-off parent is mad at his son’s result on Facebook (and the result seemed fair enough to me actually despite liking the song because it’s such a second-hand NF tier entry that isn’t meant to last that I’d even see fizzle out in... A Dal for example).

• Also a minor lulz related to one contestant’s song lyrics sounding like Russian swearwords (you know the ones the kids are yelling on CS:GO) but that was fixed

• Lineup changes that include Sasha Song, the second-most-recent X Factor Lithuania season winners at the time 120 (yep that’s the band’s name) and some other guy who came and went last minute without a word from him back as to why lol. (As well as one of the lost starlets of 2018, Emilija Valiukevičiūtė, was initially announced in the first lineup reveal but fizzled out by Heat 4 as well.)

• And it turns out Monika Marija chose both of her latest releases (including the first one she said she won’t enter) to participate because her fans want it so and she felt like it, although fans were more attached to the 1st one she entered.

• Jurgis Didžiulis brings Erica Jennings with him - yep, the same lady who withdrew because of the jury has grew some thick skin over a year and joined the lineup too. Among other things.

• Second show had a major televoting issue that affected the scores massively (basically only a few hundred votes were missing lol), and had the issue affected any of the nonqualifiers enough for them to qualify, they’d be added to the semis as a wildcard. So naturally, someone of the NQs complained about it BUT it turned out it did not affect anyone anyway. Another act got pissed for being mistreated by juries too by the way.

• Sasha Song withdraws last minute for reasons above, and his fine is 2000 euros. Well, now you have to know that if you, fellow Lithuanian, want into Eurovizijos, you need to be a bit rich to accept circumstances like these, otherwise you’re totally fucked.

• Heat 3 happens as normal BUT Heat 4 brings in some fire as it turns out that one of the contestants’ stepfather was offering his company’s services (like, those outside children play parks’ assets) for televotes to her dear stepdaughter’s song, with her EVEN NOT SEEING ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT. LRT, as clever as they are, decide to null her televotes in protest. Shame tho as the song was good, and way better Laurell Barker submission than the ones she got on ESC this year.

• One contestant, Alen Chicco (also from X Factor Lithuania, may or may not even be from the same season that was won by 120), causes a bit of controversy by having a black man on his performance

• During the semi stage, Monika Marija asks her fans not to vote for the 1st song she submitted to the selection, but rather support her 2nd song that won the semi comfortably, way after the folks were attached to her 1st song already and claiming it’s better for Eurovision (no it’s not), but it backfires spectacularly when the jury has enough guts to make her qualify with it, even if the televote for it was rather low.

• But before semi 2 happened and Monika Marija sang her weaker song, a contestant with the name of Migloko resorts to middle-finger the audience during her performance for no reason in semi 1.

• Monika Marija succesfully goes on to withdraw one of her songs (the one from semi 2) just to not split her fanbase even further when it comes to the final, therefore not lose. Also has to pay a fine of 2000 perhaps.

• Jurijus Veklenko, which was one of the front-runners along Monika Marija, was accused of having his song published on Soundcloud a year too early, but as a demo version, therefore not commercially viable enough for ESC rules. Later he was let off easy by LRT, but decided that EBU should investigate and report if they think it’s not fine, but if he was allowed to compete with that, he was possibly not in danger afterall.

• And since Monika Marija has got only 1 song, her final spot she got with that other song was given up for the aforementioned Alen Chicco.

• Finally, Monika Marija was still THE front runner of all this, having a sizeable amount of a fanbase enough to support her, even more so than the eventual winner... yes, she did happen not to win in the end. U mad?

And even if Monika Marija would have honestly been an anticlimactic winner, this next guy is even more so, because although shocking, his song is pretty much by-the-numbers Eurovision NF pop you’re gonna get, although not as cheap as the one written by constant NF failures that submit their stuff for countries like Moldova, Belarus, Romania and Malta (that until Malta ditched their NF). And the one that ended up winning is the said person whose song was uploaded a year too early as a demo - Jurijus Veklenko, but for now, he’s pretty much needed to be addressed as Jurijus. No wait, he’s back to being Jurijus Veklenko, but he dropped the “us” from his name, that’s odd. (By the way, he’s the only ounce of Ukraine you’ll ever have this year - his father is of that nationality, hence why the ever-so-Slavic Veklenko surname)

“Run with the Lions” is the song name, and for a title as anthemic as this, the song... not so much. Like I said, it’s pop, and it’s good that it’s pop, but it’s just pop. I doubt that Jurijus’s songwriter team did anything to distinguish the demo from its final product, hence why it was so easily autodetected somehow. Like, the structure is there, the lyrics are there (but what even ARE they? “if you wanna see, just open your eyes”?? “if you want a voice, just open your mouth”????), but where’s the depth, man? I really felt like I needed more of this song, especially in the choruses. Like, some additional background instruments like strings wouldn’t have hurt? In fact, this song has a slight revamp (I’m saying “slight” because no marginal changes had been done) that adds up some acoustics in the background of the 2nd verse and only changes one line (”there’s no need to be afraid” now is “you don’t have to be afraid”. Wow, revolutionary. What about “You don’t got to hide away”?? Why repeating “You don’t” twice in the prechorus???!!!... ooh I’ll be here all day if I only talked about nitpicks)... and it yet still feels too little. Thankfully the choruses have someone shouting something like “huh huh hoo” synthetically to liven it up somehow.

Yet somehow, out of nowhere, I admit liking this? Our boi is capable of singing live - both high and low; his voice and the song fit in delightfully with each other; and while basic, the melody is pleasant, non-offensive, non-ear-grating... perhaps the problem of it all is that it’s too inoffensive? Something that flows away in the wind and passes you by without you knowing. Something that you’re told that it’s not background filler and you were just not paying attention to the actual music that was playing. Something so algorithmic, you’re easily able to make your ears cancel it out as it were just some sort of white noise!

Yeah, I don't think I want to describe us all that much. It's a pretty okay pop song, it's nothing groundbreaking (bar the message of being free to do all you can do), I enjoy the sound of it, it doesn't annoy me, I can fully be down to supporting Jurijus and his voice. Too bad it's in a year AND a semi where MoR pop songs DON'T dominate - we're way past those ages. To stand out, it needs to be anthemic, it needs to have a stage presence, it truly needs some X factor, and our staging nor our song offers it. And guess what, various other people are still mourning over the loss of Monika Marija, which I find perfectly reasonable, but who would have to lend us their final spot instead if she won? Armenia? Romania? Denmark? So many questions, so little time left to answer them all.

Right now I will just conclude with me saying that I like this. It's inoffensiveness is pleasant, and in any other year we'd be the perfect filler songs for the final, like we were in the past. Cool cool.

Approval factor: Anything that will make me forget how much of my nerves did I waste over stanning someone in our selection while knowing that Ieva will win is a good noodle in my book. Jurijus wasn’t exactly one of my favourites (you’ll see why when you hit the unfortunately long NF corner section), but that’s perfectly fine, seeing that I can finally be a proud supporter of my own country’s song.

Follow-up factor: we're a completely and utterly random nation, sending anything our juries found amusing the most at the time. So don't bother about follow up consistency every being good or bad. We're just going with our own flow and... that's basically it. Though we could, on an occasion, do better with picking songs, that's for sure. And maybe finally we will not have a song that's littered with "oh oh oh, yeah yeah yeah" kind of sounds... like seriously, "Run with the Lions" has a bridge that mostly consists of "ooooooohhhhhhh" and then one actually non-interjective line at the end. (At least in Tel Aviv you'll be hearing the backings murmuring "run with the, run with the, run with the lions" during it, and that's something.) I love it that we never change in our random tactics, I'd just love it more to see some actual change in the song quality, y'know? THEN will it be a good follow-up.

Qualification factor: I’m so devastated at saying this, but foreigners say that we’re probably going down to deat meat levels this year. But I still have hope in us qualifying. Believe it or not, the people out there still don’t buy into the Lithuanian diaspora power, and genuinely believe that our harmless tune is chanceless. I only understand that it cannot work its magic when we send something risqué and incredibly opinion dividing (but most people dislike it anyway), but just look at our results on the years when we were generally received bad when we were just boring. “C’est ma vie” qualified. “Something” qualified. Back when Donny Montell was such an unknown in the Eurovision lore because 2012 was his first year and his song was considered “dated”, he still qualified. See something here? We still can, and WILL, be able to pull through possibly, and I don’t doubt it that diaspora will lap up our mediocre song because Lithuania. Patriotism strong! (Oh and a handful of votes for Jurijus for being so hot.)

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

I already discussed the Eurovizijos drama in lenghty detail, so expect me not to re-iterate everything down here shortly, but what you need to know off it is that it had every single drama aspect you’d ever want - faulty line-ups, voting frauds, televoting malfunctions, forced plagiarism accusations, too-early-published-song accusations, late entry withdrawals, qualifier replacements, technical difficulties allowing to repeat a performance and some contestants being visibly pissed off by the jury (and to some extent, the overall) results. A total jumble <3 Never change, Lithuania. (except for the godawfully smug-ass HoD, I started to get tired of him AND his bald head doing this to us. It's been 10 years, retire already.)

So it’s better to talk about all the non-dramatic things I liked about our NF this year! From songs to performances, from shits and giggles to something serious - I’m taking you for a hefty ride.

• First and foremost, I actually didn’t mind one of the Monika Marija’s songs? Yeah, “Light On” was a good and polished pop track that has THAT power to get you good, with them strong sublime female vocals. Even if it kind of sounded like an Ikea store version of "Stay with Me" by Sam Smith. Not that there's anything bad with it, but any kind of plagiarism cases have and will always be barred from Eurovision if noticed by the organizers. This is not 100% dead-on ripoff, but there are shades of knock-offery here and there. And it's even a better "Stay with Me", and with a better message - Monika Marija reminisces of that one time she was almost dying herself, but she's here, she's survived, and you musn't hang her off the lifeline. At least it's "Light On" that got all the love in the NF in the end and not the painfully mediocre "Undo" ripoff wailfest "Criminal". It was so slow and plodding and I never got why so many people loved it. If "Undo" was a product, "Criminal" would have been its "made in China" counterpart. Anyway, here's "Light On". And please don't spam me messages with how much this would have been a contender for top 10 over Jurijus. :P In Eurovision it's an added bonus if your faves do well - the fact that they were in Eurovision is the most important thing, and I perfectly understand why do you miss it here on ESC grounds. Just... I'm tired of "MM top 10, Jurijus bottom 3 in semi", okay? Monika Marija can try our NF again. She’s very talented, and there’s a possibility that we’ll see her in ESC in the end anyway. Pave the way for our Polyglot Queen, Eurovision 20xx! ^^

• Now here's for once a cool Lithuanian artist that didn't come from a TV talent show! Antikvariniai Kašpirovskio Dantys ("antiquarian teeth of Kashpirovsky") is probably one of the coolest Lithuanian bands that I know - doing absolutely any kind of genre they're pleased with - from folk to rock to ska to acoustic pieces - I admire them for being so diversive! Too bad they entered with one of my lesser favourite tracks in their entire discography - "Mažulė" (one of the many ways to say "baby", as in, trying to call your lover cute, female gender case. Can also mean "baby girl" in this context). I have nothing against this kind of track they thrown in the selection, ska music and Eastern musical elements are gooooooood, plus I finally got to know what is a "forró" that doesn't mean "hot" in Hungarian - it's a music style popular in Brazil! However, the chorus could have at least sounded more "party"-ier. It doesn't really excite me to dance the window-cleaning dance to it. (Oh yeah and do you remember that this song is about a car, not an actual lover? They're basically confessing their love to an automobile. How they're protecting it from vandals, how did they dream of getting the car since young age, how wouldn't they change their car for any other. Romantic, I'd say.) However I am happy for the over 30 year olds that find this song completely and totally amusing when I can't quite seem to. I do say that I like those elements, the brass and all that. It was the only Lithuanian song in the sea of English ones in the final (just like A Dal was, but inverse - almost all songs in Hungarian but one English (and a bit Russian), and that's an achievement. AKD should be proud of themselves for impacting both our nation AND the international viewers which found fun in this! Respect. Maybe they'll win our NF soon if they keep on winning the audiences, or they'll probably GTFO forever. IDK, the latter is more plausible, sadly. They're so unique that they cannot be just a thing for more editions - just one for a try out, and that's enough.

• So, Alen Chicco. What’s so special to have him in the final instead of Monika Marija's weaker entry? Well, he's just a fantabulous persona, unique in every step he takes. And surely I was excited to see him preparing something for Eurovizijos after I read his name on the participants list. And then his entry did come. I wasn't quite sure what to think of "Your Cure" at first but the chorus is a pop beauty I hold up to myself somehow <3 now I find the song nice as a whole, the theatrical-like verses peak my curiousity though the prechoruses feel too drawn out a bit and could have had some big pauses be shortened or removed... yeah. But the most interesting thing is HIS LOOKS <33 his wardrobe and level of expressiveness is vast, I love it how eveything here was different each and every time he performed, and it all was always presented incredibly differently. I admire ONE (1) chameleon

which Alen Chicco are you today? ✨

• And that's almost basically it I have to show you concerning my faves? Yeah, I definitely had enough of our NF having this many songs too, I almost had no good favourites that made it to the semis and people would care about slightly if they'd be willing to. Nothing I could be excited over, nothing I could be passionate about as I was last year about my fave. Well I did like some qualifiers to semis but I don’t think they are THAT worth y’all’s attention all THAT much... However, I will definitely let you in on two of my personal non-finalist faves. Allow me to introduce the first band whose song is a guilty pleasure of mine only - it's Laimingu Būti Lengva ("it's easy being happy") with "Pasaulio vidury" ("in the middle of the world"). Now, it's not very competitive or anything, in fact the guys looked like hobos on their live performance and one of them was randomly shouting "heeeeyyyyy" a LOT of times, like a random heckler that's supposedly livening(??? is that a word???) up the performance, and they sang disappointingly... but the studio version, man. I dare you to not get hypnotized by the slow electric guitar feel. (You probably won't but idc.) I love it, I love the beats and how trappy but cool they sound on those verses, I love the slow soft rhythm, I definitely love the whole melodic execution, and the vocals actually sound alright on there (mainly thanks to autotune but yeah whatever). I have problems though - with a band like this, I barely see how can I get genuine enjoyment out of this song myself without having to slap myself in the back for admitting to actually like this. So I call it my "guilty pleasure" quite a lot of times. The song's structure is quite interesting, but it's mainly the repetitive verses and choruses smeared across the whole song at random. I get the song's point so much that I hate the band for hammering it into my head all this whole time - the song's protagonist met a red-haired and blue-eyed girl named Isabel in Portugal (the supposed "middle of the world"), they fell in love, that's it. But they emphasize it a lot that the girl was blue-eyed... not even I would if I had to write this song, and *I* have a blue-eyed people bias. The whole package was completely unappealing and with how they showed it it didn’t really look like something that even needs a staging or Eurovision at all, but I still keep this song to myself, and will definitely replay it a lot this summer. Just as much as the song that you'll actually get to watch the performance of down below - it's "Song of My Life" by Soliaris & ForeignSouls. It's cool, funky, catchy, vibey, laidback and summer-fun-infested. I cannot really describe separate parts all that much because all flows in so well. It's a good song to chill out and have a cocktail too. And it features a rap part that doesn't bother me at all! Good one, Soliaris. I didn't like your music back when you did mediocre 00s R'n'B, but you positively surprised me, both by returning to our NFs after like 9 years of absence AND bringing this gem. It didn't need an extreme staging - just some dudes having fun and that's it. And they brought it. It saddens me that these kind of songs don't stand a chance to qualify to the very final in our NF anymore, as they kind of would have in 2012 or so, but I'm still happy they exist. I only have had some issues with the lyrics laying out the words in sentences ("spend with me this beautiful night" bothered me a bit because if you translate it to Lithuanian in the exact same sentencing way, it'd make even more sense than it does to me now), but other than that, I fucking loved "Song of My Life". It might as well be my overall NF winner, haha.

• Oh and how could I forget Tiramisu??? That's perhaps my biggest discovery of this year. They moved on from utter unknowns to... still unknowns, but more known for the Eurovision fandom that does care about Lithuanian NFs. Here you have an oddly titled song, "The Smell of Your Eyes" (and you thought Safura smelling lipstick was extreme - but to her credit, lipstick DOES have a faint odor, doesn't it?), which is both insane AND original, and insane original is obviously encouraged. And the whole song sounds pretty damn good for a band that no one heard of and that used to do jazzy-ish and inoffensive musical flairs before. Here we have slight influences of folk even! And the violins, too. A generally charming piece that draws you into a pagan forest. Too bad the staging was completely misunderstood - they definitely had to put on some guy with a cheap Iron Man mask to pretend to give the band some intensity... lousy move. It could've looked way better if it were more mysterious and forest-like and had a more enchanting camerawork. And a little more colors than emerald and forest greens, too. The video clip looked way better and more high-budget than the staging came to be. Observe:

Felt like everything beautiful was stripped of it because the music video could not be repeated on stage. Ah well. The televoters gave them love but the jury did not let them to improve, and down the Bermuda triangle of fallen female violinists from the 2019 season went a lady of the name Rima Tamo, together with Gabriella Laberge and Tilla Török (who did not even appear on stage at that time of need!). Here's a spooky fact for all these 3: female violinists that all featured on songs in E minor, performed 1st in their respective heats/semis, were really loved by televote but hated by the juries, missed out on the next stage of the NF by 1 place. Coincidence? A curse? Tiramisu were obviously disgusted by the jury trashing their staging so they talked about hating them on Facebook. What's worse that they could have actually qualified if they've gotten at least 9 more telepoints that could've pushed them to get 10 televote points in general rather than 8, all thanks to a televote count error that removed large portions of votes. And that way they could have been wildcard qualifiers instead because they would have still gotten 8 televote points with the actual televote numbers, but the organizers of the NF said that if the televote failure would have hurt anyone's place in the final, they would have wildcard-qualified instead. No one did not, so screw it. At least "The Smell of Your Eyes" remains THAT song - lots of folk, lots of violins, lots of effort put into it, and the people actually loved it for that. Just that it's so sad that the jury didn't let them improve overtime... just like Hungarian jury didn't let Leander Kills go further... a shame, really.

• And now, onto the non-entry-events and stuff that happened, besides some actual good jury shade (like the one time at least one juror says that “you wouldn’t win even if all the contestants got sick”, technical errors in the production (thanks to one of them, one of the semifinal acts actually got to perform again... but the televote didn’t give her votes anyway lmao) and the constant reminder of one of our charities which gives tickets to Eurovision for the best disabled person story.. I don’t know where that is but our NF somehow acquired a skit from an Austrian man that’s been exploring stuff in Israel (I think) because of Eurovision this year... and man did I think that this skit was rather... hmmm... middle-ground funny? Slightly too annoying but still kind of alright to look at? It was fun, but certainly odd to find out about that it even exists.

• After feeling so disappointed with Hungarian juries's decisions on the night of February 22nd, I left my room to watch our NF's final on our living room TV, hoping for everything just to end already because I did not expect anything good happening on this final. I haven't even decided to go back to watch A Dal and see AWS reprise their song a little less louder than when they competed last year. And then our NF gave me a complete and utter surprise - The Roop reprising THEIR Eurovizijos 2018 entry. If you've been long enough here on Tumblr to know me, you would probably guess that I'm a big fan of "Yes, I Do" by The Roop, which I wanted to see winning our NF so badly last year, but in the end... you finish the quote so I don't have to. And it's odd because this year I felt the exact similar way with Hungary as with Lithuania last year - I have clear favourites I root for in both of those but deep inside I knew there was gonna be a different winner I only find okay and nothing else. (The difference is that "Az én apám" has grown on me since, "When We're Old" did not at all.) So back to discussing the interval act instead. For this one guest number of the NF's, the song began on a piano, "pretend" played by The Roop's lead singer, and then he got his butt off from the piano chair (unlike Duncan in Tel Aviv), to the microphone stand, and the song continued off sounding like its original version that was sung in last year's NF. I still love this song and even loved that version with piano at the beginning, but why did it not take over the whole song though? Just to not let the audience fall asleep before the Carousel would've? (Yes by the way, we got guest acts from other countries performing on our NF as well! But Carousel were the only ones to have a guest appearance, the other acts were either unchosen or perhaps busy doing Tel Aviv preparations, lol.) Well, good for them. I may or may not still would love The Roop entering and winning our selection someday, if they ever decide to participate again. They could've this year but they did not return, so maybe in 2021? Let this girl dare to dream for once, Lithuania ^_^

• I love when our NF has postcards, no matter at which stage of introduction they are on. In 2016 the postcards were present in every show (the ones for the final were the best), in 2017 they were only introduced in the round 3 of heats (sometime before the semis), in 2018 - from the 2nd round of heats onwards, in 2019 though they were only for the final... what’s the punchline for this paragraph? Oh, there IS none. I just confessed my love for our NF postcards. Just keep scrolling :)

• Okay so I know no one really pays attention to our heats because we have too many of them AND we have too many songs in them, and the eliminated ones always stop mattering to everyone right away. But I'm here to bring you a favourite meme of mine that hailed just from the heats alone: miss RÙTA, who could have done much better during her performance if she didn't constantly look like she's incredibly constipated. I don't know what makes her look like that - the lipstick? the grin? her over-dramatic entry about wordly disasters, "Paradox"? I may never know, but I will let you have a good look at it if you don't want to watch the whole video I linked. Personally, I liked the red staging this song had, and the song wasn't bad, but the singer felt agonizingly nervous and never got the chance to do better, sadly. Oh and look at that sleek tattoo, mmm.

• Oh and our NF featured a metal song but it’s so formulaic and by the numbers dad metal that I didn’t even support it all that much.... however I’ll let you listen to it if you’d really like. And there's this best alternative song of this year's NF that I've heard that also ended in the semis, and it's way better than Fusedmarc's alternative (despite having some ugly beatboxing skills). Check it out too if you will.

And thankfully, that’s that for another year. I’m getting so awfully tired to compress my own NF even further more, especially with my enthusiasm for the actual quality of this NF going down the shithole with every single heat show coming after each other just like that, with more mediocre songs after more mediocre songs. I’m also openly declaring that I have barely any energy left with continuting these writeups, seeing that there’s too many to go and most of them are STILL undercooked drafts. But I’m tryna pull through. I have another completely completed review underway afterwards - just a few edits here and there on it and I’m done with it, m8s! And then I’m piling up new paragraphs after new paragraphs on other reviews.

So I hope I let you know why do I think that the end result of ours is lukewarm - from a dramatic NF there should have been a slightly dramatic winner tbh, but in the end we got a pop song that only a few people like. Brutal. And with the biggest hopes in my eyes for our success I’d like to finish this off with two words. Sėkmės, Jurijau!

[kuronekonerochan]

The televotes can be rigged. They can ignore the Israeli press and crew harassing contestants and foreign journalists (clearly breaking Eurovision rules). They can censor all the contestants from showing support for Palestine. They can make up a lame excuse to ban the most vocal pro palestine contestant who happens to be a strong candidate for a win. They can try to hide the ppl's voice with anti booing technology and show only the israeli team and the israeli supporters during the act so it looks like ppl love them.

But in the end they couldn't avoid the booing from the crowd, former and current contestants making their position clear.

Fuck the zio genociders and fuck ebu and fuck the cunts who still voted for them.

The booing every time Israel gets points is the best music of the evening !

[convertgrapeling]

Shut the fuck up. I can blame the EBU and Martin Osterdahl and every queer person who's supporting Eurovision this year and still blame a selfish popstar who won't do what Palestinians are directly asking him to do. Fuck you for making excuses for him.

Olly Alexander is everything wrong with queer activism right now. "Let's memorialise terrible things that happened in the past but when there are queer people dying of genocide right now, risking my career is too much to ask for."

If you can't stand against injustice in the present, shut the fuck up about queer history. You have no claim on it. Those battles were fought by people far less selfish than you.