EuroVision Hype Thread

It's that time of the year again, Where every European country ( + Israel and Australia ) puts up there best B artist, So Russia can give 12 points to Azerbaijan. Speaking of Russia they where "banned" last year cause of the continuing crisis of the Crimae conflict with Ukraine, since Ukraine was the host last year the Russian singer which is also the same person for this Eurovision ( it's something with a wheelchair i heard? ) was persona non grata so she couldn't compete. Host this year is Portugal they won last year with some hipster singing about love not my forte. @dudeglove wrote this fine eurvision guide you all should check out if your new to this thing. Drew documented his Eurovision expirience in Ukraine Check it out! I personally approve BBC's take on Eurovision. Where Graham Norton just super sarcastically guides you through this B show kinda mess. O yeah before i forgot here are the dates.

Semi-Final 1: 8 May 2018

Semi-Final 2: 10 May 2018

Final 12 May 2018

As a Belgian it's my duty to represent my country i guess so i'll link the song

kinda reminds me of a B tier James Bond song ( i prefer Conchita's Raise as a Phoenix as my B tier James Bond song ) Top ten possible?

And here's my favourite Eurvision B tier shit show song of all time it's got Nu-metal shitty costumes and a catchy phrase "Say Say Say .... Say the password S A G A P O"

Note: Please use links, mods don't like it when you post a whole video Thanks !

I wonder which country will get shat on due to geopolitical happenings. I'll be honest, I stopped watching this when Terry Wogan died.

@shindig: Russia is always the "Heel" in recent years with people just straight up booing the act. A lot of it has to do on Russias stance on Gay people through the Orthodox Church and Eurovisions massive gay audience. And the whole Proxy war there doing in the Ukraine.

Blanche (Belgium) should've won last year. I mainly watch for shits and giggles, but that was a fucking gutpunch. Her visibly freaking out on stage, especially in the semifinals, actually went very well with the song's themes and probably made it the only song in eurovision history with actual soul.

Belgium's looking good again, though my favourite this year is Switzerland (apparently I'm the only one who likes them... suits me fine). I like Latvia's entry as well.

@clush: We only won once, and when we won we even cheated by saying the girls was 16 (minimum age to attend). When she was actually 14.

@clush: She was good, but I think the only possible winner outside Portugal was Moldova.

I might be a bit biased towards Portugal since I'm Brazilian, but I was happy he won.

I haven't seen anything from this year yet, but I'm very excited, I was actually planning to attend Eurovision, since I wanted to visit Portugal, but then I found out the ticket costs 500 euros O.o

We're sending out our dude Waylon (from the common linetts) again. Honestly feels like we ( the Netherlands) are trying to bring that heartland Americana vibe to Eurovision in the last few years. Guitars, Big hats, boots & seductive winks. Strange development, but it seems to score decently well.

My friend un-ironically loves Eurovision and every year I get talked into going to her house to watch it.

I just enjoy the craziness (who can forget horsefaced ladder man) and Graham Norton’s snarky comments. But I do miss the era of Terry Wogan and knowing who would win because it was always Ireland.

We (the UK) will never win it again. It’s been 20 years this year since our last win and we’ve only gotten worse at European politics and songwriting.

Part of me wants Australia to win just so the whole shebang has to go there next year.

Oh, yes. The logistical headache of moving the show to a continent that's not Europe. I do wonder if Eurovision ever gets to the point where the continental boundaries get quietly shushed in favour of involving a global audience.

Is that a possibility though? I remember when Australia was hanging around the top 5, it was mentioned that if they would win, a country like germany or switzerland would be the host.

So the rules state if Australia wins they have to choose a country to host it in, this inc. Israel. Australia itself is not to host it, it's kinda dumb but hey it's the other site of the planet for most participating country's.

Can't wait for my most European of countries, Australia, to crush Eurovision and give it to England like the good little colony we are.

We (Australia) were robbed in the Dami Im year (2 years ago) by the new bullcrap fan voting system. (Damn you European politics giving it to the Ukraine)

I don't like our chances this year, so we'll probably win.

@captain_insano: Australia should have won that year IMO. Best song of that year instead we get a song about the mass murder in Crimea :'(.

Also rules state that you can't sing about politics, but she cornered that by saying it was a song about here Great Grandfather who got killed during the civil war. Song contest am i right... more like misery simulator.

I wonder if Eurovision will make it even harder for anyone in the US to watch this year. The feed from the random tv channel (Bravo?) that had it last year or the year before was completely unbearable. And since then Eurovision has been deleting/geo-blocking everything from their YouTube channel. Their website is of course inaccessible to anyone in the US. And only a few years ago they were (finally) streaming live on YouTube for the entire world! That only lasted for one, two years max. I'm continually baffled as to how fast Eurovision as a company/entity is going backwards in terms of making their content accessible.

The only good Eurovision song ever was by Belgium: by Telex in like 1984

Just don’t let the Norwegian fiddle-fucker win again. The dude is a great musician I just can’t stand him in the news if he wins.

hype! EuroooooViiiision

I dont know how i feel about Albanese buttrock.

I like you Cz and then you did a fortnite thing

"im not your toy stupid boy" NEW HEIGHTS HAVE BEING REACHED goodjob Israël.

Man i need one of these home cinema dresses Estonia makes pricetag 50 000 euro's.

Having to pay 20000 bucks to sing at Eurovision cause your country is broke "poor" Greek contestant.

I love watching it every year even though i know the UK will never win again. And probably wouldn't even qualify for the final if we didn't pay for a spot. It's just a laugh I've never taken it seriously and take it as a win if the UK are on the left hand side of the board.

FAYGO ! Glad Cyprus enjoys the ICP lifestyle.

And i thought germans weren't funny jeezus Portugal.....

No Belgium no Switzerland #RIGGED

the humor is a low point compared to the last few years. I'm not expecting to be rolling on the floor, but maaan..

@onemanarmyy: I'm at work and can't give it a look but, man, it is hard to believe that they could lower the bar on the humour any further.

There were more good songs than I expected. I voted for Austria but also liked Czech, Israel and Ireland. Also liked that it seems more countries are singing in their native language this year, makes it much more interesting, it's like when the UFC had one Sumo fighter against a Boxer.

And as always, Swedish media treats this like it's one of the most serious entertainment events of the year.

@darkeyehails:

The """humor""" was truly something else... kind of reminds me of kids shows for 3-6 year old's. I didn't particularly like any song but Israel's stage presence was entertaining for sure.

@rahf: When your Swedish it probably is :P.

@soulcake: It's just the contrast with how so many other countries see the show: a glorious spectacle to the gods of camp and kitsch. Whereas Sweden has a bizarre reverence, with an almost full absence of irony, that can get quite scary.

I think the BBC treatment is right on point. I mean, the whole thing could just as well be part of a pride festival, in terms of the camp factor.

I'm Portuguese and I also agree that the humor was terrible for the most part. Sadly, they're using the same weak jokes that they use for like 90% of every Portuguese live show and they were hoping the rest of the world would be just as dumb as the average Portuguese audience for talent shows.

However, I think not everything was bad on the comedy side of things. The "Planet Portugal" sketch was quite nice, but unfortunately will probably get "lost in translation". The interesting part from that sketch came from the fact that they brought back a character from a popular Portuguese comedy show from the 90s, played by a beloved comedy actor. The sketches with that character always show an hyperbolized, self-depricating, and satirical look of the Portuguese costumes but presented in a way similar with how we saw international wild life documentaries broadcasted in our country (in the original versions of the sketches, they had the actor do his lines in English and then re-dub then in Portuguese). So, if you're not in on all of these details, I guess most of the jokes on it don't land.

The hosts are usually good on their own on the Portuguese shows, but they're not used to talk in perfect English for so long (except Daniela Ruah, who is on the main cast of NCIS: Los Angeles - playing on CBS, America's most watched network), but whoever was in charge of the script for these hosts did an awful job. Also, according to what they said on an interview, they can't read from a teleprompter and have to memorize their lines, which seems odd. Don't know if that's just this year or if it was always been like this on Eurovision.

Try searching for a livestream of RTP or RTP Internacional. It's the channel doing the show this year and they usually make it easier for people overseas to watch their channel since Portugal has a lot of emigrants everywhere.

@johnymyko: The Planet Portugal sketch is what got me posting the "this is bad" thing at the first place. It's really really bad and cringe worthy. If i made that myself i would be ashamed of it. Comedy is one off the hardest things out there so i don't blame them but that segment, i yelled "fuck this is bad" and almost turned of my tv.

I guess people from different countries have different senses of humor, to me that sketch was the only good comedy bit on the show. But, as I said, the sketch probably doesn't work unless you know enough about the character's history and the Portuguese culture, since he was making fun of how people in Lisbon are using shitty houses as highly priced airbnb for tourists, how Portuguese are procrastinators who love to eat and how we use bacalhau (cod fish) on tons of dishes and everyone has to forcefully like it.

The cringe is part of it is on purpose though, that actor has always embraced cringe and over-the-top acting as part of his comedy style. There was one time when he hosted the Wheel Of Fortune holding a shotgun and shooting the prizes:

@johnymyko: Hmmm yeah Cultural background helps a lot. I am glad that at least the Portuguese liked it.

I thought the onstage comedy bits were waaaaay worse than the planet Portugal bit. Im talking about the voting ballot joke & the telephone bit.

No one is more authentic than Waylon.

the guy that changed his name because he's a fan of Waylon Jennings.. :D

I don't know how i feel about this idea that The Netherlands is little America at this point. We hardly produce countrymusic, but the ones that do are the ones that we send out to the Eurovision songfestival :D

Well, there you have it... they're all out.

I am surprised Hungarian Nu Metal is a thing now.

Anyone have recommendations on performances that got cut in the semis but are worth watching? (Worth watching for any reason I suppose, doesn't have to be quality)

@imhungry: i preferred the first semi final above the second one ( better performances imo ). So you can always watch that one. And then jump to the second one if your still hungry for more. But yeah overall there wasn't anything spectacular sticking out. Ukraine had a weird piano vampire coffin, and Estonia had a weird projecting dress if your looking for weird stuff.