Yesterday I had a stab at predicting the outcome of the Eurovision final in Malmö and looking back on it now, I realise I wasn't completely wrong.
Out of 26 countries, 14 placed according to my prediction. Another five found themselves only one placing away from what I predicted. I can live with that. Then there were some spectacular miscalculations, of course.
FRANCE - I liked Amandine's raw and tempestuous performance, but this kind of song is hard to sell to a mainstream audience. I appreciate when people try to break out of the most common formats, but maybe there are limits as to how far you can go without putting people off.
FINLAND - Despite all the publicity and a very energetic appearance, Finland only scored a mere 13 points. None of which from its neighbour countries. Keeping the masses entertained does not automatically mean they will reward you with points.
GERMANY - I felt like I ruined the party for everyone yesterday not thinking Cascada had a chance of surpassing fourth place. In retrospect, my prediction was almost hysterically over-optimistic. Probably the miscalculation of the year.
GEORGIA - The G:son-penned love ballad failed to set the scoreboard on fire this time. While thinking the song and performance deserved more, I'm relieved the cheap trick didn't work out.
MALTA - I didn't think Gianluca would hit home the way he did but I was happy to be wrong. For a while, when he was not too far behind the top scorers, I secretly hoped for Malta to be the unexpected twist that would suddenly collect a bunch of twelvepointers and sail to victory.
IRELAND - I did get a bad feeling during Ryan's performance and thought to myself that this could be the one generic modern pop song too many for the audience, but I never in a million years thought this one would be left in last place. Completely undeserved.
DENMARK - Of course I saw the Danish song as a potential winner, but this is the second year that the biggest favourite wins by quite a comfortable margin. Also, the winner is a very typical safe old-school eurosong, and I would have hoped for the contest to have moved on a bit from that. It would have been so nice with a daring and more original winner. Like Netherlands, like Norway.
But all in all a great show with great songs and some really fine performances. Just possibly maybe I like the songs better than the final result, but you can't have it all, can you?
I was quite off with my predictions but I was right about the ones people were wrong about. Ironic as usual!
ReplyDeleteWoot for Malta, boo for a bunch of other, and wtf with Azerbaijan!