Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) – Greece 🇬🇷

Amanda Tenfjord – Die Together

Final Thoughts:

At first, I really was not feeling this song, but it steadily grew on me. I think the hubby has something to do with that because this song stays on his main rotation list. While the song is a bit dark, I think it’s one of those songs that anyone, who has been in a significant relationship, can connect to the sentiment of this song.

But if we die together now
We will always have each other
I won't lose you for another
And if we die together now
I will hold you till forever
If we die together, die together

Overall, I think Amanda has a beautiful voice. However, I’m not sure how the audio modulation (for lack of a better word) will work on a live stage. Also, I think this modulation is what makes the song stand out, so I fear that the song will be pretty bland without it. This is one of the reasons, why I prefer to review ESC songs that have a live vocal. I mean, anyone can do anything in a recording studio. Well no matter what happens on ESC2022’s stage, we all know that Greece will receive 24 points (the max 12 points from jury and televote) from Cyprus. Based on ESC2021, 24 points would be enough to finish escape last place.

Greece in last year’s Eurovision

STEFANIA – LAST DANCE

• Semi-final results: 6th place out of 17 performances (184 total points – 104 national juries and 80 public votes)

• Final results: 10th place out of 26 performances (170 total points – 91 national juries and 79 public votes)

I gotta say that Greece took a bit of a risk, and I think it kind of worked out with a top 10 finish. Technically, Stefania received the same total points as Victoria (Bulgaria), but Stefania received more televotes and nabbed the 10th position. ESC2021 was had quite a few female-led dance pops, but I think Greece’s staging really differentiated Stefania’s performance from the other female performers. Ok, so the execution was not THAT great because you could see traces of the green screen. I think this was a very risky performance because so much coordination had to go into getting the cameras right, building the platform, and ensuring that the dancers had sufficient time to fit in all of their costume changes. I do remember in one of the performances I think one of the dancers did not fully change because he was missing one of his green gloves. It must have been so weird to see this in the arena because you would see a huge green screen and guys running around the stage dressed head to toe in green outfits

Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) – the UK 🇬🇧

Sam Ryder – Space Man

Final Thoughts:

I think that the UK, which has had a very rough history in Eurovision, may crack the top ten with this one. Sam pretty much has a lot of the qualities that will (well, should) do well in Eurovision – charisma, a nice song in English, pretty strong vocals, and an interesting look. Overall, I really enjoy the message and some of the vocal acrobatics in this song. However, I am a bit worried about how he will pull off his higher octaves during his live performances.

If Sam has a flawless (or near flawless) performance in ESC2022, I think this will prove whether or not politics (or geopolitical voting) has a significant role in Eurovision voting. What do I mean by politics in Eurovision? It’s no secret that many countries tend to vote in geographical/culture/political blocks. For example ex-Soviet, Scandanavian, Western European countries (eg Spain, Portugal, and France), Greece <-> Cyprus, etc tend to vote for each other. If the UK does not receive a decent amount of points from the national juries (ie the professionals), then we’ll know that some political BS is happening behind the scenes. AKA: Europe is still pissed over Brexit.

Some have mentioned that the UK’s bad performance is partially due to the BBC not giving a damn about the contest and really promoting their ESC candidates. Also, the talent pool of available ESC singers might be weak. If your country consistently performed poorly in a song contest, would you want to sign up to represent it? Probably not. This year, I think the BBC was pretty smart with selecting Sam because he has close 12M followers on TikTok and over 95M likes for his videos. Even popular singers such as Adele, Sia, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga have given him props for his covers of their songs. In this case, the BBC really does not have to do anything (besides providing money for decent staging in the contest) to promote Sam.

Let’s see if Sam has what it takes to put the UK in the top 10 in this year’s contest. FYI: The last time the UK was in the top 10 was back in 2009 with Jade Ewen coming in 5th. Hell, she did a good job even after accidentally getting hit by one of the violinists (@1:06). Random question: I wonder if Jade has a background in musical theater? The way she projects gives me Broadway vibes (I guess that should be West End vibes since I’m talking about the UK).

The UK in last year’s Eurovision

JAMES NEWMAN – EMBERS

• Semi-final results: Since the UK is part of the Big 5, they automatically advance to the final.

• Final results: 26th place out of 26 performances (0 total points – 0 national juries and 0 public votes)

Video from an ESC21 attendee

What a rough ESC for James Newman. Receiving no points from the national juries and the public had to sting a little bit. However, I think James did a great job in putting up a nice front especially when the public votes were announced. To be perfectly honest, I probably would have flipped over a table. Actually, all of the artists who received 0 points (the UK, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands) from the televote did a great job hiding their disappointment.

Ok, while receiving 0 points does not mean that no one in Europe, Australia, or Israel voted for him. It just means that he was not in the national juries’ top ten in the countries’ rankings (I hope that I have this correct). While I can understand the public’s low ranking because of Brexit, I would hope that members of the national juries are not doing the same thing. Since this is my first year following the entire cycle of ESC, I have noticed that the ESC fandom is quite toxic. Hell, I think that fans of the contests are more competitive than the artists that actually compete in the contest. Essentially, members of the national juries are music industry professionals individuals (eg songwriters, producers, singers, DJs, etc) that are supposed to judge the vocals, performance, and composition of the ESC entrants. I did not find anything saying that the juries must vote based on a country’s politics or actions.

Keeping it real:

Ok, so James Newman’s performance and staging were not the strongest, but they definitely were not the worst (IMO). I kinda feel the same way about Spain in ESC2021 – another country that typically performs poorly with moderate talent. While it was not the worst performance for ESC2021, I also think ESC2021 was an exceptional year because the pool of performers in the final was very strong and competitive. Some countries/artists really took advantage of ESC2020 being canceled and really upped their game for ESC2021.

American Song Contest (ASC) 🇺🇸 – Qualifier #1

Since we had our first taste of the American (technically the United States) version of Eurovision this past Monday, I figure that I would make some comments about the first qualifying round. I guess that I should take that back because the format of ASC is more like Melodifestivalen, the national selection that Sweeden uses to select its candidates for Eurovision.

A quick preface:

Within moments of watching the show, I found myself tunning out because of the high number of commercials. Then I realized that I was watching ASC as a Eurovision fan. Once I was like: Hey Kwame, you are from the States and know how we do prime-time music contests so act right. After I changed my mental paradigm, the contest was a bit more enjoyable for me.

You know I think my issues with all of the commercials are due to me mostly streaming TV shows. Since I do not have to see commercials (for the most part) on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, I have been spoiled by ad-free entertainment content. Wait, wasn’t I supposed to cancel Disney+?

LOL, since there were two New England states in Monday’s heat, the hubby made lobster rolls and New England clam chowder. Random: I do not think that I’ve consumed homemade (ie not from a can) clam chowder outside of a restaurant.

ASC Qualifying Round 1:

Wikipedia.com

Overall, I think everyone did a decent job, but my top 5 were Hueston (Rhode Island), Michael Bolton (Connecticut), Alisabeth Von Presley (Iowa), Keyone Starr (Mississippi), and Christian Pagán (Puerto Rico). Before and after the show, everyone seemed to be all about AleXa (Oklahoma), but she did not really do it for me because she relied way too much on her backing track (I’d even say that she was lipsyncing). BTW, Michael Bolton still has those vocals.

I had to LOL at his performance a bit because he was like once I walk to the microphone, I ain’t moving ANYMORE. Also, I wonder why NBC used this picture instead of what he looks like now. Well, he pretty much looks the same, but with white/grey hair.

Also, Hueston, one of my top five, automatically advanced to the semifinal round, and I was very pleased. In ASC, out of the 10 performances, the 56-member jury will send one performer to the semifinals. After a 3-day voting window, the public will send three songs to the semifinals.

Check out the artists and songs from the first qualifying round.

Things that Kwame liked about ASC:

-I think Kelly and Snoop were great hosts. They have pretty good chemistry and play off of each other very well.

Image courtesy of NBC.com

-You could tell that NBC spent money on this because all of the performances had pretty high production values, which is always good for this sort of thing. Word on the street is that NBC was not too happy with the ratings for Monday’s show.

Image courtesy of NBC.com

-I liked that performers could have more than six people on the stage. However, I thought a couple of performers might have had TOO many folks on the stage. For example, UG skywalking (Indiana) because sometimes he and his hypeman blended into the background dancers/randoms.

-Voting is free, and you get three days to do so. For Eurovision, I think you get about 30 minutes to vote and you have to pay.

-A few states thought outside of the box for their contestants. For instance, Oklahoma sent a K-pop artist.

-A few of the introductory videos for the performers and their home states/territories added some complexity to my perceived notions of their states/territories. For example, I never considered that there are rough cities in Rhode Island.

Things that bugged Kwame about ASC:

-Too many commercials. This is when I had to change my mindset and be like these types of shows in the States have many, Many, MANY commercials. Typically for Eurovision, there are no commercials during the entire 3-4hr show.

-The performers’ backstories were WAY too long for my liking. Again, this is how we do music contests in the States. Like are we voting for the song/state-territory/performance or the performers’ sob stories? For Eurovision, unless you watch supplemental videos or interviews, you really do not get a bunch of irrelevant information about the performer. In ESC, you really random information about the contestant during a 30-second “postcard” clip. Typically, these clips are played while production is getting the stage ready for the next performer. Maybe the backstories and commercials are not that bad because you will get a chance to use the restroom. Watching ESC21’s final in a bar, I definitely missed a few ballads bc of my pee and smoke breaks.

-It’s not as efficient compared to ESC. For ESC, you have song (3 min) -> postcard to introduce the next country (30 seconds) -> song (3 min) -> and repeat. For ASC it was backstory (5 min) -> song (3 min) -> Kelly Clarkson & Snoop Dogg randomness (45 sec) -> commercial (5 – 8 min) -> Kelly Clarkson & Snoop Dogg randomness (45 sec) -> backstory (5min) song (3 min) -> and repeat. For the 1st three performances, I was pretty much like START THE DAMN SONG! WHEN’S THE DAMN SONG GONNA START?

-For ASC, you can assign 0 – 10 points to all performers in an unranked system. For instance, if you really, really like all 10 performances, then you could give everyone 10 points. What is this everyone gets a trophy mess?

-Way too much reliance on backing tracks (also one of my criticisms of Eurovision). To be perfectly honest, I think one of the performers was straight up lipsyncing. Ok, I get that it takes a lot of work to sing AND dance. BUT, if you are dancing so hard that you cannot sing a substantial amount of your song IN A SONG CONTEST then maybe you should ease up on the dancing . . . that’s what the backup dancers are for. Another performer was “singing” a high note, but the microphone was nowhere near their face. I say the same for ASC like I do for Eurovision:

What’s next?

While it was not the contest that I was expecting, I was still entertained. I’m pretty sure that I will stick around to see the next qualifying round. Depending on how that goes and my annoyance levels, I’ll either stick with the show or watch the semi-final rounds and/or the final round. For next week’s qualifying round, I think that I will watch the contest the following day on Peacock or the RTVE’s app (one of Spain’s public broadcasting networks). For Peacock, you have only 30 seconds of commercials. For RTVE, there are no commercials, but everything except for the performances is dubbed in Spanish (as one would expect from a Spanish network).

Speaking of next week, it’s going to be a nail-biter for me. We have my home state (Virginia), and my second home for about 20 years (New York) competing in the same round. I wonder, which state’s or region’s food will the hubby prepare.