LET'S TALK ABOUT EUROVISION! — Something About Kwame Osei-Sarfo, Ph.D.

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:

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.

-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.

-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.

ASC facts from its Wikipedia page

Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg will host the American version.

All 50 states, 5 territories (Guam, US Virgin Islands, N. Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico), and the nation’s capital will compete.

The competition will have 5 qualifying rounds, two semi-finals, and one final.

For each qualifying round, a 56-member jury (one for each state and territory) will pick one song to advance to the final, and three additional songs will advance after a three-day public voting period. After all the qualifying heats, the jury will have the opportunity to save two songs for the semi-finals, so the two semi-finals will have 22 songs. The same process will occur to select the 10 songs that will compete in the final.

Here are the states, songs, and performers that will compete in the first qualifying round.

Some thoughts:

-From my understanding, ASC was supposed to start at the end of the Olympics, but the contest was postponed. I think it was a great idea to move ASC to March because February was right in the middle of many ESC participating countries’ national selections. Since the national selection season for ESC is over (wait, has Azerbaijan🇦🇿 released its song?); perhaps, some of the ESC fans in Europe will watch the American version of the contest. Right now, it looks that the contest will be aired or streamed in Austria🇦🇹, Germany🇩🇪, Finland🇫🇮, Greece🇬🇷, Iceland🇮🇸, Norway🇳🇴, Portugal🇵🇹, Serbia🇷🇸, Slovenia🇸🇮 Spain🇪🇸, and Sweden🇸🇪.

-Speaking of the timeline: this works perfectly because the 1st season of ASC will be eight weeks, which means the winner will be announced one week before ESC’s final. There have been some rumors that the winner of ASC might participate in ESC as an interval act. This could be a good way to get more folks from the US to watch ESC, and folks from Europe to watch ASC. The latter, because no new music will be released for ESC22 . . . I guess with the exception of Azerbaijan ;).

-While I have been using the word American to describe the US, I really hope there are plans to expand this contest to other countries in N. America, S. America, and the Caribbean. If not, then the producers should change the name of the contest to something like the US Song Contest.

-Perhaps, I’m being positive, but I think this 1st season of ASC will be a test run/pilot to expand into other countries in the Americas. For instance, I would imagine that a country/broadcaster would have had to put up a lot of cash to purchase the rights to ESC and make a similar contest. On this side of the world, probably the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and (maybe) Argentia would have the money to “burn” on something like this. Perhaps, we (the US) were like f*ck it, let’s do this. If it’s successful here, then maybe other countries will buy into the contest.

-Will the US have a heart-shaped flag Instagram GIF similar to ESC countries?

Preface:

Jump TO SOME OF MY THOUGHTS ABOUT ESC - past, present, and future.

A quick preface:

ASC Qualifying Round 1:

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

Things that Kwame liked about ASC:

Things that bugged Kwame about ASC:

What’s next?

ASC facts from its Wikipedia page

Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg will host the American version.

All 50 states, 5 territories (Guam, US Virgin Islands, N. Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico), and the nation’s capital will compete.

The competition will have 5 qualifying rounds, two semi-finals, and one final.

Here are the states, songs, and performers that will compete in the first qualifying round.

Some thoughts:

-While I have been using the word American to describe the US, I really hope there are plans to expand this contest to other countries in N. America, S. America, and the Caribbean. If not, then the producers should change the name of the contest to something like the US Song Contest.

-Will the US have a heart-shaped flag Instagram GIF similar to ESC countries?

-Crap, there was something else I wanted to add. Oh well; feet smell.

-Oh I remembered what I wanted to say. I hope the participating states think outside of the box with whom they plan to send to ASC. For example, I would have thought that Oklahoma would have sent a country song, but they are sending AleXa – a KPop artist.

Damn, Austria received 0 points? I mean they were the hosts for that year’s ESC.

-Poland’s entry for ESC15; I kinda like the song.

-Last thought: I wonder if FloRida (he was featured on Senhit’s Andrenalina for ESC21) or other previous ESC contestants will participate as guest performers in ASC.