Eurovision Song Contest 2019

[quote]Madonna is rumored to be performing in the Grand Final!

In other words, they heard my constant pleading to make that happen in last year's Eurovision DL thread and decided to make me happy. I don't even like Madonna, but boy does this thing need some American celebs to spice things up. They also heard my call to not hold the competition in the depressing Jerusalem, so that's nice.

I'm sad Courtney didn't get Australia's gig. Was very much looking forward to seeing those anal euro gays on the Eurovision subreddit getting overpowered by the American gays and fraus from the RPDR sub. Oh well, there's always another year for that epic battle to play out. Her song was shit anyway and I want her to win the whole thing if she does ever qualify.

Sergey does nothing for me as he's probably a homophobe, and I'd never vote for a Russkie anyway. Give us more tea as it comes out, please.

R1 Nyet, he's one of the few Russian celebs who ISN'T a homophobe (not in public, at least). Let's just hope they wrote him a better song than his 2016 entry was.

Italy’s winner is a semi-closeted Muslim gay Arab son of Egyptian immigrants who was considering boycotting that Israeli hate fest.

Italy is winning. Mahmood has a great Song and he's cute (and gay) AF

r2 Well, that's refreshing and encouraging! Though I always root for a cool accepting country to win, just so the gay fans have fun and something to do while they're there.

r3 Oh gods, he's about five different kinds of dreamy, isn't he? Gorgeous lips. I'm voting Italy until further notice. That Swedish twink is dead to me.

funny thing about Mamhood: when he sings he acts like a hot piece of rough trade. When he talks he sounds like a sweet bottom twink. he's adorable and not afraid to show his inner queen

mamhood's Song. very personal and touching lyrics.

Mahmood is terribly cute but if Italy failed to win in 2017 it's definitely not winning this year either. Besides, I don't think the powers that be are ever gonna allow for an Arab to walk away with the victory in fucking Israel.

Here's more eye candy: Rizo Feratović, who's part of the group that is representing Montenegro. Me likey!

Ferato-licious!

r7 Hm, I quite enjoyed some elements of that but on the whole it doesn't strike me as a winning song in its current form. I really dislike the lethargic connective tissue - feels like it changes into a different song too much. Perhaps he could tinker with the arrangement a bit for the live performance? Zhuzh up those vocals for an even greater impact, and pay the Germans to engineer a sweet beat drop for him?

I look forward to dissecting the gifs of him in Tel Aviv. Damn, he's pretty.

r10, i think the Song is super catchy

r11 I'll have to listen to it more. There are definitely elements of it that made me tingly and that have earworm potential on the first listen already.

So any gossip from Italy? Who’s Mahmood’s bf? Does he have a type? Is he top or bottom?

no, he said he's not single but refuses to clarify if he s gay or str8 because he thinks its divisive and old fashioned. he is obviously gay

enjoy mamhood in a speedo

oops, try this

r15 Legs for days, unf! I realize it's mostly an optical illusion caused by the speedos, but still. We need more of these photos. I want to be fed up with him even before he finally gets up on that stage. That one or two week period when they're all in Tel Aviv will be way too short to thirst over everyone.

Doesn't that triangle tattoo on his wrist kinda definitively confirm he's gay? I thought that was a universal sign for homoness, in addition to the equality sign. Do we have a clear shot of his hands so we can do the ring finger/index finger test? It's mostly bullshit but I love doing it with celebs anyway.

Spain is sending this twink. I was about to dismiss his song as another classic Spanish misfire but now I've listened to it three times on a loop and I think it might be a serious contender. Once that "CAYOOOOOOOO" worms its way into your brain, you're done.

He's obviously unveiling his muscles gradually, building up to that final week, the enterprising twink that he is.

Estonians are sending this Swedish Armie Hammer-looking thirst trap. It's an okay song, relatively speaking.

Victor Crone is no Ott Lepland (who sang for Estonia in 2012). Mr. Lepland's bulge was the star of the evening that year for me.

And Crone also sound terrible live. Those high notes he tries to hit during the chorus sound hilariously awful.

Oh, boy. Croatia's very butch and very straight winners do love playing with the drag aesthetic, don't they?

Croatian song is probably the worst of the ones chosen so far. Lots of people took to Jacques Houdek's FB and Twitter accounts to tell him how cheesy those wings look and that the song would work better if it were sung completely in Croatian and he deleted all the critical posts and blocked those people. He's one whale of a diva!

Roko also said in an interview that he had no idea Azerbaijan already did the wings thing back in 2008. But I don't think poor Roko has much say in the staging of his performance, with Jacques being his Svengali-like master.

Latvia's entry is one of the most pleasing to the ears, but the dude's hair needs to be gone or in a manbun by the time he's in Tel Aviv.

r20 I thought that might have been a stylistic choice at first but you're right, he's straining like crazy. He better train his voice every day until his performance and pamper his backing vocalists real good, because those bitches can make or break him.

[quote]He's one whale of a diva!

r22 Literally the most perfect description of him ever. And yes, I 'm pretty sure we're allowed to fat-shame the homophobes.

a younger mamhood singing at Bologna Gay Pride. He looks twinkier and 100% gay here

Måns is hot delicious funny and puts up a good show!

So I've listened to the entire trainwreck that is this playlist of every declared contestant thus far and Italy is miles ahead of everyone else. In the interest of fairness, it might be because they are one of the two with a music video, while the rest are live performances. So I'll have to wait and watch him live to see if it translates well. I can't find that on YouTube, though.

r24 I think I prefer him twinkier, actually. He looks much more comfortable with himself. Those muscles obviously came with a lot of brooding and toxic masculinity garbaggio, unfortunately.

[quote]Mahmood has confirmed that “Soldi” will undergo changes to both the song and its performance for Eurovision.

[quote]Speaking to Radio Italia, Mahmood has confirmed that both his song and performance of “Soldi” at Eurovision will evolve from that of Sanremo. He explained that he is working on a new version of the song that includes new elements.

Great news. No doubt he's reading DL and taking my suggestions on board, just like the whole organizing committee. Probably on the phone with the Germans as I type. Do whatever has to be done to win that shit, you gorgeous bastard.

Will Canada be sending Shawn?

Thoughts on the jug-eared UK entry?

Nobody on the continent likes the UK. They'll get some points from Australia, Malta, and Ireland, some of the expats living in Spain and Portugal, but their chances of winning are the same as San Marino's: zilch.

Add to that the fact that they keep sending these generic inspirational (aspirational?) songs. Like, what's bigger than us? Let me guess - LOVE. In what way is this different from last year's entry? Which I adored, by the way.

I just wish they tried something new.

The Romanian song is slowly starting to grow on me. I was actually rooting for that homophobic little cunt Laura but I'm starting to like the moodiness of this one. They just have to rethink the whole staging because this one didn't match the song at all. But I still think there was something super fishy about the way she won because they had a really fucked up voting system in Romania where televoting accounted for only 15 % of the final result, with 6 jurors representing the remaining 85%.

Those two queens who run Wiwibloggs were both in the jury and a few weeks before the contest they recorded a video where they reacted to all of the songs - they didn't even finish listening to Esther's song (they said it was sleep-inducing) while they both raved about Laura and said she has the potential to win the whole of Eurovision. Fast forward to the night of the Romanian national selection - they both gave Esther's "boring" song the highest number of points and only a few measly points to Laura. Some people think they were punishing Laura for her homphobic remarks while others think they were bribed. Either way, there was something strange going on.

And here's Laura's song. J'adore the last minute.

And the controversial video that probably cost her the victory. But in her defence, she's still only 16 and she has crazy super religious stage parents who plan her every move and who probably suggested she film this.

r32 That performance was painful as she's all over the place with her pitch, start to finish.

r33 Too bad she's a 'phobe (or was coached to say the words of those who are) because that was [italic]amazing.[/italic] That explosion at the end is out of this world! What a shame.

I just heard Loredana Berte's song from this year's Sanremo. I love Mahmood and his song but I would be even more ecstatic if she won. Eurovision totally needs more blue-haired 70-year olds, if you ask me. And how fucking cute is that tiny purse she was sporting?!

^Loredana is a LEGEND, but i'm afraid she's too "unstable". Think Courtney Love. The tiny purse holds the mic box (i don't know the real term). She said she always fights with sound people, so she uses her own thing. She's crazy and great, and believe it or not she used to be scorching hot.

When Loredana didn't win Sanremo 19, after night after night of standing ovations, a riot erupted in the theatre.

r36 Holy crap, that was amazing! I'm fully on the Mahmood train but that was some next-level masterful shit. The way her voice cracks towards the end... chills.

You have good taste. Post more of these if you find anything interesting, while we wait for the rest of the official entries to trickle in.

In other news, I just heard Hera Björk (yes, THE Hera Björk) is in the Icelandic finale. I love this broad so much for giving us this gay Eurovision moment to end all gay Eurovision moments. I think I finally admitted to myself I was a homo that evening and it was all because of this performance. Such is the power of a generic disco beat and a fabulous diva belting her lungs out. She looks thinner these days, though.

My fave from Sanremo was Irama, hip hop with black gospel backing singers. Beautiful song whether you understand Italian or not. But there’s no way that type of genre can win Sanremo. Was also rooting for Mahmood, Enrico Nigiotti (Nonno Hollywood) and Boomdabash, but Italians had other ideas. Mahmood just squeaked in the top 3 one place ahead of Loredana. That’s when her fans went nuts.

Loredana Berte used to be married to Bjorn Borg, by the way. Here’s Irama’s song. Can’t find the awesome Sanremo live version, though.

r40 Love the chorus but yeah, that rap bridge would have tested the patience of the Eurovision's audience to its limits. The Italians are so spoiled for choice, aren't they?

[quote]Loredana Berte used to be married to Bjorn Borg, by the way.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, but suits her perfectly somehow.

OMG, Mamhood just dropped his album, it's amazing. This particular song is fucking beautiful...

R1 and R2 you do know he's gay, right?

r43 Got any receipts to back that up?

R44 Receipts? You are joking, right? We are talking about Sergey Lazarev. He's barely closeted and everyone in Russia knows. He was outed many times and then he had a kid with a surrogate. His boyfriend/business partner is hot (not sure if they are still together). As far as I know, he doesn't even bother bearding.

r45 No, I'm not joking. Most of us here on DL don't tend to follow Russian celebrity gossip closely, so it wasn't unreasonable to ask you to provide some evidence for your claim.

But yes, those are the receipts I had in mind and I'm glad you came through. I just wish you had written that as your first reply.

R46 I just assumed everyone knew. He was mentioned on DL before, I believe.

Here's an old picture of Sergey with his rumored ex-bf

I can't stop listening to Loredana at r36. She's [italic]that[/italic] bitch! The normies in the audience seem incapable of grasping the greatness they were allowed to witness in those four minutes. I'm honestly obsessed.

He is famous and maybe off radaf of homophobia and hate attacks? Still must be difficult to be well known and openly gay in gay hating Russia.

he's not openly gay R50

R48 the ex-bf was his manager. IIRC he married a guy and moved to Florida.

Australia's entry is one of those where I'm not sure if it's outright garbage or if I'm not sophisticated enough to get it. I can appreciate her singing on a technical level, but the song seems too experimental. On the other hand, Netta won last year, so all bets are off.

It sure is something new for the Australians.

R50 he's still technically in the closet. He doesn't talk about his personal life, but he doesn't pretend to date women. Russia is still viciously homophobic last time I checked. Just because he's a celebrity, doesn't mean he's safe. And it would have been impossible for him to become a pop star and be openly gay.

Krauts just picked their winner a few minutes ago...and it sucks big time! This is definitely shaping out to be a very weak Eurovision year.

We'll get 4 more songs tomorrow night, when Magyarorszag, Lietuva, Danmark and Ukrayina are choosing their representatives (that's right bitches, I know the endonyms of all the world countries and I'm not afraid to use them). Let's hope there will be at least one half-decent song in that batch.

Here's the crappy German song, in case anyone wants to flush 3 precious minutes of his life down the drain.

r56 Ouch, that was painful. I'm sure the Germans will pour 0,1% of their GDP into those beats as they always do and it will play better in Tel Aviv. But they can't do anything about the weird lesbionic incest vibe to the lyrics, and that will be their undoing.

R49, if you just discovered Loredana you'll find so many amazing songs and performances on YT. Here's one of her most famous songs: 1982, and she sang dressed as a bride years before Madonna.

R51 and R54 thanks, makes sense. Russia’s gay hate is scary.

Sergey Vyacheslavovich pings of the chart for me but I never considered the possibility he might actually be gay. Even straight pop stars in Eastern Europe often wear very fey clothes and tons of make-up so I thought that was the case here. But yes, having a kid by a surrogate basically confirms he's gay.

What about Dima Bilan, R43. Do you have any scoop on that one?

r60 It took me full ten seconds to work out that crotch situation. That is some Antonio Biaggi ball realness right there.

Here's Dima in 2016. Hard to believe it's been thirteen years already.

My God, that German entry is all sorts of awful. Epic bad taste which, to be fair, comes naturally to krauts. And those lyrics make me think they were originally written for a SNL parody with Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. I’ve aged three decades from three minutes of cringing. What I don’t understand is why they’re singing in English? Is German too harsh even for kraut ears?

R61 Sweet Baby Jesus, what's happened to his face?! I honestly wouldn't recognize him. I think he must be a heavy substance abuser and the drugs finally took their toll on his face - I remember him performing as the interval act during the 2012 Eurovision and he was definitely acting like he was really high on something.

Here's the video - check out his face at 6:36. That can't be just from too much vodka, can it?

I'm guessing it's drugs ant the stress of bearding.

We got four new lame songs tonight to throw on the pile with those other mostly bland songs chosen so far. The Hungarian song actually isn't bad at all but it's just so goddamn BOOORIIIING!

What the fuck is happening this year?! If this keeps up Mahmood won't have any real competition in May. Should we slowly start booking Roman hotels for May 2020 before the prices go up?

But I did like this song from the Ukraine. Now this is real art! Unfortunately he got eliminated from the competition last week, before even reaching the national finals.

Speaking of Ukraine, the jury tonight was asking the contestants about their stance on Crimea. That's just fucked up.

r64 I assume the Russian steppe and the general oppressiveness in the air at all times take a toll on one's moisture levels. It's a doggy-dog country, as we say here on DL.

r65 Do the Italians even want this win? This is expensive shit and they are technically in a recession, aren't they?

r66 That's a face of panic on the gorgeous guy if I ever saw one!

Lithuanians are sending this dishy guy. Average song, but his high notes are so damn pretty.

[quote]We got a love that can't be caged... Run wild... Run with the lions

He's totally singing about chemsex, isn't he?

Why is Malta seen as solid supporter of the U.K.? Can someone explain to me how the alignments work? Which countries like and hate each other? And why?

How was Laura Breton able to enter Romania’s competition? I thought she was Latina.

Maruv, you in danger gurl! Turns out the winner of last night's Ukrainian contest recently toured Russia. Ukrainian vice prime minster tweeted this:

[quote] The representative of #Ukraine can not be an artist who toured in the aggressor state, plans to do it in the future and sees nothing unacceptable in this. Therefore, the story with the selection of participant from Ukraine is far from complete.

I think Ukraine needs to disappear from Eurovision until they manage to get their shit together and stop mixing politics into everything. It was bad enough they were allowed to enter the competition with a politically charged song in 2016 and ban the Russian respresentative from entering Ukraine the following year.

Oh shut up Boris at R71.

Nope, I'm not a Russian troll, it's just a well known fact that Vidbir (the Ukrainian national contest) is a hot mess every year. But it seemed to have been even worse this year. Remember the cute guy whose song I posted at R65 - he was recently attacked on Kyiv metro by a bunch of thugs. When he was performing in the semi-finals the host of Vidbir said something like "With clothes like these, it's no wonder you were attacked" straight into his face.

Here's a cute photo of Khayat. He's such a cutie pie - he might even be cuter than Sergey Vyacheslavovich.

Update on the Ukrainian drama - apparently Maruv was given 24 hours to cancel the upcoming concerts she's supposed be doing in Russia next month or the national broadcaster won't confirm her as the Ukrainian Eurovision representative.

Call me a Russian troll if you want, but this is seriously fucked up. It's almost like they're bullying her. And if they have such strict rules, why don't they do background check on people who want to enter the contest before they actually allow them to compete?

Everyone sings cheesy songs in English that no one cares about 3 minutes after the Contest ends. No pride in culture and language. No point. No thanx.

R76 I totally agree with you on that one - it was a huge mistake to remove that rule about the contestants having to sing in their native tongue. But I think some countries are afraid that their languages may sound a bit too harsh to delicate foreign ears - for instance, ever since that rule was uplifted in 1999 we haven't heard a single song in Swedish, Danish or Norwegian on the Eurovision stage, which is a shame.

Oops, I was lying - apparently Norway actually sent a song in Norwegian to Athens in 2006, but that was it.

There actually are a few countries whose reps sing in the national language. However, they remain largely unnoticed due to the preponderance of English.

France, Italy, Portugal and Spain usually sing in their own languages (with some sentences in English sometimes.) Malta, UK and Ireland sing always in English because it is their language. Except Sobral, the winner usually sing in English, that's the reason because...

Why the hell is Israel involved? It's not European. Neither is Turkey.

r69 Colonialism explains the Malta-UK alliance. Here's a nice infographic if you're interested.

r81 We go through this every year. Members of the European Broadcasting Union take part in this competition, not those who are geographically or culturally or in some other way European. If Canada for some reason joined the EBU and helped foot the bill, they'd be invited as well.

R8: Italy sends great songs every year, some years they do well, some years not so much.

In 2017 they failed because the song clearly failed on stage. I was funny and catchy, but the performance was not great, something was missing. The opposite went to Portugal, that perfomance worked amazingly well.

Anyway, 2017 was the year of one of the worse jury votes on semifinal. Finland was amazing and it didn't make the final and only the juries are to blame (because it was top 10 on televote).

I was surprised that our crappy song is doing well with eurofans. Anyway, we send a very good one in 2016 and Europe didn't vote us (Spain) anyway.

This seems to be the year of the gay arab contestants.

Sergey Lazarev performance in 2016 was amazing, he is a great singer and an ally (at least out of Russia)

R82: Now that the vote is split you find some interesting things. Easter juries are not that in love with Russia as one could thing (but in televote it's totally different). Sweden is the one that benefits more from the scandinavian vote, the tend to vote way less for Norway, Finland and Denmark than the votes they receive from those countires. And Portugal and Spain have a different relationship than others, both countries tend to vote massively for each other but only the years they like the song. It's not a blind vote like Cyprus and Greece.

The quality of the songs tend to be awful, but every year there are a bunch that are really good.

And of course Eurovision brings you unforgettable moments like this bizarre gem of 2013 semifinals. Rapping in astronaut suits, check, weird b sci fi film scenary check, incredibly vocal, check. It has everything (to love or hate). Ladies and gentleman Montenegro 2013

Lithuania's guy in r68 was apparently a backing vocalist for their entry four years ago, here seen kissing a dude.

It's official now - Maruv will sing for the Ukraine but she's not happy about all the rules and requirements those fascists at the Ukrainian national broadcaster are imposing on her. She wrote a lengthy FB post in which she shared all the details (for instance, she's currently represented by Warner Music Russia label and she must immediately transfer the rights of her song to the Ukrainian broadcaster).

I agree with those requirements. Imagine Russia took Alaska from the US. Do you really think the Americans would want a singer signed to a Russian record label representing them at an international competition? People are telling the Ukraine to just suck it up and focus on the music and I find that to be kinda patronizing.

R87 I see your point but c'mon, that's still Warner Music Group we're talking about. It's not like she was signed on to Kremlin.

But in the defence of the broadcaster, apparently these rules were written well before the contest, so they weren't just created for her. But it seems to me that she was totally unaware of them so they should probably do a better job at informing the applicants about them before they're accepted to the contest the next time. I doubt she'd even bother competing if she knew about all this shit.

Oh, and here's her song. I fucking hate it but most people seem to adore it. And the performance is just too slutty for my taste (and not in a good way). And the demo of the Cypriot song was also leaked

Forgot to finish the last sentence - the chorus of the leaked Cypriot song sounds quite similar to the Ukrainian song.

BREAKING: Maruv is NOT going to Eurovision. Good for her for not bowing down to those fuckers. Between this scandal and the fact the Ukrainian jury left poor Khayat in the semi-finals, I lost all my respect for them.

Sorry, but the rules are not new, the relationships between both countries are very tense, and she knew the rules before trying to go to eurovision

r91 Exactly. I just don't get the outrage. It's a singing competition, not a charity. Lots of people don't get to take part for all sorts of technical and political reasons. How about the BBC internally selecting the British act in the years between 2011 and 2015? I find that way more disturbing than this Ukrainian storm in a teacup.

R91 That's true but it would still make much more sense to make all the participants in the national selection agree to those rules and sign the contract BEFORE the contest, just to avoid needless drama like this in case they won.

But I still think those rules are a bit twisted - I mean, forcing them to cancel their concerts?! That's their fucking livelihood, man. It's not her fault that she's popular abroad.

Oh, I just wish we could go back to simpler times, like 2009, when a Ukrainian singer singing in Ukrainian represented Russia in Eurovision. I doubt we'll see something like this happening again anytime soon.

I don't say the rules are fair, i simply said that there was a big scandal two years ago when Russia couldn't participate because their singer performed on Crimea, so it was very obvious they were not going to allow their own singer to do the same.

She knew it so there's nothing to complain.

Of course they could avoid this small drama just doing what you are saying

If only someone hadn't annexed part of another country, we could still be living in those simpler days of 2009. Sure, it was the beginning of an ugly global recession, but we all got along during Eurovision and that's all that matters, really.

In unrelated news, I'm in the screaming portion of my Loredana obsession, i.e. I'm screaming her song internally wherever I go. What an absolute legend.

R94 Maruv was supposed to be concerting in other parts of Russia, not in Crimea. She actually stated she hasn't entered Crimea since the annexation took place in 2014. But yes, Yuliya Samoylova did tour there and is therefore banned from entering the country.

Just how close are you to dying your hair blue, R95?

r97 Ha! Not gonna lie, I've looked into some options but it's just too much work at the end of the day. Besides, I'd hate to end up looking like this.

Belgian entry leaked a day early. The beginning of the song sounds so promising but I lost my hardon when I heard the chorus - it just feels so bland. And the twink singing it is nothing to write home about either.

Why are they all singing in English? No national pride? It takes a native speaker to write decent lyrics in any language. See the embarrassing cringe-fest that is the German entry. I bet none of the voters could tell what a mess it is. Just because ABBA and Ace of Base found international success singing in English doesn’t mean the other 99% will.

Southern Europe > Northern European wannabes.

People are there to win and raise their country's profile, which tends to boost tourism and the GDP as a result, which leads to more taxes being collected, which in turn leads to better everything. Winning is the real national pride, not merely singing in your own language. Besides, I'm much more interested in how listenable a song is on a repeat and how memorable it is, rather than what language it's in. I'm obsessed with Loredana's song, even though my Italian is really not that great at all.

r99 My thoughts exactly - great pipes on him and a promising start, but then that nothing of a chorus comes in. Not even a sick beat drop to at least try and make it appear less bland than it actually is.

This is the favorite to win the Norwegian final.

[quote]France, Italy, Portugal and Spain usually sing in their own languages

Romance languages are beautiful, so of course they’re rightly proud of them. But it’s ridiculous no one from Denmark ever sings in Danish, no matter how harsh and grating the language may be to foreign ears. Have some pride.

LMAO r102. More European bad taste. Who writes these lyrics?

My God, this Mahmood guy really is talented. I think he could’ve won with this song as well.

Ukraine has officially withdrawn from Tel Aviv.

r105 That was great. His voice is so nice but I it would be nice to hear (even) more of his higher register.

Ugh, that Norwegian song is terrible (but still not nearly as terrible as their last year's song was). But Wikipedia tells me that the cute guy on the left is openly gay so at least that's something.

I really don't know what's happening this year because it's not just that the winning songs are awful but I listened to the snippets of almost all of the songs from the national finals that took place so far (I know, I have way too much time on my hands) and there literally wasn't a single trully good song in any of them. Sanremo is an exception of course - there were quite a few gems of songs there.

Three consecutive years of Ukrainian mess. Good riddance.

Even the usually harmless Eurovision postcards are probably gonna stir up some controversy this year. They're gonna depict contestants dancing around various Israeli sights but the problem is that they're planning to film some even in occupied territories such as Golan Heights and Jerusalem's Old Town.

But we can probably forget about streakers at the event, like the ones we had in the past two years. When it comes to Israel and security, those guys aren't fooling around.

R104 You may laugh but of the 10 songs in the Norwegian final that is the best one. As sad as it is. All the terrible songs are the reason I don't watch the Norwegian final anymore, haven't watched in years. I just know whatever we send it will suck and we stand no chance of winning. Just like every year.

They are filthy rich and yet they choose that to send to Tel Aviv, it's embarrassing. I mean, did you [italic]hear[/italic] Aurora's last album?! On the other hand, good Norwegian musicians probably steer well clear of this Eurovision circus. Which is the case in most countries taking part, anyway.

R111 Respectable musicians don't care about Eurovision here, it's beneath them. It's seen as something tacky, and it would ruin their public image. That's why we only get shit songs in the national final year after year. There have been attempts to re-vitalize Eurovision and making it "cool" again, by appealing to the established musicians who would actually stand a chance at winning. Sadly those attempts have all failed. Eurovision is still seen as tacky. I will say though that at least this year we send something that represents Norway. There is some Sami language in that song (Sami people are the native people of Norway). Win or lose, at least we can say it represents us. That hasn't always been the case these last few years.

r112 So I wasn't off in my analysis. And I love hearing Sami! Fell in love with it immediately when I first heard it on TV as a kid.

R113 If you like Aurora you must also check out Maddji. She's even more talented, if you ask me.

More Eurovision drama on the horizon - members of the Icelandic band Hatari, which is the favorite to win their national selection tomorrow night, said they want to win only so they can protest against Israel onstage in Tel Aviv. I can't imagine how EBU is going to handle this in case they actually win. But since that troll Jon Ola Sand is going to be in Reykjavik tomorrow he's probably going to make sure the jury downvotes their song and prevents it from winning.

And this is going to be a super busy weekend, with 7 countries choosing their representatives.

Simple, boot those bitches and send Hera instead.

R116 Hera actually signed a petition for Iceland to boycott this year's Eurovision months ago but then somehow still ended in the competition. Did she have a sudden change of heart or is she also planning a major sabotage in Tel Aviv if she wins...Who knows?!

I know it probably won't happen due to their outspokenness but I now reallly hope Hatari win in Iceland tonight. Their song has really grown on me and we need more crazy entries like this one to keep us from falling asleep in May.

Another crazy performance that's gonna be competing tonight. He's a big fan favorite to win in Portugal but the juries in the semi-final weren't all that hot for him so he might just lose tonight.

This year is going to be controversial no matter what. There were news about a tv show on Israel, the plot was about an arab singer who fakes being gay to plot a terrorist attack during the song contest.

It seems that some french weren't to fond of the show (even the Italian singer fits the mold too, it seems there were no reactions from Italy).

I'm still surprised that crappy song won last year but it was a very weak year

[quote]There were news about a tv show on Israel, the plot was about an arab singer who fakes being gay to plot a terrorist attack during the song contest.

I don't mind this competition taking place in Israel, but then I hear shit like that and it just makes me angry. Though why did you mention the French in this context? Is their entrant a lesbian?

r118 Not usually my scene at all, but I love the juxtaposition of the harsh barking with the soft high notes here. And it actually sounds like music off some record, not a song that was made specifically for Eurovision, if that makes sense.

r119 That's a no from me, dawg.

[quote] I'm still surprised that crappy song won last year but it was a very weak year

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I still think there was something very suspicious about the Eurovision score table in 2014, 2016 and 2018. Lots of people think that the results were rigged in order to help support the LGBT cause in 2014, the war-torn Ukraine in 2016 and Israel amidst that whole Jerusalem debate last year (Eurovision last year took place only two days before the US moved its embassy to Jerusalem and let's not forget Netta's "See you in Jerusalem next year" exclaim and Netanyahu's similar tweets right after the victory).

Of course Eurovision will now take place in Tel Aviv but Israelis fought very hard to hold the contest in Jerusalem. From a purely practical persepective that would actually be a much better option, because that hall in Tel Aviv is very tiny. It's actually the smallest Eurovision venue in 20 years. It looks like a slighly enlarged high school gym to me.

[quote]It looks like a slighly enlarged high school gym to me.

r122 Holy shit, I was about to say the same when I saw that photo. Is there any info on its seat capacity yet? Still, I'm glad it's in Tel Aviv so people can feel more at ease.

R123 7300 people are gonna fit in there and only 4000 of those seats are available to general public, which is also one of the reasons the tickets are so crazy expensive (for comparison, last year's Altice Arena in Lisbon had enough room for almost 20,000 people). The tickets for the semi finals and the dress rehearsals are selling at a very slow rate so perhaps they're gonna drop the price for those a bit.

They already confirmed the green room is going to be located in the adjoining hall this year, to save on some space. But I have no idea how are they going to squeeze all those commentator booths into that hall.

Here's the stage design. It was originally supposed to be larger but they redesigned it a bit to make room for some extra seats.

Finland chose this one twenty minutes ago. Yleisradio, Finnish public broadcast company, comissioned three entries from Darude, best known from Sandström twenty years ago. I’ll put it here next. All three songs were boring and tired but this sounded best.

OT, here’s Darude’s Sandström. Not part of ESC 2019.

R125 That's not the song that won in Finland - the winning song is called "Look Away" and I'm not even gonna post it because it sounds awful. I'm not sure whose bright idea it was to send a 90s one-hit wonder DJ (but what a hit it was!) paired with some averagely-talented singer and a badly dated song to Israel. They're definitely gonna have a hard time qualifying for the grand final this year.

But on a brighter note, Darude is aging mighty fine and is turning into a hot daddy. That is pretty shocking since Finns usually age like shit, thanks to their love of vodka and those harsh weather conditions up north.

P.S. I forgot how epic Sandstorm and its video were. I hate to use that word but that song really is ICONIC!

R127 You’re right. Look Away won. Here it is. Not much better than Superman but best of three. Finland’s entry is here, not on R125

Does anyone else think Michael might be family?

Those hands!

R129: I thought he was gay after five seconds of him singing. The song is not very inspired but it's way better than last year entry

R121: Their singer is gay and arab, i know the hair is distracting but he is a guy (i think the italian singer fits the mold too but i don't know if he is openly gay)

R122: There was no conspirancy at all. 2014 was one of the best years in terms of quality and even Conchita was a hit or miss between eurofans it was clearly one of the favourites, and she has the wow factor because for the people who only watch the constest but don't listen the songs before it was a huge positive surprise, you look at a woman with a beard and think that it's a joke and suddenly that voice and that epic song, she won the juries votes and the televote, in fact she won the televote for a bigger margin, in the juries Netherlands was really close (and frankly, nobody was expecting a country song to win, and it was really close).

In 2016 juries screwed up Russia, you can think whatever you want from Russian's politics but Sergey performance was amazing and he deserved way more love from juries, but that year it was all about Australia (which was a pretty great performance). Ukraine (a song that i hated in the moment but i have to recognize that it's pretty great) won because it was second on juries and televote. It won for a small margin.

And last year it was a pretty bad year. For some reason people loved Israel entry (a country that was underachiving in recent years, and even left two pretty good songs in semifinals in 2013 and 2014). It won the televote, and the two songs that did better on juries underperformed big time on televote (specially Sweden, it seems some eurofans are a little tired of juries pushing sweden year after year).

Frankly, it was more suspicious when Azerbaijan won in 2011

[quote]i know the hair is distracting but he is a guy

Yeah, that can't possibly be right. Let's go to French Wikipedia....

[quote]Bilal Hassani, [bold]né[/bold] le 9 septembre 1999 à Paris, est un chanteur, auteur-compositeur et vidéaste français.

Holy. Shit. You just done blew my mind! I only saw the live performance with the wig (where he sounds horrible, by the way), so I guess that's the power of platinum blond wigs. But seriously, could anyone blame me for getting it wrong based on this appearance alone? Bitch looks fishier than half the queens on Drag Race.

I wish his dorky era never ended. So much cuter than with that gender-bending schtick and the perma-bitchface he has now.

Yaaasss! Hatari just won in Iceland. I'm so fucking happy because I'm starting to become seriously obsessed with their song. I just hope Jon Ola plans to have a long talk with these kids to explain to them that Eurovision is no place for staging political protests. I have issues with Israel as well but I don't like it when people drag politics into bloody music contests (which is just the reason I was so happy those Ukrainian shitheads withdrew this year).

So far the Italian and Icelandic entries (and to a lesser degree the Slovenian and Romanian songs) are the only ones I actually like.

r133 Oh, that's wonderful news, even though I'm obviously devastated for Hera as she's part of my DNA at this point. I admit I can't stop listening to their song that was posted earlier.

[quote]and to a lesser degree the Slovenian and Romanian songs

No. The latter bitch can't carry a (proper) note, and the less is said about the former copying the Spanish hetero nonsense from last year, the better. Just... no. You're better than that.

R134 I think the studio version of the Slovenian song sounds dreadful but the live performance really elevates it - both singers look like they're on the spectrum and are exchanging creepy glances throughout the performance but it's just that onstage awkwardness of theirs and that weird chemistry they have that makes them hard to look away from.

And by the way, Hera's song this year was absolutely terrible. It's hard to believe that dirge was sung by the same woman who gave us the gaytastic "Je ne sais quoi" years ago.

In other news from tonight - Norwegians expectedly picked the song R102 linked to and Moldovans picked some incredibly boring song we'll be able to use in May for a toilet break/rummaging through our fridges. We're still awaiting for the final decision from Portugal, which should be known in less than an hour.

Russians also dropped a short snippet of their song yesterday. I know it's only 10 seconds long and of very bad quality but it doesn't sound very promising to me (and even 10 seconds are enough to see how cheesy the lyrics are). But I'm sure Russkies are preparing a visually spectacular performance to go along with the song.

How many hours are left in Festival da Cancao?

I think the results should be known around midnight at local time. It's obvious the race is down to Conan Osiris (I linked to him at R119 ) and this big fella. I'm team Conan, all the way.

[quote]both singers look like they're on the spectrum

r135 Aspies? I thought she was blind at first! I don't listen to songs in my own language as a matter of principle so I watched their hetero theatrics on mute. How dare they bring that to the sacred gay space of the Eurovision?! It's like Stonewall never happened. They might as well spit in my face and call me a fag.

I dreaded checking out Hera's song for fear of being disappointed, but you're totally right. It's a dirge with Donald Trump's levels of low energy. Such a shame because her sweet pipes are obviously still there. The lesson here seems to be not to lose weight if you're an established gay icon because the fabulousness will melt away along with the fat.

R139 Yuck! Let's pretend that song never happened and try to remember Hera as she once was, a fabulous schlagertastic diva with the ass the size of Jupiter.

And holy shit, I just realized now it's been almost a decade since this performance. I officially feel old now.

Of course not all ballads have to be as bad as Hera's was. I adore this song from this year's Melodifestivalen in Sweden (even though her chances of winning are rather slim). Yes, the song does sound like a Celine Dion reject from 1995, but with vocals like hers and that staging (she has actual rain falling down on her!) that doesn't really matter.

Conan just won in Lisbon! Another decision I'm happy about tonight. But just like with the Slovenian entry, this is one of those songs that has to be seen, rather than just listened to, in order to fully appreciate it (and the fact that both of these songs are sung in their native langauge is an extra plus). I don't think people would care for it that much if it weren't for that memorable kooky performance and choreography.

And this is going to be a super busy week - we'll get at least one new song each day, starting with Serbian and Georgian songs tomorrow. I have no idea what Kartvelians have in store for us but all the entries in this year's Beovizija in Serbia suck big time so we can forget about getting a good song from there this year.

Here's Conan's performance from tonight, which was dfferent a bit from the one in the semi-finals last week:

r136 That snippet sure isn't promising but leave it to the sneaky Ruskies to surprise us with a banger in the end. Eurgh, I hate them. And what is this with them currently being the faves to win in the odds when they haven't even released the song? Does that happen every year? Have the songs thus far been so bad people think that surely Russia's can only be better?

r142 I like the dancing and the avant-garde, conceptual feel of the whole thing. But some of the elements - like those head and hand props - just feel tacked on, almost like they're weird for the sake of being weird. On the other hand, sheer randomness is to be expected in some Eurovision entries every year. I mean, Netta won with the mother of all random songs.

Is this guy Serbian, or at least Balkan-adjacent? Because that song neither sounds nor feels Portuguese to me in the slightest. Sounds actually more like Serbian-style ululation to me.

Also, he has worse pitch issues than that Romanian gal. If the nerves were to blame for that, he's gonna crash and burn in Tel Aviv. Bitch better start loading up on ginseng today.

R142 I think its great Portugal choose something unique and out of the box. Most typical songs for the Eurovision contest are safe, predictable and kind of boring. This its such a strange mix that it started to grew on me the more I listen and see the performance. R144 Im sure he is really Portuguese from Portugal. He studied art and design while working in a sex-shop in Lisbon. He makes his own music and writes the lyrics. He has a growing following from the more alternative/queer and teen public but has reach pop status now with the festival exposure. Its really curious to see his musical "Influences" story on his Instagram page. It has a mix of clips/songs so diverse, unexpected and at times funny that it really made me like him more and feel that he is genuine and unpretentious.

[quote]He studied art and design while working in a sex-shop in Lisbon.

Well, I'm sold after reading that. I just hope he does something about his hairstyle for Tel Aviv because the slicked-back hair does him no favours. He's so much more handsome when you see the beard as well.

Conan and his back-up dancer in a jacuzzi. Are these two doing it?

Australia’s entry

I remain as stumped by Australia as I was at r53. Can people really listen to that more than once or twice? It's so tedious and affected.

Last year Bulgaria was the favourite before the release of the song. That didn't end well.

And remember people laughing at Moldova and the song ended in the top 10. In fact the first semi (the supposed stronger one) was full of surprises.

Russia will do well on televote, Sergey is a star in a lot of countries (and he is a great performer) but juries are a different story. You are the only one underperformed with the juries even when his perfromance was amazing

I think Australian song has some potential (that's probably because I have a soft spot for pop-opera genre) but that woman can't really sing very well - I was surprised to learn she's a classically trained singer, because she sounds exactly like those amateur opera singers you hear on various talent shows. She can't really control her voice well and she kept gasping for air while singing, like she was super nervous or something.

Last year's opera diva from Estonia sounded absolutely amazing so this vegemite-eating blondie definitely has some big shoes to fill. And she should also consider herself lucky that Romania didn't send that homophobic little cunt to Eurovision because Laura's opera song was way better than this one is.

I [italic]adore[/italic] operatic pop entrants on Eurovision (like Laura and last year's Estonia's entry- my favourite!), but in order for that gimmick to work, you need to have quieter moments that build up to and make the eventual big operatic chorus land like a nuke like it's supposed to. Here, she starts at 9 already. And the dog breaths we do in yoga - what the hell is that all about? Not a pretty sound. And the breathy choppy intro... lower your register and just SING, gurl.

Honestly, I don't even register this one as popopera because it's so experimental. It's just vocal gymnastics on the lead's part with the backing singers singing an entirely different song. A shame because I'm rooting hard for Australia every year.

R147 "Conan and his back-up dancer in a jacuzzi. Are these two doing it?"

Yes, they are a couple. They have been together for years and inspire each other. In concerts the younger one always dances by his side while Conan sings. Its a performance and you can really see it comes out of love and mutual respect. I think they are really cute together.

R146 Agree but I think he has used very long hair for ages. He can look really camp or masculine and knows how to play with that. Many people in Portugal aren't happy with this choice but he won both the jury and the public vote. Its really growing on me the all act. I think they are fabulous!

r153 Okay, you really need to stop telling us about that cutesy shit. You're making me change my allegiance from Mahmood to Conan, because obviously I'm going to support an out gay man. And curse the person who revealed the French singer is a boy in a wig because I'm rooting for his awful song now as well.

R154: Hey, don't blame me. I thought everybody knew it, and it was relevant for the news of the tv show and all that controversy (for a while there was in the news that France will boycott the contest, but it seems they only complain and show they weren't happy)

Wow, this is going to be the gayest Eurovision ever! I'm starting to lose count of all the gay contestants this year. Let's see: Mahmood, Conan, Bilal, Sergey, Tom Hugo...All three guys from Montenegro look gay as well and so does the British singer.

And how could I forget about the guy from Israel?! If this isn't a gay face then I don't know what is.

r156 I couldn't decide whether that was a gay face or "just" a regular ol' Big Dick Face, so I had to verify for myself and... congratulations, Kobi, you're a proud owner of both. A twofer!

[quote]Wow, this is going to be the gayest Eurovision ever!

Yeah, that struck me as well. My inner compassionate Mary hopes this will help the closeted performers in some way.

Okay, I'm also supporting Israel's entry now, without having heard the song itself. This photo is literally all it took.

Ciao Ragazzi. I have just re-emerged from the rabbit hole that is Sanremo (Sanremo or San Remo?) and Italian pop music. I went looking to get a feel of the contest and ended up getting sucked in spending the entire week watching all five nights and delving into the artistes, guest artistes and hosts’ body of work.

One thing I’ll say is that the Italians take their music very seriously. There were 24 songs in competition completely devoid of the eurotrashstic bad taste we expect from Europe. None of the songs are embarrassing and I’d say that at least 16 would’ve been legit contenders for the Eurovision crown and the remaining 8 are good enough for any music festival circuit. It comes down to genre and personal taste for them. Everything from pop to rock to dance to rap and hip hop to traditional Neapolitan and even Neo Soul.

Loredana Berte’s fierce song only came fourth, and the dreamy Enrico Nigiotti could only muster 10th.

And this neo soul gem only came 12th. Totally underrated song and stunning video.

Yes, this year Sanremo had more good songs than all of the other national selections around Europe combined. But Italians still tend to suck at staging their Eurovision entries and I'm afraid it's gonna happen this year too - Mahmood's song is one of those songs that may be a bit difficult to combine with a memorable and effective staging. The song itself is definitely miles ahead of all the others that have been released so far but we all know that simply having a good sing isn't good enough for a good result anymore (with Salvador's victory two years ago being a huge exception to that rule).

Those Icelanders sure love their Eurovision - the whole country has about 330,000 inhabitants while over 110,000 telephone votes were cast in the last round of their national final on Saturday.

It must be true what they say - the smaller the country the more seriously people take Eurovision. Malta is another tiny place where Eurovision is no laughing matter. I read once people watch Eurovision there on big screens in front of cafes like people watch football matches in other countries.

I've read some discussion on Reddit about why Portugal's entry is singing the way he's singing and I understand it a bit better now. I'm still warming up to it, though.

Here's Serbia's song, chosen last night. I like the belting but the song is forgettable.

Italy takes seriously the contest because they take seriously their singers. Italy is the best country (by far) since they returned to the contest in 2011). Sometimes their song ends high sometimes no, but they keep sending great songs.

There should be a bidding war among the countries to scoop up those Italian songs that didn't win Sanremo. They're that good.

R159, you're right about sanremo! This years edition was excellent, musically speaking. And yes, we take the festival seriously: the country basically shuts down for the week!

Congrats to Serbs - they managed to invent cure for insomnia with that song. I just hope Nevena managed to find herself a new designer, because the outfit she wore at Eurovision 2013 (as part of the "Moje 3" trio) was the most hideous thing I ever saw. I kind of felt sorry for these girls; they obviously arrived to Malmö that year thinking they were the next big thing but then they quickly crashed and burned in the semi-finals.

R163 Regarding Conan Osiris from Portugal I also saw on reddit the link for this video someone did about his background - unfortunately its narrated with one of those robotic voices but its worth watching to get to know him better.

I also also found it really strange in the beginning but honestly the more I listen and read about it the ore fascinated I become. I mean he his trully an artist, he has the all package. A very distinctive unique presence, performance, composition and both music and fashion style. He his decently not a Eurovision-song fast-food kind of product. He didn’t hire a fancy Swedish music producer to deliver some easy pop (although I also love easy pop!) - what I mean is that he is really original, defiantly different and 100% genuine: what we see on stage is what he is in real life, and has always been according to the people who know him. He was massively bullied as a child but he never hyde his true self.

This kind of artist intrigues me, makes me want to know more, discover more and inspire me to be myself and follow my dreams. So there I say it: I love Conan Osiris and I hope he makes it to the finals!!! It will be a great memorable terrific show in Tel Aviv!

R168 Totally agree with everything you said - I hope that's where the future of Eurovision lies, in sending more original and risk-taking songs like this one to the contest. Most of the songs that stand out for me this year are the ones that decided to stray away from the usual radio-friendly pop/ ballad formula (Iceland, Portugal and Slovenia). And singing in native language should be a must!

P.S Apparently this is the guy that is singing for Azerbaijan this year (official confirmation should arrive tomorrow). Oh my, this year sure won't be short on man candy. And they're also going to send a song in Azeri for the first time ever so kudos to them for that decision.

[quote]Apparently this is the guy that is singing for Azerbaijan this year

r169 Oh, gods, are you serious right now? [italic]Sploosh.[/italic]

The video at r160, if you didn’t notice, is recreating a bunch of famous Italian sculptures. The Pieta by Michelangelo, David by Michelangelo, The ecstasy of St Theresa by Bernini, Cupid and Psyche, Venus and Adonis, Seated Hermes, Repentant Magdalene ... sweet for art buffs.

Back to Eurovision. So is Iceland going to protest on stage or will Mosad get to them first? I like the performance element in Portugal’s entry but the song and singing don’t make sense to me. It is, after all, The Eurovision Song Conest.

r159 I only spotted that song now and gosh, that spoken intro made me fuzzy all over. It's like a kiss from the inside. If his singing career doesn't pan out, he definitely has a bright future in erotic ASMR videos.

r168 That's really sweet what you wrote and I'm sure Conan would appreciate it.

R171 The problem with those Hatari guys is that they give all the interviews in character so it's hard to tell if they're serious or just trolling for attention. They did say they'd like to engage in a wrestling match with Netanyahu so it's probably the latter.

I doubt we'll see any protests onstage but we can definitely expect more crazy statements like that one from them.

Here's an example of how Hatari guys act in interviews. Miss Hera Bjork, who's seated right next to them, doesn't seem too amused.

Iceland already pulled a similar stunt back in 2006, when they sent some comedienne pretending to be a crazy diva to Eurovision. Most of the people weren't in on the joke so she was loudly booed during her performance.

YouTube keeps recommending me people's reactions to this year's Eurovision songs and I've noticed these reactions rack up tens of thousands of views within days. I sometimes forget how big Eurovision is in certain places.

r174 Eugh, I don't know if I like that. Comes across as bratty more than funny. Poor Hera, who is a consummate pro.

R174: I remember Silvia Night. The song was kind of catchy with terrible lyrics (and yes, she was booed, a lot)

Here are some of Silvia's outbursts. I love it when she calls Carola "that fucking old bitch from Sweden". Icelanders are masters when it comes to trolling.

Well, that's a perfect definition of Carola

r177 Ah, Greece before the fall. It's like peeking into another era, isn't it?

R178 Homophobic old bitch from Sweden would be an even better description. Let's not forget how Carola once said homosexuality can be cured through prayer. I hope that cunt thanks her Lord on her knees every day that she said those things years before twitter and facebook were around because if she said something like that today she'd be dragged through the mud (and deservedly so).

Now what did I come here to post again?! Oh, yes - Cypriot song has just premiered. It sounds exactly like their last year's entry, only with different lyrics and some extra horn sounds in the chorus. They finished second last year (their best result ever) so they obviously think they found a formula for success and are sticking to it.

I usually hate songs like this but since this year is rather short on trashy pop bangers I won't complain about it. And I have to admit it is kind of catchy. But I seriously doubt Tamta is gonna be able to top Eleni's uber slutty, hair-flipping performance from last year.

Some more info about Tamta - she's actually Georgian (I guess there's no doubt about who Georgia is giving their douze points to this year) and she got married and gave birth to her daughter when she was just 14 (her hubby was 16). She was already a divorcee by the time she turned 20. It all sounds very white-trashy, doesn't it?

Here she is shopping with her daughter, who is now 24 already. You'd never guess this is a photo of a mother walking around with her kid.

r181 The white-trashiness of it all, far too much! And the daughter looks older than her mother, yikes.

Another white-trashy Eurovision family pic: one of the Hatari members (he's the one who always wears that creepy mask on his face) with one of their backup dancers and their kid.

And I thought my dad had a funky fashion sense...

I'm... kinda liking the Greek entry? Feels almost American/British in its production, impressive. Her vocals are a bit funky, though, like they weren't recorded in a proper studio or something. Can't quite put my finger on it but it's off somehow. Anyway, I'm interested in what she sounds like live.

[quote]No pain, no gain... And I can’t hide it, I won’t fight this yearning feeling inside... Go on, hold on for dear life... Go deep with me...

She singing about fisting?

r183 The Icelanders have to be extra weird or they'd die of boredom. Sorry, but it's the truth.

I don't like the Greek song very much but I concur - the production values on the song are strikingly good. I was also surprised how good her English pronunciation is (because Greek singers usually have very thick accents) so I went to her wiki page and found out she's Canadian. While I'm still losing sleep over last year's Greek non-qualification, I couldn't care less whether this one makes it to the final or not.

But I am one of the few people who love the Georgian entry. The song itself is a bit of a downer and it could definitely use a revamp but it's his raspy vocals, the Georgian language and that expressive intense gaze of his that make this performance stand out for me. But the singer reminds me of Toulouse-Lautrec. Now I can't figure out if he actually has some sort of a growth disorder or if it's just that unfortunate cut of his pants and the weird coat length that make his legs look so short.

And LOL at the juror who gets up at the end of the song and starts dancing. This is the last song I ever expected to see someone dance to. Apparently the whole Georgian national final was painful to watch - they had only four songs competing but it lasted for nearly four hours.

Here's another unintentionally funny photo of Hatari, posing with a young fan of theirs on the streets of Reykjavik (that's the guy from the creepy family pic above on the right).

That is a very courageous little boy - if my parents made me pose for a pic like that when I was his age I'd probably wet my pants.

r185 Yeah, the big head with the tight fit on the upper body, and then oversized everything below the belt all serve to give him the unfortunate Lautrec look. I won't post his wedding pic here as this is a sacred space, but he looks normal in it and elsewhere as well. Bitch was seriously hot when he was younger. The song is fine if a bit too intense for me, and it needs some rearranging here and there.

r186 They're so fucking weird, I want them to win now.

[quote]they had only four songs competing but it lasted for nearly four hours.

😱😱😱

R187 Most of the show consisted of the four contestants receiving various gifts from sponsors. That must have been super fun for them but slightly less fun for the viewers.

Another day, another twink we can add to the Eurovision line-up: Luca Hänni has been revealed as the Swiss representative (with a crappy song, unsurprisingly). But this is an old pic - he's a bit more butch these days.

Here's butch Luca. He looks super hot from certain angles but straight-up ugly from others.

r189 He must have been thirteen there because he looks butch af now.

Hatari up-close-and-personal clip. I love them and want them to win.

I'd love to see them win too but it's never gonna happen. They will probably do well in televote but I expect them to do badly with the juries. Last year juries awarded most points to Austria and Sweden, two of the blandest and most uninspired songs in the contest (I have no idea why those Swedish fuckers get so much love from the juries every year) so a crazy act like Hatari's probably won't go down well with them.

R193: I don't agree, Austria was in fact one of the best songs of the contest (it was a very weak year, i know) and Sweden, well juries always love Sweden (with the exception of Eric Saade). Frankly i think Israel was way worse than both.

Juries failed miserably to Italy, they had a great song and televote awarded them, but generally televote is worse than juries. I can't forgive they made that crap fest that was Russia 2012 end second (i will never be grateful enough to Loreen to block that crapstatic song from winning).

Iceland will do well if they are able to reach the final. They failed with way better songs than this year's one

I didn't enjoy Italy's screaming last year. At all.

Israel's was kooky and an earworm to end all earworms. That's why it won. Which is probably why Spain will win this year. CAYOOOO! Blech.

I'm totally surprised by the fact that eurofans are liking Spain this year. When the song was selected there was some controversy, it was pretty clear they were giving Miki more chances when they get him three songs (while other contestants had zero), then there was the clear fact that María (who was the favourite) and Natalia didn't want to participate in Eurovision (both weren't fans of the contest and weren't exactly thrilled to go to Israel) both asked their fans to vote for Miki, and people seemed to like the song more by the time he was selected.

The song is a charanga, popular music for summer nights on small village festivities. I thought it would be trashed by eurofans but they seem to like it. I doubt juries will be crazy and traditionally Spain does terribly bad with televote, but at it'll probably do better than the last four years

Well, thank heavens that tastes differ, but I still think last year's Austrian song was an ode to cheesiness and mediocrity. It broke my heart that juries ranked that song first and the brilliant Portuguese one second-to-last.

But Swedes were obviously taking notes during the Austrian performance because it looks like they will be sending something very similar to Israel this year: a black guy singing an annoying pop-gospel song. Pure jury-bait from them once more.

Fun news clip from Iceland, Hatari are ahit with the kids!

R198 Stinky linky! Let me fix that for you.

R197: Portugal deserved way better, it was one of the best songs in competition but juries didn't care at all. Well, juries failed to Finland 2017 too

Netherlands yass yass yass

r201 Oh, but that's gorgeous!

The Swiss song is your generic hetero obnoxiousness but damn, that boy can dance. Even more so than that Swedish twink last year who put a spell on me. Can't wait to see him move on the stage in Tel Aviv and objectify the crap out of him. And he looks like Xavier Dolan from certain angles in this video, so he gets extra points for that from me.

San Marino says na na na ...

Garbage. And I'm sorry but his accent is killing me.

The Dutch song isn't doing much for me but I can totally see why people love it so much (it's already # 2 on the betting charts). I think with a good staging it will easily finish in the Top 5. And the Swiss entry will probably be like 'Fuego' last year - a crappy song totally uplifted by an energetic choreography.

We're getting 5 new songs today. But it's already become apparent that the first semi-final will be the difficult one this year. I think we can safely say San Marino, Finland and Montenegro won't advance from that one but it's gonna be a real bloodbath for a ticket to the grand final among the rest of the countries. The second one has much crappier songs this year (it was actually the same last year).

San Marino always the basic bitch of Eurovision

NEVER FORGET

San Marino gave us Queen Valentina and is the last of the microstates still competing so I have a soft spot for them. And I'm glad they finally got rid of Ralph Siegel who held them hostage for nearly a decade. There was some talk of Liechtenstein joining for the first time this year as well, to mark its 300th birthday, but then nothing came of it.

Irish and Austrian songs have already been released today but they're both so boring they're not even worth posting.

That Dutch song is 💤 😴 boringness

It's beautiful boringness, though.

[quote]There was some talk of Liechtenstein joining for the first time this year as well, to mark its 300th birthday, but then nothing came of it.

Their TV director of many years died, and so they cancelled it. It's also a big financial expense for them, so I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

[quote]The broadcaster was vying to become an EBU member and compete in the Eurovision Song Contest but its plans have been halted due to the sudden demise of Mr. Peter Kolbel (1 FLT TV director). Mr. Kolbel was working earnestly in order to bring the landlocked country to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Those Liechtensteiners are so fucking stingy. Their prince alone is worth $3.5 billion (and is the richest non-Arab royal in the world).

They should be dragged to hell and back in that European Royals Gossip thread.

I googled how much Eurovision participation actually costs and it doesn't come cheap - in 2016 Holland paid 500.000 € for the whole thing. Half of that went to EBU and the rest was spent on the song, trip to the contest etc. Their song was internally selected that year so the costs would be even higher if they had a national selection to organize as well.

Of course Liechtenstein wouldn't have to pay so much to EBU because each country pays a different fee, depending on the number of potential viewers in that country, and given the fact that Liechtenstein has about 12 inhabitants they'd probably pay a whole lot less. And if San Marino can deal with those expenses I'm sure that Alpine tax haven could too, if they only had enough interest. I think they don't really have it and they just used the death of that guy as an excuse.

I think Eurovision was that guy's pet project and so a lot of the organizational knowledge he had around that was lost when he died. That's why they delayed the decision for at least two more years. I'm sure that happens a lot in such a small country.

Here's Azeri song. This is such a disappointment: it was rumored to be an ethnic-sounding song sung in Azeri but it turns out it's just another cookie-cutter pop song in fucking English. Screw them! I hope they miss the final this year too.

The singer is still hot, though. And it looks like underwater-themed videos are very popular this year. I wonder if that has something to do with Aquaman?

r217 I like the video, the beat, and some of the vocal elements in isolation but on the whole, that is one of the more forgettable entries. And the handsome singer can't dance for shit, which is a shame.

That fabulous Christine Baranski-looking broad in the video, though... exactly how I imagine myself going out when it's my time at the crematorium, a hundred years hence. I say send those fuckers downstairs a message of who's about to arrive.

The garish pearl-encrusted muzzle would be a step too far, right? Yeah, I thought so. Take one thing off before you go up in flames, just like Coco advised...

The Austrians are going to send us all into collective depression, aren't they? I love the artist's name, though - Pænda. We need more ligatures, just in general.

Men of Eurovision 2019. Well, some of them.

I want more of this.

R221 The idiot who made that collage left out the sexiest one of them all. I'd pick daddy Serhat over at least half of those guys.

R220 What a dud of a song! One would expect more from a country that gave us Mozart, Haydn and DJ Ötzi.

Here's another morose song that's going to stick out like a sore thumb in Tel Aviv. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but this is just not the right place for that, I think.

Oh, and Macedonia is finally ditching that horrific FYROM abbreviation and will be competing as North Macedonia for the first time this year.

Poor North Macedonia - this is going to be their 7th year in a row without seeing the final. If they fail to qualify next year too they'll match Holland's streak of 8 consecutive non-qualifications between 2005-12.

But I'm still surprised Greeks agreed to let them use a name like North Macedonia. Didn't they originally oppose to any name that included the word "Macedonia"?

At least Macedonian duo won last year's Barbara Dex award for the worst dressed Eurovision act of 2018. That's got to count for something, right?!

I liked Macedonia's song last year, it was weird but it worked for me. What didn't worked was their performance, that was simply bad

r226 I hate cheap wardrobe gimmicks like those. Probably had nothing to do with the song either.

[quote]Didn't they originally oppose to any name that included the word "Macedonia"?

r225 They did, but then the recession happened and the Greek diplomatic might on the world stage waned substantially. Humiliated and spanked by the troika, they weren't in any position to be putting ultimatums on anyone. Still aren't, really. So I feel like the Macedonians got a pretty good deal there.

Ireland's is a cute little bop, but not really well-suited to Eurovision.

The ridiculously hyped Russian song is finally gonna see the light of day today, around 16:00 CET. Let's mark this festive occasion by this bizarre photo of Sergey Vyacheslavovich's naked booty.

The Spanish guy is shredded for the gods, yet remains fully clothed in his music video. Bad branding 101.

I'll eat my hat if the Ruskies win with this Lion King shit.

Oh, Sergey Vyacheslavovich, what terrible thing have we done to deserve an awful song like that?! I knew not to expect much, because that snippet already sounded like shit, but this is BAD! I mean, the orchestration is nice and he sounds great (and we all know he can sing live as well) but the song is just one big cheesefest.

But these are still Russkies we're talking about so we can expect a big-budget visual spectacle from them and a good placing. But yeah, there's no way this is winning. The Netherlands already pushed Russia from the top spot on the betting charts (not that that song is any better).

Russia will win televote, maybe not for a big margin like he did in 2016. He is a great singer and knows how to perform, so no matter how bad the song is he'll do a good job. A different thing is the juries, they weren't impressed by You are the only one performance (when it's one of the best performances in Eurovision history) and the split vote showed that a lot of countries that give votes to Russia did it due to televote but their juries weren't so generous.

Anyway, after last year big faliure i expect Russia to be one of the top contenders this year

The jejune masses will fall hook, line and sinker for all that engineered belting, mark me. Only the juries can save us from their deplorable win now, just like r234 said.

Eurgh, please don't let next year's Eurovision take place in Moscow. Such a depressing thought.

The biggest Eurovision country is without a doubt Sweden. It is always huge celebration in Globen, big arena in Stockholm. Semi finals are held in different parts of the country. Tonight it is time for final in Globen. Melodifestivalen will begin in one minute.

Still the reigning queen for a couple more hours!

R237 That butterface isn't competing in Melodifestivalen this year but a song he co-wrote for Bishara is. The lyrics he wrote are unintentionally hilarious: Bishara is 16 (but looks more like he's 12) but he's singing lines more fit for someone a bit more sexually mature.

But this is the big favorite to win tonight. I can't stand this song - it seems calculative and the singer has the must punchable face I've seen since watching Alexander Rybak last year. But Eurovision juries will probably be creaming themselves over this one, knowing how much they love crappy Swedish songs every year.

Melodifestivalen usually brings out some hot guys. One of hosts is Eric Saade

Jon Henrik Fjällgren is from north and has tried to win in several years. He usually sings about his home area.

Jon Henrik again

R238: Juries have orgasms with Sweden every year (with the exception of poor Eric Saade) but i think televote will be a different story unless they send an Euphoria type of song. Most swedish songs in recent years seem to calculated to win, and the poor guy suffered the tired effect last year (the fact that he badmouthed some of the competence didn't help him either). He put a great show and even i don't like the song at all, it was better than most but he failed miserably at televote

Liamoo (Liam Cacatian Thomassen)

Are all these guys gay? Just curious.

Probably not all, but this seems to be a very gay year (and Eurovision is pretty gay every year)

Charlotte with new fillers in her face and Dana International in Globen

I only recently found out Charlotte was only 33 at 2008 Eurovision - she looked like an over-surgeried 50 something to me. That's the thing about cosmetic surgery - if you start getting work done too soon it will actually make you look older.

R238 He won.

r247 She's also using harsh dark makeup there that needlessly ages her about twenty years.

r248 I hate it. And he keep flirting with the camera like my Benji last year and it's so. not. working.

*keeps

The annoying black guy from Sweden also co-wrote this year's British song. Another person who received credit on that song was Laurell Barker who, in turn, also worked on the dreadful German and Swiss entries this year. These incestous relationships are the exact reason it sometimes feels like you're listening to the same song over and over again when watching Eurovision: they're all written by a handful of mediocre writers, who seem to specialize in writing Eurovision bops and their work rarely reflects the local music scene of the countries they're supposed to be representing and usually sounds very uncontemporary.

This is also the reason Eurovision feels so detached from the actual music industry and that most serious musicians consider the contest a joke. Organizers of national selections should stop supporting these hacks and try to attract a more varied ensemble of composers and songwriters to the contest, even those who're creating music that's more indie, folksy or avant-garde. And local composers, if possible - that Barker woman isn't even from Europe.

Miss Charlotte Perrelli at tonight's Melodifestivalen. She doesn't even look like a human specie anymore. This is definitely not the kind of photo I should be looking at right before going to bed.

R252 she looked plastic. Why oh why?

The moment camera zoomed to her... shocking

Do we have any Swedes around here? Was Miss Perrelli ever asked about her cosmetic procedures in any interviews or is that a giant elephant in the room?

Another victim of bad cosmetic procedures is miss Sanja Vučić, who sang for Serbia in 2016 (and had one of the best songs that year). She was the interval act of the Serbian national selection last week and I could not believe that was the same person. Those lips look simply tragic! She's 25 now but I shudder to think what she's going to look like by the time she's 30.

R256: What a pity. The song was very good and she was fantastic and deserved way better on the contest

The Maltese song makes me happy, I'm sorry. It's just so joyous.

The Maltese song is just a leftover from last year's Bulgarian internal selection.

And apparently the Dutch singer is bisexual as well. Are there any male singers who are actually straight competing this year?!

The spanish one is stragiht

R259 recap me amo the gays and the bis, please

Israel's entry is dirge-y.

The Israeli authorities are currently debating whether to allow the Icelandic team entry into Israel or not because of their political views. Great free publicity for them.

The Israeli guy is so purty but the song sucks. I'm also furious to see Russia and Sweden doing so well with the bookies - if those two songs were chosen by any other country they'd be scraping the bottom of the charts. The Russian song actually reminds me of the awful shouty Croatian one, which everyone hates.

And I think Sweden has become my least-favorite Eurovison country, because they never take any risk with their songs. This will now be 5th year in a row that they will be sending a male singer with a forgettable pop song in English to the contest. But who can blame them for sticking to that formula, since the juries obviously have a love affair with them and always richly reward them for that trash.

[quote]I'm also furious to see Russia and Sweden doing so well with the bookies

I'm always angry with Russia as a matter of personal policy, but I'm [italic]fuming[/italic] at the fact that Sweden is doing so well. That song is hot garbage! I'm just stumped here.

This is the guy who is co-hosting the show this year. Sheesh! All those hot Jews walking around and this is the best they could come up with?!

At least Assi Azar who will be reporting from the green room is much easier on the eyes (and is also openly gay):

More Assi hotness (to make everyone forget about the pic I posted at R265):

r266 Well, you just sent me down the Insta rabbit hole. He's hot and so is his man.

That geeky guy's co-host is going to be Bar Refaeli, who is curently being prosecuted for tax evasion along with her other family members. Let's hope Miss Refaeli doesn't have any court hearings scheduled for May.

But I sure hope they nail her bony, tax-evasing ass. I always thought she was one of the most overrated supermodels around.

I thought for sure they'd pull some strings and get a high-profile American Jew actor to host this thing. Jon Bernthal, anyone? He's Ashkenazi so that counts, right? He could host after losing the Punisher gig and his glorious sex nose could be the other host. Everyone in the audience and at home would have been spellbound by his Big Dick Energy.

Though I suspect Natalie Portman denouncing the current government as racist scared celebs off.

Heads of Eurovision delegations at yesterday's meeting in Tel Aviv. Not a terribly attractive bunch.

^^ I see you, French (Dutch?) snack in the back, I see you.

R272 That's Steven Clerima. Close-ups are slightly less kind to him than large group shots are.

Aw, he's cute. But he just needs to smile at all times in closeups.

Russia and Sweden are going to do well with bookies at least at first because they are countries that generally do well on Eurovision. Ii doubt they stay very high with the pass of time (even when it's quite obvious that Sweden will do well with juries and Russia with televote).

With eurofans it seems the clear favourites are The Netherlands and Italy right now.

Anwyay things change a lot even the week of the contest. Chypre was not even one of the faves to get into the final last year

So what now? We wait for the radio play and their Insta game to ramp up until Tel Aviv? I always thought this period between the announcement of the acts and the final event was too long. American gays have it so much better because there's only a month between the Oscars nominations being announced and the ceremony taking place.

[quote]Chypre

Clocked the francophone.

Ooo, ooh - I think the Dutch guy is in trouble. Hans Pannecoucke has been revealed as the artistic director of his performance and that guy is known for his really unimaginative and boring stagings in the past (Spain 2017, Belgium 2018...) I think most people love Holland this year because of that really effective video and I can't really see them transferring that atmosphere onstage, at least not with Pannecoucke in charge. Duncan can already kiss good placing goodbye.

Armenia's entry is odd. A bunch of hot men beating the shit out the the female singer.

Oh, and lots of bondage.

Eurovision isn't fun anymore.

r278 They better all be shirtless on the stage in Tel Aviv. Love the part from 2:19 to 2:34.

How so, r279?

Apparently talks with Madge regarding her appearance are going very well. But something still tells me this isn't happening. I think sooner or later one of Madge's friends in Portugal will pull her to side and explain to her what a joke this contest is and that it would be beneath a star like her to appear there. But I sure hope I'm mistaken.

Why didn't she appear last year when the contest was taking place basically outside of her house, though? And the venue was less political as well. Her manager sucks.

R280 - The songs. So dull.

This Euros don’t understand that only a native English speaker can write decent lyrics in English.

R284 Not true. The cringiest Eurovision songs are often written by Americans or Brits. Here's the chorus from this year's Croatian song, written by an American songwriter Charlie Mason:

[quote] I dream of love, you dream of love, Angels of God, we are dream of love. I dream of love, you dream of love, Angels of God, we are dream of love.

r284 But the majority of the Eurovision audience doesn't have English as their mother tongue, and so they're unable to discern what sounds decent to a native speaker and what doesn't. Your point is moot unless the US joins the competition and the quality of the lyrics suddenly becomes important to gain votes.

German song was also written by an American. Here's the refrain:

[quote] I'm sorry, sorry for the drama. I tried to steal your thunder, turns out that I don't wanna

And let's not forget UK's 2010 song, with these brilliant lyrics (written by a bunch of Brits, of course):

[quote] So if you bring the sunshine, I'll bring the good times. Just add your laughter, it's happy ever after. I don't know about you but that sounds good to me

You misunderstand me. Of course native English speakers can write horrible lyrics. It happens all the time. But also, ONLY native English speakers can write decent lyrics in English.

That's not true, and there are plenty of examples in american lilterature that prove that a good bunch of not native english speakers are able to write amazingly in english,

This is eurovision, cheese lyrics are expected, specially because the eurofans had a tendency to ignore the lyrics and the message of the songs

R289 I guess you're right.

There's a line in Sergey Lazarev's song that really bothers me: "Tears aren't quiet things". There's nothing wrong with it grammatically but it just sounds super odd and it's obvious it was written by someone who's not a native English speaker and who probably translated it word-for-word from Russian.

r289 I mean, I'm sure lyrically-minded people who have studied English at a university level could write decent lyrics in English. Or those whose second language in their household was English.

"Decent" is a pretty low bar. Say "genius" instead and I'm right there with you.

Mahmood's Instagram is so boring. It's just him doing that intense stare over and over again. Does he even have any personality, beyond "serious artist"? Where are the puppies and the kittens and the goofiness?!

Not that the Dutch guy is any better, mind you. Hopefully, they all start posting something more interesting as we get closer to the final. Your Insta can always revert back to being tastefully bland [italic]after[/italic] Tel Aviv, you guys. This is not the time for business as usual.

Looks like Mahmood has modelled himself as the Italian Frank Ocean. So I guess the intense stares are part of that schtick.

[bold]Madonna, Eurovision production said fighting over song choice[/bold]

[quote]Singer Madonna is threatening to pull out of her planned performance at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel in May due to a dispute over her choice of songs, Hebrew media reported Wednesday.

[quote]The disagreement is said to center on one song in particular — a new unreleased single that deals with US politics. While producers have asked Madonna to leave the song out of her set due to its potentially divisive nature, she is said to be insisting on its inclusion, threatening to cancel her participation.

[quote]Channel 12 news reported that Madonna is expected to perform for about 15 minutes towards the end of the Eurovision finals, as votes from around the world are counted and ahead of the announcement of the winning entry.

R295 15 minutes? One song would be more than enough.

Doesn't that period where we wait for the votes to come in last around 15 minutes and is usually filled with a song medley of some sort anyway? I can't be the only one who would rather hear Madonna than a couple of awful new songs from Netta. Or the hosts cracking jokes.

Let's have a huge star perform during that period at least once and we'll see what happens. We can still revert to normal next year.

Who in the world wants to hear Madonna's crappy new music?! People want to see a medley of her greatest hits. But she has a new single coming out next month (and a new album later this year) so she'll probably use this opportunity to promote it.

Perhaps the new single will be a banger? Wouldn't bet on it myself, but still...

Mahmood's boyfriend found! Paparazzi caught them both out and about!

Mahmood ended up on gossip magazine's cover this week in Italy with his supposed boyfriend

God bless the paps! Well, I guess he does smile after all. They're cute and he's young and living in a macho country so will understand the importance of not being ashamed and standing up proudly and being counted when he's a bit older.

Loving all the breeders getting triggered in the comments, as per the uzh. "Why is this news?!?!1?!" First of all, bitch, he didn't give a presser announcing his partner; he was literally photographed in secret. Second of all, cunt, this was published in a gossip rag so it's not news; in fact, it's the exact opposite of a news article. Now go back to tending to your crotchfruit, knowing you'll never be half as fabulous or interesting as these two.

Ahem. There goes my monthly allowance of rants.

Two rockets have been fired at Tel Aviv today, for the first time in 5 years. Let's hope the rockets won't scare Madonna away.

Yes, I see it's trending on Twitter right now. Let's be real, Madonna is probably celebrating, thinking it'll raise her profile even more.

So much for Europeans respecting people’s private lives and not caring about sexual orientation. Those Mahmood pap shots are intrusive as hell and I don’t think there’s been similar pressure to out any other European celebrity.

Aren't most pap shots intrusive? That's exactly what people buy gossip mags for. Besides, they were in a public place visible to many other people; it's not like the camera captured what they were doing in their bedroom.

You're being weirdly homophobic with that comment about "not caring about sexual orientation". You'd never have brought that up if this had been Mahmood photographed canoodling with a woman, even thought heterosexuality is also a sexual orientation. Of course we fucking care and there's nothing shameful about that. And it's the straight people across the world who primarily care about sexual orientation; hence the marriage inequality, discrimination, and outright criminalization.

Anyway, I don't want this to turn into the Mahmood thread so here are all the participants and the hosts, with little helpful flags in the corners. Spot that one couple who looks like they're about to die of leukaemia at any moment because of the horrible lighting.

R306 The Austrian singer looks exactly like Nina Kraljić (the Croatian representative in 2016). And the Slovenian couple really does look scary and not just because of the bad lightning. There's something about that girl's face that creeps the shit out of me. If she were a bit more slant-eyed she'd look like those creepy girls from Asian horror films. I still love their song though.

By the way, if you want to feel super old watch this video where all of the contestants are sorted by age, from the oldest to the youngest one. I'm in my late 20s but this video even got me depressed. There are people born in 2002 competing this year! Jesus Christ, they weren't even born yet when the first part of Lord of the Rings trilogy came out!

But some of them definitely look much older than their actual age.

Apparently the Norwegian lady was born in 1996. It must be those bad Scandinavian genes taking their toll on her face already.

r307 Ah, the late 20s freakout. You know, it'll only get worse with each passing year if you focus on their youth. The trick that helps me as a 30-year-old now is the sure knowledge that we are all going to be equally dead a hundred years hence. And yes, I saw the first LOTR in a movie theatre, praying to all the gods that I remain forever young and radiant like Cate Blanchett. And that my bladder doesn't burst before the end of the movie.

The Slovenian couple looks pale and sickly, like they haven't slept in a week. Perhaps they're going for the pity vote? Underhanded if so. The Norwegian lady at r308 looks old only because her foundation is too dark. She needs a makeup artist to show her the ropes. And a hairstylist because the slicked-back hair on top and then a huge mane below makes her look decidedly equine. Like a cute little Norwegian pony you want to feed almonds to.

On the other hand the czech Republic looks way younger than he is.

And curiously i thought the older one on the Montenegro group was the younger

Roger Waters from Pink Floyd is pressuring Portugals Conan Osiris to boycott the festival....

Curiously nobody protested when the festival was in Azerbaijan or Russia, none of those countries are known for their respect of human rights.

I think Waters has a high concept of himself, but Osiris went to the portuguese selection knowing the festival will be held in Israel.

Anyway, this year the songs are way better than last one

Here's a fun interview with Conan - he just seems like such an easy-going and unpretentious guy. The only thing I hate about him is that he believes in zodiac signs. Really?!

But he claims to be single in this interview. Didn't someone above say that he's been together with his backup dancer for years?

Where's that Portuguese insider so we can roast him alive for providing us with false info?

[quote]The only thing I hate about him is that he believes in zodiac signs. Really?!

We all have our (irrational) vices, Judgy McJudgerson.

I usually root for Portugal but i'm unable to get their song this year. Of course that doesn't mean a thing, i loved their song last year and they ended last, and eurofans seem to like the song.

Right now betting odds are not reliable at all, Sweden and Russia are very high only relying on pass success. I suppose Russia will end top 5 (but i doubt he has real chances of winning because i doubt juries will vote massively for him) but even with the juries undying love i don't think Sweden will do well this year.

There are songs flying under the radar (Armenia is a perfect example) that have way more potential

Speaking of vices, I've been obsessed with the Swiss guy's video at r203 lately. I know, I'm so embarrassed, and I try not to listen to the nasty douchebag lyrics. But it's so rare to see a lead singer who dances better than his backup dancers. And the way he says "talk" and "stop" is pure sex; I feel it deep in my taint.

Here's another one of his performances where he dances shirtless. Don't you just feel starved for some Swiss cheese after watching that?

If Switzerland and Cyprus reach the final, one or maybe the both will flop hard. They have too similar rhythm and of course both sound like the bastard songs of Fuego

I think Cyprus is going to flop hard. I went to YT to see what Tamta looks like in action - she's built like an anorexic 12-year old boy and can't dance her way out of a paper bag. She's no Eleni, that's for sure and people waiting for her performance to be Fuego 2.0 are going to be very disappointed.

She's actually so thin it's kind of scary looking at her. I hope they'll shove a couple of fattening falafels down her anorexic throat in Israel.

r318 She looks... bizarre. She gets whiter the closer to the head you get, and that platinum blond mane is so gross.

Also, where's the mic? Are you telling me she's lip syncing her own song and she still can't be arsed to dance properly?

Miss Jacques Houdek is currently appearing in Zagreb in Jesus Christ Superstar, playing the role of King Herod. Jesus Christ (no pun intended) - did he get even bigger since 2017 or is it just me? Tamta's anorexic body suddenly doesn't look so bad anymore.

But I'm happy for Roko that Jacques is busy doing this show - at least he'll get some much-needed break from that tub of lard in the next few weeks.

^^ DL Icon alert!!!

Another pic. I also read somewhere that they finally decided to revamp the shitty Croatian song a bit - the problem is that the deadline for that was March 11th. Aparently EBU charges fines for all the changes made to the songs after that date.

I guess Miss Houdek finally realized that they're in a bit of a trouble after they saw how poor Croatia with the bookies. But I doubt any revamp could possibly save that horrid song.

Wasnt't Houdek and homophobe. Yes, i know he pings to high heaven but if my memory doesn't fail he made some homophobic comments back in the day.

The odds right now don't mean i think. Everybody was mocking Moldova last year but after the rehearsals they went up in the odds and did well on the festival.

Even in my opinion it was very crappy no matter what, the first semi was considered the stronger one (and it was given the results of the final), but some faves like Greece and Belgium were eliminated while song nobody expected in the final like Albania and Ireland made the final.

Eleni and César were not even sure shots to the final before the rehearsals.

In my opinion Switzerland, Cyprus and Malta will get a hard time to survive the comparisions with Eleni. The songs are too similark, Fuego is not a good song, but Eleni is a fantastic performer

He's a raging homophobe, R323, and, yes, a very very obvious sad closet case. He was voted Homophobe of the Year a couple of years ago.

Croatia's going to bomb badly, from what I've seen on social media. I wonder what the reworked song will sound like. I want to hear Italy's reworked one as well. When do those get released, anyway?

I look forward to Houdek's tantrum.

I imagine it's quite the spectacle whenever she pitches a fit, yes.

Let's take a trip down the memory lane, to last May to be precise, when Miss Houdek suffered a hissy fit on FB after Salvador Sobral said he didn't like the Israeli song. This was a hoot to read.

The croatian kid can sing for sure unfortunately the song doesn't help him at all (and neither the angel wings)

LOL

r328 I remember that and while I agree with the general sentiment, I can't get over the theatrics of it all.

[quote]You tried so hard to portray yourself as a humble man, as a true artist, and you may have tricked the entire Europe, but you did not fool me!

"You are not humble and you have fooled the entire Europe, except for ME." So much for being humble...

To be fair i'm a little tired of Salvador's crap. Yes, the song was great and he has talent but i don't really like incoherent people. He started on the portuguese version of american idol, and then he badmouthed the show, i can understand he was young and didn't know all the burdens of going to a talent show. But frankly, nobody forced him to go to eurovision and his hollier than thou attitude is very tiresome

I still think this should have won in Croatia this year. Yes, it sounds totally dated (like something from Eurovison 2003) but it's dated in a fun way, unlike Roko's song which sounds outdated in the worst and most annoying way possible.

But her English pronunciation was pretty bad. I still can't decipher the first two lines of the song (something about love and diamonds?!)

R332 I agree, he's super annoying. He badmouthed Eurovision again in a recent interview - he said entering Eurovision felt like he was prostituting himself.

r333 Awful on just about every level except for the high notes. So, so dated, just like you said. And she sounds horrible when she's struggling to vomit all those lyrics out.

[quote]But her English pronunciation was pretty bad. I still can't decipher the first two lines of the song (something about love and diamonds?!)

Hoo, boy, you weren't joking, were you? What [italic]was[/italic] that?! It's like she memorized that whole block of words phonetically and has no idea what she's actually saying. Trim the lyrics down next time, gurl.

Mahmood still in the paparazzi's sight...

Fight with the "boyfriend" in the middle of a street?

pleeeeease

......

R335 Official lyrics haven't been posted yet but some people claim that the very first line of the song is "My love is a soldier in exodus". I think the songwriter of that song should be blamed, for making a 16-year old girl (yeah, she actually is 16, though she looks more like a 30-year old to me) sing such tongue twisters in English.

Omg, messy Italian gay drama! Don't fight in the public, girls. Never in the public. The pap who snapped those photo probably came on the spot. Too bad there isn't a video to go along.

r339 She's 16?! Okay, you need to stop now, I can't take much more.

I think Mahmood should pay a little less attention to his boyfriend and a little more attention to promoting his song. We literally haven't heard a peep from him in weeks and he's even skipping that Eurovision concert in Amsterdam next month that front-runners usually attend. He should be working his ass off on a promotional circuit across Europe right now, not having love quarrels in public.

Of course promoting your song like crazy doesn't always work- it sure didn't for poor Francesco two years ago but it definitely did the trick for that fat Israeli cow last year, who somehow also managed to convince everyone that her silly pop song is an important part of the #MeToo movement along the way.

Perhaps they're fighting over the reworked song?

I jest, but you're totally right. I bet the Italians are as pissed right now as they are amused.

R341: The problem with Francesco was very simple, the song didn't work on stage. It was funny and catchy as hell (that's the reason it was an early favourite) but underperformed big time. That song was never intended to slay with juries but it was supposed to do with televote. It did well anyway, but 6 was a bit of a dissapointment (anyway, it wouldn't be the first time that a favourite flop hard on the final or even miss the final, so it was not that bad)

R343 It didn't work on the Eurovision stage but his performance in San Remo was pure magic. That's often the problem with Italian songs - they work great on smaller stages, with live orchestra and more intimate atmopshere, but then they don't translate well to those gigantic Eurovision arenas. And Francesco also sounded very tired, which probably had something to do with promoting his song so hard and attending almost every event he was invited to.

Italia is my favourite country since they came back. Not every year they were regarded for sending good songs but most years they did very well

Sometimes a song just don't translate well live on that big stage, but sometimes the live performance changes everything, i remember not getting all the fuss about Belgium 2015 but then he started singing and that was amazing.

It will depend of the songs that reach the final but this seems a good year. 2014 and 2015 were pretty good but last year was terrible

Sobral is such an holier-than-tou asshole. I'm sorry he's ill but he's just a bitch.

At least Sobral looks somewhat decent these days because he looked like a homeless person around the time he won (I could almost smell him from my TV screen).

Yeah, his complexion certainly looks much healthier these days. Like he's glowing, almost.

Youtuber "Jake’s Face Reacts" posted a video a few days ago (which has since been taken down) where he said that representatives of one of the competing entries offered him a hefty sum of money in exchange for a glowing video review of their song.

I always thought those reaction videos were phony as hell.

r350 You just know that's Azerbaijan. They're probably the only ones whose expenses aren't audited back home. I would have taken the offer, honestly.

Can't believe the video of just him reacting to last year's Serbian entry has 254k views. That shit seems crazy, but also shows you there's clearly demand for these videos. Lord knows I've wasted days on watching GoT and Buffy reactions.

R351 Most people actually think it's either Malta or Armenia. Those two countries also both managed to get more than 3 million views each in little more than a week on YT which is also very suspicious.

Malta similary led a very agressive campaign in 2016. Lots of youtubers were given a chance to hear their song that year even before its official release, so they could post *exclusive* reaction videos to it (and they all just happened to be very favorable).

r352 Oh, right, I had completely forgotten about that Maltese covfefe with the million views in one day. Armenia wouldn't surprise me either.

Hasn't one delegation been scammed out of tens of thousands of euros by a fictitious hotel this year? Now [italic]that[/italic] one had to be Azerbaijan.

R352: Armenia's song rely on her giving a great performance. It doesn't matter how people react to the song if she is able to deliver those amazing high notes and gaves a powerful performance the song will do way better than its odds, if not, the song will flop.

Azerbaijan is probably the only country that spend that amount of money without control. They won with a subpar song and and off pitch performance and they flopped hard in recent years (specially last year when they failed to qualify for the final for the first time). If there's a country that will pay for positive reviews that's Azerbaijan.

Anyway, their song like Armenia will rely on the live performance but in this case it's not about to deliver a powerful performance but to be able to sing the falsetto chorus on tune, because right now Azerbaijan looks like Poland last year, a catchy song that has all the signs of flopping hard live

[quote] Hasn't one delegation been scammed out of tens of thousands of euros by a fictitious hotel this year? Now that one had to be Azerbaijan.

Yeah, that was hilarious. Speaking of hotels, lots of Eurovision fans get screwed up by booking websites each year - many of them book hotels the moment the dates and location of the next Eurovision is revealed and before hoteliers manage to raise the price. But then those reservations are often canceled (often just days before the contest). I read even hotels on booking.com (which I often use) are allowed to do that.

👀

(Watch until the very end for something that'll make you cringe your balls off.)

Why Roko wears always white clothes? (at least this time he has no angel wings)

r358 Branding reasons, probably - to give off an angelic vibe to go along with his shitty song. I hate his pants; he's got such delicious chunky thighs and should wear something that makes his legs look less like carrot sticks.

I can't get over Houdek's leather gloves, personally. And his whole look... it's like an ocean of blackness, and then that white head floating on top with the shoe polish black hair and beard. Looks idiotic.

Also, that audience looked like it was dying inside.

Yes, Houdek seems ready for a bdsm party

Pizza time!

Video for the Norwegian song premiered today. Tom's hairdo has to be seen to be believed.

Here's a photo still for those who are too lazy to watch the clip:

Well, it's memorable alright. He probably lost a bet or something.

She sounds much better here than she does live. Hopefully she can control her nerves in Tel Aviv.

Could fans of Portugal's 2018 entry please explain what they liked about it? I just re-listened to it and began to lose the will to live. Four insipid chords droning on insipidly ad nauseam, and the singer's breathy, little-girl, indie-pop voice truly grates.

R365: I'm not portuguese but in my opinion it was one of the best songs of a lackluster year (and definitively way more beautiful and interesting that the nonsense they send this year)

Eurovision Class of '19. Here are 28 of the acts posing at last night's promo concert in Amsterdam (frau in the middle is the mayor of Amsterdam). The baldy from Norway was missing, that's why Alexandra is holding up his pic (and sexy daddy Darude is pointing at it).

After yesterday's performance at Eurovision in Concert the Swiss entry is now ranked #2 with the bookmakers

I'm actually glad Mahmood isn't placed in top 3 with the bookmakers, because it's never an easy job to arrive to Eurovision as a big favorite to win. I'll never forget how majestically that Corsican opera hottie (who was #1 with the bookies on the night of the grand final) flopped in 2011.

But I still can't believe how lame the top 3 songs are. If one of those three queens actually wins I'm oficially done with Eurovision.

r368 He sounds terrible at times but I guess that's just the bad sound design of that place. The important thing is that he takes those dance moves and turns them up to eleven for Tel Aviv. Shake that tooshie right into the first place.

I also think he's going to win, even though the lyrics are appaling. I wouldn't mind the competition taking place in Switzerland next year, as a tonic of sorts.

Who are the top 3 right now? I'm not even sure Switzerland will get into the final, it won't be the first time Switzerland is among the favourites and tank in the final.

In my opinion juries are going to vote heavily for The Netherlands, Italy and probably Sweden. I don't think all the Fuego remakes will do well with juries

So it's official - Madonna is in.

[quote]The singer will likely perform two songs – a popular hit and a new song. The pop superstar and the contest's producers have previously butted heads, apparently because the new song she plans to debut contains political messages.

[quote]Madonna is expected to be accompanied by a 160-person entourage. Bringing her to perform at the contest is expected to cost about $1 million, which is to be provided by billionaire businessman Sylvan Adams.

r371 I think Russia is considered a favorite as well, as it will get plenty of votes from the easily-amused masses because of their showy staging.

160-person entourage?! I know that's Madonna we're talking about here, but to bring the population of a small village with you just to belt out two short songs seems a bit excessive.

And also in poor taste as it will overshadow the acts of the evening. But it's Madonna so she'd never go for the small intimate option.

Still, I'm excited for this. It's good to shake up the proceedings now and then because I always tune out of that segment.

R374 I agree - it was almost like the organizers were trying to say "Sorry guys, you're not interesting enough - we need a BIGGER name to pull in the crowds" to the contestants. But since most of the male contestants this year are gay (and probably worship Madge) they'll be more than happy to see her majesty in person as well.

Justin Timberlake performed in 2016 and he didn't overshadowed anyone, and frankly Madonna's glory days are clearly in the past.

I don't think Russia has a chance this year, it'll be top 5 for sure but i doubt juries reward that song. If you are the only one didn't thrill the juries i highly doubt Scream has a chance, and i doubt it'll do that well compared with 2016 in televote (that performance was fantastic).

Sergey only chance is a situation like last year where the juries favourites flop on televote. In case juries vote for Italy and The Netherlands i doubt that songs flop with televote because they are quite different from the rest of the field and both singers seem good performers live

I remember Timberlake performing in 2016 and I also remember him sticking out like a sore thumb. He was never big in Europe the way he was in the States. But this is Madonna, who is an institution.

Though I have to wonder if the Portuguese feel a bit slighted. After everything they've done for her, she performs at the Eurovision a year after it takes place in Lisbon.

My fav Luka Hanni song and video where a masculine looking chick slowly undresses him

a recap of Amsterdam's performances

R378 Who does that little queen think he's fooling? When he decides to come out in a couple of decades those videos are gonna look even more ridiculous than Ricky Martin's early videos.

r380 You really think he isn't straight? His Insta and all of his songs give off a generic douchey straight vibe to me, and he looks pretty happy in those photos with his girlfriend.

R381 Have you seen any interviews with him? He seems super fey in all of them.

R381: Well, that's the way you describe Ricky Martin early career

What it's weird is that Hänni sometimes looks gorgeous and other times totally plain.

By the way, i think Switzerland is going to flop hard, there are too many Fuego's part 2 to them do well

r382 I mean... it would be hard for anyone [italic]not[/italic] to come across as a bit fey when interviewed by that fabulous unicorn. It's probably just some mirroring going on. He comes across as straight and fun to me in that video.

Well one good thing about Luca's unlikely victory would be Switzerland hosting next year's contest - I'm sure those cheese-eaters would put together a great show. But at the same time I dread what Eurovision in Italy would look like - the last time they hosted it the show was plagued with multiple technical problems and the hosts mostly spoke in Italian only. Italians and live television don't really go together very well.

The Eurovision version of Soldi has finally been released. The song stayed the same, they just cut a few pieces out to make it shorter. But this version still runs 8 seconds over the allowed 3 minute rule so Mahmood will probably have to skip a few extra lines during the live performance.

And the construction of Eurovision stage should also be completed in a few days.

I wonder if those boxes under the ceiling are supposed to be the commentators' booths. They look super claustrophobic.

r386 Thanks, I've been waiting for this! I'm kinda disappointed because he was saying how he's bored with the old version already, so I was expecting more changes. Guess he was preoccupied with the daddy drama.

I'm wishing even more now that Loredana got his spot. Her vocals plus a redesigned, sicker beat drop would have brought the house down in Tel Aviv.

You can download the entire album with final versions of the songs for free at link below:

R389: What daddy drama?

r391 I was being facetious. I meant his public tiffs with his boyfriend, who is obviously the top.

Hatari- Kids version

R392: The boyfriend who was having a meltdown in public is the top? I thought the clichés about tops and bottoms were ridiculous but i never thought being a drama queen in public was a top sign

They're Italians; they all turn into prissy bottoms during arguments.

To reiterate once more, I was just making a jokey offhand remark. It's not really the purpose of this fun light thread to get to the bottom of the queer theory, pun very much intended. My playful comments all come from a place of love and care for my euro brethren, gay or otherwise. Except for the Russian guy because fuck Russia right in the ass.

Sergey is a lovable guy, not all russians are the same.

By the way, i think this is by far the year with more gay and bi male singers (at least the one with more openly gay ones)

Video of the crappy Croatian song is finally out. Looks like it was filmed on the Jesus Christ Superstar stage set seen in photos at R320 & R322. Croats must be on a really tight budget this year.

I've stopped really following ESC years ago but I really hope Iceland wins it sometime soon. They are super-enthusiastic about the contest and Harpa in Reykjavik would be a great venue for it. I remember being in Reykjavik that year when Lena from Germany won it and *everybody* was watching the contest and talking about it - they had it on TVs in bars, coffee shops, everywhere...

r397 I find him incredibly sexy. His nose is gorgeous and I would very much like to sit on his fucking face. There, I said it.

R398 I'm afraid Harpa (as gorgeous as it is) would be much too small to host Eurovision. Laugardalshöll would be the only possible option and even that one is rather small.

R399 Are you the same guy who was obsessing over Benjamin Ingrosso last year?

R400 Ha! Yes, the very same guy. Could it be that I have a type? The pattern seems rather clear at this point, doesn't it?

I thought you were because you seem to have horrible taste in men (if these twinks can even be called men yet). But then again, I find Daddy Serhat attractive so I'm really in no position to question other people's tastes.

Well, I'm into Latinos normally but as you can imagine, those are hard to come by in the context of this competition, so I have to pick from the available white twinks during these two to three months out of the year that this thread is active. I mean, you can't [italic]not[/italic] declare sexually for someone when following Eurovision, right?

I'm not into daddies so Serhat is definitely a no from me. The Eurovision subreddit seems obsessed with him, though. My heart breaks for all those lost souls...

Have we mentioned that Madonna will be half time 'entertainment'?

I hope the croat goes crazy and perform in Eurovision with an outfit borrowed from Hatari. I suppose losing the wings was all the transgression he is able to do

And yes, the song is crappy but the truth is he has an amazing voice

R404 We try to forget it.

Strange announcement from Bǎlgariya: "At this stage there are no plans for a return in the near future..."

It looked like Bulgaria was on its way to become a Eurovision powerhouse with their brilliant placements in 2016 and 2017 but apparently they took their last year's underperformance really personal. I had no idea they were such cry-babies.

Here's an interview with Mahmood from this weekend's London Eurovision Party

R408 He can't speak English?! I shouldn't be surprised - he is Italian after all.

R5 Fuck me he's beautiful.

Multiple beautiful deep fucs by a similar looking guy in Cairo last month.

The Eurovision stage is almost complete but everything looks so tiny. Cameramen will have to work overtime to make this venue look bigger on TV.

Looks like Mahmood can speak English just fine (actually, more than fine for an Italian). Maybe he was just too tired to use it in the interview above.

Mister Eurovision 2019 poll. Vote early and often!

I admit I deducted a full point from the straight (or straight-presenting) ones. Sorry, this is a rough biz!

Oh, and the lesbians and straight guys of DL can fill out this one, I guess...

well, this year gay and bi male contestants are not a rarity, probably the gayest year ever

And Bilal even looks good without that dreadful wig

That Azeri bear is not bad looking at all!

R413 Rizo

R414 I needed that! Well, maybe not the two-thirds of Hatari though.

Vintage video of Mahmood in his babygay days:

r420 Omg, he was FABULOUS! Performative masculinity has sucked most of the magic out of him, though I'm sure this is still how he dances when he's alone at home.

Mahmood in London last week, so you can compare it to r420.

I think I prefer the butcher version of Mahmood. But his hair was a lot more fabulous back in 2009.

Yeah, his hair in the old video looks thick af.

Oh, and the Mister Eurovision 2019 poll results came out the other day and of course the Azeri bear won (on the most 5s scale), with the Swiss guy coming second, the Russian third, the Dutch guy fourth, and Mahmood fifth. As for the Miss Universe results... who gives a shit?

First day of rehearsals is finished. Apparently Hungary and Slovenia had the most effective stagings so far.

I was shocked to learn a few years ago that Eurovision wasn't a parody show.

r426 I was shocked to learn that about the VMAs and the CMAs as a teenager as well. Finding stuff from other cultures funny and bizarre is a pretty universal experience if you haven't been exposed to that since very early on. Though we usually don't mention that as adults out of politeness.

[quote]Apparently Hungary and Slovenia had the most effective stagings so far.

Whut? How?! Eugh, fingers crossed most people don't fall for that trickery in a [italic]singing[/italic] competition. I know I don't.

Rehearsals are very important lately. Spain entered last year in the top 10 and was clearly outside of top 20 after rehearsals.

Moldova was mocked relentlessly since the song was chosen, but after rehearsals it was top 10 (and it ended 10 on the final).

The first semi was supposed to be to strongest one, but countries like Moldova, Ireland or Albania that nobody cared went into the final while Greece, Belgium and Azerbaijan were eliminated.

Last year a lot of previous favourites fell flat on the live performances

How is this effective? They're just standing there like two pallid corpses, exactly as in the national final.

I hope they come dead last.

I need a palate cleanser after that hetero foolishness I just saw.

R429 Well that's exactly what makes it so effective. Here's a better snippet of their rehearsal - I think this is going to look absolutely magical on TV. And if you think their hetero shenanigans are awful you need to watch a clip of Slovenia's 2004 performance again. You'll see then that these two autistic kids aren't really that bad.

I've listened to the Eurovision album a few times over the Labour Day holidays and I think I was much too harsh on many of the songs before. I now fully embrace cheesy songs from countries like Norway, Moldova, Belarus, the UK etc. But everyone can sound great on autotuned studio tracks - who knows what these people are going to sound like live?!

I also decided that Tom Hugo is the cutest contestant this year, followed closely by Mahmood. I know I sound weird but I have a thing for men with big ears (and Tom has elephant ears for days).

And here's a pic from the Hungarian rehearsal. It reminds me of Jamala's iconic LED tree from 2016.

I've been stanning Tom from the start. Cute and charming, with none of the glass closet baggage attached to some of the other contestants. I wouldn't mind giving him an oo-mox or two with a happy ending either.

r431 Depending on how they're shot, their galaxy and the Hungarian Yggdrasil at r432 could come across as majestic and breathtaking. But I feel like that's unsustainable for more than a minute, especially when paired with a completely stationary performance. So I still believe the Swiss twink's magic dancing butt is going to wipe the floor with everyone else's staging.

R429: The staging is beautiful with all the stars and constelations, the song is very simple and the staging is very effective.

In my opinion if The Netherlands has a good staging it will win hands down

Eurovision is the only place on earth you can ask an straight contestant who of his rivals he finds beautiful and he answers with the name of a male contestant

Will Eurovision be shown live on TV in the US? The past couple of years it was televised on Logo but I see nothing about this year's show on Logo's website.

r436 Yeah, Logo dropped it this year, unfortunately. There will certainly be streams available, either legally on the official YouTube channel or through some other channels.

[quote]While American Eurovision fans were really happy about the decision to broadcast in the US, not too many actually tuned in. Taking a closer look at the broadcast, a total of 74,000 viewers tuned in for last year’s grand final, up 10k from 2017’s viewing figure.

Hänni's got this in the bag, henny.

Canadians can watch it on OMNI1 (and on their website), which is broadcasting the original feed on a delay for the first time this year, with no added commentary.

R438: I doubt it, Switzerland tends to underperform, and if Cyprus and Malta reach the final the three songs will suffer because they are too similar.

There are way better songs, but at least i hope they qualify for the final this year

I loved the Greek rehearsal - this is another one of those acts that is probably gonna look amazing on television.

And the award for the lamest staging so far goes to Moldova - a few weeks ago Anna said they're going to serve us something that's never been seen on Eurovision stage before. Turns out she was talking about live sand drawing in the background, which is something Ukraine's already done back in 2011.

Another rehearsal that made quite an impression was the Australian one - they went from 16th to 11th place in the betting charts thanks to it.

Victor Crone has a very boring song but he's so god damn handsome.

Estonia's song is like an Avicii B side song

That Crone guy is totally average-looking (and his right eye looks wonky in R442's pic). It's sad that Estonia is sending a tone deaf Swedish singer to Eurovision, with all the beautiful blonde blue-eyed Eesti men around.

I'm a [italic]huge[/italic] whore for pink chrysanthemums and wonky eyes, so both the Greek staging and Viktor "discount Armie Hammer" Crone work for me.

Australia went full circus with their staging. It'll look good for about a minute and then the audience will get motion sickness from watching it.

Well, they need something to distract the audience of that cray cray song.

But juries love Australia, so she will be in the final

R445 I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be a lotus flower (I hope you're a whore for those too).

Victor is hardly average looking. At least compared to that bug-eyed Arcade singer or Luca Hanni.

That vegemite chick must be fun to hang around after she's had a few.

R448: It's really needed to insult others to make your point that in fact the guy is handsome?

I'm totally fine with people taking jabs at other people's looks, as long as they don't criticize anyone I personally like.

The Australian gal does come across as fun, I just wish she'd come with a better song so I could root for her.

This (straight) dancer for Romania's entry is going to be nice to watch on stage. Wonky eye, huge ears... it's all there.

R453 Kind of cute (in a goofy sort of way) but those tattoos are hideous.

The Romanian rehearsal was very lacklustre so I'm afraid we won't see poor Mircea and his ugly ink in the final.

Those tats sure are gross but the goofiness overshadows them for me. Love the casual homophobia on his stream.

Oh god, I just saw the tat on his forearm... yeah, I can't get past that one. Creepy tattoo portraits are a red line for me.

Okay, last one because it's bursting with potential.

We haven't had a tattoo bashing thread on DL in quite some time and looking at those pics almost makes me want to start one.

I also mentioned above how similar the Moldovan staging this year is to Ukraine's Mika Newton 2011 one. Even Mika herself can't believe the resemblance.

LOL I love the shade throwing in that vid.

how many wind machine sightings during rehearsals?

I get fogs and flames were very much present overall

Norway is having their first rehearsal tomorrow and I'll be majorly disappointed if they didn't bring that fabulous wind machine from their video with them. Of course I also hope Tom brought that crazy wig along or that machine won't have much hair to blow through on that stage, since his real hair is very short and the joiking guy is totally bald.

Yesterday it was also the first rehearsal for Conan Osiris from Portugal. I hope he - and the hot dancer - make it to the final!

I think Conan and his backup dancer's new costumes look terrible. I loved those white ones they wore in the national final but these green outfits look awful. Some people are saying the color palette of their staging (green clothes and red background) is supossed to represent the colors of the Portuguese flag. Whatever...

I agree R463 From this article "it feels as though the approach to cutting elements from the national final has been a little heavy-handed." We will see how it all works in the end.

I think that outfit is a huge misfire. The Portuguese entry relies more on the visual aspect than any of the other entries this year (because it's the staging and not the song that makes it so memorable) so choosing such off-putting clothes was a huge mistake. Those ruffled green monstrosities remind me of those disgusting vintage bedspreads you see in cheap hotels every now and then.

Apparently it's confirmed that they're going to be wearing those outfits in the actual show too but I still hope for a miracle (perhaps they packed their national final costumes as well and someone will talk some sense into them in the next few days).

SHIRTLESS TWINK ANGELS ALERT!!! Croatia may have one of the worst songs this year but at least they gave us something nice to look at (and luckily Jacques will do his backvocals hidden in the backstage).

Sergey is going to take a shower onstage. And he missed the last big note in 2/3 run throughs.

Oh, those Croatian angels are going to look nice on TV for sure, even though the whole setup is super cheesy. But at least they got themselves some expensive-looking wings.

I'm certain Sergey is going to hit that note when it matters the most. I'd love to see him butcher it, though most of the voting audience wouldn't notice or care.

Looks like the Viking trio brought their wind, fog and fire machines but I'm not crazy about their staging - the stage is severly underlit and they look dressed almost too conventional for such a campy and fun song.

But Tom sure looks dapper in that black suit.

yup, Croatia looks extra cheesy and cringeworthy

r470 Tom is so handsome and I love the doily way he walks into formation. I prefer the accidental camp in that short clip over all the intentional camp in last night's Met Gala. It tickles me in all the right ways and reminds me why I love this campfest so much.

Perfect vocals on the Dutch guy. He's got this.

The clothes on the rehearsals are not always the same on the show (and some contestants even have different clothes for semis and the final)

Sergey problem won't be the televote. I'm almost sure he'll do very well on the televote but i doubt juries will vote masively on that song when they didn't on You are the only one

People in the press centre who've seen the entire Dutch performance say it's very good but that it doesn't really scream "winner" to them. And they all agreed on two things - there are not enough close up shots of Duncan and apparently the piano he's playing looks very cheap.

I think it will all come down to the juries in the end and to how much they will respond to the hype surrounding that song. But I'm becoming more and more convinced that some unexpected song is winning this year. I can't wait for friday to finally see Mahmood's rehearsal as well. We're going to get a clearer picture then.

And apparently Azerbaijan knocked everyone's socks off today - their show features some expensive-looking technical gadgets and they say he sounds even better live than he does on the studio version (and they even threw some traditional Azeri mugham singing in there). He already jumped to #8 in the betting charts and is still climbing.

In my opinion the juries winner is between The Netherlands and Italy, those are the best songs by far. And i think both will do well on televote so probably the winner is there too

[quote] Chingiz starts in front of a LED “V”. Two robot arms (like in the interval act in 2016) are next to him and point laser lights on him. The background is very futuristic with purple/blue as the main color and a beating heart on the LED wall during the beginning of the performance. As we approach the final chorus, Chingiz has an “out-of-body” experience in which he turns into a CGI version of himself before returning to real life. This trick was extremely enthusiastically received by the watching press centre.

I can't believe Houdek wormed his way into Tel Aviv. And of course he's pawing at Roko in this video. Eurgh, their weird psychosexual relationship gives me the creeps!

Like I said, the angels look great on camera. Hope they're enjoying all the hot Jewish cock Tel Aviv has to offer.

I'd give my left nut to see Houdek's face when Roko fails to qualify. He'll probably keep the kitchen staff in his hotel up all night with all the stress eating he's going to do.

Looks like the Azeri guy is this year's Eleni Foureira when it comes to rapid climbing in the betting charts - he's already in the fifth place, ahead of Switzerland. And the Norwegian trio fell from #9 to #13 today.

I'm sure that CGI thing will be impressive to see but the song itself and his high pitch singing do nothing for me (unlike his arms, which definitely are a sight to behold).

r482 Hänni should give him some private hands-on lessons in dancing. I'd pay to see that.

Interview with Roko and Jacques. Roko seem so sweet and charismatic but that fatso doesn't let him speak much.

Is Jurijus Veklenko gay? Awful song but he's cute.

Azerbaijan song is not that good, and he is very static. I watched a bit of the performance and i don't understand the fuss about it (apart of the fact that he is in fact able to hit the notes).

He is not Eleni, Eleni has tons of charisma and stage presence. And of course last year was very week in terms of the quality of the songs

So where’s a good place to watch the semis and the final? Since it’s not on logo/vh1 this year I’m guessing Americans can see it on Eurovision.tv but I’ve head issues streaming from that a few years ago. Any good European sites that carry it?

r487 It's still unknown if they'll geoblock the official stream in the US this year since no one has decided to pick it up. Like last year, I'll post the possible workarounds here. Reddit should be full of suggestions in the next few days, before the semis kick off on Tuesday.

R487 Because his show will be a visual feast, thanks to some gimmicky props and CGI efects. Here's a pic from the opening of his song - one robot will draw a laser heart on him while the other one will be scanning him.

Porco Dio! Mahmood is reported to have a bad throat infection, with only two days to go until his first rehearsal. Get your rosaries out y'all and say a little prayer for him today.

r490 How is that possible? Aren't they on 24/7 zinc lozenges weeks before the big day? Gosh, drama just naturally follows that guy, doesn't it?

I'm sure it'll clear up before the live events.

Salvador only made the last rehearsal and he won (very easily).

That would be a problem if we were in the final week, but he has plenty of time to recover

They should quickly find a last minute flight to Israel for this queen so she can stand in for Mahmood at the rehearsals like Sobral's sister did for her baby brother two years ago.

Elon Musk tweeted yesterday that his car (well, one of them) is named Eurovision and that he's been wanting to attend the event ever since Lordi won in 2006. I gather he's going to love Iceland if he decides to come? Should they qualify, of course.

r493 QUEEN! She'd have brought the roof down with those vocals.

I think Iceland will qualify.

The song is popular and it's a very different song. Some tracks are not memorable and others (Cyprus, Malta, Switzerland) are direct competition, but there's absolutely nothing like Iceland.

If a lot of dance tracks come into the final, slow songs will get a clear advantage

I still like the Icelandic song and there's no doubt they'll qualify but I think their trolling schtick and staying in character all the time quickly got very tiresome. They're basically a bunch of privileged white boys trying to teach us about the dangerous of capitalism while playing dress-up.

But I do fear for Norwegians. Looks like the competition is going to be much stiffer in the second semi-final and I wouldn't be surprised if they get left out. But luckily Sweden and Denmark are competing that same evening so they can count on some neighbourly support.

The second semifinal will be a bloodbath. Last year Belgium and Greece went into first semifinal being favourites while nobody thought Moldova, Ireland or Albania will reach the final. And in the process Arerbaijan didn't qualify for the first time.

Norway is in danger because i doubt juries will vote on that song like they will surely do on Sweden or The Netherlands, so they will depend on televote, and i think the televote will go to The Netherlands and Russia, so it will depend of the balance.

I think Armenia (which i really like) will be eliminated.

Albania fell flat on the first rehearsal so it'll be in danger too.

I think Russia, Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Azerbaijan are sure shots. Then there's a good bunch like Malta, Armenia, North Macedonia, Albania, Norway, Romania and Denmark that has chances of qualify

Of the big 5, Italy is the only one that matters this year

I'm really starting to like Armenia too. I think she'll go through because their staging apparently features great camera work and she has no problem hitting that hernia-inducing last note.

I really hope the dreadful Danish song stays in the semi-final. It's the tweest song I've ever heard and I can't stand that woman's bithcy face. I was not surprised to learn Leonora is a figure skater because she looks exactly like a figure skater from Finland I know. They all have that patrician "I'm better than you" looks on their faces and are usually raging bitches in real life.

Armenia is good on semifinals, but they were eliminated last year.

The song is not very eurovisive, but if she hits the high notes (and i think she'll do) she has chances

I'm becoming more and more obsessed with the Norsk trio and feel bad for hating on them in the beginning. They seem like such nice people and even that baldie (who gives off a bit of a child molester vibe in the pics) seems like a super sweet guy. Of course their song does sound like a Modern Talking reject from circa 1989 with some Sami yodelling thrown in but that's exactly what makes it such a guilty pleasure.

Many people also say that the chorus of their song sounds a lot like the chorus of last year's Finnish song. I guess I can sort of hear the similarity.

R157 Kind of resembles Freddie Mercury there.

[quote] Besides, I don't think the powers that be are ever gonna allow for an Arab to walk away with the victory in fucking Israel.

Many of those who performed for Israel, and winner Dana International, are of Arab descent.

R503 Where on Earth did you read that? Dana is of Yemenite descent and Yemenites are a Jewish, not an Arab ethnic group. As far as I know the only Arab who ever sang for Israel was Mira Awad and she's a Christian Arab (and even she had to be paired with a Jewish singer). But I think it's obvious a they'll never allow anyone of Arab Muslim descent to sing for them. They're very racist when it comes to that.

But it probably should be mentioned that Mahmood isn't really muslim, as he was raised as a Catholic by his Italian mom.

Well, I just checked with a proxy and the stream will be blocked in the US. So that sucks.

Rachel McAdams to star in Will Ferrell's Eurovision flick.

R506 Great news. J'adore La McAdams! Not sure about Will Ferrell though - the only time he was truly funny was in Blades of Glory.

We're starting to get camera-view clips today and all four that have been uploaded so far are very underwhelming - bad camera work and bad vocals (Tamta sounds especially awful). And even wide angle cams can't hide how annoyingly small that auditorium is.

I apologize for saying Moldova has the lamest staging so far because that award obviously goes to Montenegro. I read a few months ago that they were looking for a sponsor because they were planning some real pricey staging. Well, I'm guessing they failed to find one because this looks reallly messy. No props, no choreography, just them trying to upstage one another.

And I'm pretty sure we can proclaim Barbara Dex award winner for 2019 already - it's Finland! Those pants are a real abomination (and so are his live vocals).

And the Belgian's outfit is equally horrible. I think these two will go head-to-head for the BD award.

Horrible outfits. Is the Belgian twink planning on opening the parachute during the performance? He should be in something sheer instead.

The venue and the stage both look so small. And those damn pointy architectural elements don't make it appear any larger, either. At least Madonna will benefit from its smaller size, to get prepped for her tour in theatres.

The weird thing about that outfit is that it looks like he's hiding another underneath and you're waiting for it to reveal it but that never happens. I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking with dressing him like that. That song is definitely not qualifying.

And I still can't believe how bad the camera work in the clips released so far is. Even Eurovision contests from 15 years ago had better editing and camera angles. One of the few clips that actually look amazing is the Ozzie one. This really looks spectacular!

r511 That looks stunning and magical. She might qualify on the strength of that alone.

I think her qualifying isn't really in question. The question is how high she can climb up the scoreboard in the grand final. I think she'll totally finish in the top 10, perhaps even in the top 5 if the televoters will be in the mood for some operatic space kitsch that night.

Another visually amazing staging is the Kartvelian one. It's very creepy and it looks like a trip down to hell but I love it.

[quote] Dana is of Yemenite descent and Yemenites are a Jewish, not an Arab ethnic group.

Not true. Arab influences are what give Israeli music most of its character. There are lot of interesting musical genres in Israel, but Mizrahi music is what I choose to listen to most often.

Damn, look at how they brought the Australian act out on that pole in an instant. Still don't think it has a chance of cracking the Top 5 as the song itself is not much of a song to begin with.

Iceland's rehearsal. I adore the slave guy crawling on the floor (peak Eurovision right there!) but that's about it.

Everyone in Spain believes that their song will, once again, be the last. Is it really that bad?

r517 You can judge for yourself - it's posted at r231. I personally think it has incredible earworm potential. Still, it's pretty garbage as Eurovision songs go, and I remember HATING it on the very first listen.

JFC, this bitch can't sing live! Worst vocals this year?

And that gangsta London accent... [italic]gurl.[/italic]

R513: I doubt it, eurofans hate Australia's song. I'm pretty sure juries will vote for her (even not as masively as the first three years) but i doubt it'll do well on televote (Estonia had a better song last year and the televote was not that impressive for her)

It seems people like the Czechs more and more when the truth is i hate the song more and more with every listening, it's annoying as hell

R517: We don't like our song, it's not good, but it's not that terrible if you compare it with others. Of the big 5 only Italy has a clearly better song, the other 3 suck as much as the spanish one, and at least the spanish is festive and uplifting.

I think the last year we sent a decent song it was in 2016 and the televote was terrible (not that the juries were too generous either)

R520 I agree with you - for me the Czech song is in the bottom five this year, together with Montenegro, Germany, Denmark and Serbia. People are also starting to love Serbia because Nevena can sing really well and she has great staging but nothing can change the fact that the song itself is a boring turd. I even liked that bizzare song she competed with in 2013 more.

R515 Nice find! I was expecting to see a commercial break before Australia because I didn't think it was possible to set the stage for her so fast but judging from that clip that poscard break might actually be enough.

Here's a clip of the Portuguese rehearsal. Oh boy, this sure looks disappointing. It's funny because it's pretty much the same staging as they had back in Portugal but somewhere along the way all the magic was lost: the costume change was unfortunate, the camera work seems amateurish, Conan looks bored out of his mind and the dancer apparently has some sort of a knee injury and can't perform all of his moves.

I really have no idea what is up with lousy camera work this year. There are too many wide shots of the stage in all of the clips. No one wants to see that ugly miniature auditorium. They should just focus on the performers more.

Ugh I hate the Czech song too. The melody is bland and the lyrics are so uninteresting. It also sounds so dickish. He says there's nothing between them but he's so fixated on his ex-ex-neighbor's sex life, and of course it's played straight.

It just occured to me that I've never liked a single song the Czech Republic has sent to the Eurovision so far. Even Slovakia had better songs. And it's a shame they never sing in their native language because Czech is probably the nicest and most mellow-sounding of the Slavic languages.

Well, they only qualify two times for the final. And last year was the first time they did really well

Mamma mia, Mahmood has finally landed in Israel!

The tickets for the semi-finals were selling so badly they're now giving the rest away for free to people who live within 40-km radius from Gaza. And the green room tickets were selling even worse so they decided to cancel those completely so now the green room won't have any audience in the semi-finals.

They also decided to cut down on the number of the tickets for the golden circle a.k.a. the gay pit (which were already sold out) so now some very angry queens will have to be relocated to other areas of the hall.

r485 He probably is but it's Lithuania so... you know how they are with this stuff over there.

Lithuania isn't exactly gay-friendly (less than a quarter of Lithuanians support gay marriage) but it's not as bad as some orthodox Eastern European countries (and also neighbouring Latvia, which is full of Russkies) are. You probably won't get gay-bashed there for holding hands with your boyfriend but you will attract a lot of stares and maybe you'll hear a slur or two.

French backup dancer. Their rehearsal just set the press centre on fire. Quick, put some money on them before he climbs up the betting charts.

Hänni stole Benji's colour scheme from last year. The camerawork of course completely butchers their dance sequence.

r530 Stunt queen! Can't wait to hear those trainwreck live vocals of his.

I can't stand France song (and i hate the singer's wig)

Lithuania had a very pro gay song not so long ago, where the back vocalists kissed (two same sex couples while the singers male-female kissed). I don't remember any uproar, but i didn't followed eurovision that much that year

R531 Press centre folk actually said he sounded OK. But his staging just sounds nauseating. I'd rather see the syrupy Danish figure-skating bitch win before this:

[quote] Bilal is wearing a long blonde and a white outfit with his belly showing. At the beginning of the perfomance there are several projections in his face and once he goes to the center of the stage there's a plus-size ballet dancer who executes some choreography. Behind him there's a LED full of empowering words. During the second part of the song, he is joined by an Asian girl who seems to be deaf. There's choreography, there's looks and there is emotion. The press center center highly applauded it.

Mahmood is going to take the stage in about 20 minutes. Rumor has it he's going to have dancers with him.

Mahmood needs to bust out some moves himself. I was just listening to the new Italian-Spanish and Italian-English versions of Soldi he released today and of course I prefer the Spanish one. It's so seamless, while the English hybrid just sounds jarring.

Miki is rehearsing right now. Everyone says his staging is a hot mess, with some weird props on stage.

The Swedish backing vocalists are the most fabulous shit I've seen yet. I say cut John out completely and just let those ladies SING, honey!

The Romanian dancer at r453 managed to conceal most of his tragic tattoos, thank god. Fuck, that boy can move.

R538 Yet another performance ruined by pointless wide shots of the stage. Who are the amateurs behind the camera this year?! Even the lamest national finals had better direction than this.

WOW!!!!

Armenia is incredible! She's probably the best singer this year!

r540 Love the voice and love that she's not marking her performance like some of the others have obviously done during these rehearsals. So energetic, it just wakes me up immediately.

Yeah, Srbuk sounds amazing but people are commenting that the stage does look a bit empty during her performance, with nothing but her on it.

I can't wait to see the Spanish performance - apparently they have the most ridiculous staging so far. There's this house model on stage and then some sort of a robot puppet appears halfway through the song and starts shaking the house. Just reading about it makes me giggle.

Srbuk is amazing, the song deserve way more love and i hope she gets into the final.

Spain last decent result was in 2014

LOL This looks so terrible. You can even see the person operating that bizarre puppet thingy. I have a feeling they're going to ditch the puppet during their next rehearsal session.

Mahmood is onstage right now, together with 3 dancers (who do some sort of an interpretive dance). You see lyrics and pics of Mahmood in the background and burning dollar bills on LED screens on the ground. And apparently there's plenty of wide shots (UGHHH!) The press centre reaction is a bit mixed (they say they can't see it winning).

And commentators say the dancers seem a bit pointless.

I can't even bring myself to watch the Israeli one because the song gets me so depressed.

[quote]burning dollar bills on LED screens on the ground

Sounds trashy af.

Greek vocals are BUSTED. I love the Florence Welch cosplay and the whole floral staging, though.

Yeah, Mahmood's performance doesn't sound promising at all. I knew Italy would fuck up his staging but to be honest songs like his are very hard to stage effectively. I know it's too early to speculate about the potential winners because we haven't even seen any of the performances in full but I think Italy, Russia and the Netherlands can already be written out as the winners (though the Dutch delegation is claiming they still have one big surprise regarding their staging in store for us).

R548 STOP WITH ALL THE FUCKING WIDE SHOTS, YOU MORONS!!! Greek performance would look so much better with more static camera placed directly in front of them (it would give it more of a music video feel). That lousy camera work makes it looks a bit messy.

[quote]though the Dutch delegation is claiming they still have one big surprise regarding their staging in store for us

Why even bother with that cheap piano on stage when we all know it's not plugged into anything? Just have him be dressed in something sheer and throw a bucket of water over him to show off his bod. Who knew the Dutch wouldn't understand basic marketing?

I think they already confirmed the cheap piano will be changed. I sure hope that's the not the surprise they're preparing for us.

I can't get enough of the marioneta española!

Short clip of Mahmood. Those burning dollar bills really do look awful. I was hoping for something a bit more subtle.

And why are those dollars that are burning? Were they too afraid to include burning euro bills (especially in this touchy, Brexit era)? I think the image of burning euros would be much more powerful.

France looks as stylish and tasteful as every year but his singing is just not that great.

I'm rooting for Spain. The song is catchy AF and the staging looks insane.

Some of American taxpayer money is probably being spent on this circus this year so you might as well show those dollars burning.

R556 Good point. And isn't that guy who's paying for Madonna's performance from the US as well?

Here's the whole Spanish performance. Only Spaniards could come up with a hot mess like this. But I kind of love it.

I made a mistake - that guy who coughed up the dough for Madonna - sorry, for "Madame X" - is Canadian, not American.

OMFG! That Spanish puppet looks like it just wandered on stage, drunk and disoriented.

LOVE IT!

I'm just gonna say it: I love the Spanish staging! They're doing the most and I love how that cutie is working the entire stage.

Although those colours at the beginning really should explode in tandem with the beat, not just randomly.

I'm rooting for the Netherlands.

Lately in eurovision it's all about the fucking staging. This is a song contest, the songs should be more important than the staging. At least the Salvador's winning show that sometimes it's the song and the rest doesn't matter.

I have the feeling Spain will do better than in recent years (of course, it's not that difficult when you didn't reach the top 20 since 2014)

The British guy has amazing vocals but I hope he dresses in something more flattering for the live show.

UK lately sends good singers with not so good songs

R564 I think 2014 was the only time in the last decade that they actually sent a great singer with a great song (and they very also lucky to perform as last) but they managed to screw up her staging and Molly also came off as a bit of an arrogant bitch in interviews.

And I think I'm starting to like the Icelandic trolls again. This clip of Matthias shutting the host of the press conference who interrupted him up is priceless.

Apparently the Germans got their background photos by literally searching "lesbian" in iStock's database.

I still don't understand if this song is about sisters, "sisters" (i.e. lesbians), or sisters who are also lesbian lovers. I feel like clarity of message is crucial when people perceive your song as incestuous. I guess this iStock revelation kinda settles the debate?

R565: Children of the universe is a great song. I remember Ruth Lorenzo saying that she didn't understand why UK didn't end higher that year. 2014 (like 2015) was a very good year.

Last year on the other hand was pretty bad. Curiously it was the first year an eurovision song became a hit in my country since Heroes

Looks like tens of Euros were spent on the design of the German LED background! And those two "sisters" have freaked me out right from the start of the Eurovision season. I watched their terrible song just once but I thought there was some uneasy lesbionic undercurrent to it.

R567 You mean Surie's "Storm" was a hit in your country? That's random. Which country exactly is that?

One of the few good news from today is that we definitely don't have to worry about Norway qualifying anymore because their rehearsal today was AMAZING! They are probably the only country so far with decent camera work (maybe Jon Ola Sand is trying to sabotage other countries) and they also included some new images on the LED background (like a giant reindeer) which look great. They also did this amazing duet with Sergey Vyacheslavovich yesterday:

R568: Sorry, i reread my post and that's what i imply but no. I think there's no uk song that was successful in my country in a long long time.

Last year was the first time that a non winner became a hit, but it was Cyprus

Imagine...all that hot Jew cock there.....yum yum!

R569 Then you must be Spanish because I've heard Fuego was a monster hit there and was still topping the charts months after the competition. And didn't she even record a Spanish-language version of the song?

It's quite interesting how some of the biggest Eurovision hits turn out to be songs that didn't even win. One of the best-selling ESC songs in recent years was "If I Were Sorry" by Frans, which still pops up on radio often and I've heard it played on radio stations in many different countries across the continent.

[quote]Looks like tens of Euros were spent on the design of the German LED background!

You'd think that but that same guy has done a quick and dirty calculation:

[quote]By the way, they used at least 18 different video clips which would correspond to a total of >252 credits, meaning this staging costs at least 1600€.

Which, relatively speaking, comes down to tens of euros because the Germans are so loaded. I guess they just gave up? I'm enjoying the Norwegians more and more, and the Dutch staging is starting to slowly work for me. Mahmood is going down in my odds, though. Can't believe I ever thought he'd win this; that song is way too laid back for Eurovision.

Croatia looks like a golden pigeon more than an angel

The problem with Italians is that their songs are simply too good for this contest, not very Eurovision-y and therefore difficult to stage memorably. I wouldn't be surprised if they soon disappeared from the contest again for another 20 years. And the way they are underrated by the juries most of the time is also terrible . I thought the juries were brought in for two reasons: to diminish the effect of block voting and to vote for good quality songs that are perhaps a bit less mainstream. Well, that didn't work out because the juries seem to prefer shitty generic pop and neighbourly voting is in full swing even among the jurors.

The Dutch song is definitely a grower but I'm afraid both the song and its performance lack that "wow" effect that most winning songs so far had. But then again I'm not getting winning vibes from any of the songs this year. I hope this won't end like 2015 when a totally shitty song won thanks to their expensive staging (this could be Azerbaijan this year). It would be really fun to see some random country, that's not on anyone's radar right now winning.

Loredana's song is on the same level as Mahmood's quality-wise, and at the same time much more Eurovision-friendly. I can't believe they botched that and robbed Loredana - and more importantly, ME - of seeing her winning this competition.

If I can't have her, I'm willing to settle for Australia just for the shits and giggles. I bet they'd host it in the UK if they won. Or Ireland.

When Australia first competed there were rumors Eurovision would be held in Germany in case they won. I know a Commonwealth country like the UK would make more sense but I doubt BBC has any interest in staging a Eurovision. Many Brits actually believe the reason they keep sending such dull songs is because the BBC wants to avoid hosting it.

The Spanish guy makes me feel like a little girl. So handsome and charismatic.

You can literally see his bicep vein in the preview image. I wouldn't mind having him inside me, deeply. Shoulder-deep, to be exact.

R574: They have no reason to do that, Italy is doing well constantly since they returned. It's true that they are by far the most consistent country in sending good songs, and not all years worked that well, but most of the time they ended top 10

And yes, Fuego was a huge hit in Spain. She came here a lot of times (and she was dating an spanish soccer player back then, i don't know if she is still dating him)

r578 Say, do you know if Amaia y Alfred are still together? I gave them a year tops in last year's Eurovision thread. Acts like theirs and Slovenia's this year trigger me on a genetic level, for obvious reasons.

No, they broke up long time ago (with a lot of drama). She seems to be dating the singer on indie band Carolina Durante.

Amaia is a fantastic singer but i don't know if they are handling her career the right way. She always really was an indie singer (and that's the reason she was embracing by the indie community in Spain, who are totally snobs and never would dare about someone on a talent show), she didn't release her album yet.

Alfred is doing really well, with a lot of concerts.

Of course the darling of Operación triunfo that year was Aitana, because she is the most commercial of all contestants (the gossip magazines love her, specially because she is dating Elite's actor Miguel Bernardeau).

Anyway, last year everything went wrong, they were top 10 before starting the rehearsals, by the end of the rehearsal they were outside the top 20. Spain always chose the wrong songs, and of course rtve is just like the bbc, they don't want to win (they don't realize that the odds of winning are very small even if they put their best effort)

I had to check out some pics of that Spanish guy Eleni is (or was) dating...Damn, Mama's got style! His nose does look a bit Michael Jackson-y in certain pics but with a body like that really isn't a problem.

You know, two years ago I happened to be backpacking through Italy on the night of the Eurovision Grand Final and I watched it with some fun Spanish guy I was sharing the hostel room with on his iPad. I noticed then that Spaniards have a strange love-hate relationship with Eurovision going on (or at least he did), because he was super excited about the whole thing and about the Spanish performance but at the same time he seemed to take almost some sort of perverse pleasure in seeing Spain finish last and in Manel letting out that now legendary rooster crow.

The French art deco staging is so nice to look at and marries so well to the Israeli stage design, but I can't get over how weak he sounds in his regular register. He's just not a very good singer where it counts the most.

[quote]No, they broke up long time ago (with a lot of drama).

That's so delicious to hear, thanks.

[quote]specially because she is dating Elite's actor Miguel Bernardeau

Lucky bitch!

To be fair the drama was on the press, they both seemed pretty cool about that (after a while).

My problem with the french song is that i don't like it at all, so the staging doesn't mean a thing to me

Mahmood looking pale as a ghost in his latest rehearsal. Might that throat infection be spreading?!

He looks like he crawled out of his deathbed to do that rehearsal. I thought all that stuff about him being seriously ill was just his PR team trying to create some drama but it's obvious he must really be sick. I hope he skips stuff like tonight's red carpet opening and gets back to his hotel room to rest.

Could those lame Italian dancers get some tips from Hänni's team? They're quite awful.

Man, this orange carpet event is cringe. Mainly because there's hardly any civilians there to witness it.

Recap of the day

I watched the whole damn thing live just to see Mahmood. He's looking perfectly healthy and in good spirits, by the way. Hated the turtleneck, which is unnervingly close to his skin tone.

The Icelandic slave, who almost fell in his high pumps, is such a whore for the cameras, I adore him. Kobi is just the sweetest darling ever but was clearly uncomfortable with the ill-tailored light suit they got him to wear. The Dutch guy, the Czech guy, and the two male Israeli hosts were the worst-dressed of the night for me - like funeral home managers, just awful. Miki and Hänni were the most animated; those bitches are working the cameras like nobody's business.

I think there's a poster here who'll be happy to hear Fuego was looking as whorishly tacky as ever. One of life's absolute certainties right there.

The israeli guy didn't was born to wear suits. He looks way better in casual clothes

Am I basic for wanting Albania to do well only because she's draped herself in a pride flag? Especially because gay rights is not something I usually associate with Albania.

r590 Yup, he has an awkward pear-shaped body, which a good tailor can still work around if they accentuate the shoulders. Unfortunately, they never do in his case.

Jonida is so amazing and a terribly nice person judging from the interviews but I'm afraid they're not qualifying, despite her being one of the best female singers in this year's contest. Albania was one of the countries which was most disappointed with how their rehearsals went. Their performance was supposed to include a CGI eagle appearing onscreen during their song (an image that would no doubt trigger all of the Serbs watching) but they had to scrap that idea because the eagle supposedly looked cheesy and very cheap - someone from the press center said it looked like those birds from Birdemic. They came up with some new ideas for their second rehearsal but apparently their staging is still very underwhelming and almost non-existent.

Go Roko!

Love seeing my Eurovision screenshots popping up on Tumblr. I'm an established giffer in the Star Trek community so I'm used to it but still, it caught me by surprise. This is the first year I've been following this competition closely; I'd gone into the semis and the finale completely cold previously. I don't know which approach I like more, honestly.

r593 Wow, there aren't many Roko fans out there. Quite the little [italic]avis rara[/italic] you are.

R593 has to be Jacques Houdek, right?

Dis bitch.

[quote]According to Walla, a contract has still not been signed between Madonna, KAN, the EBU and Silvan Adams who is paying the fee for her appearance. The news outlet reports that the performance that Madonna wishes to give in Tel Aviv is far more technical than first anticipated. As a result her fee for appearing has gone from $1.35 million to $1.8 million.

[quote]Complications have also arisen around copyright and the songs that the singer wishes to perform. The report adds that Madonna wanted to change her performance from “Like a Prayer” and a song from her new album, to two songs off of her new album. Sources speaking to Walla state that the singer and her management appear to have backed down from removing “Like a Prayer” from her performance.

[quote]A source speaking to Walla said: "Madonna is expected to come with her own lighting and her own director, and this could significantly harm all our preparations for the Eurovision, in terms of rehearsals, lighting locations, cameras and more, because it comes with its own team that has its own requirements. It is irresponsibly problematic. If she finally arrives, I think Madonna’s visit is going to be the biggest mess ever. It’s going to be a nightmare I’ve produced."

"Like a Prayer" was literally the only thing I was looking forward to about Madonna's appearance - it's really a shame if she's not going to perform it. Those songs from her new album all suck and no one want to hear that crap. And with all the production problems KAN is already facing this year, Madonna and her antics are probably the last thing they need right now.

Link to the second part of the thread:

r597 Same. I don't want to hear no stinkin' Medellín! Although seeing Maluma again would be nice. Let the boy unwind a bit in Tel Aviv, ffs.

Is it possible for EBU to say no to Madge's diva requests? To be honest, I could live without seeing this: