EUROVISION 2012

xxxxp You could say that of several countries tbh. And Jedward have a better chance than this.

was that a shot of Roger Federer in the tourism Baku sports city

lol Johnny Logan shoutout

I WAS BORN IN DISTANT 1980

Disappointing from the nation that gave us Wolves of the Sea.

still dreaming about Mick Jagger

omg when is it actually on and can I watch it online?!

I can't seem to get subtitles on. TELETEXT USED TO NOT ONLY PROVIDE SUBTITLES BUT TRANSLATE ALL THE SONGS INTO ENGLISH. This digital age is rubbish.

Argh

xxp
http://www.eurovision.tv/esctv
it's on now

ENBB it's on now! I posted links upthread!

Albania! I guess.

Tender ballad! Maybe.

The wailing bit it the word "cry" in Albania, according to the subtitles.

little bit of Bjork Yoga

kinda off key though... not so kinda

I kinda like this, actually. Impressive whale noises.

Only thing tender is the audience's eardrums after her vocal heroics.

lol, subs just read 'cos this is what I do best now' during the high pitched wailing

Why can't I get subtitles? Grargh smash

Subs are kind of laggy and rub tbh. And I'm watching via the TV card on my PC, so I can't really help anyone else.

JEDWARD SPOTTED

KEEL THEM!!!

Not the best Costi song of the year, by a long shot, but i like it.

Moonwalking bagpipes! Yay Romania.

Romania the best so far IMO.

i think her earphones were off (not that it really mattered)

Okay finally some pyro.

BRITPOP

xp Azerbijian's natural gas reserves being put to good use.

Switzerland is the usual Eurorock with a touch of Muse.

Swiss = "We love the Killers"

FOWOWING YUH WOWDEST DREAM YUH WOWDEST DREAM

I'M BREAKING BALLS

I'M BREAKING BALLS

crying

very serious looking chick on bass

Okay no

Belgium you are boring, silence.

i kinda liked it, but i am 10 km away from Belgium so i dunno

Finnish entry in Swedish, why not

Lordi this is not.

Pleasant though.

Another competent but boring song. Maybe Jedward will win this, just by being one of the few exciting entries.

Israel ring has earring in wrong ear to win

Israel you are...strange.

brings older sister to give him a good luck kiss

This man is terrifying.

"You're the man in my playground"

this is amazing.

how creepy is it that michael jordan is still wearing that LONE, GOLD HOOP EARRING?

He looks like Dexter Fletcher's creepy uncle.

I like the Israel song! It's like a cheesy '60s proto-indiepop thing.

No doubt about the best song winning. And obviously also one with huge hit potential, which is important for Eurovision. The Eastern European winners of the past years haven't even registered on the hitlists in Western Europe.

Tooji might have been poor in the dress rehearsal when the jury makes its vote, i suppose.

It'll be interesting to see the public / jury split on some of these.

Sweden was a deserved winner - most of the last decade's competitions have had deserved winners. It's 2-26 that's usually mystifying.

Geir, you seriously need to stop saying "hitlists".

"Hitlists", in English, means, unless I am much mistaken, "people you want to kill". It does not, unless I am much mistaken, mean "songs that are hits". Just thought you might like to know. The word is "charts".

(det heter "hitlister" på norsk nemlig, så det er en fair feil å gjøre, men etter så mange år? brrrr...)

It'll be interesting to see the public / jury split on some of these.

Pretty certain the jury is to blame for the horrible Albanian entry performing so well....

Oh come on, Albania was somewhat DISTINCT at least! :-D

i liked ukraine, romania, moldova..... is the whole thing a stitch-up or what?? i.e. sweden can afford to host it yadayada - forgive me if this has already been answered

This year's UKR was teeth-on-edge HORRIBLE to me, but that is of course just a matter of taste. ROU and MLD I cannot honestly say I remember, so they were probably OKish.

Gaitana will struggle to top the song she did about Shakhtar Donetsk winning the Ukrainian league. She's really quite fascinating - she came to prominence, as i understand it, not as a contestant on a TV singing show but on a terrifying-sounding Russian version of the Krypton Factor. She's apparently a phenomenal athlete with a spectacular IQ.

As a child, Gaitana displayed smartness, good imagination and business qualities making her pocket money by selling hamsters. I used to always have the best and the most expensive hamsters, recollects Gaitana proudly, because I painted them and combed them. They looked fat and beautiful.

<3

Albania has always had reasonable diaspora turnout, this year they obviously managed to get the juries on board as well.

Crowd favourites round our way: Malta, Sweden, Russia, Moldova, Turkey.

How did Azerbaijan do so well though? Bribery?

* I love the Albanian goth entry
* The Swedish song was unutterable shite
* We were really hoping the UK would come last just to shit up the whole incumbent-contentment thing for the Tories.
* Azerbaijan are totally corrupt nutbags
* I still wish Rambo Amadeus had made it

Oh, I forgot the most important thing... I totally shouted "too much time on ilx" when the word 'nakhchivan' came on screen. I am an idiot.

I did raise my eyebrows when they mentioned that Malta had given 12 points to Azerbaijan three years in a row. I certainly don't think they'd be above wanting to bribe juries or rig votes but i'm not sure it would be all that easy to accomplish and it would be pretty risky.

Austria came last in their semi. Fuck you Europe.

Wow, Norway really did just scrape through the semi-final - tied for tenth place with Bulgaria.

No idea Austria came last in the semi... it was a shit song though...

They should have picked bearded tranny Conchita Wurst instead of those shittrackkers - at least people would have remembered the entry..

Conchita Wurst would have been delightfully wtf. But her song did not feature the line "Your bum has an opinion".

"University of Surrey in London" ffs Norton, it's in Guildford.

― Radical Jedward (snoball), Saturday, May 26, 2012 9:18 PM (Yesterday)

lol

http://news.uk.msn.com//blog/trending-blogpost.aspx?post=94aed414-e4f5-4970-be97-ecf7f46b65b9&_nwpt=1
https://twitter.com/#!/search/%22University%20of%20Surrey%22

That "up up up" bit in the Swedish song is annoying as hell. I love Eurovison but there's too much anonymous Europop written by Swedish hacks clogging up the competition these days.

Having said that the worst songs were Germany and Denmark, which were sort of snootily anti-Europop singer songwriter bollocks that sounded like they were written on the back of a fag packet

the german song was written by jamie cullem

per comments upthread, I had to remind myself that I was watching Eurovision with friends, rather than on ILX, when this appeared:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2w4jubk.jpg

The guy reading out the votes for Finland during this contest is officially my new hero!

It was one of previous Eurovision winners Lordi, wasn't it? Ah, how I yearn for those glory days...

Yes that was Mr. Lordi, of Lordi.

from the meme resuscitation department:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pCyYyjkL9U

after a while it starts to sound like the new Daft Punk single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAXhJZ9ceUc

YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS, RIGHT?

Lordi made a horror film called Dark Floors a Finnish friend described as "terrible, absolutely terrible". It's streaming on Lovefilm in the UK so i'll probably end up watching it, though.