Australia has been officially competing in the Eurovision Song Contest for the last four years, but this year is the first time that the Australian public has had the opportunity to pick which song and artist represents the country. Tonight on SBS was Eurovision - Australia Decides, appropriately held on the Gold Coast and hosted by Australia's Eurovision commentators Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasey. Ten artists performed their original songs live on tv for the national final, with the expert jury and popular votes counting for 50% each.
It was an entertaining evening, with Kate Miller-Heidke's song "Zero Gravity" deservedly winning the crown to represent Australia. I think it will do really well at Eurovision with its pop-opera sound and staging.
Second place went to the fantastic Electric Fields with their song "2000 and Whatever," which had parts of the song sung in language.
My other favorite performance of the night was Courtney Act with "Fight For Love."
The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Tel Aviv, Israel from 14-18 May 2019.
It is mid-May so that means it's once again time for the Eurovision Song Contest. This year the competition took place in Lisbon, Portugal. As Australia was once again competing, our local broadcaster SBS showed the Grand Final live and I was up at 5am this morning to watch.
This year's winner, Netta (Israel) performing "Toy" was in my top three songs as it was a quirky and catchy banger of a song, with Netta having a bit of a Bjork look and vibe going on.
My favorite song from this year was Saara Aalto (Finland) with "Monsters." She has an amazing voice and this was another strong dance track with some androgynous backup dancers. I was surprised it didn't do better in the final voting.
Continuing the theme of female sung dance tracks, my other top three song (which came in second overall) was Eleni Foureira (Cyprus) with "Fuego." She gave an amazing performance and hairography in both the semis and finals.
Australia did not do as well this year as Jessica Mauboy's "We Got Love" received the lowest total in the public vote. The song was decent but not a standout track. It will be interesting to see if we continue to participate considering this year's results.
The Grand Final also had a bit of controversy as their was a stage intruder during the UK performance, but SuRie managed to continue to sing her song "Storm" once she got the microphone back and finished the track strong.
I was up very early this morning to catch the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Kiev (or Kyiv), Ukraine this year. Going with the theme "celebrate diversity" it was interesting that they decided to have three white males as the hosts. However, they did grow on me over the three days of the competition, and did a hilarious sketch with Mans Zelmerlow about learning how to be the perfect Eurovision host:
This year's contest didn't really have any songs that totally bowled me over like in previous years. I did really like the winning song from Portugal, Salvador Sobral's "Amar Pelos Dois" (written by his sister Luisa). It was a delicate, quiet performance that packed an emotional punch with a song that reminded me a bit of Antonio Carlos Jobim.
My favorite song for this year was Blanche (Belgium) with "City Lights." She may not be that animated a performer, but the song stands on its own.
I also liked Lucie Jones (United Kingdom) with the ballad "Never Give Up On You," which had the best staging of any song in the competition.
Australia was back once again this year with two contestants - Isaiah Firebrace as Australia's official entry with "Don't Come Easy," and Anja Nissen who sang for Denmark with "Where I Am."
It's the middle of May so that means it is once again time for the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held this year in Stockholm, Sweden. After watching the Semi Finals on delay Friday and Saturday night I was up early in the morning to catch the Grand Final live- well, at least most of the performances before I had to leave for the airport.
Before boarding my plane to the States, this year's winner was announced - Jamala from Ukraine performing the politically charged "1944," a song about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by Stalin (and with obvious parallels to Russia's treatment of Crimea in the present day).
Once again that little nation of battlers, Australia, was able to send an entry to Eurovision, with Dami Im absolutely slaying her performance of the power ballad "Sound Of Silence." We came in second place (and would have won if the voting system hadn't changed this year).
Since by Eurovision rules I am not allowed to vote for my adopted country, my top three this year were as follows:
12 points: Douwe Bob (The Netherlands) with "Slow Down," a nice little alt-country song.
10 points: Laura Tesoro (Belgium) with "What's The Pressure," a great r&b groove track to dance around to (and it sounds a bit like Kimbra's "Miracle").
8 points: Amir (France) with "J'ai Cherche," a nice song with a very catchy chorus.
Note: normally I would upload the live performances from the Grand Final, but the Eurovision TV You Tube channel is blocking the videos in some countries, so I have gone with the original videos.
The hosts Mans Zelmerlow (last year's winner) and Petra Mede did a fantastic job, and in a very meta moment during the Grand Final interval they discussed the required elements for the perfect Eurovision performance and sang their created song "Love, Love, Peace, Peace."
It's one of my favorite weekends of the year- the annual Eurovision Song Contest. This year's Eurovision was held in Vienna, Austria, and to celebrate its 60th anniversary they invited a little continent on the other side of the world to be involved as a wildcard- Australia! I watched the semi-finals on Friday and Saturday night, and then got up bright and early this morning to watch the Grand Final live. Thankfully my favorites made it through the semis to the Grand Final. Noting the rule of not being able to vote for your own country, here were my top 3 songs:
Elena Born and Stig Rasta (Estonia) with their catchy duet "Goodbye to Yesterday," which ended up finishing 7th on the night.
The Makemakes (Austria) with their indie rock song "I Am Yours." For some reason they received no votes at all (despite having a fantastic song and a flaming piano!).
Mans Zelmerlow (Sweden) with the anthemic "Heroes" was the well deserving winner of Eurovision 2015. He not only had a great song but the performance included some cool animation.
Honorable mention has to go to Bojana Stamenov (Serbia) with her powerhouse performance of "Beauty Never Lies," which kicked into another gear about half way through.
As for Australia, we ended up doing quite well. Guy Sebastian represented us with his soulful and upbeat song "Tonight Again." We manged to finish 5th on the night, which is an amazing result for a one off appearance and having no geographical voting blocs to rely on.
I have spent the past three evenings enthralled by the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark this year. It was a tight race up to the end with a bit of geopolitical intrigue as any votes for Russia were booed by the audience. For once my top three was fairly close to the final voting results. The winner was the amazing Conchita Wurst (Austria) with her song "Rise Like A Phoenix," an epic power ballad which could easily be the theme song for a James Bond movie.
My second choice didn't make the top three, but was my favorite dance song in the competition: Freaky Fortune featuring RiskyKidd (Greece) with "Rise Up"
My third choice ended up finishing second on the night: The Common Linnets (The Netherlands) with their alt-country song "Calm After The Storm"
Honorable mention must go to Carl Espen (Norway) for his sensitive and lovely ballad "Silent Storm"
In the second semi-final Australia got a special segment while the votes were being counted due to our obsession with Eurovision and desire to participate in it (even though geographically we cannot). After what could be considered a cringe-worthy skit of Australian stereotypes our very own Jessica Mauboy got to sing a song she especially wrote for the Eurovision stage:
All in all it was another good year with a truly stand out winner. Congratulations Conchita!
It's one of my favorite weekends of the year- the Eurovision Song Contest! This year it was held in Malmo, Sweden and I kept myself in a media blackout all day so I wouldn't be spoiled for the finals on tv tonight. There was a bit more diversity in song styles and I liked that a lot of countries sang in their native language instead of English. I'm not sure if this is due to post-GFC national pride or what I would like to call the Psy effect- not needing to sing in English to have a worldwide hit.
It was a tight race but the winner was Emmelie de Forest from Denmark with "Only Teardrops"
My top 3 on the night were:
Margaret Berger (Norway) - "I Feed You My Love"
Amandine Bourgeois (France) - "L'enfer Et Moi"
Andrius Pojavis (Lithuania) - "Something"
I was very disappointed that Who See from Montenegro didn't make it through to the finals with their song "Igranka." Their performance had astronaut suits, hip hop and dubstep. It was awesome.
Finally, the "What the hell was that" award for this year goes to Cezar (Romania) - "It's My Life"
It's that time of year where they break out a lot of pyro, wind and smoke machines- the Eurovision Song Contest! This year it was held in Baku, Azerbaijan with 26 countries competing in the Grand Final. All of my favorites from the semi-finals made it through, including this year's winner Sweden.
Loreen (Sweden)- "Euphoria"
Watching the vote count is always entertaining as you get to see all the different voting blocs among the European nations. I also wonder if some were throwing their top points toward countries they knew wouldn't have the money to host the contest next year. My favorite performances of the night were:
Nina Zilli (Italy)- "L'Amore È Femmina (Out of Love)"
Mandinga (Romania)- "Zaleilah"
Buranovskiye Babushki (Russia)- "Party for Everybody"
