Eurovision 2012 - a draw analysis

It's been a week, which is plenty of time for the draw for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest to sink in a little, so here's my take on what those random little balls have done to the chances of some of our favourite songs.

Semi 1

Semi 1 starts with, who else, Montenegro! A song like this was always going to struggle to qualify, and I think going first more or less wipes out any chances it may have had. It'll certainly be an entertaining start for the viewers! Iceland and Greece follow, two strong songs which should have decent chances of making the final from any starting position.

I personally feel that Latvia and Albania were always facing an uphill battle to qualify. Latvia risks coming across amateur and silly, if they aren't very careful with it, and Albania is probably just too weird for mainstream ears. In this draw, they're going to struggle. Romania probably isn't the kind of song that's really affected by the draw, but it certainly benefits coming after Albania - two songs could barely be more different!

Romania is followed by Switzerland, which I've automatically assumed is pretty doomed, especially in the first half of the draw. Following Switzerland we have Belgium and Finland. As good a draw as either were going to get really, once we knew they were in the first half, though both could have seriously benefited by getting to be the 'sensible', competent pop song in position 17 after a lot of silly stuff.

The song that effectively gets that opportunity is Denmark, performing after San Marino and Cyprus, one of which is almost certainly going to be ridiculous and hopeless, with the other definitely having the potential to be (I'll let you decide which is which!), as well as Israel's quirkiness. Either way, Denmark, which was already sailing through to the final, really does benefit from this draw.

Denmark is further helped by preceding the Russian Grannies too. Late on in the semi is a decent enough draw for them, but, in contrast, it doesn't work for Hungary. Initially I thought they'd got a great draw, but listening through in order, it really doesn't work coming after Denmark and Russia. Which means that Austria following Hungary comes in like a breath of fresh air; its qualification chances went right up for me after this.

Moldova is Moldova, and has a pretty decent draw, performing close to the end. And the semi concludes with Jedward. Watching these through in order, 'Waterline' came across as very ragged and a little bit hopeless coming on last, but we know how well Ireland polished up 'Lipstick' last year, and Jedward of course have form qualifying from the final starting position. They're almost certainly through.

Semi 2

The second semi-final this year is dominated by the ex-Yugoslav countries, so let's take a look at their draws first. Serbia opens the show, and, while it's probably not the best position for this atmospheric, quiet number with a long introduction (especially if the Azeris choose something along the same lines for the opening act), Željko is obviously qualifying. Less clear is Kaliopi singing for Macedonia in the unfavoured second position. I think these two songs would both benefit from performing the other way around. Slovenia and Croatia have been drawn together in the middle of the running order, probably not a great draw for either, and their chances will wholly depend on their performances. If one of Nina and Eva commands the stage and kills it, then the other is probably screwed. And Bosnia takes position 17. As the last ballad, it surely has strong chances of making the final.

Other fan-favourites in this semi-final include Joan Franka, performing third for the Netherlands, and Tooji taking 16th position for Norway. It's probably the worst draw that Joan could have got - I feel that her song would have benefited the most by coming across as a refreshing break from silly, amateur pop, and while Serbia and Macedonia won't be everyone's cup of tea, there's no arguing about whether they'll be performed professionally. Tooji, in contrast, needed a late draw, and he got it.

Others benefiting from the draw include Estonia, who get to perform their ballad after the potential madness of Georgia and Turkey, and also favourites Sweden, who get to follow two ballads. The draw isn't particularly kind for many of the first half - Malta, Belarus and Portugal all probably had slim chances of qualifying anyway, and would have benefited from being in the second half, and Bulgaria risks coming across as a less-good version of Ukraine, which it follows. Ukraine, with its storming performance, is probably pretty safe anywhere, and couldn't have picked a better song to perform after than Portugal.

Which leaves Slovakia, which I generally think is pretty chanceless wherever it performs, and Lithuania. The Lithuanians selected to go last, clearly believing it to be the best position to perform from, and they may well be right, with only one non-qualification from the last spot in the semi since 2008. But still, I do think there's a risk performing last, and that's that you take the chance of coming across as a silly interval act, or just simply not good enough. Both of those things arguably happened to the Netherlands in 2009, and they were effectively left with just one point, from Denmark (plus 10 from the barmy Albanian jury). If you're on last, you have to give people at least some reason to watch, and to vote, otherwise everyone's off to the loo before the reprise. Needless to say, I'm not sure Lithuania made the best decision here.

Final

Moving on to the final, which is much harder to say anything concrete about, since, as much as a late draw can be important for an act, perhaps more crucial is the combination of songs surrounding them.

Either way, performing first probably isn't great for the UK. It didn't work for 'Da Da Dam', another ballad, in 2011, which lost a bunch of its votes from the semi by the time the final voting came around, and if the Azeris put 'Running Scared' in the opening act, it'll be a downbeat first fifteen minutes to the show. Whichever of the semi-final qualifiers gets drawn as the first uptempo of the night should be hoping to do pretty well come the scoreboard.

Later on we have France and Italy drawn together again (at 9 and 10), though this time I don't think the draw hurts France as much as it did last year, with both clearly going for rather different audiences. 13th before the break is probably decent for Azerbaijan, and Spain and Germany will both be pleased to be on towards the end of the show. Their chances, though, will greatly depend on what gets drawn around them.

So, there you have it! Do you agree, or do you have another opinion on this draw? Comment below and share your thoughts!

This blog also appeared in a slightly modified version at ESC Nation.

Melodifestivalen 2012 - My Top 32

1. På väg - Abalone Dots
A beautiful country ballad with tight harmonies, this was always going to be my favourite. And it even has a really well-executed key change too!

2. Why am I crying - Molly Sandén
Big emotional break-up ballad, with lovely thoughtful lyrics - just my thing!

3. The Girl - Charlotte Perrelli
See, I do like schlager sometimes!

4. Amazing - Danny Saucedo
I wasn't particularly expecting to like this, but I really do! I find it really uplifting and positive to listen to.

5. Euphoria - Loreen
Not as dark as 'My Heart Is Refusing Me', and therefore not as interesting, but a goodie nonetheless.

6. Soldiers - Ulrik Munther

7. I mina drömmar - Maria BenHajji

8. Sanningen - Carolina Wallin Pérez

9. Why start a fire? - Lisa Miskovsky

10. Förlåt mig - Mattias Andréasson

11. The boy can dance - Afro-dite

12. Det går för långsamt - Mimi Oh

13. Jag reser mig igen - Thorsten Flinck & Revolutionsorkestern

14. Mirakel - Björn Ranelid feat Sara Li

15. Baby Doll - Top Cats

16. I din himmel - Sonja Aldén

17. Kyss mig - Axel Algmark

18. Goosebumps - Hanna Lindblad

19. Just a little bit - Love Generation

20. Aldrig Aldrig - Andreas Lundstedt

21. Sean den förste banan - Sean Banan

22. Shout it out - David Lindgren

23. Stormande hav - Timoteij

24. Youngblood - Youngblood

25. Salt and pepper - Marie Serneholt

26. Ge aldrig upp - Thomas di Leva

27. Lovelight - Andreas Johnson

28. Mystery - Dead by April

29. Land of Broken dreams - Dynazty

30. Don't let me down - Christer & Lotta
Well, you did let me down. I was hoping that this might be a charming little old-people number, along the lines of 'C'est la vie' from 2004. It's not, it's just horrible.

31. Allting blir bra igen - OPA!
Pointless. Why bother, really. I'm all for diversity in Melodifestivalen, but not when it comes up with songs as poor as this.

32. I want to be Chris Isaak (This is just the beginning) - The Moniker
HAAAA-HAAAA!

And to get the taste of The Moniker out of my mouth, here's my favourite, 'På väg' by Abalone Dots.

How would online voting affect the Eurovision Song Contest?

This week, the Azerbaijani delegation has reportedly put forward a new proposal for changes to the Eurovision Song Contest voting system. Their concept would see viewers being able to vote for their favourite entry online, in addition to the current methods of telephone and SMS. While this is just a suggestion at the moment, and a rumoured one at that, I thought I'd take a look at the possible motivations behind it, as well as the consequences for the contest as a whole.

Why would they even want to do this?
The Eurovision Song Contest has notably been skewing younger in recent years, as can be clearly seen from the following gained by acts like Eric Saade and Jedward, the latter of whom were met by crowds of screaming girls on a visit to Estonia. The contest is no longer seen as a fuddy-duddy 'light entertainment show', but rather as a popular family entertainment show, enjoyed by all ages. Comments on the official site by teens and tweens are growing, as are the number of profiles set up on the site's social networking function (at least, I hope they're by young people – if not, I despair for the continent's grammar).

Encouraging votes online would be a further way of engaging with this valuable demographic who, it seems, live their entire lives online. It would also provide a means of voting for those who do not have access to a landline to televote; this could include these young people, but also those who have simply made the choice not to have a fixed line telephone for whatever reason, a growing group. While many countries allow SMS voting at Eurovision, some, such as the UK, don't, due to perceived difficulties in counting votes – a telephone vote from a mobile will commonly cost well over €1, so online voting would reach out to this previously disenfranchised group.

Isn't that open to abuse?
The most common complaint among fans on the ESC Nation Message Board when this development was rumoured was that it would be open to abuse, with all those bloody East Europeans using it to vote for each other. These conclusions assume of course that internet voting would be free, as it currently commonly is during early stages of various national finals, but there's nothing to say that this would automatically be the case.

One thing that's evident is that the EBU would not be keen on losing potential televoting revenue – to the contrary, any change to Eurovision procedures would necessarily have to be to the financial benefit of the participating TV stations, and that means that there would almost certainly be some payment mechanism involved, if online voting did go ahead. There are working examples of this, as the production company Endemol has struck up a relationship with Facebook that will see voting in the company's Big Brother series all over Europe take place on Facebook; indeed, this is already the case in the UK, Turkey and Germany, the latter of which reportedly had 10% of its total eviction votes come from Facebook. Votes are paid for using Facebook credits at a rate set by the broadcaster, and 70% of monies paid revert back to the broadcaster – a comparable amount to premium rate televoting.

Of course, even if voters are paying, there's nothing stopping them voting multiple times, or even embassies and TV stations mass-buying Facebook credits as has allegedly been the case in the past with phone cards. So there would clearly still be security issues, which the Azerbaijanis are reportedly still working on.

Cost recovery and policing the voting wouldn't be the only concern for the EBU. The next issue to address would be how to ensure that every vote was properly counted in the country of the voter. IP addresses can be easily faked, proxies can be used, and smaller states and border towns would have further problems with this. It could be incredibly difficult to allocate every single vote, with certainty, to the correct country of origin, and could definitely be open to abuse - or just plain error.

But how would it work?
Once all of those issues are taken care of, the Reference Group would then have to decide how to implement the changes. Would the internet voting be added on each country's televotes, prior to combining with the jury votes? Or perhaps they'd instead form a third 'category' in the calculation of each country's vote, with an equal weighting to televotes and jury. Or it could even be the case that online voting would form one large, completely separate vote at the end of the contest.

Whatever's decided, if the EBU do decide to take this any further (and it very much is only a rumour at this stage), there's obviously a lot of work to be done, and a lot of factors to be taken into account. The EBU have a history of piloting potential changes to the voting system at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, so keep an eye out for next year's contest in the Netherlands as the first potential opportunity to try all this out.

And what would be the consequences?
Other than thousands of Armenians around the continent repeatedly clicking vote next to that red, blue and 'apricot' coloured flag, what would this change accomplish? It could well engage more younger voters and viewers in the contest, boosting both voting and advertising revenue. And who would it benefit among the acts? I'd suggest it would be those who appeal more to younger people, like the aforementioned Jedward and Saade, but also any act with a big hype on the internet before the contest would likely see this converted into online votes.

I'm not sure personally that I want to see it happening. I think it's far too open to abuse, and I don't have enough confidence in the EBU to ensure that it's a fair system. I don't think they care enough to make sure that it won't just be fans hammering the voting button for their own country for hours and, if that's going to be the case, I'd rather the voting be left as it is.

A slightly different version of this post originally appeared on ESC Nation. I do a lot of writing there (most of which I don't cross-post), so check out the site to read more from me.

Eurovision goes country

Those of you who know me will probably know that my two great musical passions are country music and the Eurovision Song Contest. Not two genres that naturally fit well together, I admit, but in this blog entry I'll take a look at nine of the songs that were entered for this year's contest (though didn't get there), which wouldn't necessarily sound out of place on US country radio.

Babel Fish – Depend On Me
Who'd sing it? Rascal Flatts

The first time I heard this song, I was immediately reminded of the group Rascal Flatts. The slightly straining falsetto in the chorus and the sentimental lyrics are very reminiscent of their work, and this song would fit right in on one of their recent albums. I'm not sure they've ever had a stage show that involved looking through the window of a cardboard house though.

Dalma – Song for Him
Who'd sing it? Gretchen Wilson

Dalma puts on the growls a little too much for them to sound authentic, but there's a decent country song at the heart of this – or possibly two or three different country songs. There's a bit of a kiss-off and there's a couple of broken hearts; I'm not so sure about the silliness at the end though – it works well enough as a song without having to be a pastiche.

Evija Sloka – Don't Stop the Dance
Who'd sing it? Pam Tillis

The lyrics are a little questionable, and the accent is all over the place, but there's no mistaking the country influences on this song that never really stood much chance of making it through a Latvian selection. Sloka lists Brad Paisley and Alan Jackson as her dream duet partners.

Hanne Sorvaag – You're Like A Melody
Who'd sing it? Jewel

In 2010, Eurovision fans were comparing Swedish singer Anna Bergendahl and her song 'This Is My Life' to Jewel's earlier work, but nowadays she'd be more likely to record songs like this Norwegian finalist. It's very much at the pop end of pop country, right where Jewel's recent albums have positioned her, and the feelgood similes hold together very well and would fit right in on contemporary country radio.

CH – Gid nif uf
Who'd sing it? Keith Urban (he basically already did!)

Other than being sung in Swiss German, this song sits right in the Keith Urban-school of country music, with pumping beats and a prominent electric guitar line, but it's grounded by the fiddle that runs right through the arrangement. The song's so committed to sounding like Keith Urban that it even steals the entire chorus melody of the Australian's 'I Told You So'.

Yohanna – Nótt
Who'd sing it? Carrie Underwood

It's not really country, but this track would fit right in on a Carrie Underwood album, particularly in its English version, with its considered lyrics and a silky melody that takes off into a crescendo for the last chorus.

Carmel Eckman - Nosa'at el ga'agu'ay
Who'd sing it? Sarah Jarosz

To be honest with you, Israel is more or less the last place where I'd expect to find a song like this. It's a gentle, acoustic ballad, with a lovely strummy guitar and a fiddle break in the middle. Unsurprisingly, it came almost last.

The Lucky Bullets – Fire Below
Who'd sing it? Justin Townes Earle

I was absolutely astounded when I first heard this in the Norwegian preselection, as it sounds so authentically rockabilly – not a hint of the slight 'foreignness' that often blights Eurovision songs that are trying to be very American. I was even more impressed when the Norwegians voted it into third place in the final, and I even got to cheer for it in person!

Pernilla Andersson – Desperados
Who'd sing it? Kathleen Edwards

Perhaps less country and more Americana than some of the songs on this list, 'Desperados' was one step away from making it into the Melodifestivalen final. The gentle chugging beat, the savoured chords and Andersson's velvety voice combine to make this my favourite song of the Eurovision season.

I'm sure many of you will disagree with the singers I've chosen to record these songs, so I invite you to post your suggestions below. And clearly, some of them would need quite a bit of changing and improvement before the singers mentioned would even consider going near them, and they might not take too kindly to being connected to them (sorry Pam Tillis!). But this is Eurovision, I have to take what I can get!

No Eurovision in the UK charts?

One measure of the success of Eurovision entries, and the contest as a whole, is how many entries end up in countries’ own official charts, tracking how many people actually bought the entries after the contest. Yesterday it was mentioned that several entries had already gone on to the iTunes charts of some countries, like Sweden and Ireland. I decided to have a look and see if any of Tuesday’s competitors had hit the UK iTunes chart.

The answer was, effectively, no. The only one that did was Iceland, right near the bottom. Wondering why, I went to the album page, and got my answer. About ten of the songs are listed as ‘album only’. This means that you cannot purchase them separately, you only get them when buying the whole album. The same is true on Amazon.

Unfortunately (though presumably by design), this affects several of the favourites, and some of those more likely to chart in the UK – Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Azerbaijan, even the UK. Some of these may well be available elsewhere on download sites, but some aren’t, and even if they are, people are unlikely to go delving further. This happened last year too, but with fewer of the favourites involved.

The entire point of digital music purchasing is that it allows consumers to cherry pick what they want to buy, and with ease. If it’s complicated, they just won’t bother. And people are unlikely to want to buy the whole album too. It’s really frustrating to see how Eurovision is, yet again, falling behind the trends of the modern world, and showing itself as a dinosaur, out of touch with modern music, in more ways than one.

I’m not holding my breath at all of there being several hits in the UK charts from this year’s contest. And that’s a shame, because it can happen, as seen by Rybak and Yohanna making it last year, and because entries charting can add a bit of credibility to a contest sometimes sorely lacking it. But if the organisers and the distributors cannot get simple things like this right, it’s not surprising.